December was well under way when Hy came down ailing, with a high fever and a whole new batch of aches and pains. Pains that, according to Hy, were “probably just the epizootic and nothin’ to worry about.” But Miss Hooper said, “Nonsense. Epizootic is a horse ailment. You may think like a horse, Hyram Carter, but you’re not quite there yet. What you’ve got is a bad case of influenza. Human influenza. And if you don’t believe me you can just ask Doc Whelan when he gets here.” Right at first Hy said he didn’t need a doctor and he wasn’t going to see one, but when Miss Hooper told him the doctor was coming to see Julia anyway Hy said as how he might look in for a minute but not any longer. But by the time Doc Whelan arrived Hy was too sick to do much arguing. So he was put to bed in his upstairs room and the doctor said he wasn’t to leave it for at least two full weeks.
Gib was mighty worried about Hy, but what with one thing and another, like getting all the barnyard work done alone in time to get himself and Livy to school, he didn’t have much chance to brood about it. All he could do was start the chores at five o’clock in the morning instead of five-thirty and work harder and faster than he ever had in his whole life. Belle, the spotted milk cow, helped out a little by going dry all of a sudden, so there was only grumpy old Bessie to milk. And to Gib’s surprise Livy helped out a little too by taking care of the chickens and gathering what few eggs the wintering hens were still producing.
A new storm that had been threatening for several days was still hanging fire on Gib’s birthday, the sixteenth of December. There was a birthday party for Gib, just like the one the year before when he turned eleven. Like before, there were presents, a stylish pinstripe suit with long pants from Missus Julia and Miss Hooper, a hand-knit wool scarf from Livy, and a big chocolate birthday cake from Mrs. Perry. As soon as the eating was finished, Gib got sent to his room to try on his new suit and when he came back, everyone made a big fuss over how grand he looked.
Gib had a real good time even though worrying about Hy kind of put a damper on his spirits. Worrying and remembering his last birthday party when Hy had sat right there at the table telling his long-winded stories about the old days when the Rocking M had been one of the biggest ranches in the state. Gib surely did wish he could hear those stories again, right at that very moment.
When Gib’s party was over Miss Hooper told him to go with Mrs. Perry when she took some chicken broth up to Hy’s room. “Just to cheer him up a little and let him see how handsome you look in your new outfit,” Miss Hooper said. So Gib went up to show off his new suit.
Hy was looking bad, pale and shriveled as a worn-out shirt, but he hadn’t changed much in some ways. His gravelly voice sounded pretty much the same when he fussed at Mrs. Perry about pestering him with mustard plasters and other such nonsense. And when she pointed out Gib’s new suit he managed to grin at Gib and tease him a little about looking like a dude.
“I’d never sign up a gol-durned city slicker like that to ride for any outfit of mine,” he said. But then his honking laugh turned into a bad fit of coughing. And all Gib could do was to keep on laughing so as not to let Hy see how worried he was.
In bed that night Gib stayed awake a long time worrying about Hy and then, when his mind began to drift toward sleep, about why he still couldn’t get anyone to tell him ... “To tell me—what?” he asked his sleep-drowned mind. And the only answer was, “What I’m doing here.” And the rest of that night, every time he woke up, the question was still right there.
It was on Saturday morning and the light of day was still a long way off when Gib, carrying a kerosene lantern, went down the back steps and headed out across the barnyard through a heavy veil of drifting snow. The storm that had been creeping up on the Rocking M had finally arrived, but this time not with a whoop and a holler. No fierce wind but only a deep mysterious silence and the slow steady drift of fat white flakes. Gib was almost to the barn, and the snow-flakes were blending into its whitewashed walls, when something huge and ghostly gray moved into the lantern light. Moved, snorted, and then bolted away into the falling snow.
Chapter 13
GIB STOOD STILL, FROZEN with shock and surprise. He’d seen a horse, he was sure of that. Or almost sure. A huge, pale horse dappled with snowflakes. Or had it been one of his horses? The thought suddenly made him start with alarm. Lightning, perhaps, or one of the bays, their darker hides faded by drifting snow? Jerking open the barn door, he ran inside, turned on the lights, and found everything in order. Heads, bay and roan and shiny black, appeared over stall doors, and soft nickers and impatient stomps greeted his entrance. And at the other end of the corridor the mules, Jack and Diva, were there where they belonged too.
Gib shook his head in amazement. He’d seen a horse. Outside the barn in the predawn darkness he’d surely seen—something. He knew he had. Something that sounded and moved and, now that he thought about it, even smelled like a horse.
He turned back toward the open barn door and stared out into the snow-swept darkness. But nothing moved in the muffled silence. Finally he shrugged and, responding to a chorus of impatient snorts and nickers, said, “All right, all right, you poor starving critters. Here I come.”
Climbing up to the loft, he began to send the fat slabs of hay down the chutes into the mangers, Silky’s first and then Lightning’s. He was breaking the wires on a new bale when Lightning squealed. Not a polite nicker this time, but a loud, challenging whinny. And another whinny answered. Not Silky’s familiar call or one of the bays’ either. Gib dropped the hay hooks and ran to the ladder.
A strange horse, a big dapple gray, was standing just inside the barn door. Long-legged and well muscled, the gray held his beautiful head high, his eyes wide and white-rimmed with fear. As Gib watched in fascinated wonder the horse minced forward, poised for flight, his ears turning nervously from side to side. He nickered again, more softly now, a call that, to Gib, spoke of fear and hunger. Tiptoeing back to the bale of hay he had just opened, Gib picked up a large flake and headed back toward the ladder.
When the gray saw Gib on the ladder he snorted wildly, halfway reared into a whirling turn, and raced out into the darkness. Gib continued down the ladder, placed the hay on the floor, and moved away, back toward the tack room. He waited then and the horses waited too. Neglecting their hay, they stood at their stall doors, obviously as curious about their strange visitor as Gib was.
Nothing happened. After several minutes Gib decided to finish the feeding, but he left the barn door open just in case. When their oat pans were full the horses went back to their mangers. To them even a gray ghost horse was of less interest than a pan full of oats. Gib was back in the corridor between the stalls, the oat bucket still in his hand, when the visitor suddenly appeared again in the open barn door. Holding his breath, Gib eased back away from the light.
Moving slowly, ears and eyes busy, the gray inched forward. Seeing him more clearly now, Gib could tell that he was not in good condition. Although he was a beautiful animal, a silvery dappled gray with Thoroughbred or maybe Arabian ancestors, he was badly ganted up. His ribs showed under the dappled hide, his long silvery mane was matted and tangled, and strange dark ridges crisscrossed his flanks and withers. When he reached the hay he grabbed a mouthful and then, still chewing, threw up his head to stare wildly around him. Gib let him have a couple more mouthfuls before he began to talk.
Keeping his voice soft and slow, Gib said, “Well, howdy there, stranger,” but before he could say any more the gray whirled and ran. But this time he stopped just outside the barn door. Stopped and stared, tossing his head and snorting. Gib went on talking. “No call to run away,” he said. “Nothing here that’s going to do you any harm. Just lots of good hay.” He shook the oat pan. “And oats too. Hear that, boy? Bet you know that sound.”
The gray knew the sound all right, and so did the other horses. Silky nickered softly and both she and Lightning appeared again at their stall doors. Gib could see that the presence of the other horses, calm, unfr
ightened horses, and the sight and smell of food were working on the gray. Still alert and poised for flight, he came back into the barn, began to eat, and went right on eating when Gib, once again, began to talk. So Gib went on telling the gray how beautiful he was in spite of his washboard ribs and dirty hide, and how smart he was to stay right there and eat instead of running off into the snowstorm. But when Gib began to move forward the gray ran again.
This time, while he was gone, Gib opened the door of an empty stall, filled the water pail, moved the hay into the manger, and added a pan of oats. Then he moved back into the shadows near the tack room door, to watch and wait. The gray came back sooner this time, moved to where the hay had been and then, cautiously, stopping and staring nervously, into the open stall. But when Gib crept close enough to shut the door behind him, he went wild. Rearing and kicking the walls, he threatened Gib with bared teeth and flattened ears. But Gib stood his ground just outside the door and went on talking softly.
At last the gray returned to his food, but even while he was eating, the oats first and then the hay, he stopped from time to time to snort and shake his head threateningly, saying, plain as day, what he would do to anyone who pushed him.
It was there under the barn’s brighter lights, with the gray no longer facing him, that Gib got a better look at the strange dark stripes that marred the beautiful dappled hide. They were, he could see now, ridges that crisscrossed most of the gray’s body, long swollen welts, darkened in places by dried blood. The horse had been, Gib realized with sudden horror, terribly beaten. Not just with a stick or quirt but with something much worse. Probably with something like a bullwhip. Gib had heard of such things. A whip as long as twenty-five feet, that could cut through flesh and even break a man’s arm. But to see with his own eyes what it could do to a horse caused a thudding pain in Gib’s midsection and a gagging sensation in the back of his throat.
Gib was very late to breakfast that day. He was still taking off his boots when Miss Hooper stuck her head into the storm porch. “Land sakes, boy,” she said. “Where have you been? I was just about to bundle up and go looking for you. Delia was sure you’d fallen out of the loft.”
Mrs. Perry was standing by the window staring out into the snow, but she threw up her hands and praised the Lord when Miss Hooper announced, “Here he is, Delia. Sound as a dollar.” And then to Gib, “But with some explaining to do, young man. Where have you been all this time?”
Gib was ready. It was while he was on his way into the house that he’d stopped to realize that he’d better not tell everything about the gray. Scared and spooky would be all right, he figured. But not angry and out for revenge. Not unless he wanted to stir up a lot of do’s and don’ts that wouldn’t do anything to solve the gray’s problem, or Gib’s either. So while his story about what had been happening was pretty true as far as it went, it did leave out a few important details.
He’d hardly gotten started when Livy and Missus Julia came in, so he started over again and this time he remembered some things Miss Elders had said about public speaking. Things about projection and stage presence. “It was snowing hard,” he said dramatically, “falling almost straight down. Thick and heavy as I’ve ever seen it. I was almost to the barn when this horse came out of the snow right toward me, looking like a big gray ghost. A big, half-starved dapple gray it was. He was scared and hungry and he let me know right away that he was scared to death and didn’t want to be fooled with.”
Missus Julia interrupted then to ask if the horse was a wild mustang and Gib told her no. “No, ma’am.” He shook his head sharply. “He’s hot-blooded, that’s for sure,” he said, “and he knows about barns and stalls, all right. He’s been ridden some too. Got a couple of saddle marks on his back. But he’s spookier than a rabbit.” He grinned. “Even after I got him into the stall he kept acting real spooky.”
“Where is he?” Livy wanted to know. “Where is he now?” And when Gib told her he was right there in the barn shut in one of the extra stalls, she wanted to go see him right at that moment. And she would have too, except her mother told her no.
“Absolutely not,” Missus Julia said. “Not until we find out who owns him and where he came from. And Gib, don’t you go into the stall with him until Hy says ... She stopped then, and they all knew why. There was no telling how soon Hy would be able to tell them anything about the visitor. To tell them just how dangerous the strange intruder was, and what to do with him.
“I’ll call Appleton’s Livery right after breakfast,” Missus Julia said. “That’s what I’ll do. If he belongs to anyone in our area Mr. Appleton’s sure to know about him. And when we find out who his owners are, it will be up to them to come and take care of him.”
So they all sat down to one of Mrs. Perry’s great breakfasts and while they ate the talk was all about horses. About horses Missus Julia had known when she was a girl and the Rocking M owned dozens of them. All kinds of horses, from raw half-broke mustangs fresh off the open range to hot-blooded aristocrats like Black Silk. Listening to the missus’s horse talk, Gib could almost shut his mind to the poor bullwhipped gray, at least for a few seconds at a time.
While they ate and talked the snow went on falling, softly and steadily in fat, wet flakes, piling up smooth and even across the barnyard and out over the open prairie. By the time breakfast was over and Miss Hooper rolled Missus Julia’s chair into the library, the phone lines had gone down again. So nobody was going to call Appleton’s Livery in Longford or anywhere else. At least not anytime soon.
No one was going to call, or go anywhere either. Watching how quickly the snow filled up the barnyard and the lane that led out to the Longford road, Gib could tell nobody was going to be traveling along that road. No buggy or coach or Model T or anything else on wheels. Standing there at the window watching the snow come down, Gib realized that taking care of the angry gray horse was going to be up to him and him alone.
And he would take care of him. Right there, staring out into the falling snow, with his fists clenched and jaw jutting, Gib made himself and the gray a solemn promise. Nothing and nobody was going to keep him from rescuing the poor beaten thing that had drifted in out of the storm looking for safety and a human being he could trust.
Chapter 14
THE STRANGE STORM WENT on and on. No fierce winds, and not even any lung-freezing, below-zero cold. Only a steady, stubborn snowfall that appeared to be fixing to go on forever. So much snow that all the buildings at the Rocking M looked to be halfway buried, and a body needed snowshoes just to get from the house to the barn and then on to the cowshed. And in the barn the big gray horse went on telling Gib that he was scared and angry and ready to fight.
The biggest problem was going to be the watering. Gib realized that right away on that first evening as soon as he got out of his snowshoes and hurried down to the gray’s stall. Hay was no problem because of the chutes that led down from the loft to each of the mangers, but there was no way to get to the water pail rack without going inside the stall. The gray’s water bucket was probably dry as a bone and there didn’t look to be much of a chance that Gib was going to be able to do anything about it.
As Gib stood at the door, sizing up the situation, the gray stayed as far away as he could get. If Gib raised his voice or moved too quickly, the big horse snorted fiercely, tossed his head, and pawed the ground.
“I hear what you’re telling me,” Gib told him. “You’re scared and mad as all get-out, and you’re going to kick me halfway to Longford if you get a chance.” The gray snorted again, nodded his head fiercely as if agreeing, and then peered at Gib through his long, tangled forelock. Gib chuckled. Keeping his voice soft and low, he said, “Yep, I’m a-hearing you. And I bet I know a few more things about you. Somebody’s been mighty mean to you lately. But you ought to be figuring it out that it wasn’t me that did it. I never would take a whip to you or any other poor critter.”
The talking went on for some time and after a while the big horse b
egan to quiet down a little, but the rest of Gib’s customers were getting noisier, nickering and whinnying and thumping impatiently on their stall doors. Demanding that Gib stop talking, they were, and start doing something about their empty mangers. It was while Gib was on the way to the loft that he figured out a way to solve the watering problem.
He fed and watered the rest of the horses first, stopping in Silky’s stall for just long enough to tell her she needn’t be jealous of the newcomer.
“It’s just that he’s got a lot of problems that need to be taken care of in a big hurry,” he told her as he set her water pail in the rack. “Once that’s done, everything will be back to normal. And besides, he doesn’t belong here like you do. Like as not we’ll be sending him back to wherever he came from soon as this storm lets up, and things will be back the way they used to be ’tween you and me.” But Silky still didn’t seem too happy about it. She drank just a little bit and then pushed hard on Gib’s shoulder with her wet nose, telling him she definitely didn’t like having another horse taking up so much of his time. He gave her a last hurried pat and went on with his plan for taking care of the gray.
Gib started by picking one of the other empty stalls and fixing it up with fresh straw on the floor and a full water pail and manger. Then, leaving the door of that stall wide open, he headed back to the gray’s. Moving quietly, Gib unlatched the stall door and then crouched down behind it as he pulled it slowly open. He was still hiding behind the open door when the big horse charged out past him and headed down the corridor at a gallop. At the closed barn door he skidded, reared, whirled around, and pounded back the other way. He passed the other stalls, where all four horses were looking out over their doors, trying to see what the commotion was about. But the gray only stopped once, long enough to sniff noses with Silky, before he charged on past where Gib was hiding and clear down to the other end of the barn.
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