Marilyn wondered what had happened to that fierce little girl. Had the Indians stolen her, admiring her spirit?
She read on about the deaths of the unbelieving Hoskinses. Not only had the Indians set fire to the hasty wooden house; they had first butchered the inhabitants.
“They were disemboweled and torn apart, ripped by knives in the most hungry, savage, inhuman manner, and all for the sin of living on land sacred to a nameless spirit.”
Marilyn thought of the knife Derek had said he’d found as a child.
Something slapped the window. Marilyn’s head jerked up, and she stared out the window. It had begun to rain, and a rising wind slung small fists of rain at the glass.
She stared out at the landscape, shrouded now by the driving rain, and wondered why this desolate rocky land should be thought of as sacred. Her mind moved vaguely to thought of books on anthropology which might help, perhaps works on Indians of the region which might tell her more. The library in Janeville wouldn’t have much—she had been there, and it wasn’t much more than a small room full of historical novels and geology texts—but the librarian might be able to get books from other libraries around the state, perhaps one of the university libraries . . .
She glanced at her watch, realizing that school had let out long before; the children might be waiting at the bus stop now, in this terrible weather. She pushed aside the heavy green curtains.
“Derek—”
But the room was empty. He had already gone for the children, she thought with relief. He certainly did better at this job of being a parent than she did.
Of course, Kelly was his child; he’d had years to adjust to fatherhood. She wondered if he would buy a horse for Kelly and hoped that he wouldn’t.
Perhaps it was silly to be worried about ancient Indian curses and to fear that a long-ago event would be repeated, but Marilyn didn’t want horses in a barn where horses had once gone mad. There were no Indians here now, and no horses. Perhaps they would be safe.
Marilyn glanced down at the books still piled beside her, thinking of looking up the section about the horses. But she recoiled uneasily from the thought. Derek had already told her the story; she could check the facts later, when she was not alone in the house.
She got up. She would go and busy herself in the kitchen, and have hot chocolate and cinnamon toast waiting for the children.
The scream still rang in her ears and vibrated through her body. Marilyn lay still, breathing shallowly, and stared at the ceiling. What had she been dreaming?
It came again, muffled by distance, but as chilling as a blade of ice. It wasn’t a dream; someone, not so very far away, was screaming.
Marilyn visualized the house on a map, trying to tell herself it had been nothing, the cry of some bird. No one could be out there, miles from everything, screaming; it didn’t make sense. And Derek was still sleeping, undisturbed. She thought about waking him, then repressed the thought as unworthy and sat up. She’d better check on the children, just in case it was one of them crying out of a nightmare. She did not go to the window; there would be nothing to see, she told herself.
Marilyn found Kelly out of bed, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared out the window.
“What’s the matter?”
Kelly didn’t shift her gaze. “I heard a horse,” she said softly. “I heard it neighing. It woke me up.”
“A horse?”
“It must be wild. If I can catch it and tame it, can I keep it?” Now she looked around, her eyes bright in the moonlight.
“I don’t think . . ."
“Please?”
“Kelly, you were probably just dreaming.”
“I heard it. It woke me up. I heard it again. I’m not imagining things,” she said tightly.
"Then it was probably a horse belonging to one of the farmers around here.”
“I don’t think it belongs to anyone.”
Marilyn was suddenly aware of how tired she was. Her body ached. She didn’t want to argue with Kelly. Perhaps there had been a horse—a neigh could sound like a scream, she thought.
“Go back to bed, Kelly. You have to go to school in the morning. You can’t do anything about the horse now.”
“I’m going to look for it, though,” Kelly said, getting back into bed. “I’m going to find it.”
“Later.”
As long as she was up, Marilyn thought as she stepped out into the hall, she would check on the other children, to be sure they were all sleeping.
To her surprise, they were all awake. They turned sleepy, bewildered eyes on her when she came in and murmured broken fragments of their dreams as she kissed them each in turn.
Derek woke as she climbed in beside him. “Where were you?” he asked. He twitched. “Christ, your feet are like ice!”
“Kelly was awake. She thought she heard a horse neighing.”
“I told you,” Derek said with sleepy smugness. “That’s our ghost horse, back again.”
The sky was heavy with the threat of snow; the day was cold and too still. Marilyn stood up from her typewriter in disgust and went downstairs. The house was silent except for the distant chatter of Derek’s typewriter.
“Where are the kids?” she asked from the doorway.
Derek gave her a distracted look, his hands still poised over the keys. “I think they all went out to clean up the barn.”
“But the barn is closed—it’s locked.”
“Mmmm.”
Marilyn sighed and left him. She felt weighted by the chores of supervision. If only the children could go to school every day, where they would be safe and out of her jurisdiction. She thought of how easily they could be hurt or die, their small bodies broken. So many dangers, she thought, getting her coral-colored coat out of the front closet. How did people cope with the tremendous responsibility of other lives under their protection? It was an impossible task.
The children had mobilized into a small but diligent army, marching in and out of the barn with their arms full of hay, boards or tools. Marilyn looked for Kelly, who was standing just inside the big double doors and directing operations.
“The doors were chained shut,” she said, confused. “How did you—”
“I cut it apart,” Kelly said. “There was a hacksaw in the toolroom.” She gave Marilyn a sidelong glance. “Daddy said we could take any tools from there that we needed.”
Marilyn looked at her with uneasy respect, then glanced away to where the other children were working grimly with hands and hammers at the boards nailed across all the stall doors. The darkness of the barn was relieved by a storm lantern hanging from a hook.
“Somebody really locked this place up good,” Kelly said. “Do you know why?”
Marilyn hesitated, then decided. “I suppose it was boarded up so tightly because of the way one of your early relatives died here.”
Kelly’s face tensed with interest. “Died? How? Was he murdered?”
“Not exactly. His horses killed him. They . . . turned on him one night, nobody ever knew why.”
Kelly’s eyes were knowing. “He must have been an awful man, then. Terribly cruel. Because horses will put up with almost anything. He must have done something so—”
“No. He wasn’t supposed to have been a cruel man.”
“Maybe not to people.”
“Some people thought his death was due to an Indian curse. The land here was supposed to be sacred; they thought this was the spirit's way of taking revenge.”
Kelly laughed. “That’s some excuse. Look, I got to get to work, OK?”
Marilyn dreamed she went out one night to saddle a horse. The barn was filled with them, all her horses, her pride and delight. She reached up to bridle one, a sorrel gelding, and suddenly felt—with disbelief that staved off the pain—powerful teeth bite down on her arm. She heard the bone crunch, saw the flesh tear, and then the blood . . .
She looked up in horror, into eyes which were reddened and strange.
&
nbsp; A sudden blow threw her forward, and she landed facedown in dust and straw. She could not breathe. Another horse, her gentle black mare, had kicked her in the back. She felt a wrenching, tearing pain in her leg: when finally she could move she turned her head and saw the great yellow teeth, stained with her blood, of both her horses as they fed upon her. And the other horses, all around her, were kicking at their stalls. The wood splintered and gave, and they all came to join in the feast.
The children came clattering in at lunchtime, tracking snow and mud across the redbrick floor. It had been snowing since morning, but the children were oblivious to it. They did not, as Marilyn had expected, rush out shrieking to play in the snow but went instead to the barn, as they did every weekend now. It was almost ready, they said.
Kelly slipped into her chair and powdered her soup with salt. “Wait till you see what we found,” she said breathlessly.
“Animal, vegetable or mineral?” Derek asked.
“Animal AND mineral.”
“Where did you find it?” Marilyn asked.
The smallest child spilled soup in her lap and howled. When Marilyn got back to the table, everyone was talking about the discovery in the barn: Derek curious, the children mysterious.
“But what is it?” Marilyn asked.
“It’s better to see it. Come with us after we eat.”
The children had worked hard. The shrouded winter light spilled into the empty space of the barn through all the open half-doors of the stalls. The rotting straw and grain was all gone, and the dirt floor had been raked and swept clear of more than an inch of fine dust. The large design stood out clearly, white and clean against the hard earth.
It was not a horse. After examining it more closely, Marilyn wondered how she could have thought it was the depiction of a wild, rearing stallion. Horses have hooves, not three-pronged talons, and they don’t have such a feline snake of a tail. The proportions of the body were wrong, too, once she looked more carefully.
Derek crouched and ran his fingers along the outline of the beast. It had been done in chalk, but it was much more than just a drawing. Lines must have been deeply scored in the earth, and the narrow trough then filled with some pounded white dust.
“Chalk, I think,” Derek said. “I wonder how deep it goes?” He began scratching with a forefinger at the side of the thick white line.
Kelly bent and caught his arm. “Don’t ruin it.”
“I’m not, honey.” He looked up at Marilyn, who was still standing apart, staring at the drawing.
“It must be the Indian curse,” she said. She tried to smile, but she felt an unease which she knew could build into an open dread.
“Do you suppose this is what the spirit who haunts this land is supposed to look like?” Derek asked.
“What else?”
“Odd that it should be a horse, then, instead of some animal indigenous to the area. The legend must have arisen after the white man—”
“But it’s not a horse,” Marilyn said. “Look at it.”
“It’s not a horse exactly, no,” he agreed, standing and dusting his hands. “But it’s more a horse than it is anything else.”
“It’s so fierce,” Marilyn murmured. She looked away, into Kelly’s eager face. “Well, now that you’ve cleaned up the barn, what are you going to do?”
“Now we’re going to catch the horse.”
“What horse?”
“The wild one, the one we hear at night.”
“Oh . . . that. Well, it must be miles away by now. Someone else must have caught it.”
Kelly shook her head. “I heard it last night. It was practically outside my window, but when I looked it was gone. I could see its hoofprints in the snow.”
“You’re not going out again?”
The children turned blank eyes on her, ready to become hostile, or tearful, if she were going to be difficult.
“I mean,” Marilyn said apologetically, “you’ve been out all morning, running around. And it’s still snowing. Why don’t you just let your food digest for a while—get out your coloring books, or a game or something, and play in here where it’s warm.”
“We can’t stop now,” Kelly said. “We might catch the horse this afternoon.”
“And if you don’t, do you intend to go out every day until you do?”
“Of course,” Kelly said. The other children nodded.
Marilyn’s shoulders slumped as she gave in. “Well, wrap up. And don’t go too far from the house in case it starts snowing harder. And don’t stay out too long, or you’ll get frostbite.” The children were already moving away from her as she spoke. They live in another world, Marilyn thought, despairing.
She wondered how long this would go on. The barn project had held within it a definite end, but Marilyn could not believe the children would ever catch the horse they sought. She was not even certain there was a horse out in that snow to be caught, even though she had been awakened more than once by the shrill, distant screaming that might have been a horse neighing.
Marilyn went to Derek’s office and climbed again into the hidden window seat. The heavy curtains muffled the steady beat of Derek’s typewriter, and the falling snow muffled the country beyond the window. She picked up another of the small green volumes and began to read.
“Within a month of his arrival, Martin Hoskins was known in Janeville for two things. One: He intended to bring industry, wealth and population to upstate New York, and to swell the tiny hamlet into a city. Second: A man without wife or children, Hoskins’ pride, passion and delight was in his six beautiful horses.
“Martin had heard the legend that his land was cursed, but, as he wrote to a young woman in New York City, 'The Indians were driven out of these parts long ago, and their curses with them, I’ll wager. For what is an Indian curse without an Indian knife or arrow to back it?’
“It was true that the great Indian tribes had been dispersed or destroyed, but a few indians remained: tattered and homeless in the White Man’s world. Martin Hoskins met one such young brave on the road to Janeville one morning.
“ ‘I must warn you, sir,’ said the ragged but proud young savage. ‘The land upon which you dwell is inhabited by a powerful spirit.’
“ ‘I’ve heard that tale before,’ responded Hoskins, shortly but not unkindly. ‘And I don’t believe in your heathen gods; I’m not afraid of ’em.’
“ 'This spirit is no god of ours, either. But my people have known of it, and respected it, for as many years as we have lived on this land. Think of this spirit not as a god, but as a force . . . something powerful in nature which cannot be reasoned with or fought—something like a storm.’
“ ‘And what do you propose I do?’ asked Hoskins.
“ ‘Leave that place. Do not try to live there. The spirit cannot follow you if you leave, but it cannot be driven out, either. The spirit belongs to the land as much as the land belongs to it.’
“Martin Hoskins laughed harshly. ‘You ask me to run from something I do not believe in! Well, I tell you this: I believe in storms, but I do not run from them. I’m strong; what can that spirit do to me?’
“The Indian shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I cannot say what it may do. I only know that you will offend it by dwelling where it dwells, and the more you offend it, the more certainly will it destroy you. Do not try to farm there, nor keep animals. That land knows only one master and will not take to another. There is only one law, and one master on that land. You must serve it, or leave.’
“ ‘I serve no master but myself—and my God,’ Martin said.”
Marilyn closed the book, not wanting to read of Martin’s inevitable, and terrible, end. He kept animals, she thought idly. What if he had been a farmer? How would the spirit of the land have destroyed him then?
She looked out the window and saw with relief that the children were playing. They’ve finally given up their hunt, she thought, and wondered what they were playing now. Were they playing follow-the-leader? Danci
ng like Indians? Or horses, she thought, suddenly, watching their prancing feet and tossing heads. They were playing horses.
Marilyn woke suddenly, listening. Her body strained forward, her heart pounding too loudly, her mouth dry. She heard it again: the wild, mad cry of a horse. She had heard it before in the night, but never so close, and never so human-sounding.
Marilyn got out of bed, shivering violently as her feet touched the cold, bare floor and the chilly air raised bumps on her naked arms. She went to the window, drew aside the curtains, and looked out.
The night was still and as clear as an engraving. The moon lacked only a sliver more for fullness and shone out of a cloudless, star-filled sky. A group of small figures danced upon the snowy ground, jerking and prancing and kicking up a spray of snow. Now and again one of them would let out a shrill cry: half a horse’s neigh, half a human wail. Marilyn felt her hairs rise as she recognized the puppetlike dancers below: the children.
She was tempted to let the curtains fall back and return to bed—to say nothing, to do nothing, to act as if nothing unusual had happened. But these were her children now, and she wasn’t allowed that sort of irresponsibility.
The window groaned as she forced it open, and at the faint sound the children stopped their dance. As one, they turned and looked up at Marilyn.
The breath stopped in her throat as she stared down at their upturned faces. Everything was very still, as if that moment had been frozen within a block of ice. Marilyn could not speak; she could not think of what to say.
She withdrew back into the room, letting the curtains fall back before the open window, and she ran to the bed.
“Derek,” she said, catching hold of him. “Derek, wake up.” She could not stop her trembling.
His eyes moved behind their lids.
“Derek,” she said urgently.
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