Swimming with Horses

by Oakland Ross

  She couldn’t stop looking. She didn’t say anything, though. She just ran her eyes over this creature’s sleek, strong legs, his elegant shape, his gorgeous lines. Then Jack said it, the thing they’d both been thinking. He said it slow and offhand, as if the words carried no more than their ordinary meaning, which wasn’t the case at all.

  “Course,” he said, “your daddy don’t need to know.”

  And she flinched. It was involuntary, just a little tightening of the shoulder muscles, not something she could control. But Jack would have seen it; she knew he would. He’d expected this, of course — hoped for it, anyway. She imagined he might be feeling something else, too. A species of dread. What if he’d gone too far? Your daddy don’t need to know. Those same words — how many times had he used them with her before? How many understandings had he secured between them with just those words? Those words were like a covenant between them: she and Jack, agreeing to keep a secret from her father, betraying her own flesh and blood. That was the strongest card Jack had to play. Now he waited for her to respond, no doubt fearful that she might say nothing, that she might simply turn and march out of the barn. But she wasn’t going to do that, not right now. Right now, she was going straight back to square one. Again.

  She shoved one hand into the front pocket of her jeans, dug out two cubes of sugar. She walked over and offered them to Southey, who gobbled them both, nuzzling the palm of her hand with those big supple lips. She reached up with that same hand and stroked Southey’s broad chestnut forehead, with its startling blaze.

  “No,” she said, her voice deliberate. She knew full well what she was saying, what it meant. “He doesn’t need to know.”

  And she could sense some easing of tension in Jack. There you are, he was thinking. He’d been right, after all. This was the way it went — a good turn, a favour, another good turn. It was like a dance of some kind. Before long, you had the girl eating out of your hand. You just had to get her there, guide her into place. Step by step. Turn by turn. Stride by careful stride. Then pull the cinch, tight.

  She understood it by now. Hell, she bloody well should. She’d been through it a hundred times — and, now, a hundred and one.

  “All right,” Jack said. “I’ll saddle him up.”

  EIGHT

  Sam

  Ontario, Summer 1963

  “HANG ON,” SAID HILARY. “Look.”

  We pulled our horses up short. I followed Hilary’s gaze, off to the right, where a pickup truck was turning off Number Four Sideroad. Normally the way was blocked by tall chain-link gates, secured by a sturdy-looking padlock. But now the gates were open. The vehicle lurched inside, then rocked and tottered along a rough access route that meandered upward through an open field. A large number of heavy vehicles must have lumbered along the same improvised route in recent days, judging by the wear and tear on the ground.

  The truck slowed to a halt partway up the hill. Two men clambered out and started poking around in the truck bed. They produced what looked like a tripod, as well as some other equipment, and they got to work. One of them set up the tripod in the centre of the trail while the other stumbled off through waves of grass that reached up to his waist. He held something aloft, some surveying device. It was evident what they were doing. They were surveying the Quinton Vasco lands — but why?

  Hilary and I waited and watched, but there wasn’t much else to see. The two men in the distance went about their assigned tasks. Once, one of them peered down the slope, and he waved at us. I waved back and immediately wondered if that was the right thing to have done. Probably, it didn’t matter one way or the other. I decided to ask my father what was going on. He knew pretty much everything there was to know about real estate in Kelso. After a while, Hilary and I gathered our reins and continued west along Number Four Sideroad, riding at an extended trot.

  “Something’s up,” she said, in a voice that seemed too glib, as if she knew more than she was saying.

  That evening I asked my father what was going on. This was half an hour or so after he’d got home from work.

  “Dad …” I said. “Do you know what?”

  “What, what?”

  From the kitchen tap, he poured some water into a glass of Scotch and took a generous gulp. He had already changed out of his business suit and had on baggy brown pants and a navy polo shirt streaked with blotches of white house paint. These were his chore-doing clothes. He’d said he planned to attend to a leaky eavestrough after dinner. He wanted me to hold the ladder.

  Now I was squatting on the slate floor near the kitchen entrance, surrounded by spread-out sheets of newspaper. I was shining my stirrup irons and Della’s snaffle bit.

  “Surveyors, that’s what,” I said. “Over at the Quinton Vasco lands. We saw some men surveying there. What’s going on?”

  My mother looked up from the kitchen table. She was going over the monthly bills and eating macaroni and cheese with ketchup. Her glasses were suspended halfway down her nose. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Me and Della.” With a clump of steel wool, I gouged a bit of grime out of the snaffle joint.

  My mother set down a wad of bills.

  I corrected myself. “Della and I.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That so?” said my father. He ambled out of the kitchen and perched himself on a stool by the bar. “Hmm.”

  He wanted to change the subject; I could already tell.

  The front door slammed, and Charlotte sauntered in, wearing cut-off jeans and a halter top. She was working on a raspberry Popsicle.

  “Hi, Pumpkin,” said my father.

  “Your shoelace is undone, Daddy.”

  “Oh …?”

  “Ha. Made you look.”

  “Charlotte,” said my mother. “Your dinner’s in the oven. Put your Popsicle in the freezer.”

  “It’ll get too cold.”

  Charlotte heaped her plate from the casserole dish in the oven and carried her dinner over to the counter. There, she climbed onto a stool beside my father and took alternating bites of macaroni and cheese and raspberry Popsicle while reading an adventure novel by Arthur Ransome.

  “Let me try that,” said my father.

  Charlotte let him.

  “Not bad.” He puckered his lips and nodded. “The macaroni could use a touch more Scotch, though.”

  “Daddy — yuck.” She turned a page.

  “So, why do you think they are?” I said. I dribbled some silver polish onto a rag and began to rub the surface of the bit.

  “Who’s they? Are what?” My father was up again already, getting himself another drink.

  “One for me, too,” said my mother. “Please.”

  “The surveyors. Why are they surveying the Quinton Vasco lands?”

  “Uh …” Before long, my father emerged from the kitchen and paused at the bar to glance down at the book Charlotte was reading. “Good book, Pumpkin?”

  Charlotte turned another page. “Shh. I’m at an important part.”

  “Da-ad. Why do you think they’re surveying that land?”

  My father carried a glass of Scotch and soda over to the dining table and set it down in front of my mother. She raised her chin, pushed her glasses back up, and gave him a look.

  “What …?” I said.

  “What, what?” said my father, again. He walked back to the counter and settled himself on one of the wooden stools arrayed there.

  “She gave you a look. I saw.”

  “Well, she’s my helpmeet and paramour.”

  “Tell me, please,” I said. “Why are they surveying the Vasco lands?” By now, I was positive he was hiding something. When it came to real estate in Kelso, he knew just about everything there was to know. It wasn’t conceivable that he wouldn’t be fully aware of something this big, as big as the Quinton Vasco lands.

  My father drummed his fingers against his glass and then took a final swallow of his drink. He shrugged. “Not sure.” He set down his glass and put o
ut his hands, examined the back of them. “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Dad,” I said. “I know you know.”

  “I know you know I know … you know?” My father cocked his ear and raised his eyebrows. “Eavestrough? I think I hear an eavestrough that’s calling my name.”

  “Hal …” My mother called after him. “Your dinner.”

  “Bring it out to me,” said my father. “I’ll eat it on the roof.” He headed outside to fetch the ladder.

  I finished cleaning the irons and the snaffle bit and put everything away. I could tell that my father knew more than he was saying. He was keeping a secret; that much was certain. What I wanted to know was why. I headed outside to steady the ladder, but I didn’t say anything more about the Quinton Vasco lands. There’d have been no point.

  NINE

  Muletsi

  South Africa, Winter 1962

  MULETSI DADLA HAD BEEN working at the Anson stables for more than two weeks before the girl, Hilary, first spoke to him, spoke to him properly, that is — something more than do this, do that. Kitchen kaffir, that sort of speech was called, a language of dominance. The girl spoke that way sometimes, but he could tell she meant little by it. It was a matter of upbringing. In most of the ways that counted, she was respectful of black people. She just didn’t take much interest in their affairs.

  Besides, he was a servant, after all — nothing remarkable, unless you spoke to him. To look at him, and Muletsi knew this full well, you would think he was just another black groom who travelled in from the township by bakkie to do his job each day, then travelled home by bakkie at night. At least in the presence of Jack Tanner, that was exactly what he was. He did not say much, and what he did say was merely a dutiful mumble. When Jack Tanner was about, he slouched and kept his eyes down and did as he was told, did whatever Jack instructed him to do — same as the other stable hands. Like them, he shunted through the barn in his dark-blue overalls with wisps of straw in his hair, nodding and assenting. A spectre. A ghost. Inevitably, during that first couple of weeks, this was the way Hilary saw him. Before they spoke, that was. Spoke properly.

  On this particular day, Jack Tanner had gone off in his Land Rover to run some errands in town, and Hilary had shown up at the stables on her own and announced that she meant to go out riding, alone. She asked Muletsi if he wouldn’t mind tacking up South Wind for her.

  “No, Miss,” he said. He just stood there.

  She waited, but still he did nothing. He could imagine what was going on in her mind. Why was this fellow not doing as he was told? Oh … he must have misunderstood.

  “South Wind,” she repeated, louder this time. “I want you to put a saddle on him for me, hey.”

  Muletsi adjusted his glasses, shook his head. He said he would not be able to comply in this instance, very sorry, Miss.

  She peered at him again, as if seeing him for the first time. It was his manner of speech, no doubt. Precise. Correct. Fully formed. She wouldn’t have expected anything of the sort. Now she was thinking: a boy from Bruntville? Talking like some kind of headmaster? That was odd. But what she mainly noticed, he could tell, was his failure to do as he was told.

  “The Selle Français,” she said. “The new horse. My dad’s.”

  He nodded. “I know the one you mean, Miss. Your father’s horse. That is the problem. I will get in trouble.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll take responsibility. Besides, my daddy’s in Durban again. Coming home tomorrow.”

  Muletsi shook his head. “Coming home today, Miss.”

  “What …? Why do you say that?”

  He shrugged, thinking he might have said too much, partway regretting it now. He had a reason for being here, working as a groom on the Anson farm, and that purpose involved the girl, but he was determined to advance by stealth, so as not to alarm her. The last thing he needed was an enemy. What he needed was an accomplice.

  “I asked you a question. What makes you think you know when my father will be home?”

  “It was just something I heard, Miss. I could be wrong, but it might be better to be safe.”

  “Well, Jack lets me ride him …”

  Her voice trailed off, and she closed her eyes, grimaced, no doubt appalled by this clumsy double entendre. She opened her eyes again. “I mean, Jack lets me ride South Wind. Anytime I want.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “But the baas isn’t here now. I’ll get your own horse.”

  He meant Pascal, the gelding she normally rode, a fine horse but stolid, familiar. For a few moments, she was silent, as if considering what he’d just said. And what he’d said was true. He — and not she — was the one who would bear the blame if Daniel Anson pitched up and found South Wind was gone. As for his claim to know better than she when her father would return — that was insolence on his part, no doubt about it. It had been a risk, his saying that. But it seemed that she realized it would be better to give in. Better all around.

  She sighed. “All right. Bring Pascal out. Saddle him up.”

  At once, he set about doing as she said. He led Pascal into the grooming bay, cleaned out his hooves with the pick, went over him quickly with a dandy brush, plucked a blade of straw from his tail. He worked briskly and efficiently, wanting to show Hilary that he knew what he was about, that he wasn’t intimidated by the horse, the way some are in the presence of a big animal. He was careful, but he was confident, too.

  Hilary fetched a bridle, saddle, and martingale from the tack room and carried the lot out into the grooming bay, something she normally would not have done, chores she would have left to the hired help. She set the gear down by the equipment box, turned, and stood back, watching him work.

  He reached for the bridle and lifted it up by the headpiece, then slid the snaffle bit between Pascal’s teeth, easing the headpiece up and over his ears. He cinched the latches and bands on the bridle. Next, he swung Hilary’s Stubben saddle up over Pascal’s back, settled it there. He ran the girth under Pascal’s trunk, then ducked his head beneath the saddle flap, and fixed the buckles of the girth. Only now did he speak again.

  “So, you’re going out riding alone?”

  She said yes and nothing more. She was probably thinking, wasn’t it obvious? He could tell she was unsettled by the question just the same, simply because it was a question. You didn’t often get a newly hired black stable hand addressing a white lady like that out of the blue. But he had already defied her on the matter of South Wind. Plus, there was the matter of his claiming to know, better than she, when her father would be coming home. She would have trouble knowing what to make of that.

  For a time they both were silent. Then he spoke again.

  “You’ll want to be careful. It can be dangerous out there, riding alone.”

  He could tell that these words were also unexpected. Yet what he said next must have been more surprising still.

  “But I think you’re better off alone than —” He lowered his voice. “You know … with him.”

  He pulled his head back and let the flap of the saddle drop into place. He ducked down to check the girth, to make sure Pascal’s skin wasn’t pinched anywhere. He didn’t look at the girl, did not seek to observe her as she formulated a reply.

  She clearly did not know what to say. It was so unexpected, what he had just done — spoken to her about South Wind, about her own father, about Jack Tanner, too. Still, he could tell she took his meaning, at least when it came to Jack. Yet why would he warn her about that? What business was it of his, a black groom whose name she didn’t even know? She stood up and pulled on her felt-covered riding helmet, fastened the chinstrap.

  He reached into his hip pocket for a towel and ran the cloth over the bridle’s leather straps. It was an unnecessary flourish — the bridle had already been rubbed to a fare-thee-well. He tucked the cloth away and, then, he did look at her. His words must have been simmering in her mind so that she said what seemed to be the first words that came into her h
ead.

  “You wear glasses …”

  It sounded silly, a childish remark, but he just nodded, kept looking at her. “I do,” he said, as if the wearing of glasses were exactly pertinent to the subject at hand. He kept looking right at her, his heart now pounding in his chest. He wanted to say just enough but not too much. Slowly, he nodded. “That’s why I can see.”

  The words hung there between them, meaning whatever she took them to mean. He turned and led Pascal out of the dim grey glow of the stable and into the glare of the yard.

  She would tell him later that it was only then that the spell began to break, the spell Jack Tanner had worked on her. She had tried at least once before to break it off, but Jack had reined her back in. He was a genius at that. Now things were different. She realized she was not alone. It was no longer a matter of Jack and her and no one else. The full meaning of it didn’t hit her at once, but a first semblance of it did, and she understood that she would have to take her time, have to think about all of this, let the meaning of Muletsi’s words sink in. It must have seemed awfully strange that her only ally might be a young African groom from Bruntville, a kaffir … or not a kaffir. She knew by then not to use that word. An African.

  Out in the stable yard, he gave her a leg-up. She practically flew into the saddle, but quickly steadied herself, found her stirrups, gathered the reins. She peered down at him.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He nodded and smiled. “It’s all right.” He ran the palm of his hand down Pascal’s shoulder. “My name is Muletsi.”

  She shifted her weight. “Mine’s Hilary.”

  “I know.”

  And that was not all. It turned out he was exactly right: her father did indeed come home from Durban that same day, a day earlier than expected. What was more, he brought with him an English gent, an Englishman who lived in Canada and went by the name of Quinton Vasco. He dressed entirely in black and was thought to be something of a champion in the ballistics trade, from what Muletsi had been told. A day later, more men showed up — South Africans all, powerful men, politicians and titans of industry.