No Small Thing

by Natale Ghent

  * * *

  Ted Henry is waiting for us when we get to the barn the next day. “You kids have to move your pony out. He can’t stay here. It ain’t safe.”

  I just stare at him with hatred. Somehow I’m sure this is all his fault.

  “Where are you going to take him?” he asks.

  “I’m not sure yet, but we’ll find a place.”

  “Well, I know someone who wants to buy him, if you’re interested.”

  Cid and Queenie look at me in horror. We never even considered that we’d have to get rid of Smokey.

  “Well, we’re not selling,” I say angrily.

  Ted shrugs. “Suit yourself. I just thought I’d let you know. It’s a good home that wants him. A young boy over in Bolton. He wants to jump him in the pony club.”

  We spend the night at home combing through the want ads in the paper. There are stalls for rent, but they are either too far away or too expensive. We talk in circles for hours, trying to come up with a solution. By the end of the night, selling Smokey seems to be the only thing we can do. Now I understand Ma’s decision about the house. I feel ashamed for the way I treated her.

  Cid sits on the edge of the bed sniffling quietly. Queenie dances off to one side, lost in her secret world. I wish I could dance or just sit on the bed and cry, but I know it won’t change anything. I know what we have to do.

  chapter 18

  a terrible decision

  The next day I find myself standing on Ted Henry’s porch again, banging on his door. He whips the door open as usual, but this time he doesn’t seem angry.

  “Come to your senses?” he asks.

  “How much are they willing to pay?”

  “One hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “Is it a good home? Do you know the people?”

  “I know them enough. They’re rich. They’ve got a big barn and riding arenas and the whole bit. They’ll take good care of him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  I am worried about that, and a million other things too. Like, will they love him, and comfort him when he’s lonely or scared? Will they give him carrots for treats, and wet his hay to keep the dust down? Will they rub his mane the way he likes? I can feel a big lump growing in my throat.

  “Tell them okay,” I say at last. “Tell them we’ll sell.”

  Ted nods, like we’ve made the best decision.

  I drag myself down the stairs to where Queenie and Cid are waiting. I can’t look into their eyes or I know I’ll break down. Somebody has to be strong, and I know it has to be me.

  “This is it, isn’t it.” Cid says.

  I can’t even bring myself to answer her. Queenie reaches out for my hand and we walk back to the barn. When we reach the lane there is no one else there. Queenie and Cid go around to the field, while I sneak inside to recover our things. The inside of the barn is littered with boards. Light from outside filters in through the holes in the roof, but the barn is still somehow dark. Beneath the loft, the ladder lies in a heap, collapsed in the heat of the fire. The windows are smashed where the firemen broke through with their hoses, and the smell of smoke is so thick it chokes me. Smokey’s stall looks small and dark without him in it.

  I pick through the rubble over to where we keep our tack. I grab the brushes and hoof picks and roll them up in Smokey’s blanket. I grab the twine harness and the sled. It’s warped slightly from the heat. I grab Queenie’s bridle and loop it over one shoulder, and then I grab the sign and the Gorilla’s noseband. When I have everything, I stop to take a good hard look around.

  “This really is it,” I say to myself, echoing Cid’s words. I think of all the life that has gone on here. I think of all the animals and people that have come through these doors and walked along these aisles. And now they’re gone. Gone forever. There is nothing worth saving. No life left.

  No horses, no people, no ghosts—nothing.

  * * *

  Ted Henry doesn’t waste any time arranging the sale. We’re set to meet the people after school the next day. As usual, I suspect Ted and wonder what he’s getting out of it. He’s probably charging the people twice as much money as he told us and keeping half for himself. I fuel my anger for a while, thinking about this.

  That night we sit on my bed talking about what will happen. Cid is trying to think of some way to prevent the inevitable. She suggests running away with Smokey. She wants to travel from town to town, riding Smokey and camping out. She even thinks about getting a rifle for protection. I don’t mind the idea, but we both know it won’t work.

  With all our talking we don’t notice that Queenie is nowhere in sight. We check her room to see if she’s gone to bed, but she’s not there. We check through the whole house, careful not to alert Ma.

  “Where is she?” Cid asks.

  “I bet she’s at the barn!”

  Cid and I sneak out of the house so Ma won’t hear us and wonder what’s going on. We run the whole way, worried that Queenie may be in trouble. When we reach the barn, I can see Smokey in the distance. We climb the fence and make our way through the field, tripping over stones and tufts of grass.

  “Queenie!” I call out.

  Smokey whinnies. When we get closer, we find Queenie sitting on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees, the bottles of hoof paint at her feet. Smokey’s hooves shine black in the dark, his one white hoof sparkling silver. “Looks really nice,” I say.

  Queenie sniffles. I sit down next to her and put my arms around her.

  “It isn’t fair,” she says. “It just isn’t fair. Why can’t things be different for us? Why does everything have to spoil?”

  I can’t find the words to explain it to her. I can’t think of one thing to say to make her feel better. So I just sit there, holding her and staring off into the night. Cid stands next to Smokey, running her fingers through his mane. I wish we could stay inthis field forever. I wish things were different for us too—that we weren’t poor and that we had options. I wish I could wave my hand and make everything better.

  I pull Queenie close to me. She leans her head on my chest. “I’ll ask Ma if we can take school off tomorrow,” I say. “I’ll explain everything to her. She’ll let us do it when she knows why.”

  Queenie nestles into my arms, and we sit like this for a long time. Then we gather up the hoof paint and make our way home.

  Ma doesn’t even flinch when I ask her for the day off school. I start to give her some lame excuse because I don’t want to tell her that we’ve decided to sell Smokey. But she doesn’t need an explanation. She says we can take the day and she’ll write us notes too. Before I leave her room, she hands me a box. It’s the sleeve that she gave me at Christmas, only now it’s a whole sweater. I try it on right there, just to show Ma that I like it and that there are no hard feelings.

  “Keep your knits about you,” she says in a sad little voice.

  chapter 19

  how it all ends

  Cid, Queenie and I arrive at the barn early the next morning. Smokey canters down from the top of the field when he sees us. I feed him carrots through the fence before climbing over and putting on his bridle. I hand the reins to Cid, because I know she’ll want to ride first. Cid looks at me, then hands the reins to Queenie.

  “You go first,” she says.

  Queenie hops up on Smokey’s back without any help. She reins him to the right, then canters over to the fence at the far end of the field. She veers to the left, dipping behind the little hill, then canters to the spot where the giant maple tree grows. She reins Smokey in and stands beneath the tree for a while, stroking his neck. Smokey chomps on the bit, anxious to go. Queenie spurs him forward and they take off again, Queenie’s hair flowing as wildly as Smokey’s mane and tail.

  Then Cid goes for a ride, following Queenie’s path along the fence and to the maple tree. She canters across the field and pulls Smokey to a stopin front of me. She jumps to the ground and hands me the reins. I run my hand along Smokey’s neck, rubb
ing his mane the way he likes before I get on.

  I rein him to the right, just like Cid and Queenie did, but I don’t let him canter. I walk him to the fence, feeling his muscles move beneath me. He snorts and tosses his head, anticipating the gallop. I keep him close, trotting him easily along the fence to the maple tree. I stop, just the way Cid and Queenie did, then let my legs hang loose at Smokey’s sides. The sunlight dances with the leaves of the maple, dappling us with quick patches of light. It’s cool beneath the tree, the smell of new grass in the air. Smokey paws restlessly at the ground. He turns to look at me. I pat him until I’m ready—and then I give him a kick.

  We are off, galloping faster than we have ever galloped before. I shout encouragement in his ears, urging him on. He stretches out his neck, his mane whipping every which way. His breaths are short and hard, and I can feel the power of his muscles and his lungs as he runs. Queenie and Cid are hooting and hollering. They’re egging us on, pushing us faster and faster across the field. My heart races, the beats keeping rhythm with the thunder of Smokey’s hooves against the ground.

  “Go around again!” Cid and Queenie shout as we arc past them.

  I rein Smokey around and we continue to gallop until we reach the giant maple tree again. Here I slow him to a walk and let him catch his breath, his sides moving in and out like a bellows. I make him walk nice and slowly, back across the field. By the time we reach the girls, Smokey is calm and so am I. I don’t dismount right away but stay seated, feeling Smokey’s warmth.

  From where I’m sitting, I’m the first to see the truck. It trundles up the lane slowly, hauling a small trailer behind. It stops in front of the corral and a boy jumps from the passenger’s side, then saunters up to the fence. He looks spoiled and aloof. A man emerges from the driver’s side. His shirt and pants are perfectly pressed like he’s some model from the Sears catalogue. He waves at us, but I just sit there staring. I can’t bring myself to wave back like everything’s okay. The man opens the latch to the gate and starts walking towards me.

  I can’t really explain what happens next but suddenly I just can’t go through with the whole thing. Maybe all Cid’s talk about running away planted the seed in my mind, I don’t know, but before the man reaches me, I rein Smokeyaround and kick him hard. Cid and Queenie look totally shocked as Smokey bolts straight to a gallop. We tear down the field, me hollering like some crazy cowboy, the sound of Smokey’s hooves beating like a war drum.

  “Hee-ya! Get up! Go on, get up!”

  The fence grows bigger and bigger at the bottom of the hill and I know Smokey can’t make it over—not with me on his back. Then I remember the part off to the right, bent low from years of kids cutting across the field. I rein Smokey toward the dip and grab hold of his mane with one hand. He approaches the fence with quick choppy steps and I think he’s going to shy, but then he jumps into the air with a grunt.

  To my surprise we clear the fence easily, hitting the ground on the other side with a thud. I slide to one side then regain my seat. Smokey’s hooves slip in the spring mud, but he doesn’t slow down. I kick him again and urge him forward, the mud splattering against our legs and faces. I feel reckless and wild, like nothing can stop me, like Luke Skywalker when he destroyed the Death Star. For some reason I can’t help thinking that this must have been how Dad felt too, the day he sped away in his silver Pontiac Parisienne. No questions. No explanations. Justthe wind in his face and a senseless drive to be free, no matter what the consequences. Maybe running away was all he could think about doing at the time. Maybe he felt he had no choice. Suddenly I feel as though I understand him.

  Smokey and I cut down through the park and back out the other side. We keep going full out until we reach the woods on the far end of town. I think I’m pretty safe here, so I slow Smokey to a walk. We move along the path through the trees, Smokey snorting and tossing his head. The sunlight glitters through the branches and leaves. The woods are quiet, save for the sounds of a few birds.

  As we walk along, I start thinking. I’m not sure how smart it was to just take off, but I don’t care. I feel kind of bad for leaving Queenie and Cid like that, but there was no time to hang around and explain myself. I didn’t even know what I was going to do until I did it. Now I have to think of a plan.

  Smokey grunts and snorts again contentedly. He’s happy to be walking in the woods on such a nice day. I pat his neck firmly. His coat is wet and foaming from the run. “You’re a good boy, Smokey.”

  I think about how furious Ted Henry’s going tobe when he finds out. Serves him right. It’s his fault this whole thing happened anyway. If he were a better person, the barn never would have caught fire in the first place. I bet he’ll call the cops on me, though. This gets me worrying. Can they charge someone for deciding not to sell something? I didn’t sign any papers. Still, if someone can think of a way to get somebody, it’s Ted.

  Smokey and I walk until the woods open out into a wide meadow. The sun is warm and inviting. I dismount and tie the reins to a low branch on a nearby tree, then stretch out on the grass to think. I lie like this and let my mind wander. Maybe it’s the seriousness of the situation, or the warmth of the sun on my face, but I can’t seem to form a plan. Images run through my head of Ted calling the cops, Ma crying, the cops coming to get me, and me growing a beard and living off the land. After several hours of this, I start to feel hungry. Smokey is grazing lazily on the grass at his feet, completely unaware that we are fugitives. He looks magical in the sunlight, like a pony from a fairy tale. I feel scared and unsure of what to do next, but decide that no matter what happens, I’m glad I ran away. A pony like Smokey is worth fighting for—even if we did get him for free. A pony like Smokey is no small thing.

  I don’t have any food or money with me, so I lean against a boulder in the grass until the sun creeps down from the sky and the meadow turns from green to gold and then grey. The air has grown colder and my hunger pains are getting worse. I’m thirsty too. I bet Smokey is even thirstier than I am. I decide to wait until it’s dark enough to safely venture out of the woods, then take my chances and ride Smokey home, get some money, a few blankets and some warmer clothes, and take off again—to where, I don’t know. I’m hoping an idea will pop into my head along the way.

  We pick our way through the forest. The trees are dark and mean-looking in the night. They seem to lean towards us as we move along the path. The branches creak like old coffin lids and the leaves whisper like voices all around us. And there are other strange noises that I can’t make out, coming from deep in the woods. I think I hear an owl hoot somewhere in the distance. Scenes from Night of the Living Dead keep flashing through my head. Smokey must be scared too, because he’s walking quickly, his ears all pricked up and his eyes wide and searching. I grab a handful of mane, just in case. I hum a tuneless song softly to myself, to take my mind off the situation.

  At last we hit the street. I look up and down the road, although I don’t know what I’m expecting to see. In any case, it’s all clear. I cluck my tongue, urging Smokey on. That’s when I notice a police cruiser driving slowly up the hill. I kick Smokey and trot across the road, then duck behind a group of bushes. The cruiser glides past, so close I can see the officer’s face illuminated by the dashboard lights. I don’t know if Ted called the cops, but I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry. Smokey stamps impatiently. I hold the reins in a bit tighter.

  When the cruiser is out of sight, we move back onto the street. It’s quiet and dark, so I kick Smokey into a canter. We reach the next intersection and run right into the cruiser, coming from the opposite direction. I rein Smokey around in an instant, but it’s too late. The cop spots me and gives a quick blast on his siren. So Ted Henry did call the cops! I cut across several lawns and into the backyard of a house. The siren wails and the lights flash as the cruiser streaks around the corner, trying to cut me off. Smokey weaves like a barrel pony, past an old swing set and a rusty barbecue, around a forgotten tricycle and over some ga
rden hose. We burst through the bushes at the back of the house and crash onto the street, justahead of the cruiser. A branch catches my arm and rips my sleeve. I can hear tires on asphalt and I don’t even have to look back to know the cop is right behind me.

  All I can think about is going home. I have to get home. I rein Smokey around and gallop straight into town. The siren grows fainter as we leave the cruiser behind, the cop struggling to turn the car around in the narrow street. Everyone stares open-mouthed as I gallop by—people in shops and in cars and strolling along the street. I nearly hit an old lady who steps out of a store to rubberneck. She dashes back inside as I blast past.

  Someone shouts at me. The siren grows louder again as the cruiser speeds along the main street. Just ahead, a set of granite stairs yawns down to the town square. Smokey shies and tries to turn away, but I kick him on. We clatter down the stairs, Smokey’s hooves skidding as we hit the pavement at the bottom. The stairs throw the cop for a loop, and we manage to make it all the way to the park before he figures out where we’ve gone.

  As we gallop towards the house I can feel the cruiser getting closer. My mind races. What are we going to do when we get caught? I imagine myself in jail and Ma crying. I can see the house.

  The lights are all blazing. We tear up the walk and right to the front steps. I jump from Smokey just as the cruiser screeches up to the house, lights throbbing angrily.

  “Joy ride’s over, son!”

  I freeze, standing at the top of the stairs, reins in one hand, the cruiser lights reflecting like flames against the windows of the house. Some neighbours poke their nosy heads out to see what’s going on.

  The cop gets out and walks towards me, hitching up his pants at the waist. “What were you running for, son?”

  I shrug. Smokey snorts and shakes his head.