Pony

by R. J. Palacio

  “Yes, sir. Just one entrance,” said Eben, plainly frightened of the deputy. “You can only get to it by either climbing up the ladder from the creek or lowering yourself on a rope from the top of the cliff. That’s how we got all the supplies in the cave when we first got here last month. The blue-fingered man brought a wagon to the top of the cliff, and he lowered the barrels using ropes and pulleys. He’s the only one that goes up that way, though. Me and my brother would never climb up that cliff on account of being afraid of falling.”

  “And there are no other men coming to the cave? Just the ones you named?”

  “Yes, sir. As far as I know.”

  The deputy gave a slight nod, satisfied with the reply.

  “So,” said the sheriff, and he started counting off on his fingers. “That’s Ollerenshaw, the two Plugs, Rufe Jones, and Blue Fingers. Five in all. Not the worst odds we’ve ever had, Jack.”

  Deputy Beautyman shrugged. “Not the best, either.”

  “I just don’t see how we can ride back to Rosasharon, raise a posse, and get back here before tomorrow morning. Do you?”

  The deputy didn’t respond, but I know he glanced at me.

  By now I had dropped to the ground, my face in my hands, racked by everything I had just heard. I couldn’t look at either of them, so scared was I that they’d say no to rescuing Pa.

  “Ah, dang blast it,” the deputy finally huffed. “Fine, let’s just get this over with.”

  “Thank you,” I breathed.

  “Don’t thank us yet!” he answered sharply. “We need a plan before we do anything.”

  “I’m working on that,” said the sheriff, dumping the contents of the brothers’ sacks onto the ground. He skewered a shirt with the end of his rifle and held it up to the deputy. “How about this, Jack? You think you can squeeze into this man’s little green shirt?”

  “It’s not green, it’s blue,” Eben pointed out innocently.

  Deputy Beautyman reached forward and tucked the rope back over the young man’s mouth.

  “It’s green, you toad,” he corrected before clubbing Eben’s head with the butt of his rifle and knocking him out cold. Then he did the same to the other brother.

  2

  SHERIFF CHALFONT AND Deputy Beautyman trussed the brothers together, feet to hands, as they lay unconscious, and lashed them to a tree with leather reins. Then they started putting the brothers’ clothes on.

  Sheriff Chalfont pulled this off fairly well. His body was leaner than the twins’ but near enough in height that, from twenty feet away, you might think he was a Morton brother. Deputy Beautyman, on the other hand, was too “bountiful,” as he put it, to fit neatly into Eben’s clothes. He barely managed to close two buttons of the shirt around the chest, much less the belly. The duster fit well enough over him, though. And with the hat on, he was close enough in appearance to pull it off. The hats made all the difference in the deception, as the twins wore identical white melon hats with wide yellow bands. I remembered them well from the night they came to the house. They were distinctive, and even Deputy Beautyman’s bountiful head fit nicely inside.

  The plan was for the two lawmen to approach the cave near nightfall, heads down, hats on, dead rabbits slung over their shoulders. The hope was that none of the men inside the cave would take note of the deception, at least until the lawmen had gotten close enough to get the jump on them. It seemed like an impossibly simple plan, but Sheriff Chalfont was in remarkably good spirits about its prospects. He had also concocted another ruse, just as simple, that involved stuffing their own clothes with leaves and dirt and topping them with their hats. These decoys would be placed at some distance from the cave so that the men inside, in the dim light of dusk, would think there were more men surrounding the cave than just the two.

  The plan for me remained the same as before. I was to proceed up the path to stay with the horses until they returned. If they did not come back after a few hours, I was to go at full speed to Rosasharon and report everything to the judge in the courthouse. If things did go well, I would be reunited with Pa tonight. That was the plan.

  There was not a big chance that any of this would work, of course, but enough to pin my hopes on. Some hope is better than none, after all. And now more than ever, I was realizing how my being here really did have a touch of providence to it. I had come through the Woods because I knew in my bones that Pa needed me, and here I was now, by a creek at the bottom of the world, watching events unfurl like wings. There was nothing I could do now but hold on for dear life and pray. Steady on!

  It took about an hour for the sheriff to hunt the rabbits, while the deputy worked on the decoys. When the lawmen were finally ready to go, I pleaded with them one more time to let me come with them. Not only would they not comply, they warned they would not go forward with the plan unless they saw me climb back up the path behind the Falls. That’s how little they trusted me not to follow them.

  I was bitterly unhappy about this. Before I left them, I described what Pa looked like in detail, and made them promise they would try their best not to accidentally shoot him.

  “We’ll do everything we can,” asserted Sheriff Chalfont with great earnestness. He was reloading his rifles as he said this. Both he and the deputy had six-shot repeating rifles. Two each. I’d never seen these kinds of long arms before.

  “Did you really fight in Mexico?” I asked.

  Sheriff Chalfont bowed his head yes.

  “Not on the winning side, though,” added the deputy, with a smirk.

  I looked at him quizzically, for I had no idea what he meant by that.

  “Off you go, Silas,” said the sheriff, who had finished reloading.

  “I know who the Spartans are, by the way,” I blurted to the deputy.

  He, too, had finished reloading, and now cocked his head at me. “What?”

  “You said before, even if there were three hundred Spartans behind you,” I reminded him, “you wouldn’t climb down…”

  I didn’t even finish my sentence, for he was looking at me like I was the dumbest person he’d ever known.

  “You do know what happened to the Spartans, right?” he said.

  “Off you go, Silas!” the sheriff repeated louder. His face had become tight now. His mind was already on the next thing. I knew that expression.

  With great reluctance, I walked up the bank to the path behind the Falls. I didn’t look back or say good-bye to them. I’d been left behind, yet again, by living men, and I was left, once again, with only ghosts for company. There was nothing more to say.

  3

  I SIGNALED ONCE I NEARED the top of the cliff, to let them know I’d arrived. Then I watched them make their way past the Falls and down the left bank of the creek, keeping close to the wall. Rabbits slung over their shoulders. Decoys dragging behind them. After about ten minutes, they reached the first bend in the creek, then they disappeared from view.

  “If we climb up that little bluff over there, we’ll be able to see them,” Mittenwool said, pointing somewhere.

  “You go ahead. I want to check on Pony.”

  He looked over at Pony, who was grazing peacefully by the sheriff’s white mare.

  “Pony’s fine, Silas. Are you all right?”

  “I’m just tired. You go. Let me know if there’s anything to see.”

  He hesitated. “I will. But I won’t be long. Don’t worry.”

  He went off.

  Pony nickered when I came over. He lowered his head and softly bumped it against mine as I rubbed my cheek against his muzzle. I closed my eyes. This is what I needed just then, though I could not have told that to Mittenwool. I needed something warm to hold, something I could wrap my arms around and hug with all my might. Pony was so strong and bold, and I felt myself so lost and small. I just wanted to breathe him
in. Breathe in his might. And I don’t know how, but Pony seemed to know that. It was like he knew my heart, the way he nuzzled me. It had only been four days that we’d been traveling together, but it felt like a lifetime, in a way. Like we’d known each other forever. I suppose we were bonded now, like men in war, soldiers at arms….

  Even as I had this thought, though, fleeting as it was, I rejected it. Wished I’d never had it. Actually got mad at myself for even thinking it. Bonded? Like men in war? Why did my mind go to these ludicrous places? What did I know about men in war? Nothing but some old stories in tattered books! No wonder the deputy had looked at me like I was an idiot. This paltry country boy, with his magical pony, talking about Spartans. I knew nothing of the real world!

  That much was clear to me from these last four days in the Woods. Four days in which I’d seen more of the real world than I’d seen in my previous twelve years on this earth. What happened to those ghosts in the Bog. Children younger than me. That was the real world. The riders coming for Pa. The marshal talking about gunfights. The Morton brothers, bound in ropes on the bare ground. That was all the real world.

  I’d been spared that until now. Me in my cocoon in Boneville with Pa and Mittenwool. I’d been protected my whole life. Yet here I was, peeking over to that other side, thinking I knew the first thing about any of it. Bonded like men in war. Spartans. I felt foolish. And childish. That was why they didn’t want me to go. Stay home, Silas. Go back, Silas. Both Pa and Mittenwool knew there’d be no going back for me. You can’t unknow what you know. You can’t unsee what you’ve seen.

  I was finally understanding that. Realizing only now what had been done for me. Pa, with his books and stories, working like a dog for twenty-five cents a boot. And Mittenwool, keeping me company all my solitary days. I never even realized how lucky I’d been.

  And maybe, in the end, that was the whole point of it. Keeping that other world at bay. Preserving that time, the before time, for as long as possible.

  I suppose, in a way, that’s the real world, too. The fathers and the mothers and the ghosts, the living and the dead, spinning butterflies out of thin air. Holding them gently in their hands, for as long as they can. Not forever, but infinitely. Beckoning the wondrous. But never for themselves. Just for us. If only for a little while. It’s not the fantasy of it, but the trying of it that matters. That’s the real world, too.

  This is what I was thinking when the young woman I had seen in the jailhouse walked out from behind some trees toward me.

  “Where did Desimonde go?” she asked me, her hands daintily pressed over her heart as the blood from her wound flowed freely through her pale fingers and over the bell sleeves of her yellow dress.

  “He went down the creek bed after some bad men,” I answered, trying hard not to look at her wound. Her eyes were cinnamon-colored.

  “Ah,” she said, nodding with a slight smile. “Desimonde is good at fighting bad men. Are they slavers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We came west to be free-staters, my family did.”

  I nodded, though I didn’t know what that meant.

  “Can you point the way, please?” she asked. “Where he went to?”

  “Down this path.” I gestured to where she should walk.

  She looked at the path.

  “Can you take me to him?” she asked politely.

  I tilted my head at her.

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” I answered. “Desimonde told me to stay here with the horses. What’s your name—do you mind my asking?”

  “Matilda Chalfont.”

  “Are you Desimonde’s wife?”

  She laughed. “No, silly. I’m his sister. Well, I should go find him now. Thank you.”

  “Good luck.”

  She went around me and started on the path down the cliff. But then she turned to me.

  “If I don’t find him,” she said, “will you give him a message for me?”

  “Sure, if I can.”

  “Tell him I left Mother’s plum pudding in the bread box for him, but I ate most of it and I’m sorry about that. Will you tell him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, smiling. Her cheeks were dimpled exactly like Sheriff Chalfont’s, and she had similar curly hair.

  Mittenwool had come over to me by now and we both watched her disappear down the path. I wanted to say to him, What strange creatures you are.

  “What do you suppose that was about?” I asked him.

  “I guess she felt bad about the pudding,” he answered casually, not giving it much thought. “I saw the sheriff set up the decoys. They look good!”

  “Is that all it takes, then?”

  “Hmm? Is that all what takes?” He looked at me, eyes wide, and I knew he truly did not understand my question.

  “Is that all it takes to cause a person to…stay behind?” I asked, mystified. “Feeling bad about some pudding? Seems like such a small thing to hold on to. I thought for sure it would have to be something bigger than that. Pudding! It just doesn’t make sense to me. Why do some stay and some go?”

  He knit his brows, and looked down at the palms of his hands as if there were some clue to an answer in them. “Darned if I know, Silas.”

  “Mittenwool, are you my uncle?”

  He looked up at me, surprised. “Your uncle?”

  “My mother had a brother.”

  “No, Silas. I don’t think I am.”

  “Then who are you to me?” I asked impatiently. “How are we connected? How come you came to me? How can you not know?”

  He rubbed his forehead and seemed to be struggling to think it all through.

  “I really don’t—” he started to say.

  “Please stop telling me you don’t know!” I yelled, for I was suddenly filled with so much emotion I couldn’t bear it. “I’m so tired of hearing that, Mittenwool! I don’t know, Silas! I don’t know! How can you not know?”

  He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was serious.

  “But I really don’t know, Silas,” he whispered, and I knew he was telling me the truth. “Do you think I wouldn’t tell you if I did? You think I would keep it from you? Dash it! You say you’re tired of not knowing. Well, I get tired, too! Or maybe what you’re really saying is that you’re tired of me! Is that it, Silas? Are you saying you want me to leave you or something?”

  This took me completely unawares. “No! Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

  “Then stop asking me these kinds of questions!” he cried, and I’d never seen him look at me the way he was looking at me now. Like I had hurt him deeply. “Stop asking me about things I don’t know! When you know that I don’t know! When I’ve told you a million times that I don’t know!”

  “All right!” I said, my cheeks burning. “I’m sorry! It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  “If all it takes is some pudding,” I said, “then why doesn’t everyone come back? Why hasn’t she…” My voice caught. “Why hasn’t she ever come to me?”

  I could barely finish the sentence. I was suddenly choking on tears. I’d been holding that thought inside me for so long.

  Mittenwool sighed. Finally, I think he understood. He let a second pass before he answered.

  “Maybe she has, Silas,” he answered softly. “In ways you can’t see. Ways I can’t know. I mean, look at Pony there, how he brought you all the way here.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” I whispered, wiping my face with my palms.

  “I know.” He looked down at his hands again, as if they might hold better words. “I know it’s not. Look, I’m sorry—”

  “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. Obviously, I don’t want you to l
eave me. I’d never want that. Not in a million years. I would be lost without you.”

  He smiled wearily, and leaned back against the tree behind him like he was tired.

  “Well, that’s good,” he replied, relieved, “because I don’t want to leave you, either.”

  “Even though I can be a lunkhead sometimes?”

  He gave my shoulder a little push. “I’m the lunkhead.”

  I resolved, then and there, to never ask him these kinds of questions again. It was all too painful. For him. For me. Whatever mysterious connections we had between us, whatever reason he had come to me, didn’t matter in the end of things. All that mattered was that he was here with me, always, until the end of things.

  Then a thought occurred to me.

  “I should go with her,” I said to him. “She asked me to take her to the sheriff, and I should do that.”

  “You should always do what your heart tells you to do, Silas.”

  “I should do what my heart tells me to do.”

  4

  MATILDA CHALFONT HAD NOT gotten far when we caught up to her. I had taken Pony with me, for I knew I would need him soon enough. He was sure-footed down the narrow path, as I knew he would be.

  Matilda seemed happy to see me.

  “Would you like to ride?” I asked gallantly, extending my hand.

  “Why, yes, thank you!” she answered, and with her bloodied hands wrapped around mine, she put her foot in the stirrup and climbed onto the saddle behind me. Pony did not stir an inch.

  We continued down the side of the cliff behind Mittenwool. Strangely, I couldn’t tell whether Matilda could see him or not, so wide-eyed was she in her aspect. She literally giggled when we got sprayed by the mist behind the waterfall. It was almost like she’d just been born.

  When we reached the Morton brothers, who had by now woken up, bound and gagged, where we’d left them, they glared at me with tearful eyes. Perhaps I felt a touch of pity for them, lying in their drawers on the cold earth, but then I quickly recalled how mean they had looked on the night they took Pa. We were all in peril now because of their heartless actions, and I steeled my own heart against them. I got down from Pony and went looking for their rifles, which the deputy had tucked away next to the wall.