The Unicorn in the Barn

by Jacqueline Ogburn

  “Look.” I pointed to a trail of water that led across the room to the cabinet where the squonk jar was kept.

  “We think the squonk climbs out of its jar at night sometimes. It must like you if it felt safe enough to come out with you in the room,” said Dr. B. “Either that or you drool a lot in your sleep.” She pointed to a big wet spot on my shirt front where the squonk must have touched me.

  “Come on, you can help us with the morning feeding. Then I’ll fix us some breakfast.”

  We fed the animals in the ward—​mealworms and chopped fruit for the birds, kibble for the dogs. I sprinkled some fish food into the squonk jar, but it was still and quiet, not even a bubble rising to the surface.

  “Did my dad call about Grandma?” I asked.

  “No, not yet,” said Dr. B. “That’s probably a good sign. I’m sure he would have called if she got worse.” That made me feel a bit better.

  I took the dirty dishes into the kitchen and put all the food away. I kept peeking out the windows, hoping that Moonpearl had come back. Allegra hadn’t come downstairs yet. I guessed she did these chores most mornings, so I didn’t begrudge her sleeping in.

  “Let’s go tend to the nanny goat and Prissy,” said Dr. B. As she opened the screen door to the back porch, we heard a sound that made us both stop.

  The sound echoed in the woods. Then it came again.

  Gunshots.

  And they were close. I didn’t wait for Dr. B., just took off up the hill, ignoring the pain in my ankle. Moonpearl was lost and there were hunters in Harper’s Woods. She was in danger because of me. I had to find her.

  Everybody around here knew Grandma didn’t allow hunting in Harper’s Woods. But every few years, some hunters from Charlotte, morons who ignored the postings, showed up. At the top of the ridge, I stopped, listening.

  “Eric!” Dr. B. yelled. She was coming up the path toward me. Timothy was with her. Another shot rang out, coming from the direction of the pasture. There was a road that cut through the property past the pasture and the cow pond. I bet the hunters had parked there and hiked into the woods.

  “They’re over there, toward town!” I yelled back. “We know where to look now. Let’s go!” As I turned to follow the trail, Dr. B. grabbed my arm.

  “Eric, I can’t let you go into the woods when hunters are shooting out there. It’s not safe,” she said.

  “It’s not safe for Moonpearl either! If someone spots her, they’ll think she’s the white deer and they won’t stop chasing her.” I pulled my arm free and backed away from Dr. B.

  “I’ll call the sheriff. He will deal with the hunters. You have to stay here with us.” She took a step toward me.

  “No! You’re not my mother, and you can’t tell me what to do!” I turned and dashed through the woods, slapping branches out of my way.

  “Eric! Stop!” Dr. B. yelled. I could hear her chasing me, but I didn’t look back. These were my woods, not hers—​it didn’t matter what part of them she owned; I knew them and she didn’t. I cut over to the east and picked up the trail to the meadow. Dr. B. was still thrashing in the bushes.

  At the creek, I slowed and walked alongside it until I came to the crossing rocks. It didn’t matter if I left footprints; Dr. B. probably wouldn’t notice them. I just didn’t want to be splashing around in the water, because the noise might help her find me.

  On the other side, I crossed the meadow to where there was a good thicket of bushes, low to the ground. It’s where Grandma and me had found a fawn hidden one spring. I crawled inside the thicket to hide. I wasn’t wearing camouflage, but my dark jacket and jeans were good enough. I drew my knees up, rested my head on them, and pulled my sleeves down over my hands. Now that I was still, my ankle started throbbing again, and I could feel the sting of new scratches on my face.

  “Eric! Come back, please!” Dr. B. called for me. I didn’t move. She came crashing up the hill, leaves crunching under her feet.

  “Eerr-rick,” she cried. I peeked out of the bushes. She was at the edge of the meadow. I could hear her breathing hard, like a dog after a run. She made a circle of the meadow and called again. I waited. After a few moments, she left, heading north, away from where the gunshots came from.

  There was a rustle in the bush on my left, and Timothy stepped into my hiding spot. I put my fingers to my lips, hoping he wouldn’t give me away. He sat up straight, curling his tail around his front paws, and blinked at me.

  “As much as I respect the good doctor, I agree with you. We must find the lady. We must protect her,” he said softly.

  “Thanks,” I whispered. We sat there until I couldn’t hear Dr. B. thrashing around anymore.

  “Can you smell the gun smoke?” I asked.

  Timothy glared at me. “I am not a bloodhound, but I don’t need to be for this. The fools are this way,” he said and slipped out of our hiding place. I crawled after him and followed the cat through the woods.

  After a while, I realized we were close to Grandma’s shortcut to town. Timothy trotted down a hillside to a road at the bottom. An old black Dodge pickup truck was pulled off to the side. We were on Harness Shop Road, not far from the county line. I checked the truck bed—​there was a big cooler in the back and a couple of duffle bags on the floor.

  Timothy crouched down near the front. “This way,” he said and took off to the south, following the road. I limped after him. After about a quarter mile, he left the road again. He was angling back toward the farmhouse, deeper into Harper’s Woods. I caught up with him on a deer trail, waiting for me on a fallen log.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “The smoke smell is strong here.” He jumped down off the log and scratched at some leaves. “Look.” He stretched out his paw and batted around one, then two bullet shells. “They still stink.”

  They looked like rifle shells, but I didn’t rightly know. Harpers aren’t hunters.

  “Which way did they go?” I asked again.

  “I repeat, I am not a bloodhound. Cats are stalkers, not trackers,” he said peevishly. “Something big went blundering that way.” He pointed his chin to the path.

  I stepped over the log to follow it.

  “Wait,” Timothy said. “I hear something.” He sat up tall, flicking his ears to the south. I could hear it too. I peered into the trees.

  “Is it Dr. B.?”

  “No, it’s more than one creature walking,” he said.

  “The morons.”

  “I thought we were looking for hunters,” said Timothy.

  “Same thing.” We followed the sounds. Finally, up the side of a hill off to my left, I caught sight of a patch of neon orange: a hunter’s vest. I crept a bit closer, keeping a nice big tree trunk between us. I could see another flash of neon. There were two of them, hunkered down next to a big oak.

  I was about to call out, when there was a rustling of bushes behind me. The rifles whipped around in my direction. I ducked behind the tree as two shots rang out. Peering around the trunk, I saw a flash of white near a thicket. There was another shot and a yowling sound.

  Timothy! Those morons were shooting at Timothy!

  I stepped out from behind the tree, yelling, “Hey, stop that!” when another shot burst out and something knocked my leg out from under me.

  “Aaaah!” I screamed and fell back, banging my head on the tree trunk. “Stop! Stop shooting!” I screamed some more. My left leg was on fire. I grabbed my thigh and felt something wet—​blood was soaking into my jeans.

  “Oh, hell,” a voice croaked. I looked up and saw the hunters coming down toward me. It wasn’t morons from Charlotte, it was morons from high school. Steve’s high school, in fact. It was his buddies, Darren and Charlie Deaton.

  “Oh, hell, Eric. What are you doing out here?” said Darren.

  “Getting shot!” I screamed at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry, man. Oh, Christ, I didn’t mean to shoot you. Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said, stumbling toward me. />
  Charlie dropped down next to me and pulled my hand away from my leg. My jeans were ripped and there was a gash on the outer side of my thigh.

  “It doesn’t look deep,” he said. He put his hand under my thigh and I gasped. “I think the bullet just grazed your leg.” He pulled his scarf off his neck and began wrapping it around the wound.

  “Oh, man, oh, man, so so sorry,” Darren kept saying, waving his hands around.

  “You know Harper’s Woods are posted! You’re trespassing!” I yelled at him. Yelling helped me keep from crying.

  “Bobby Knapp saw the white deer last night, out on Harness Shop Road. He was telling everybody at the diner this morning. I didn’t mean to shoot you, Eric, honest. We saw the white deer about an hour ago. Just now I saw something white moving down there. That’s what I shot at,” said Darren.

  “That was Dr. Brancusi’s cat, you idiot!” I said. “Look!” I pointed down the hill to Timothy, perched on a big rock, calmly licking his shoulder.

  “Aw, no way, man, I swear we saw the deer,” said Darren.

  “Darren,” said Charlie softly. “Shut up.” He finished tucking the scarf around my leg. “We’ve got to get Eric to a doctor.” Darren nodded, looking like he might throw up.

  “Eric, can you stand?” Charlie asked. He held out his hand to me. I took it and pulled myself up. When I put my left foot down, I hissed at the pain. When I tried to take a step, it buckled beneath me. “Whoa, steady,” Charlie said as he caught me. I had been doing way too much falling down recently and I didn’t care for it.

  “Here, I’ll carry you piggyback.” Charlie crouched down in front of me. I put my arms around his neck and with a little hop, got one leg up. He tucked his hands under my knees and settled me on his back. It hurt to bend my left leg.

  “Get the gear,” Charlie told Darren. Darren scurried back up the hill and collected their guns. Charlie carried me down, and as we passed Timothy, the cat pointed with his chin. I looked back, past Darren stumbling down with the rifles and backpacks. There, at the top of the ridge, stood Moonpearl, white and shimmering.

  Charlie stumbled a bit, his grip shifting. Pain flared up my leg. Then everything went black.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I CAME TO WHEN WE GOT to the hospital. My leg was throbbing, but the scarf-bandage had stopped the worst of the bleeding. I was still so tired I could hardly open the door of the truck. Charlie came to the passenger side and gave me another piggyback ride into the emergency room and up to the desk. Darren came trailing behind.

  “Mr. Harper.” Charlie dropped my legs. I gasped as I landed on my bad ankle and jarred the gunshot wound. I sagged against his back.

  “Dad?” He was standing there at the desk, looking like thunder.

  “Your brother called me, said the Deaton boys were bringing you here,” he growled, giving the brothers a hard stare.

  “I called Steve after we got you in the truck,” Charlie explained to me.

  “Let’s get you taken care of, Eric. I’ll talk to you boys later,” he said, glaring at them. He scooped me up and followed the nurse back to one of the beds with the curtain all around. Dad set me down on the bed. I lay back and started to pick at Charlie’s scarf where it was tied around my leg.

  “You want to tell me what you were doing so deep in the woods during hunting season?” Dad asked me.

  “Ah, Allegra’s cat got out and had run off into the woods. She and Dr. B. were worried, so I offered to go find him,” I said. “Good thing I did, too. The Deaton boys were shooting at him—​thought a little white cat was the white deer.” It was close enough to the truth that it should work. The Deaton boys saw Timothy, so that part of the story would match up.

  Lucky for me the doctor showed up right then, so I didn’t have to hear what Dad thought about that just yet.

  “Let’s see what we have here,” the doctor said, unwrapping the scarf.

  The doctor cut off my jeans and cleaned the wound. It was only about three inches long, and not too deep for all that bleeding. The bullet just carved a chunk out of my leg, and kept going. The antiseptic stung some, but my leg didn’t look so bad cleaned up. My ankle was puffy from where I twisted it.

  “I’m going to find those boys,” Dad said and left.

  “Want to tell me how you got this?” the doctor asked, inspecting the gunshot wound.

  “Hunting accident.”

  “Ah, well, ’tis the season,” the doctor said. “You will need a tetanus shot then.”

  “I got one earlier this fall. I needed it so I could help out at the Brancusi Animal Clinic,” I explained.

  “So you are a fellow professional. We will check your records for that shot. Meanwhile, you are going to need some stitches,” he said. He left for a bit and came back with a nurse and a tray of stuff.

  He stitched me up, but his stitches weren’t as small and neat as Dr. Brancusi’s. I didn’t tell him that though, on account of the pain medicine was making me drowsy. He packed and bandaged the wound, just like Dr. B. packed the cuts on that pit bull. Then he wrapped my ankle, which he said was just sprained, in an Ace bandage. I missed the tongue-lashing that Dad gave the Deaton boys, but I figured my turn was coming.

  The nurse gave Dad instructions on how to change the dressing and clean the wound, even though I told them I could do it myself. He said the stitches would dissolve on their own in a few weeks. They loaded us down with a bunch of gauze and prescriptions and all. The nurse helped me into a wheelchair and gave me a little blanket to cover my legs while Dad finished with the paperwork.

  It also gave me time to wonder how Dad got here ahead of us. I didn’t much like the answer when I found out.

  “Your grandmother had another heart attack early this morning,” he said.

  “Is she going to be OK? Can I see her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. The doctor said there was a lot of damage to her heart,” he said. That’s when I noticed he was looking just as rough as I felt.

  “She woke up while you were getting treated,” Dad said. “She’s been asking after you, so I’ll take you to see her.”

  He wheeled me to her floor. I thought about trying to walk into her room, but then remembered I didn’t have any pants on. Explaining about the accident would be less embarrassing than walking around in my underwear.

  She was in a private room, hooked up to lots of monitors, IVs and such, with one of those little oxygen tubes clipped to her nose. Her eyes were closed and she looked pale. Her unicorn-hair bracelets were gone too.

  “Mama, here’s Eric to see you,” Dad said as he wheeled me in.

  “My favorite blue-eyed grandbaby,” she whispered. “Where are my kisses?”

  “Hey, Grandma,” I said. I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She opened her eyes and smiled. Dad leaned in from the other side of the bed and gave her a kiss, too. Then she went into a coughing fit. It curled her up like an inchworm and her face got red. Finally she stopped and waved at the water glass on her tray. I poured her a cup and helped her drink it.

  Then my stomach growled.

  “Jimmy, you need to feed this boy,” she said. That’s when I realized I hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

  “I missed breakfast this morning,” I said.

  “Seems you missed lunch, too. I’ll fetch something from the cafeteria,” Dad offered.

  “Now, Eric, want to tell me what happened to your pants?” Grandma said.

  So I told her my story about Timothy and the Deaton boys.

  “I know your dad’s right upset, but you did good,” she said. “There always needs to be a Harper to protect Harper’s Woods.” She took my hand. Her fingers were cold. “And your white-haired lady friend, the pony, she’s all right too?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine. She should be having her babies soon,” I said. I hoped Moonpearl would come back. She hadn’t run too far. Maybe when the word got out about Darren shooting me in the leg and the white cat in the woods, people would stay away. I
hoped the gunshots had scared off the wampus cat and that Moonpearl would be safe, even if she didn’t come back to the barn.

  That reminded me of the pendant. I reached under my shirt—​it was still there. I pulled it out and took off the necklace. Maybe that was why I could run fast enough to get away from Dr. B. in the woods—​because the pendant had helped my bad ankle. I hoped it still had enough power to help Grandma, too.

  “Allegra made this for you, since you liked the bracelets so much,” I said.

  “Did she now? She’s a sweet girl.” I had never thought of Allegra as sweet, but she was nicer to Grandma than she was to me. I couldn’t get the necklace over her head, what with all the tubes.

  “I’ll just hold on to it for now,” said Grandma. “I’ll put it on later. They don’t like you to wear jewelry here in the hospital anyway.”

  “Dr. B. said I could watch the foals being born,” I told her, to head off any questions about the hair pendant.

  “That’s good, that’s real good. You love all God’s creatures, just like me,” Grandma said. “I knew you would be the one.”

  “The one what?” I asked.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she replied, taking my hand. “Now tell me about what else you’ve been doing.” So I told her about Tank and school and other stuff until Dad came back with some lunch. I ate a soggy tuna-fish sandwich and some limp French fries while Dad watched a football game on the TV and Grandma dozed. It wasn’t so bad. It was almost like a Sunday at the nursing home, but with more beeping machines.

  Chapter Nineteen

  DAD GAVE ME A PIECE of his mind on the way home. About how stupid it was to go into the woods when I heard gunshots, that a cat can take care of itself, how I knew better and was in big trouble for not minding Dr. B., for scaring the pants off him (even though I was the one who ended up with no pants), how he had enough to worry about without my being a fool. It was a pretty big piece and I deserved every bit of it. With the painkillers working on me and hardly any sleep the night before, it was all I could do to stay awake to hear his lecture. When we finally got home, I went to bed and didn’t get up until Monday afternoon.