Mending Horses

by M. P. Barker

Daniel gave an absentminded “ummm,” paying more attention to the six ponies cantering around the ring. He and Billy stood back to back in the center, each of them holding a longeing whip, Daniel’s pointed toward Gray and Billy’s toward Teeth. The idea was to keep the other ponies evenly spaced between Gray and Teeth, with all six cantering at a steady pace. Eventually, Daniel hoped to manage them alone, using Gray to set the pace. But Teeth would break ranks and cut across the ring or run up along the pony in front of him or fall back to visit with the one behind, if Billy didn’t keep him focused on the end of her whip.

  Daniel gauged the distance between the ponies. They were doing much better today, their steps more evenly matched. “Ready?” he warned Billy. “One, two, three—Now!” Daniel and Billy stopped smartly, drawing their whips straight up by their sides.

  First Gray, then the rest of the ponies wheeled on their haunches to face the center of the ring. The maneuver was supposed to be crisp and precise, all six of them moving as one, facing Daniel and Billy like spokes on a wagon wheel. Gray and Brown turned with military precision and stood with shoulders and hindquarters squared, heads up, waiting for the next command. Red stopped slantwise so his nose touched Brown’s. Socks turned to the right instead of the left, looking over her shoulders at the others as if wondering why they’d all got it wrong.

  “Teeth, no!” Billy said. The piebald gelding put his head down to crop the withered grass. Black looked ready to follow suit.

  “Bl-a-a-ack,” Daniel warned. The pony snapped to attention, though nearly shoulder to shoulder with Teeth instead of centered in his segment of the ring. Daniel shook his head, though he was smiling. “Better than last time,” he said. “At least they’re all facing in.”

  “Stand,” he commanded, raising his empty hand. The ponies fixed their eyes on him, except for Teeth, who munched away obliviously. Daniel sighed. “C’mon, let’s set ’em straight.”

  “I said, we’ve not given ’em new names yet. You said we would.”

  “I thought you’d’a come up with something by now.” In truth Daniel had so much on his mind that he’d forgotten entirely about the ponies’ names.

  “They should be something rare and grand.” Billy guided Black into place.

  Once Billy’s back was turned, Teeth laid his ears back and nipped at Brown. Daniel hissed and flicked the end of the whip in the grass. Startled, Teeth peered at Daniel from under his shaggy forelock with a “Who, me?” expression in his eyes. “Got a good name for the king of mischief?” Daniel asked.

  “Kelpie,” Billy replied.

  Daniel laughed. Although there was nothing in the legends about the mythical water horses being piebald, Teeth did seem the sort who’d drag children underwater and gobble them up. “All right then. Kelpie he is. I s’pose you’ll be wanting to call Gray Liath Macha, and Black will be Dub Sainglend.” Surely Billy could choose no grander names than those of the horses who’d drawn mighty Cúchulainn’s chariot.

  Billy fixed her eyes on Gray. “No. That’d be too fierce for her.” She went to Gray and rubbed the mare’s forehead. “Her name is Pearl.” Not should be but is, as if the pony had sent her a silent message.

  “Aye, Pearl it is,” Daniel agreed. She was definitely the pearl of the lot: steady and calm and quick to learn, the one who tended most to incombustibility. “And Red, shall he be Ruby, then, if you’re naming ’em for jewels?”

  Billy wrinkled her nose. “That’s too girlish. I have to think on him a bit more. But Black . . . he’s wanting to be named after that black jewel on Mr. C.’s turban. Only I don’t remember what it is.”

  “Glass, most likely,” Daniel said.

  Billy rolled her eyes and put out her tongue. “I know that. But what’s it s’posed to be?”

  “Onyx, I fancy.”

  “Onyx. That’s him.” She touched his brow as she had with Pearl.

  “How are you liking Rinn or Rialta for Red?” Daniel asked as he approached the blood bay gelding. “For this star on his forehead. And isn’t he the one for always showing off?”

  Billy caressed the white star between the pony’s eyes. “Aye, Rinn.”

  “What about you?” Daniel asked, walking across to Socks. She’d been the hardest pony to clean because of the tangles of matted hair at her fetlocks. Daniel had been tempted to give up and cut it all away. But he’d persisted, and now feathers of long white hair fell in silky waves about Socks’s feet. “Silk” he said.

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” Billy agreed, giving the pony a christening touch.

  “That leaves you then, lass,” Daniel said, turning to Brown, who’d sidled away from Teeth—no, Kelpie, he reminded himself.

  Billy crossed her arms and frowned. “She is a puzzle. I’m trying to think of something brown that’s precious. At first I thought Mahogany, because Mr. S. once said that’s a rare fine wood. But I’m afraid folk’ll call her Hog for short.”

  Daniel laughed. “Were you to ask Silas Lyman for something brown and precious, he’d tell you it was dung.”

  Billy snorted with laughter. “Is he daft?”

  “No. Just a farmer who could tell you enough about manure to fill a book.” Thinking on Silas made Daniel remember Lizzie Stearns, who’d been smitten with the young farmer. “Lizzie,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “She was the dairymaid to Lyman’s, where I was bound out. She’d wear this old gown to do the dairying, and it was just about this sort of brown.” He patted the pony’s neck. “D’you s’pose she’d be minding having a pony named after her?”

  “You might want to choose something else, horse boy,” said a feminine voice. Francesca leaned over the low wall with her brothers. “Our mother’s name is Elizabeth.” The girl arched a stern eyebrow at him.

  Daniel took the brown pony’s halter and turned her toward Francesca and the Ruggles boys. He clucked softly to make the pony prick up her ears and arch her neck prettily. “Wouldn’t your mam be pleased to have such a grand creature named after her?” he asked.

  The pony lifted her tail, and a half dozen round clods of manure plopped from her backside onto the grass. Then she broke wind with a whistly sort of puttering noise.

  Francesca let loose a gale of laughter that sent tears streaming down her face. Her brothers elbowed each other, snickering. Billy doubled over, hands on her knees, until her giggles turned to hiccups, which made her laugh even more.

  Daniel hid his face against the pony’s cheek, concealing his own laughter more successfully. “Well,” he said, finally turning back toward the acrobats. Maybe not Lizzie, then. Maybe Eau de Cologne would suit her better, eh?”

  “Well, horse boy, it seems you’ve been sharpening your wit,” said Harry Ruggles.

  Francesca wiped her eyes. “Sharpened by Mr. Sharp, I’ll wager,” she said.

  “Aye, well, him and Mr. Stocking,” Daniel confessed. Just as he’d been working with the ponies to make them immune to sudden noises and strange objects, Mr. Sharp and Mr. Stocking had been working with Daniel to make him immune to heckling and insults and to keep his head when a trick didn’t go as planned. They’d taught him how to parry words with the hecklers, if he felt in a clever mood, or to to feign ignorance of English and cheerily insult them back—in Irish—if his wits felt a bit dull. He’d learned how to pry humor from a tense situation, to make an audience laugh with sympathy rather than with mockery. The lessons had helped him outside the show ring as well. It had become easier for him to relax with the other members of the company. Strangest and best of all, he could finally talk to Francesca without stammering and blushing, though it was still easier to speak to her when he didn’t look at her straight on.

  While her brothers fetched the equipment for the morning’s practice, Francesca greeted the ponies, learning their new names from Billy. “I swear they’re looking better and better every day,” Francesca said. “You two have done wonders with them.”

  Daniel studied the ponies, trying to see them as Francesca did. What he noticed most was what was no lon
ger noticeable—matted hair at Silk’s fetlocks or ribs jutting out from Pearl’s sides or tangles in Rinn’s mane. He didn’t notice chipped hooves or wary eyes, ears laid back in suspicion and fear. He felt a singing sensation in his breast.

  “We’ve still not named this lass, though,” Billy said when they came to Brown.

  “Aye,” Daniel said, turning to Francesca. “What do you think?”

  Brown lowered her head so Francesca could scratch her ears. The rope dancer smiled at Daniel. “Oh, I think Lizzie would be just fine.”

  Friday, October 18, 1839, Brattleboro, Vermont

  . . . Imagine, Ethan, me being in a show training six ponies. Mr. Chamberlain says it wasn’t a proper circus until we come because there was only the one horse act plus the grand cavalcade at the beginning and that’s why he called it a museum but Mr. Stocking says he called it so to dodge the laws against traveling performers in Connecticut. That and so as to make folk think they was being educated by having a bit of fun which also keeps the ministers from preaching against us. Mostly.

  Daniel set down his pen to trim the candle and stifle a yawn. Only a few weeks with Mr. Chamberlain’s museum and already he appreciated the luxury of staying two nights in one place. Better yet, in a hotel with a private room for himself, Billy, and Mr. Stocking instead of crammed into an attic or hayloft with the other men and boys. Well, all the men but the conjurer, who had his special pavilion in order to maintain the illusion that Fred Chamberlain and Prince Otoo Baswamati were two separate gentlemen. Daniel wondered how long the conjurer would keep up that ruse now that the nights were turning frostier. Even now, with a fire burning merrily beside Daniel’s table, the wind rattled the windows, sending tendrils of cold air into the room. In the morning, the frost-crusted grass would crackle under his feet, and he’d be glad for his woolen stockings and stout boots.

  Perhaps Mr. Chamberlain was indeed thinking on the emerging season. Each night the conjurer dallied longer indoors to give house shows before retiring to his tent. In his guise as East Indian mystic, he’d read palms or heads or gaze into his crystal for individual customers. As himself, he’d tell stories or perform dramatic pieces with Mr. Stocking and others from the company. Lately, Daniel suspected that the cold did as much as the cash to keep the showman away from his tent of an evening.

  Daniel cocked an ear toward the sounds wafting up from the taproom. He’d gone up after supper to write his letter while Mr. Stocking and Billy made music and Mr. Chamberlain did his prognosticating, tonight in East Indian regalia. The fiddle had stopped, and now and again Daniel heard the singsong of the conjurer’s incantations. He dipped his pen to begin again.

  The door creaked open, making the candle flame flutter. A shadow fell across the page.

  “What you doing?” Billy reached for the paper with a sticky hand.

  Daniel snatched the letter out of reach. “I’m writing a letter to me friend. And I don’t want you soiling it with your grimy paws.”

  Billy stuffed a butter-and-jam-smeared heel of bread into her mouth. A glob of jam crawled down her chin. One finger captured the escaping jam and guided it back toward her lips. “Anything ’bout me in there?”

  “Only the truth. Which is to say, naught that’s any good.”

  Billy held up a second slice of bread. “Pity. I was going to give you t’other piece.” She took a bite and grinned, letting jam ooze between her teeth.

  “Heathen,” Daniel said. “Mr. Stocking’s wasting his time, trying to civilize the likes of you.” But he laughed while he said it.

  “What fun is there in being a boy if you got to be tidy all the while?” She tore the remaining bread in half and put the larger remnant on the table next to Daniel’s inkwell.

  Daniel set his letter away from the sticky treat. “Hope you washed the dung off your hands before fetching this.”

  She shrugged. “Adds flavor, don’t it?”

  He shook his head. It was good bread—all white flour, the butter sweet and deep yellow, and the jam raspberry, his favorite. “You couldn’a brought a bit of tea to wash down the bread, now?” he asked.

  “Ingrate. I only got but the two hands.” She flopped down on the bed.

  “What’re they all up to downstairs?” Daniel asked.

  “Mr. S. is selling elixirs to the landlord, and Mr. C. is feeling some lady’s bumps.”

  Daniel nearly choked on his bread. “He’s what?”

  “On her head, you ee-jit.” Billy ran her hands over her own scalp and intoned her best impersonation of Prince Otoo Baswamati. “The passions are strong in this one. And secrets.” She narrowed her eyes to ominous-looking slits. “Many secrets lie heavy on your soul.” She shrugged. “The usual rot.” She licked jam, butter, and crumbs from her fingers. “Go on, finish your letter. Don’t be minding me.”

  Daniel picked up his pen to start again, but Billy sitting there staring at him made all the thoughts go out of his head.

  “So who is this friend?” Billy asked.

  “That lad Ethan that was bound along with me.”

  “The one helped you get Ivy and get free?”

  “Aye. I thought maybe he’d like to hear from me.” His throat tightened as he remembered parting from Ethan, how the lad had struggled not to cry. “I mind what becomes of you,” Ethan had said. Knowing that had been both a comfort and a burden, for Daniel had feared Ethan would be the only person who would ever care what happened to him. He’d never expected to become part of an entire community. But the show folk, some of them at least, cared whether he performed well or not. As for who truly cared, well, Mr. Stocking surely, and perhaps even Billy.

  “Why don’t you ask Mr. Stocking for a bit of paper to write your brothers?” Daniel said. “You’ve plenty of funny stories to tell ’em.”

  Billy examined the dirt under her fingernails. “Maybe.”

  “Mr. Stocking would pay the post for you.”

  “Da’d probably not even show ’em the letter, just for spite. I’d not be surprised if he told ’em I was dead.”

  “You think he would?”

  “What would you say if you come home without your daughter, eh?”

  If even half of what Billy and Mr. Stocking had told Daniel about Hugh Fogarty was true, it would be just like him to do such a thing.

  “Anyway, even if he did let ’em see me letter, well, Da can’t barely read himself. And Jimmy and Mick, they know their ABCs, but that’s about it.”

  “And Liam?” Daniel pressed.

  Billy pushed herself farther away from the light. “He tried to teach me, but he didn’t know much, and neither of us had time for school, though I think he would like to’a gone.”

  “P’raps there’s someone you could send to so’s Liam could get a letter without your da knowing. Maybe they could read it to him. He’d be glad to know you’re alive and well.”

  The bed squeaked as Billy got up and stood on the far side of it, where she was just a dark shape edged with gold. When she spoke, her voice was a little too loud, too bright, too deliberately careless. “Liam and them’ve prob’ly all forgot me by now. Anyway, they’re prob’ly better without me.”

  “I shouldn’t think—” Daniel began, but Billy kept on talking over him.

  “What d’you s’pose Da done with all that money he got from Mr. S.? Two hundred dollars—that’s nigh on a year’s pay for him. Maybe enough for Da to mend his ways and make a better home for ’em.”

  “Maybe,” Daniel said. “Still, I fancy they’d be missing you. You said Liam would.”

  “He’d be having one less mouth to feed, now,” she said sharply. She turned and faced the window, a dark shape against the glass. “If he missed me, he’d’a looked for me, wouldn’t he?”

  “But if he—” Daniel stopped and shook his head. There was no point telling her that if Fogarty had indeed convinced his sons that Billy was dead, Liam would have no reason to look for her. So instead he asked, “How d’you know he’s not been searching all this w
hile?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sunday, October 20, 1839, Cabotville, Massachusetts

  Augusta didn’t come to fetch her water at her usual time. Liam waited a few minutes before heading back into his shanty. He left the door ajar so she’d know he was up, so she’d smell the bacon cooking—good bacon, with more meat than fat to it, and no mold to scrape away, and plump new potatoes fried up in the drippings. The lass would be pleased to see what he’d learned from watching her cook. There was no tablecloth, true, but he’d got a couple of bits of calico folded up tidy beside the plates like they were serviettes of fine linen. A chipped mug on the table held a fistful of wild asters he’d gathered on the riverbank, their spidery blossoms like a cluster of snowflakes.

  She’d like that. But most of all, he hoped she’d like the notice torn from the newspaper and laid on her plate next to the fancy wee cakes he’d bought at the baker’s. It would be worth the expense of the meal, the hours he’d spent in the evening puzzling advertisements out letter by letter from discarded newspapers. It still might be all for naught. The position might be filled already; she might be cross at his meddling. But by God, at least he’d tried.

  He squatted by the hearth, turning the potatoes in the bake kettle. They colored up to a fine golden brown, the first time he’d cooked something that hadn’t gone from raw to black in an eye blink.

  He listened for the sound of Augusta’s door, her step in the alley. He glanced up every other minute to see if her door had opened and maybe he’d missed hearing it because of his bad ear or the growing tumult of the neighbors waking and making their own breakfasts, their babies squalling to have their nappies changed and their empty bellies filled.

  Still nothing. He couldn’t fault her for wanting to sleep in of a Sunday, though he’d not known her to do so before. But what if . . . He didn’t like the what ifs running through his head.

  He scraped a layer of ashes over the coals and set the bake kettle on top, then he replaced the iron lid and spread another layer of ash and coals on it to keep the meal warm. He paced the alley, hoping she might come out after hearing him moving about outside. He raised his hand to knock and stopped himself three times. Supposing she was, well . . . working?