Swimming with Horses

by Oakland Ross

  And this was a chance — hey, was it ever.

  She was hunkered down on the broad second-floor terrace of her father’s house in the sunlit coolness of the afternoon. She had worked everything out on a sheet of notepaper, after referring repeatedly to a road map of South Africa, one she’d liberated from the cubbyhole of her mother’s car.

  She had the map unfolded on her lap right now, with the notepaper set out on the plate-glass surface of a wicker coffee table. In addition, she had a mug of coffee, now gone cold, and a small china tray about half full of cigarette butts and ashes. She was smoking like a dock hand, but what did it matter? Daddy wasn’t around to disapprove. He would be away for at least a week, on government business of some kind or other. Before leaving, he’d told her he wanted her back in Johannesburg by the time he returned. He wouldn’t stand for this insolence and impertinence. Did she understand? Did she? The school in Joburg — it was costing him a packet. Did she have an inkling how much? At the time, she’d merely nodded and mouthed, “Yes, Daddy.” But that wasn’t what she’d been thinking. Far from it. The man had no bloody idea what was truly going on. This was war. This was revolution. In her mind, it was. Meanwhile, Hilary’s mother was finally up and about again, a circumstance not unrelated to her husband’s absence.

  She peered at the map once more. She ran her index finger southwest from Mooi River and then down and around toward the Drakensberg and the rose-hued oblong of Basutoland. This, in its simplest form, was her plan. She had worked out a way to get Muletsi into Basutoland. She was certain this was what his mother had meant by mentioning that word, that day. She’d been putting the idea in Hilary’s head, more by suggestion than anything else. But that made sense, too. That way, nothing could be pinned on her.

  Basutoland.

  It was crazy, maybe, but there was no choice. There was no other way. And this route was possible, more than possible. Already, she had worked it out.

  Fact: Muletsi had to leave South Africa.

  That was a given. He was a wanted man, a criminal, and an escaped convict to boot. What was more, he’d been branded a member of the ANC, a banned organization. So there you were. Plain and simple. He had to get out. The only alternative was jail, or worse.

  Second fact: He couldn’t get out by car. The security forces kept roadblocks outside all the main cities and along the perimeter of certain black homelands. It was standard procedure. They were permanently on the lookout for anything that struck them as abnormal. You’d never know what that might be, what might make them look at you a second time. Even if you were white, they could decide you had something to hide. Sympathetic whites often served as shields for ANC activity. That was well known. No — Muletsi could not get out of South Africa that way. There had to be another route. And there was! The solution was simple.

  She and Muletsi would ride out of South Africa on horseback. They would bear south and then northwest, up through the Transkei, over the Drakensberg, and into Basutoland not far from a place called Qacha’s Nek. Nothing to it. She’d already traced out the route, first on the road map and now in her mind.

  It wasn’t so very far, not really. She had calculated the distance — two hundred miles or so, a five-day journey, not more than that. Not much more. In Basutoland Muletsi would be a free man, a refugee from South Africa. There would be possibilities for him. Other ANC exiles were already holed up there; she’d heard it on the news. Many had fled South Africa after the ANC was banned. By now they’d know what was what. Maybe Muletsi could go into hiding there. Or maybe there was a way of smuggling him from Basutoland to … oh, somewhere. She didn’t know exactly where. Bechuanaland, maybe. Or, better yet, Dar es Salaam. Tanganyika was independent. It would be safe for him there.

  But first Basutoland. She had worked out how to reach the place. She and Muletsi would travel most of the way through Natal and then enter the Transkei, which was a black homeland where the people did their farming in a communal way. That meant there would be few fences, if any. Eventually, they would cross over the Drakensberg into Basutoland, far from any border posts, if border posts there were. Maybe it seemed crazy. But it made sense. It really did.

  All she had to do was communicate her plan to Mrs. Dadla, who would tell Muletsi about it. And then she would just wait and see. Maybe he would turn it down. Probably, he would be doubtful at first. But she had a feeling he would go along in the end. He didn’t have any frigging choice. None. His mother saw it. Now Hilary saw it, too.

  She shivered with excitement, just thinking about her plan — or maybe it was on account of the afternoon cold. It was turning seriously chilly out on this deck. Who knew what was going on with the weather this year? She refolded the road map with the sheet of notepaper inside and tapped it several times on the arm of the wicker chair. She’d need money, of course, but she could get that from her mother. One way or another, she would. She would think of something.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sam

  Ontario, Summer 1963

  COLONEL BARKER WAVED OUT the window of his Cadillac, almost as if he were a member of the royal family on a tour of the colonies. “Hip, hip!” he called out.

  He rolled up our driveway in his bronze-coloured Eldorado with his Rice two-horse trailer bringing up the rear. The car and trailer tottered past the lilacs and the weeping willows, proceeding toward the barn. Green trails of foliage swirled down, like a shower of pale-green confetti.

  “Hip, hip!” the colonel hollered again. As usual, he was wearing a black patch over his bad eye.

  Hilary rode beside him in the passenger seat. She and the colonel had come to collect Della and me so that we could all drive to Letham for the final competition prior to the provincial championships in Cardenden. My heart had been galloping since the night before, and I had barely slept. Already this morning, I had been up for several hours, fussing in the barn, getting Della ready for the day ahead. Now she was bandaged and blanketed, all set to go. Hilary and Colonel Barker lowered the trailer ramp while my father ambled up from the house, with Charlotte riding on his shoulders. She was getting too big for that.

  “Morning, Hal,” said Colonel Barker. “Morning, Charlotte.”

  “Morning, Colonel,” said my father.

  Charlotte saluted. “Hail, Britannia,” she said.

  Della could be a troublesome loader, but this time she marched straight up the ramp, tossing her tail as she went. I ducked under the horizontal steel bar at the front. Club Soda nickered and nipped at the air. The two horses each yanked a mouthful of hay from the net suspended at the bow of the trailer.

  “That was easy,” said Hilary. She and Colonel Barker raised the ramp and shot the bolts.

  I gave Della a swat on her neck and ducked out through the small hatch at the front. I hurried back into the barn to collect my gear — saddle, bridle, clothing, and a small box of grooming equipment. Most of it fit in the trunk of the Cadillac. My Stubben saddle went into the back seat with me. Colonel Barker started the engine, and off we went. I waved at my father and Charlotte, and they both waved back. Charlotte shouted something, but I couldn’t make it out — wishing me good luck, probably.

  During the drive, Hilary kept a map unfolded on her lap and took charge of navigating. The colonel kept insisting he knew the way, but it was apparent that he did not. Two hours later we reached the fairgrounds in Letham a little before nine o’clock in the morning.

  “What ho!” said Colonel Barker. He eased the car off the road and into a broad meadow, already half-filled with trailers and cars and riders and horses. “Great Scott!”

  He manoeuvred the trailer into a free space at the edge of a field of freshly mown grass. I had nearly an hour before my dressage test, and I spent most of that time schooling Della in a practice ring. With about fifteen minutes to spare, she abruptly tucked in her hindquarters, arched her neck, and began to work the bit with her teeth, foaming with concentration. She remained in this pensive state from the beginning to the end of the dress
age test. When it was done, Major Duval himself marched over to congratulate me. An hour or so later, they posted the results for the dressage portion of the event. I couldn’t find my name at first, but it turned out I was looking too far down the sheet. Della and I had not merely done well. We had won. In the advanced division, Hilary had taken first place, too.

  The cross-country phase followed, starting early in the afternoon. This was usually my worst stage, not only because it was long and physically demanding, but also because it scared me. There was good reason for that. The courses were difficult and often dangerous, and I worried about Della. At times she seemed to lack the stamina for cross-country. She started well but tended to lose strength before the course was done, so she made mistakes or I did. This time I was hoping that all those hours spent swimming in the quarry pond had toughened her up without wearing her down.

  With Hilary’s help I got Della tacked up and ready. She didn’t look at all the way she had during the dressage phase that morning. Now we’d fitted a sheepskin pad beneath her saddle and strung a running martingale through the reins near her chest. I’d bandaged her legs and worked a pair of orange bell-shaped rubbers over her front fetlocks to protect them against clips from her hind hooves. She was keyed up, frothing at the bit, her flanks already stained with sweat. She knew what was coming.

  I’d also shortened the stirrup leathers, two notches up from their dressage length. I wore tan breeches and a navy turtleneck jersey under a bib inscribed with my number, competitor 34. I tried to keep Della calm, but it was no use. She shied at nearly everything in sight, whether moving or stationary — trees, cars, the sudden darting of children. Every minute or so, without warning, she wheeled around on her hindquarters, reared up and pawed the air, unusual behaviour for her. She knew exactly what was coming.

  “She’ll be all right once you get going,” said Hilary. She jogged alongside us on foot, in running shoes and riding breeches, and with a pale-blue cardigan over her blouse. “You’ve got the time straight?”

  I nodded. I was aiming for the maximum bonus-points time. Twenty-one minutes, thirty-two seconds. The time was set on a Tissot wristwatch that Janet Hünigan’s mother had loaned me. Just then the public address system crackled, and a woman’s voice called out my name. Sam Mitchell. Number 34. I was on deck.

  “Just stay calm,” Hilary said. “You’ll be fine. You’ll both be fine.”

  In the starting ring I waited as the rider ahead of me set off on the course. The seconds dragged by.

  “Won’t be long now,” said the starter, a big-bellied man with a ski-jump nose, wearing a panama hat. He spoke briefly into a walkie-talkie, nodded, and said, “Away you go.”

  I pressed down on the knob of the stopwatch and off we went, sailing down a broad green slope at an easy canter. Immediately, Della arched her neck and tucked in her haunches, all business. Meanwhile, my heart slowed to a steadier beat, as I’d half known it would. It’s true what they say: the doing is easier than the waiting to do.

  Nicely in hand now, glad to be on course, Della reached the narrow flat at the base of that inaugural hill. She lengthened her stride and galloped toward the first fence, an imposing wall of cedar brush. I counted down the strides — three, two, one, and off. I leaned into the rise and arch of Della’s flight. My hands shifted forward with the pull of her head, and I braced myself with my knees against the landing, felt Della’s forelegs shudder against the solid ground, sensed her hindquarters gathering beneath her. A dozen or so spectators reacted with shouts of approval and scattered applause. Della surged ahead at a smooth hand gallop.

  I started up my customary chant. “Okay, Della. That-a-girl. It’s okay. What a girl.”

  The sunlight drifted down through a veil of wispy clouds, thin as a film of milk on glass. The air was muggy and close, but the course was green and well marked, and the footing was just about perfect — fairly dry but also soft, almost spongy. That was a surprise after these nearly rainless summer months.

  Della galloped down a gentle decline where the trail ran through a thicket of maples. We burst into an open field, rounded up a sudden rise, and made straight for the next obstacle, a hog’s-back oxer with a sharp drop on the far side. I slowed Della to a canter, then a brisk trot. She took the fence in stride, an easy pop, so that she could more easily absorb the steep descent that followed. Next she scrambled down a long clay slide with another obstacle at the bottom — a pair of horizontal telephone poles. Della checked herself once and then took off, too soon, catching me by surprise. I felt my weight drift back, but I gripped the saddle with my knees and held on. We landed in near unison.

  “Way to go,” I chanted. “Way to go, Della!”

  She was thickly lathered already, but her stride was steady. Her wind was good. She wasn’t labouring. Better yet, she was moving on boldly at every fence, not hesitant or doubtful at all. And our pacing was about right. I was pretty sure we were running just a little bit fast, and that was what I wanted, to be a little bit ahead of the clock.

  I guided Della past a fencerow of poplars and slowed her to a canter before peeling off to the right, clattering down a rock-strewn decline stippled with thorn scrub. A large glassy pond loomed ahead. About two-dozen spectators had gathered on its banks, many with cameras at the ready. I focused on the earthen ramp that descended toward the edge of the pond where a log jump stood, followed immediately by a drop into the shallow water.

  “C’mon, Della. That-a-girl. Okay. Easy now.”

  I drew her down to a collected trot and then settled deep into the saddle. I braced myself for the jump, held my breath — and dropped the reins, just let them go slack. Worst mistake in the book. I’d anticipated the jump before it happened. Della stopped dead. She didn’t know what to do, to pull back or go ahead, to refuse or jump from a standstill. Her haunches started to quake.

  “C’mon, Della. C’mon.”

  I dug my legs into her sides, hoping she would respond — and she did. From a standing start, she launched herself over the barrier of horizontal logs. Next thing I knew, I was thrown way back in the saddle, and we both plummeted toward the pond’s dull green veneer, the reins slack. We hit the water one after another, the spray flew up around us, and Della’s hooves met the bottom of the pond about three feet below the surface. At once, my full weight thudded into the pommel of the saddle, square on, colliding at my groin. The pain roared up through my abdomen and into my chest, and I thought I would be sick or even black out, right then and there. I felt myself sliding out of the saddle. Della ploughed ahead, churning through the pond, kicking up clots of mud and spumes of water. I struggled to hang on. I’d lost one stirrup and now clung to Della with one leg and one hand. The pond water splashed at her chest in great squelching belts.

  Somehow, I hauled myself back up and into the saddle. I’d lost both stirrups now, my grip on the reins was far too long, and I could barely breathe, but I managed to get Della straightened out for the climb out of the pond. She staggered through the muck, found better footing, broke into a canter, gathered her weight, and flew over a big oxer, taking me along for the ride. At least we were out of the water now, and we were still clear — no jumping faults at all.

  We cantered across a gravel road, slithering down a steep bank on the far side. With the stirrups still flailing, I settled myself in the saddle, urged Della forward, and she sailed over a pair of split-rail fences separated by a single stride.

  “Della! What a girl. What a girl. You beautiful girl.”

  I nattered away, the sound of my voice serving to block at least some of the pain in my abdomen. Della cantered ahead along a narrow path through a stand of maples. I managed to regain the stirrups and shortened my grip on the reins. I got my weight forward, out of the saddle. If I didn’t think about the pain, maybe it would go away.

  I gave Della her head, and we galloped along the perimeter of a broad, sloping meadow, freshly mown. At a flag marker located about two-thirds of the way along the meadow’s lengt
h, I slowed her to a trot. We swung to the right and scrambled down a grassy incline toward a fence-ditch-fence combination. I counted out the strides — three, two, one — and we soared over the first element. Della checked herself, bounded over the ditch, took one long stride and easily cleared the second fence. We galloped into an adjacent field that swooped downward like an amphitheatre. Only a few obstacles remained.

  “That-a-girl, Della. Come on, baby.”

  We raced across the field and then clattered along a rocky path that snaked through a spindly thicket of thorn trees. Beyond the thorns, Della swerved to the left along a narrow ridge, leading her straight toward the next obstacle — a Y-shaped log raised on a pile of rocks. We had to approach the jump at an acute angle, and it would be the easiest thing in the world for a horse to run out, miss the jump entirely.

  But Della charged ahead, and I settled my weight deep in the saddle, counting down the strides. I eased forward on my knees as Della soared over the log. She touched down, thrust ahead with her forelegs — two long strides — and then checked herself before popping over a low rail fence followed by another steep slide down a slippery clay pitch.

  We were almost done. Della clattered through a bit of rocky footing, and we swung right to gallop along a grassy lane that ran between two fields, maple trees on either side. I shortened the reins again and braced myself with my knees.

  “That-a-girl, Della. Yay, Della. What a girl.”

  I twisted my wrist to glance at the stopwatch. Just under three minutes left. I held Della to a hand gallop, and we sped through an open field of alfalfa, bounding up a gentle rise and rounding another marker flag. I tried to steady her pace, aiming for the second-to-last obstacle — a series of steep embankments. Why did they put something this difficult so near the end?

  “Okay, Della.”

  I straightened her line and then drove her forward at a gallop, practically flat out. There was no choice but to hit the first element at top speed and then hope for the best. Della flung herself at the initial embankment. She landed squarely, gathered herself for another stride, and leapt again, following with yet another stride, another leap. I thought for sure she would snag her front hooves on the final barrier, but she cleared it somehow and managed to clamber up onto the grassy incline above the obstacle.