Horses!

by Gardner Dozois

"You're good," he said. "They'll see that. You'll get tenure." "Maybe I won't want it. I might hate it there."

  "Don't be silly." He looked so calm and unmoved that Tess felt herself begin to panic. Didn't he care? Could he really let her go so easily? She crunched down hard on a tortilla chip and almost missed his next words. ". . . scout around," he was saying. "If I can't find anything in Watertown, there must be other cities close enough that we could at least have weekends together."

  She stared, disbelieving. "You'd quit your job? You'd move across the country just because I'm . . .

  "Why not?"

  "Your job . . .

  "I'm not in love with my job," he said.

  Tess looked into his eyes and felt herself falling. She said, "Upstate New York is not the most exciting place—"

  "They need accountants there just like everywhere else," he said. "I'll find a job. I'm good. Don't you believe me?" He grinned at her with that easy arrogance she'd always found paradoxically both irritating and attractive.

  "Are you sure?" she asked.

  "I'm sure about this: I'm not letting you go without a fight. If you're not sure about me, better say so now, and we can start fighting." He grinned again, and beneath the table, gripped her knees between his. "But I'm going to win."

  Six months later they were living together in a small, rented house in Watertown, New York. But although living together, they saw less of each other than they had in New Orleans. Unable to find a job actually in Watertown, Gordon spent at least three hours on the road every day, travelling to and from work. He left in the mornings while Tess still slept, and returned, exhausted, in time for a later dinner and then bed. It was a very different life they led from the one they'd known in New Orleans. They had left behind all those restaurant meals, the easy socializing in French Quarter bars, the flirtations with other people, the long, sultry evenings of doing very little in the open air. The days this far north were short, the nights long and cold. Because Tess didn't like to cook, and Gordon had time for it only on the weekends, they ate a lot of frozen convenience foods, omelettes, and sandwiches. They watched a lot of television, complaining about it and apologizing to each other. They planned to take up hobbies, learn sports, join local organizations, but when the weekends came almost always they spent the two days at home, in bed, together.

  Her own happiness surprised Tess. She had always believed that she would feel suffocated if she lived with a man, but now whenever Gordon was out of the house she missed him. Being with him, whether talking, making love, or simply staring like two zombies at the flickering screen, was all she wanted when she wasn't working. She couldn't believe that she had imagined herself content with so little for so long—to have shared

  Gordon with another woman without jealousy. She knew she would be jealous now, if Gordon had another lover, but she also knew she had nothing to worry about. She had changed, and so had he. When he asked her to marry him she didn't even hesitate. She knew what she wanted.

  Within four months of the marriage Tess was pregnant.

  It wasn't planned—and yet it wasn't an accident, either. She had been careful for too many years to make such a simple mistake, and in Gordon's silence was his part of the responsibility. Without a word spoken, in one shared moment, they had decided. At least, they had decided not to decide, to leave it to fate for once. And afterwards Tess was terrified, waking in the middle of the night to brood on the mistake she was making, wondering, almost until the very last month, if she couldn't manage to have an abortion, after all.

  Gordon did everything he could to make things easier for her. Since he couldn't actually have the baby for her, he devoted himself to her comfort. And except for the physical unpleasantness of being pregnant, and the middle of the night terrors, Tess sometimes thought, as she basked in the steady glow of Gordon's attentive love, that this might be the happiest time of her life.

  In the months before the baby was born they decided that Gordon's continuing to commute to work wouldn't be possible. Instead, he would set up on his own as an accountant, and work from home. It might be difficult for the first few years, but Gordon had a few investments here and there, and at a pinch they could scrape by on Tess's salary. Gordon said, with his usual self-confidence, that he could make far more money self-employed than anyone ever did as an employee, and Tess believed him. Things would work out.

  Her labour was long and difficult. When at last the baby was placed in her arms Tess looked down at it, feeling exhausted and detached, wondering what this little creature had to do with her. She was glad when Gordon took it away from her. Lying back against the pillows she watched her husband.

  His face changed, became softer. Tess recognized that rapturous, melting expression because she had seen it occasionally, during sex. She had never seen him look at anyone else like that. She burst into tears.

  Gordon was beside her immediately, pushing the baby at her. But she didn't want the baby. She only wanted Gordon, although she couldn't stop crying long enough to tell him. He held her as she held the baby, and gradually his presence calmed her. After all, the baby was theirs. She and Gordon belonged to each other more certainly now than ever before. No longer merely a couple, they were now a family. She knew she should be happy.

  She tried to be happy, and sometimes she was, but this baby girl, called Lexi (short for Alexandra), made her feel not only love, but also fear and frustration and pain. Motherhood was not as instinctive as she had believed it would be, for Gordon was clearly better at it than she was, despite her physical equipment. Breast-feeding, which Tess had confidently expected to enjoy, was a disaster. No one had told her, and she had never dreamed, that it would hurt. And her suffering was in vain. Lexi didn't thrive until they put her on the bottle. Watching Gordon giving Lexi her late-night feed while she was meant to be sleeping, Tess tried not to feel left out.

  It was a relief, in a way, to be able to go back to work after six weeks: back to her own interests, to her students and colleagues, doing the things she knew she was good at. But it wasn't quite the same, for she missed Lexi when she wasn't around. Always, now, she felt a worrying tug of absence. For all the problems, she couldn't wish Lexi away. She only wished that loving Lexi could be as simple and straightforward as loving Gordon. If only she could explain herself to Lexi, she thought, and Lexi explain herself to Tess—if only they shared a language.

  When she said this to Gordon one evening after Lexi had been put to bed, he laughed.

  "She'll be talking soon enough, and then it'll be why? why? why? all the time, and demanding toys and candy and clothes. Right now, life is simple. She cries when she wants to have her diaper changed, or she wants to be fed, or she wants to be burped or cuddled. Then she's happy."

  "But you have to figure out what she wants," Tess said. "She can't tell you—that's my point. And if you do the wrong thing, she just goes on crying and getting more and more unhappy. I'm no more complex than Lexi, really. I have the same sorts of needs. But I can tell you what I want. If I started crying now, you'd probably think I wanted my dinner. But what I really want is a cuddle."

  He looked at her, tenderly, and left his chair to join her on the couch. He kissed her affectionately.

  She kissed him more demandingly, but he didn't respond. "You'll have to do better than that," she said. "Or I'll start crying."

  "I was thinking about dinner."

  "Forget about dinner. Why don't you check to see if my diapers need changing?"

  He laughed. Maybe he laughed too loudly, because a moment later, like a response, came Lexi's wail.

  "Leave her," said Tess. "She'll fall back to sleep."

  They sat tensely, holding each other, waiting for this to happen. Lexi's cries became louder and more urgent.

  Tess sighed. The moment had passed away. "I'll go," she said. "You fix dinner."

  Time alone with Gordon was what Tess missed most. Their desires, and the opportunity to make love, seldom meshed. As Lexi approached her first birt
hday she seemed to spend even more time awake and demanding attention. This affected not only her parents' relationship, but also Gordon's fledgling business. He was floundering, distracted by the demands of fatherhood, unable to put the time and energy he needed into building up a list of clients. Time was all he needed, Tess thought, and he must have that time. She thought it all through before approaching him about it, but she was certain that he would agree with her. He would be reasonable, as he always was. She didn't expect an argument.

  "Day-care!" he repeated, pronouncing it like an obscenity. "Leave Lexi in some crummy nursery? Are you kidding?"

  "Why are you sure it would be crummy? I'm not proposing we look for the cheapest place we can find. Of course we'll look around and see what's available, and choose the best we can afford."

  "But why?"

  "Because there's no way we can afford a full-time babysitter, you know that."

  "We don't need a full-time babysitter. We've got me."

  "That's what I mean. You're not being paid to look after Lexi, but while you're taking care of her you can't make a living."

  He stared at her. She couldn't read his expression; he was miles away from her. "I see. I've had my chance, and I've failed, so now I have to get a real job."

  "No!" She clutched his hand, then lowered her voice. "For heaven's sake, Gordon, I'm not criticizing you. And I'm not saying you should go to work for some company . . . I believe in you. Everything you said about being able to make a lot of money in a few years, I'm sure that's true. I know you'll make a success of it. Only . . . you need time. You can't be out meeting people, or writing letters, or balancing books if you have to keep breaking off to get Lexi her rattle. Your work needs attention just as much as she does . . . you have to be able to really commit yourself to it."

  "You're right," he said in his usual, reasonable tone. He sighed, and Tess's heart lifted as he said, "I've been thinking about it a lot, and coming to the same conclusion. Well, not quite the same conclusion. You're right that I can't get much work done while I'm looking after Lexi. Weekends aren't enough. But why do we have to pay someone else to look after Lexi? We can manage ourselves—we just need to be a little more flexible. We could divide up the week between us. You don't have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you stayed home then, and took responsibility for the weekends, too—why are you shaking your head?"

  "Just because I don't have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays doesn't mean I don't have work to do. I have to be around to supervise, to advise, and there's my research. When am I ever going to get my book written if I don't have some time to myself? We can't manage by ourselves. There's no shame in that. It's why day-care centres exist. We both have to make a living, and for that we need—"

  "What about what Lexi needs?"

  "Gordon, she'll have plenty of attention, we're not going to deprive her of anything."

  "We're going to deprive ourselves, though." He was almost vibrating with intensity. "Look, one of the greatest experiences in the world is bringing up a child. Teaching her, watching her change and grow every day. I don't want to miss out on that. Maybe in a couple of years, but not now. We can manage. So what if we're not rich? There are things more important than money and careers. If you spent more time with her yourself you'd know what I mean."

  "You think I don't spend enough time with her?" Tess said quietly.

  "I didn't say that."

  "But it's what you think. You think I'm selfish, or that my job is more important to me. It's not that. I love Lexi very much. I love her as much as you do. But I won't—I can't—let her absorb me. I miss her whenever I'm away from her, but I know I can't let my whole life revolve around her. You can't hold on to her forever. Eventually she'll have to grow up and leave us."

  "For God's sake, she's not even a year old! You're talking like I'm trying to stop her from going to college or something."

  "She may be a baby, but she's still a person. She has a life apart from you and me—she has to. And so do we. Not just individually, but as a couple. Or aren't we a couple anymore? Are we only Lexi's parents? I miss you, Gordon; I feel like—" She stopped, because if she said anything more she knew she would be crying.

  "Let's go to bed," Gordon said, not looking at her. "Let's not argue. We'll talk about it later."

  They went to bed and made love and, for a little while, Tess felt they had reached an understanding, had confirmed the love they still had for each other.

  But then the nightmare came.

  Lying in bed, drowsily aware of Gordon's close, sleeping warmth, Tess heard the window fly open. When she opened her eyes she saw, as she had known she would, the familiar, bone-white head of the mare staring in at her, waiting for her.

  Her heart sank. I won't move, she thought. I won't go. I will wake myself. But she struggled in vain to open her eyes, or to close Them, or even to turn her head so that the creature would be out of her sight. She felt the bitter chill of the winter night flooding the bedroom, and she began to shiver. I must close the window, she thought, and as she thought that, she realized she was getting up, and walking toward the creature who had come for her.

  Tess stared at the horse, recognizing the invitation in the toss of the pale head. She tried to refuse it. I don't wish anyone any harm, she thought. I love my daughter. I love my husband. I don't want you. Go away.

  But she could not wake, or speak, or do anything but walk in slow, somnambulist fashion towards the window, outside of which the nightmare ran in place on the wind.

  I don't want to hurt anyone—I won't! Oh, please, let me wake!

  But it was her own body which carried her, despite her mental protests, to the window and onto the sill. And as she struggled against the dream, almost crying with frustration, she flung herself through the open window, into the cold night, upon the nightmare's back.

  And then she was clinging desperately to the creature's neck, feeling herself slipping on its icy back, as it mounted the sky. The ride was nothing like the last one. She was terrified, and she knew she was in imminent danger of falling, if not of being thrown. Whatever she had once known of riding had vanished. The muscles in her thighs ached, and the cold had numbed her fingers. She didn't think she would be able to hang on for very long, particularly not if the mare continued to leap and swerve and climb so madly. Closing her eyes, Tess tried to relax, to let instinct take over. She pressed her cheek against the mare's neck and breathed in the smell of blood. Choking back her revulsion, she struggled to sit upright, despite the pressure of the wind. Neck muscles knotted and moved within her embrace, and the mare's long head turned back, one wild eye rolling to look at her.

  Tess felt herself slipping, sliding inexorably down. Unless the mare slowed her pace she would fall, she thought. She struggled to keep her grip on the creature's twisting neck, and because she still could not speak, sent one final, pleading look at the mare to ask for mercy. And just before the nightmare threw her, their eyes met, and Tess understood. Within the nightmare's eye she saw her daughter's cold, blue gaze: judgemental, selfish, pitiless.

  Wild, Wild Horses

  by

  Howard Waldrop

  Half-man and half-horse, the centaur is one of the few mythical creatures usually considered to be more human than beast. It's doubtful, for instance, that anyone would ask a sphinx or a griffin to tea, but centaurs, who had their own civilization and customs, were often admitted into human society. In spite of the rude and barbarous side of their natures (which was likely to emerge, with disastrous results, if you were unwise enough to get them drunk), centaurs were often portrayed as seers and sages, and the wisest of them, Chiron, was the teacher of Achilles, Aesculapius, and many of the other heroes of Greek mythology. So distinguished was Chiron, in fact, that when he died, Zeus raised him to the heavens as the constellation Sagittarius. Before that, however, he may have had one or two final adventures, as the sly and erudite story that follows vividly demonstrates . . .

  Howard Waldrop is widel
y considered to be one of the best short-story writers in the business, and his famous story "The Ugly Chickens" won both the Nebula and the World fantasy awards in 1981. His work has been gathered in three collections: Howard Who?, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past: Neat Stories by Howard Waldrop, and Night of the Cooters: More Neat Stories by Howard Waldrop, with more collections in the works. Waldrop is also the author of the novel The Texas-Israeli War: 1999, in collaboration with Jake Saunders, and of two solo novels, Them Bones and A Dozen Tough Jobs. He is at work on a new novel, tentatively entitled The Moon World. Waldrop lives in Austin, Texas.

  Up on the platform, Ambrose was preaching against the heathen, in Latin, to a crowd largely pagan who spoke only Greek.

  The spectacle of a man wailing, cajoling, pleading and cryingin another tongue had drawn a large gathering. "Go it, Roman!" some yelled encouragingly.

  The man on the raised boards at the edge of the marketplace redoubled his efforts, becoming a fountain of tears, a blur of gesticulations, now here, now there. Such preaching they hadn't seen since the old days when the Christians had been an outlawed sect.

  Then another man in the crowd yelled at the onlookers in Greek. "Listen not to him!" he said. "He's a patripassionist. He believes God Himself came down and took part in the suffering of Jesus Christ on the Cross! He denies the accepted Trinity of Father, Son, Holy Ghost! Come across the creek and hear the True Word, spoken by followers of the True Church. And in a language you can understand!"

  With a snarl, Ambrose flung himself over the railing and onto the other Christian. There was a great flurry of dust, growling and coughs as they tore at each other's faces and clothing. The crowd egged them on; this was better than preaching anytime.

  "What's all this, then?" asked an edile, on his morning inspection of the roadways. He began beating with his staff of office at the center of the struggle until, with yelps of pain, the two men separated.

  "Heretic!" shouted the second Christian.