The Winter Pony

by Iain Lawrence

  The Russian took me back to the forest. At first I thought it was kind of him to lead me there, and I hoped he would turn me loose to run again with the wild ponies. But he led me instead to a camp in the mountains, far from the place where I was born. He had a gang of men who were cutting trees and trimming them down to timbers. I had to drag the logs out of the forest, with one man pulling at my head while another whipped my flanks with a willow stick. All day I pulled in the harness, through mud and snow, in cold and heat, for so many months that I lost track of them all, and the months turned into years. In summer, flies laid eggs in the long welts across my back, and the itching nearly drove me mad. In winter, the maggots froze, bringing relief in one way but agony in another. With every smack of the stick, I screamed.

  There was not even a stable. I was tied to a tether near the bunkhouse, where the men all slept. When the weather was cold, I shivered for hours, and when it was warm, the flies came so thickly that I thought I’d be eaten alive. Every night, I hoped that I would slip away in my sleep and find myself at the gateway. I dreamed of that, of galloping up the slope to the ponies’ place.

  The work lasted five years, and when it was done, so was I. Just eight years old, I felt like seventeen.

  On a day in early spring, with patches of snow still on the ground, I was led out of the forest for the last time. The Russian drove a wagon and pulled me behind it, down through the valley, along a skidding trail that met a road that led us to the east.

  After several days of traveling, we came to a dry valley where a huge wall stretched clear across the land. It rose from the ridge to the south, dipped through the valley and up to the ridge to the north, like a stone snake curled across the hills. And in the middle of the valley was a city.

  What a bustle of people there were! By the thousands they hurried in every direction, like ants on a great mound, churning a haze of dust. Street sellers called out to the Russian, trying to sell him rugs and shoes and animals of every kind, both alive and dead. Little black monkeys chattered in their cages as they reached pink hands through the bars. But the Russian never turned his head as he drove along, tugging me through the city.

  In a dirty field below the wall, a horse fair was under way. A mob of ponies had been gathered on a bit of grass, and thousands of people had come to buy them. Some of the ponies were being ridden madly through the crowd while others stood in long, tethered rows. Many looked old and weary, but just as many were strong young things, with years of work ahead of them. A few were utterly mad, turning in fury on any man who came too close.

  The Russian gave me up to a dirty little Mongol in black clothes, in exchange for a very small handful of money. He looked at me one last time, and spat at my feet.

  I was glad to be rid of him but frightened as well, for it seemed that every change took me to something worse, that each of my owners was more horrid than the last. The Mongol grabbed my halter and hauled me off across the fairground. His hair, in a filthy pigtail, swung back and forth across his neck.

  I expected to be put in among the other strong ponies, to be sent to work again in the forest. But instead, I joined a sad little group that no buyer was bothering to look at. I was tethered among the old and the sick, with those who were crazy and those who had never been tamed. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would buy them, and I wondered—for the first time—what happened to worn-out ponies. Were they turned loose in the forest to find their old herds? Were they put out to pasture in a farmer’s field, with nothing to do but sleep and eat? Or was there something else that I couldn’t even imagine? I hoped for the best but feared for the worst.

  All day we stood in the heat and the dust and the sun. People passed in great numbers, and the Mongol grew more and more fretful. He waved his arms faster; he shouted louder. He began to reach out and grab the sleeves of passing men.

  Most shook him off with a disdainful look, as though the dirty little Mongol was another monkey in a cage. The only man who stopped to look at me was strangely pale and pink. He was an Englishman, the first I’d ever seen, with a Russian boy walking beside him.

  The Englishman looked me over from head to toe. He came closer, lifting his arm toward me. I flinched. But instead of hitting me, the Englishman froze. He stood with his hand in the air until I stopped trembling. Then he looked me right in the eye.

  “It’s all right,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  I sensed a caring in his voice, a tone I’d never heard. He reached out again, this time very slowly, and I tried not to shake, in case that made him angry. I let him stroke my nose. I let him pat the place between my ears and comb his fingers through my forelock. At first I wanted to run away. But he said, “There, there,” in that quiet voice, and I just closed my eyes and shivered.

  The Mongol looked surprised. Then he grabbed the boy by the arm, and the two babbled madly in Russian. They waved their arms, they shouted, but the Englishman kept petting me. When he took his hand away, I was disappointed. I snorted and moved a bit closer, hoping he would touch me again. But now he was the one who shied away, and I saw that he was a little bit afraid of me, as I had been of him. He didn’t feel safe with a big animal pressing against him. So he moved to my shoulder and rubbed the muscles there, and when he found the scars in my skin, he touched them very gently. His fingers lingered on the spot where a man had broken a bottle long ago. He said in a whisper, “Someone’s done some very dreadful things to you.”

  The Mongol and the Russian were still talking, though now less frantically. The Englishman reached into his pocket, a quick movement that alarmed me. I skittered off with a frightened little whimper. For a moment he froze again. Then his hand slowed down, and when it came out of his pocket, I saw that he was holding a small white cube, like a tiny block of snow. He lifted it to my mouth, his hand splayed as flat as a stone.

  I had lived eight years but never tasted sugar. I couldn’t believe that anything could be so good. I hoped there was another block of sugar in the Englishman’s pocket, so I nudged against him, and that made him laugh. “Ah,” he said. “I’ve got a friend for life now, haven’t I?” Then he rubbed my nose again and turned toward his companion. “What do you think of this one?” he asked.

  “Good pony,” said the boy. He gestured down the row of old animals as the Mongol smiled slyly behind him. “All ponies, good ponies.”

  The Englishman stroked his chin. I tried to follow him when he walked down the row, but only tugged up on my tether. I hoped he would buy me.

  He looked only at the light-colored ponies. All others he passed right by, though some were the best of all. When he was far down the line, I heard a pony nicker, and another cry out in fear. I saw one rear up, suddenly rising above the others. It snorted and whinnied; it struck out with its forelegs. Then the Englishman stumbled backward, and the boy tried to pull him away.

  The pony kept rising up on its hind legs, plunging and rising again. Dimly at first, I remembered that pony. When I saw the dark patch on its chest, a thousand memories came back very clearly. It was the silvery stallion I had known long ago, the leader who had watched over me when I was young. He was more gray now than silver. His back was bent, his shoulders strained from pulling, and his eyes had a wild stare that made him seem quite mad. But as he towered up on his hind legs, mane and forelock flying, he looked just as strong and magnificent as ever.

  I called out in a high-pitched whinny, but there was no answer from the stallion. I saw the Englishman get up and slap bits of straw from his clothes. “Well, that one’s got spirit,” he said.

  He bought the stallion. He bought nineteen others, including me. Most were old or mean or angry, but all as white as snow. The Englishman seemed very pleased with himself, though the Mongol was even more delighted.

  That very day—that very hour—we were led away by the Russian boy. Some, like the stallion, fought him all the way. They kicked and bucked so wildly that people ran to hide in doorways. But in the end, th
e boy won. He got us to the railway yard, and a train arrived in the morning.

  The train had a whistle that was high and shrill, like the cry of a frightened rabbit. I looked toward the sound and saw smoke above the buildings, a line of gray and black. The huffs and puffs of the engine pulsed in the air like the breaths of a terrible creature. Then the engine came chugging around a corner, black and filthy, snorting steam, swaying from side to side.

  It frightened me. I had never seen a train, and I didn’t like the sounds or smells. When the smoke wafted over us, we all jostled uneasily, every pony trying to find a bit of space where there wasn’t even room to turn around.

  A Russian standing guard shouted at us to be quiet. He whacked the fence with his stick.

  The engine’s breaths grew louder. It whistled again with a piercing blast, and the stallion started kicking. He reared up and bashed at the fence, his ears pressed back, his nostrils flaring. He flung himself against the boards, wanting only to get away.

  The man shouted again. He made his stick swish and whistle as he swung it at the stallion. He struck the pony across the eye, and a dark line opened in the silvery hair.

  The stallion cowered back. He blinked and hung his head with a sad little whimper.

  I had seen that pony drive away a mountain bear. I had watched him take on three wolves at once, kicking at two while he grabbed the third with his teeth. But now he was just an old and frightened thing, flinching from a willow branch.

  The man stood up on the fence rails. He hit every pony that he could reach and didn’t stop until he was out of breath. He was coughing then, doubled over with his hands on his knees, still holding the stick that dripped with our sweat and our blood.

  I hoped the train would take me to the ponies’ place. In a sense it did, though the journey was so long and so hard that I couldn’t have known it started then.

  We were pushed aboard a cattle car, and a door was slammed behind us. It was dark in there, and scary, until the sun found his way between the boards. He reached through narrow cracks and knotholes, touching my ribs. A golden mist of trampled straw floated in the air, making me sneeze and snort. With a puff of the engine and a jolt of cars, we started on our way.

  It was hard to balance against the rolling of the train. We all swayed and rocked together, like the fat women who danced in the lumber camps. Through day and night the train carried us on, stopping only when the engine was thirsty. I was thirsty too, but there was no water for me, though I heard it splashing out across the tracks at every watering place.

  We traveled through forests that smelled of moss and mushrooms, reminding me of my first days. We crossed a range of stony hills, rattling over many bridges above rivers that roared and foamed. We went all the way to the ocean, and down to the docks where the Englishman was waiting.

  His name, I learned, was Mr. Meares. He brought along a doctor who looked us over and shook his head. The doctor told Mr. Meares that someone had pulled wool over his eyes, which seemed a strange thing to say. “They’re the poorest lot of animals I’ve ever seen,” he said. He pointed to a wheezy pony whose shoulders were crooked from pulling carts. “That one stays behind.”

  “Why?” asked the Englishman.

  “Just look at him,” said the doctor. “He’s got glanders, for starters. He’ll give it to the rest, and likely to you as well.”

  So the pony stayed behind. On a hot and rainy day, nineteen of us were loaded onto an old steamer that was stained with rust. One by one we were hoisted in a wooden box that swayed at the end of a rope.

  I was scared to get into that box and swing up through the air. I didn’t know where the ship would take me. I wanted to go back to the forests, even back to the lumber camps if I could. The stallion was more frightened than me. When the men came to take him, he bolted. He pulled away, smashed through the fence, and went galloping down the dock.

  Another pony followed, the two of them racing through a crowd of people who scattered like locusts. But they were soon caught and dragged back, soon loaded on the ship.

  It was my turn next, and I trembled in the box. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the water underneath me, and when the box thumped down on the deck, I thought the bottom had fallen open. I was taken out and put into a very narrow stall. It didn’t seem so bad, really—until the dogs came aboard.

  They were big and vicious things, with enormous teeth and narrow eyes. They seemed wild as wolves, or even wilder, and bared their teeth at men, at ponies, at each other. They were chained to railings and boxes and machines until the ship seemed covered with dogs. Every one of them howled and barked without stopping.

  Like every pony, I feared dogs more than anything else. I didn’t feel safe with them all around me, but all I could do was close my eyes and pretend they weren’t there.

  Then the ship headed out to sea, and I went toward a new life. I didn’t expect anything but misery.

  These things I’d learned when I was young: Life is short and men are cruel, and ponies are born to suffer. I decided that I would work as hard as I could at whatever job I was given, believing that I would earn my reward in the end and live forever in the ponies’ place.

  In the ponies’ place, men would serve the animals. In the ponies’ place, the stables would be warm, well padded with straw, and the blankets would come straight from the stove, still hot and soft and smoky-smelling. My scars would heal at the ponies’ place. And not once in ten thousand years would I feel the sting of whip or lash.

  In London, on the first of June, Captain Scott’s ship leaves for the south. Her name is Terra Nova. She’s an old Scottish whaler, built for the Arctic, armed against ice. She has three masts and a tall funnel that spews smoke among the sails. A steam engine deep in her hold burns three tons of coal every hour.

  There’s a crowd cheering on the dock as she sets out into the river. Tiny children wave good-bye to their fathers. Women weep and laugh at once. They all watch until the ship rounds the bend and passes out of sight. But they still hear the whistles of boats and barges and ships, every vessel on the river saluting the Terra Nova as she passes.

  Scott is not aboard. Still short of money for his expedition, he stays behind to finish his preparations. Six weeks later, with his wife but not their newborn son, he takes the fast mail ship to Africa to meet the Terra Nova down in Capetown.

  He knows that other men are hoping to reach the Pole. But he believes he’s far ahead of anyone else. He plans to go slowly, giving his scientists time for their work.

  In Capetown, he takes command of the Terra Nova and sets off for Australia. He finds that his old whaler leaks quite badly, and he’s disappointed by her slow speed and great appetite for coal.

  The voyage takes longer than he’d planned. He leaves the ship and sends her on to New Zealand, where his ponies and dogs are already waiting. On shore in Melbourne, he finds old mail that’s been kept for his arrival. Among the many letters is a telegram.

  It’s a very short message from Amundsen:

  BEG LEAVE INFORM YOU

  PROCEEDING ANTARCTIC

  The telegram is dated September 9, 1910. It was sent from Spain and is already five weeks old.

  Scott hurries off again, making his way to New Zealand to join his ship and push on to the Pole.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE voyage on the old steamer was a misery, for the most part. I was not used to a floor that moved underneath me, and the roll of the ship made me terribly sick. The sun was too hot, the sea too bright. The stench from the dogs was unbearable.

  I wanted water all the time but got it only twice a day, when the Russian boy came around with a bucket. I always leaned toward it over the top of my stall, my lips fluttering at the lovely smell of water. But every time, just as I started to drink, the Russian whipped away the bucket.

  My legs ached because I couldn’t lie down. My back itched from the soot that fell from the funnel, a black rain that covered almost everything except the wretched dogs. They wa
tched me endlessly, their savage little eyes just slits in their fur.

  Sometimes Mr. Meares came by and petted me, but not very often. He cared more about the dogs than he did about the ponies. It was the same with his dog driver, a Russian I seldom saw and never grew to like. And the boy—a jockey—was so excited by the journey that he sometimes forgot about the ponies.

  We sailed south forever, right through the winter without even seeing it. We left in summer and finished in spring, with a fiery sun growing hotter every day.

  We landed on an island where the grass grew green and thick, where the trees were wide and shady. There was a sandy beach to run along, and we raced through the shallows, kicking up foam.

  This wasn’t at all what I’d expected. Some of the ponies, especially the older ones, would have lived happily there forever. The heat was good for their bones, while the sun made them sleepy and lazy, and there were often three or four sprawled on the grass at once. I had to stand in the shade, swatting insects with my tail. I was a winter pony, with a thick mane and shaggy hair. I liked crisp mornings when I breathed white steam, rivers of ice-cold water, and mountains with snow on their tops.

  But for the moment, I was very happy. The whip and the lash were as scarce as icicles. The men seemed to have no meanness in them. Yet I couldn’t believe I would never be hit, and so I flinched whenever a man raised a hand to scratch his hair or trim his hat. “Easy, lad,” I heard a hundred times a day. “Easy, lad. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Mr. Meares put on short trousers and soon turned his legs to the same fiery shade as his face. He grew enormous stains of sweat on the back and the arms of his shirt, and he wore a handkerchief underneath his hat to shield himself twice from the sun.