Meet the Sky

by McCall Hoyle

  “Which way?” I ask.

  “That way.” He points left, shouting over the roaring surf.

  I don’t move. “Are you sure?”

  “No.” He descends the hill.

  “I think it was closer.” Without hard evidence or a valid argument, I find myself hesitating. I remember how Finn’s gut led us to Zeke’s shack, and how his gut told him to remove the metal from my shoulder. Suddenly, I want to follow my gut. I don’t know how it will work out, but Finn’s gut seems to work for him. I tell myself mine can work for me as I trudge down the hill in front of him. When another, steeper hill rises in front of us, I ascend it diagonally. He tags along. We pause at the crest to survey our surroundings.

  Sure enough, right where I predicted, the silt fence twists and jerks. A chestnut-brown horse lies on its side, back legs tangled in the fence, thrashing for its life. It looks like the horse I saw hunkered down in the brush back at Zeke’s—the one separated from his herd.

  Mom and Dad’s warnings about the horses swirl in my head, bringing a bit of doubt. When I was a child, my family spent thousands of hours researching, observing, and fighting to protect these animals. When other families went to the movies or bowling, we visited Eastern North Carolina libraries to find tidbits of information on these horses, which could be traced back five hundred years to the Spanish explorers who brought them here.

  If my parents told me once, they told me a thousand times, Sophie, these are not pets like our horses. These are wild animals. They need to be respected and treated as such—for their safety and for ours. Even domesticated horses can be dangerous. A kick to the head or chest can cause permanent damage, even death. The widow of the guy who used to shoe our horses can vouch for that. An eight- to twelve-hundred-pound horse can wield a powerful kick.

  As we approach, the horse’s nostrils flare. He smells us. Even from this distance, the red flesh lining the insides of his nose and the whites of his wild eyes are visible. His ears flick back and forth, trying to get a read on us.

  “Sophie. Wait.” Finn grabs my arm, pulling me to a stop several yards from the fence. “Let’s think about this a minute.”

  I point over his shoulder. “We don’t have a minute.”

  In the gray pre-dawn light, angry clouds swirl to the south. Our window of calm will slam shut soon. The backside of this storm is preparing to drop on us like a sledgehammer. We can’t be caught out in the open. That didn’t work so well for me or my shoulder last time. Now we don’t even have Finn’s puny trash can lid for armor.

  “We need to cut him loose,” I say, raising my voice over the pounding surf and rising wind.

  “Cut?” His face screws up like I’m speaking a different language. “We don’t have a knife. We’re going to have to get close and yank.”

  Clearly, he knows nothing about horses. Dealing with a panicked, wild horse’s back legs is a death wish.

  “I have an idea,” I tell him.

  “It better be good,” he says, stepping aside.

  The horse lifts his head from the sand, snorting and wild-eyed. I can’t explain it, but as we lock eyes, I can read his mind, or at least his terror—that threatened, out-of-control, under-attack terror that constricts the chest and squeezes the air from your lungs. My palms sweat for him. I’m pretty sure I’m panting. This whole situation is beyond awful.

  But it’s not just the horse or the storm. It’s the way everything seems to go in my life. Sisters shouldn’t suffer brain injuries. Dads shouldn’t choose Jim Beam over flesh-and-blood daughters. Okay, maybe human beings are a train wreck. As much as I hate to admit it, maybe we do deserve a bit of the suffering we create. But not animals—not innocent animals. This beautiful horse never did anything to anyone. And if he dies, there won’t be any of Finn’s peaceful beauty here. We don’t even have drugs to put him out of his misery. If he dies, it’s going to be slow and painful and terrifying, cut off from his herd and confused, chewed up and swallowed by the ravenous surf.

  As if to prove my point, the horse shrieks. His sides heave as he tries to drag himself to his feet. With his front legs curled under his chest, he manages to heft his heavy front end a few inches above the sand. When he tries to pull his hind legs under his belly, for leverage, the silt fence cuts into his skin. Blood oozes from the leg where the fence pinches his flesh.

  A rush of adrenaline shoots through my arms and legs, and instinct kicks in. I know what we have to do. I’ve seen Doc Wiggins do it with sick and panicked horses. One of us has to get control of the big guy’s head. If we control the head, we control the rest of him. The other needs to do the untangling.

  “It’s now or never.” Finn takes a step forward.

  “Wait.” I reach for his arm, but he slips away. “I know what I’m doing, Finn.” I can’t let him rush in headlong. I have to take the lead here. But I’d rather not risk my life. Mom needs me. Another accident would kill her—if not physically, then emotionally. And Mere needs her. If Mom loses it, there’s no one to care for Mere. I vowed to take care of them both, and I will.

  But this horse is a lot like Mere. He needs someone who can problem solve for him. I have to do something.

  Before I can stop Finn, he steps within reach of the horse’s back hooves. With the strength that comes only from adrenaline and panic, the horse manages to kick despite the fence tangling his legs. A sharp hoof grazes Finn’s side. His mouth opens in a silent scream as he doubles at the waist and retreats to where I stand.

  I grip his upper arm with one hand and run the other down his side, feeling for protruding ribs.

  “I . . . I’m . . . fine. It just scared me.” He shakes his shaggy hair out of his eyes and presses his lips together. “I’m just not sure how we’re going to do this.”

  He looks defeated, which is such a foreign look on him, it kind of scares me.

  “I told you I’ve got this,” I say. “I’ve seen my vet deal with horses like this.”

  His face hardens a bit. “Sophie, I told you—”

  “Just give me your windbreaker.”

  He looks doubtful, but he does what I ask. As he’s slipping out of his jacket, I bend down and remove a lace from one of my tennis shoes. His eyebrows lift.

  I step close to him, tilting my face up to his so I don’t have to shout and further frighten the horse. “Horses are stimulated by their vision. I’m going to cover his eyes and ears with this.” I hold up the jacket.

  “What about that?” He points at the shoelace.

  “Trust me.” I toss his words back at him. After a short pause, he laughs, deep and true from his belly, then steps back to watch as I inch toward the horse’s head.

  “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay, buddy. I got you. I got you,” I chant rhythmically. He lifts his head to struggle, but the fight’s gone from him. Holding my breath, I crouch behind his head for half a second. Then in one swift movement, I drape the jacket over his ears and eyes, just like I’ve seen Doc do. My reflexes kick in, like they always do when I’m confronted with an animal in crisis. Without pausing to think, I gently swing one thigh over the horse’s neck, straddling him. Breathing deeply, I tighten the jacket around the top half of his head.

  Glancing over my shoulder at Finn, I flash a thumbs-up. With my free hand, I wrap the shoelace around the horse’s top lip. But I need more leverage to create the makeshift twitch Dad showed me how to use. The calming distraction works on our horses when they’re spooked. I hope it will work on the wild pony too.

  “Help. Please,” I hiss, lifting my jaw toward Finn and handing him the shoelace. The horse’s neck tenses between my thighs. One wrong move and one or both of us could be bitten, kicked, or crushed. “Loop it. Twirl it tight and hand it back to me.”

  Our eyes lock for a fraction of a second. He passes me the twisted lace without question. When I tilt my head toward the horse’s muscular hind end, Finn nods and steps toward the horse’s back legs. Sheets of muscle ripple beneath my thighs, but the horse’s shrouded head r
emains flat on the sand. I loop the lace around his top lip, tight enough to make him think about it, but not tight enough to hurt. His jaw spasms, and the lace slips through my slick palm. We’re pressing our luck here. This situation has the potential to get really ugly, really quickly.

  I don’t have to tell Finn to approach from a different angle this time. He’s a quick learner. There’s no way to completely avoid the horse’s back legs, but he gets a somewhat safer angle by approaching the horse from above instead of from directly behind. I focus on immobilizing the horse’s head and neck as Finn reaches toward the silt fence and the thrashing legs. Gritting my teeth, I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to be dislodged as the horse squirms beneath me.

  I count to one hundred to maintain my calm focus. When a hand clamps my good shoulder, I startle. Of course, it’s Finn. He’s grinning ear to ear. He nods at the horse’s back legs. Blinking, I exhale. We did it. The horse is untangled—free.

  “Stand back,” I say, releasing the twisted shoelace and dismounting the horse’s neck. Sliding the windbreaker from its head, I retreat. Finn follows close behind. From the safety of the next dune, I turn to check on our horse. He’s standing, but his head hangs below his withers, and he sways tiredly.

  The wind picks up as I turn back to Finn. “We did it,” I murmur.

  Holding my gaze, he pulls me into a hug. “You did it,” he says against my hair.

  As I look up at his face, a ripple of heat passes from my cheeks, to my chest, to my belly, where it settles and spreads to the rest of me. The world buzzes around me in a blur of white noise. This time it’s not from the storm around me. It’s from something inside me. My vision narrows until all I see is his face, his eyes, his . . . lips.

  My breath catches, but I don’t pull away. My lips part, and I don’t try to stop them. He leans closer. When his lower lip brushes mine, I can taste the salt on him. My head tilts. It’s kind of like riding a galloping horse. Your body just kind of knows if you want to stay on, you have to lean into it. And all of me is leaning in.

  Finn’s hand slides around the back of my neck. My chest rises and falls, like I’m running. My pulse pounds in my ears. I’ve never wanted anything so desperately in my life. It’s instinctual. I couldn’t stop this train if I wanted to.

  A crack of lightning rips the sky.

  But Mother Nature sure can.

  My eyes fly open. Finn’s hand drops from my neck. Without speaking, we bolt hand in hand for the safety of the church and its little parish house. We’ve lived through enough hurricanes to know lightning and hurricanes don’t mix. At best, this is a strange development in the weather. At worst, it’s the precursor to weather the likes of which the Outer Banks hasn’t seen in the last century.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

  There isn’t time to discuss the significance of the thunder and lightning, but by how fast Finn’s running, it’s pretty obvious he’s thinking what I’m thinking. Hurricanes don’t generally spawn lightning. It has something to do with lightning being formed by vertical winds, and the hurricanes being made up of mostly horizontal winds. When a storm like this discharges the kind of lightning we just witnessed, it signals something bizarre at work. If I were a betting girl, I’d put money on some kind of super weather event in the making.

  In the two or three minutes it takes us to reach the road and the boardwalk leading up to the church, the wind increases dramatically. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck tingles from the electricity in the air. I glance over my shoulder near the top of the hill to check on our wild pony friend. My heart sinks at the sight of him swaying on three legs, his fourth tucked up like he doesn’t want to put weight on it. In that condition, he won’t reach the next dune. He won’t escape the storm surge. He won’t make it.

  “This sucks,” I grumble. With hands balled into fists at my sides, I rack my brain for a last-ditch rescue attempt—something brave and heroic. Maybe I could craft a halter and lead rope out of belts and clothing and coax the horse to safety with my super Spidey horse sense.

  But neither of us is wearing a belt or any extra clothes. And this isn’t a domesticated horse. This is a wild animal.

  “It sucks big time,” Finn agrees.

  Despite my clenched-jaw determination, I know in my heart Mom, Dad, and Doc Wiggins would all tell me to let go and trust the animal and its instincts. I could concoct some epic rescue—like the well-meaning tourists who tried to herd an escaped horse to safety but ended up herding the panicked animal into oncoming traffic—and cause more harm than good.

  Finn tugs on my hand, his face as grim as mine feels. With tears welling in my eyes, we race the last fifty yards to shelter. As we enter the house, Finn slams the door behind us. Leaning back against the door, he pants. I stumble to the couch. Resting my elbows on my knees, I grip my head in my hands. Our little sanctuary on higher ground doesn’t feel so safe anymore—not with the backside of the storm bearing down on us and that poor horse out there on his own.

  “Sophie, I think we might want to hole up in the closet till this passes.”

  I nod. The rising wind speaks for itself as I race around the living area grabbing pillows and blankets. Trying to remain calm, I remind myself we’re out of reach of the storm surge. In most cases, water is more dangerous than wind. But this hurricane, with its freakish lightning, suddenly makes me doubt what I know to be true—that and the tension of the air. I swear I can feel some sort of magnetic force pushing and pulling on the frame of the house. I don’t know whether to be afraid it will splinter and scatter or afraid it will implode on us.

  “This way.” Finn motions to the back room I haven’t explored.

  I clutch the linens against my chest and follow. “Do you think—”

  “We’re going to be fine. I know,” he says. But the crease between his eyebrows is deep. He grunts as he chucks clothes and shoes out of the closet to make room inside for the two of us. We work in silence, lining the floor with pillows and blankets. When a gust of wind rattles the bedroom windows, Finn pulls me inside the cramped space and closes the door. Our ragged breathing and the muffled wind camouflage the silence.

  We sit side by side this time, with our backs pressed against the rear wall and our knees drawn to our chests. When I shiver, Finn drapes an arm across my neck, careful to avoid my injured shoulder. I lean into his side, careful to avoid his bad ribs. We’re wrecks.

  “We’ve got to quit meeting in dark closets. People will talk,” he says, joking as he bumps his knee against mine.

  I glance around our hiding spot. I can’t see Finn’s face, but I can smell him—all sticky salt and rainwater. “What time do you think it is?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Before noon. It doesn’t really matter. Does it?”

  “Do you think it will last much longer?”

  He shrugs again. “No idea.”

  I turn my face toward where his should be, inches from mine in the darkness. “You don’t care about anything, do you?”

  “I care about a lot of things.” His breath brushes my cheek, and I know he’s turned to face me as well. “I just try not to worry about stuff I can’t control.”

  Here we go again. “I prefer to think of it as using resources wisely. I can get more done in eight hours than most people can in twelve.”

  “You know about chronos and kairos, right?” he asks.

  “Yes, Finn. I know my Greek mythology.” Seriously? Where is he going with this? He called us friends back at Zeke’s. Anyone who knows anything about me knows I’ve got some mean mythology chops.

  “Yeah, but I’m not talking about the gods. I’m talking about the words.”

  “They both mean time.” I interrupt, trying to ward off another one of his lectures.

  “Yes and no,” he says. “Yes, they both mean time. But chronos is clock time—schedules, calendars, and alarms. Kairos is more like moment than time. I
t’s like nirvana. It’s riding the perfect wave. It’s the blush of sunrise on a deserted beach. It’s not keeping track of time. It’s losing sight of it—being lost in the moment—in the zone.”

  Despite his poetic little monologue and the warmth of his body beside mine, I feel my defenses going up.

  “You’re saying I’m too uptight about time?” I scoot a little toward my end of the closet.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “But think about it. It is kind of a trade-off. If you focus on one, you lose the other. You can’t have both.”

  I can’t take it any longer. I need him to shut up, to stop all this talk of being lost in the moment. Before I can control it, my body commits the ultimate act of treachery. The upper half of me tilts forward, close enough to brush the corner of his mouth with my lips.

  When he nibbles my lower lip, my insides melt. I’m pretty sure my brain melts. I lace my hands behind his neck just as he pulls back an inch.

  Drawing my hands from behind his neck, he grasps them against his pounding heart. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  My heart snaps in my chest like a rubber band. Maybe I read his signs all wrong. “Do you?”

  He lets out a breathy laugh. “Are donuts a delicacy?”

  Shaking my head, I try to make sense of his confusing answer. The awkward pause lasts just long enough to clear my head.

  “I’m . . . not sure what I want,” I say, being totally honest.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “You’re wrong about one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m not all chronos.”

  The laugh I’m growing dangerously fond of erupts from his belly. He squeezes my hand. “When this storm ends and we’re not trapped in a closet, I want to see more of that Sophie.”

  I squeeze his hand in return, trying to picture the two of us together back in the real world—me with my schedules and responsibilities and calendars, him a free spirit going wherever the next wind or wave takes him.