Red River Stallion

by Troon Harrison

  Fireaway was sixteen hands high, a red roan stallion from the English county of Norfolk. He was, in fact, a Norfolk Trotter, a strong and well-muscled breed with the ability to pull carriages or to carry a rider, moving at a swift and steady trot over long distances. Fireaway had been purchased by Lord Selkirk’s experimental farm in the new colony of the Red River in southern Manitoba. The settlers needed to plough the prairie into fields for crops; they wanted big horses to haul wagons and move loads. The mustangs of the Native peoples seemed too small for these farming tasks. If a large stallion could be imported from England, and bred with the local mares of mustang stock, the large, strong foals would benefit the new settlement. So began Fireaway’s journey.

  Loaded into the belly of a three-masted ship in slings, he endured many weeks at sea, rolling across the Atlantic ocean, edging between ice floes, slipping into Hudson Bay in the few weeks of northern summer that it was free of ice. Then this great animal was persuaded to climb into a boat, an open, wooden boat, based upon Viking design and rowed by men sitting on benches. For six hundred miles, the Norfolk stallion stood or lay in the little boat, travelling west to help found a new line of horses in the Canadian west.

  Norfolk Trotters were common in England at the time, and the breed’s origins date to the 1300s when English royalty required the creation of a horse that was powerful and attractive, and could move at an excellent trot. Henry VII, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I all passed acts of Parliament concerning the breeding of trotting horses. The Yorkshire Roadster was a closely related breed to the Norfolk Trotter; both breeds were created by crossing native mares with Oriental stallions. Both breeds traced their line back to one especially influential stallion born in 1755 and named Original Shales, who in turn traced his line to the famous Darley Arabian. English riders liked to pit their trotters against one another in matches of speed and endurance; it was common for a horse to carry a heavy man at speeds of seventeen miles per hour over rough ground for many hours. By 1833, these trotters had formed the foundation stock for the modern Hackney, a handsome horse with high, elegant action.

  The development of the railway led to the decline of horses bred for travelling, and the Norfolk Trotter and Yorkshire Roadster both became extinct. However, their bloodlines live on in the showy Hackney, which remains a crowd favourite in the exhibition ring, and also in the Standardbred harness racing horse. This became an official breed in 1880. Still very popular on tracks in Canada and America, this breed retains its ancestor’s ability to trot or pace at high speeds (often a mile in under two minutes) with a flowing, smooth action while pulling a lightweight sulky. It is propelled by powerful haunches and has hind legs placed behind the croup to give a piston-like action. The Standardbred’s calm temperament makes it easy to train, handle, transport and race, and it is the horse of choice for pulling Amish buggies. When the racing career of a Standardbred ends, it adapts willingly to life as a pleasure mount.

  And Fireaway? Although he arrived safely at the Red River colony, and was a subject of great admiration there, nothing seems to be known about his eventual fate. Somewhere, perhaps on a ranch in the Canadian prairie, there must still be fine horses that carry Fireaway’s genetic material mingled with the ancient Andalusian strain beloved by European monarchs and generals, bullfighters and riders of haute école. And somewhere, perhaps on an oval track, there might be a Standardbred speeding along in a blur of legs, pulling its sulky and carrying the genes of the red roan Norfolk Trotter.

  This novel, though fiction, was inspired by the remarkable true story of Fireaway, brave of heart, who came to help settle the New World in 1830.

  Acknowledgements

  With special thanks to dear Aimee and Leigh Adams, who so generously brought us a Standardbred gelding. It is inspirational to watch Malibu trotting through our fields!

  My thanks to my friend, Barbara Mitchell, for giving my first draft an attentive, discerning read. It was a pleasure to compare notes about our research into fur-trade activities in Canada.

  Also, my thanks to Mollie Cartmell and James Raffan at the Canadian Canoe Museum for taking time to answer questions about transporting animals along rivers. I am indebted also to staff at the Centre for Rupert’s Land Society.

  Once again, it has been a pleasure to work with my wonderful translator, Werner Löcker-Lawrence. Thanks also to Diana Hickman and Isabel Ford, my super editors in London, and to Caroline Abbey for so ably taking care of my novels in New York. Thank you all for your unflagging attention to the fine details of words!

  Also by Troon Harrison

  The Horse Road

  Nothing beats the rush of wind through your hair when racing on the back of a Persian stallion.

  Read on for a peek at The Horse Road

  Kallisto looks forward to running the famous Persian horses every year. But on one fateful day, her friend Batu’s horse is injured and she must stop to help him. In the quiet of the mountainside, Kalli and Batu spy the Chinese army marching toward their city. Can Kalli save her family and friends and protect her beloved herd?

  The golden stallion danced beneath me, his coat flaring like flame as the morning sun tipped its brightness over the Alay Mountains.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ Batu cried, fighting his snorting mount to a standstill.

  ‘Ready! Ready!’ we all cried in reply, our horses bouncing along an invisible ragged line at the crest of the hill. In our imaginations this line marked the beginning of our race, and we had ridden out from the nomad camp at dawn to reach it.

  The Hsiung-nu boys and girls gripped their legs around horse blankets, for no one except me owned a saddle, and hauled on reins. Their faces were tense with excitement, focused with determination. Back in the camp, there would be prizes of harness and ribbons for winning this race, but more glorious than that was the honour of riding the winner. Gryphon and I had to win; my mother’s horses were much sought after. If we won this race, the nomads would barter for the right to have their mares bred by Gryphon; every year, my mother and I would bring him out here into the mountains, into the summer pastures. In return, the nomads would give my mother felt rugs to sell in the city, and hard cheese they’d dried on the roofs of their yurts; they would come to my Greek merchant father when they needed new iron daggers, or coral necklaces for their wives and daughters. It was our horses that helped to support us, that helped to pay for my brothers’ schooling, and for the beautiful objects from all over the world that filled our city home. It was our horses that helped to make us so rich that my father could betroth me, his only daughter, to the son of the king’s Falconer.

  I must win this race! Then everyone in the camp would crowd around Gryphon, the winner! They would admire his glorious golden coat with its hard metallic shine, its pale dapples. They would run their hands down his long, clean legs with black stockings; his elegant face with its fine veins; his black tail tied in a knot behind his hindquarters. ‘He’s the best one!’ they would cry, their wind-reddened faces alight with respect.

  ‘Steady now, steady,’ I muttered as Gryphon shied, his hooves sending small stones clattering downhill. Patting his neck, I felt the tension in his muscles. I couldn’t hold him much longer, my beautiful Persian horse.

  ‘Come on, Batu!’ I yelled to my friend, crouched on a bay mare to my right. He grinned mischievously, his long black hair lifting in a breath of chilly air. He liked making us all wait. We were like arrows, held against quivering bowstrings before the moment of release.

  ‘Kalli!’ Batu called to me, teasing as usual. ‘You ready to lose? You ready to run in dust?’

  ‘You’ll be running in Gryphon’s dust!’ I cried back.

  Beneath us, the valley plunged downwards through the mountains. It seemed impossibly steep, strewn with stones and low-growing shrubs. Beyond the valley the foothills lay like dropped fabric, in soft folds of lush summer grass and wild flowers: the bright splash of poppies, the tall stems of blue iris. Further away still, two days’ ride in the distance, lay
my city home of Ershi, in the wide Golden Valley of Ferghana where vines and wheat and apricot trees grew beside irrigation canals.

  My stallion bounced sideways, dragging at the thin leather reins bunched in my hands. He mouthed at his bronze bit, and his curb chain rattled. My mother insisted that I ride him with a curb instead of with a snaffle bit and she was right; I would never have been able to control him in a snaffle. She had learned about curbs from the Celtic tribes, long ago when she lived in the sea of grass far to the north, before she was taken as a slave. On the side shanks of Gryphon’s bit, little bronze eagles became covered in foam as he dragged at his reins and grew more excited.

  I gripped tighter, felt his muscles straining beneath me as he longed to run down that shadowy valley. The sunlight gleamed on the snowy peaks that hung over us like a wave, white with foam, in a spring river.

  ‘Run!’ Batu yelled suddenly, taking us by surprise. His dark face broke into excited laughter. ‘Run!’ he yelled, flinging one fist high into the air.

  Gryphon soared forward and for one moment we seemed to hang suspended over the world as the blue sky dipped to meet us. Wind whistled in my ears. On either side of us, along the line of riders, people whooped and yelled. The horses poured forward over the crest, hooves thundering. Then the valley rose under us. Gryphon’s front hoof hit the ground. We were earth-bound again. I dug my booted heels into his golden flanks. My legs tightened around his ribs, beneath the bright blanket that my father had brought back from a trading trip to Samarkand. Its woven hems, embroidered with flowers and stars, flapped against my ankles.

  Down, down!

  We plunged through the valley. Now we were arrows let loose, a volley of rushing speed. Wind poured into my open mouth. I was laughing, yelling, feeling the summer morning fill me with joy. ‘Run, Gryphon!’ I cried, and my stallion burst past the horse ahead, its tail whipping across my arm. In the corners of my eyes, I saw the other horses, their riders crouched over their necks. Shoulder to shoulder we streaked down that narrow valley as it tipped us, like a torrent of stones in a riverbed, towards the foothills. Gryphon dodged a boulder; we swerved past it like one creature, like the centaurs in the Greek stories that my father liked to tell as we sat around a fire on snowy winter evenings. Gryphon and I were moulded together by sheer determination, and by the pleasure of our speed. I was only half a girl; the other half of me was all running horse: long sinews, big heart, pride.

  Just ahead, a grey horse filled my squinting eyes. Gryphon’s nose was almost against its flank as we pulled closer. The heavy breathing of horses surged in the air. We were flying, soaring, we were shoulder to shoulder with the grey horse. ‘Run, run!’ I yelled and Gryphon’s hooves pounded the ground faster and harder. We pitched down a final steep fall of valley into a swell of foothill. The grass rose around us like the pile of a huge wool carpet. We rushed through it. The shadows of the mountains were behind us now, and sunshine gleamed on Gryphon’s black mane. The nomads trimmed their horses’ manes short, but I liked to let Gryphon’s mane grow long. I liked the tickle of it against my cheek as he galloped, and I liked tying small red tassels into it for decoration.

  I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that most of the horses were behind us now. Only Batu still galloped beside us, away to the right. Perhaps he felt my glance for his head turned and I saw his wide, bright grin. Then he crouched lower on the bay mare, and dug in his heels.

  ‘Come on, Gryphon!’ I shouted. Neck and neck our horses streamed downhill, then up a rise. For a few minutes we were the only two people running along the crest of a foothill, angling back towards the shadow of the mountains. The other horses crested the slope behind, and rushed after us in pursuit of victory. Branches flicked against my arms as we galloped through a thicket of pistachio nut trees. We clattered down a rocky bank beneath willows with their long leaves licking our backs like dogs’ tongues. Gryphon leaped into the rush of the mountain stream at the bottom of the bank. The roar of water filled my ears and I felt its cold bite on my legs. It sprayed around Gryphon’s slender black legs. With a final heave, he pulled himself up the far bank, and I heard Batu’s mare breathing just behind. Then we climbed uphill again, following the whisper of track that snaked into the folds of the mountains. Shadow threw itself over us like a cloak.

  Copyright © 2012 by Troon Harrison

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  First published in the United States of America in February 2013

  by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  E-book edition published in February 2013

  www.bloomsbury.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

  Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Harrison, Troon.

  Red River stallion / by Troon Harrison. — 1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In 1830s Canada, a thirteen-year-old Cree girl journeys westward from

  York Factory to the Red River valley, lured by a Norfolk trotter horse and determined to find her Scottish fur trader father.

  [1. Horses—Fiction. 2. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 3. Cree Indians—Canada—Fiction.

  4. Indians of North America—Fiction. 5. Racially mixed people—Fiction. 6. Fathers—Fiction.

  7. Canada—History—1791–1841—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H25616Re 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012014147

  ISBN 978-1-5999-0928-8 (ebook)