Phantom Horse 3: Phantom Horse Disappears

by Christine Pullein-Thompson

“Sure,” replied Angus. “She’s married to a gun-runner. He sends the money for the guns, no doubt, and money to keep the place going too; that’s why no one liked her marrying him. It’s all as plain as a pikestaff now.”

  I wished the sun would stop shining; that the heavens would burst, that the whole of Ireland would suddenly erupt and disappear into the sea.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” I said. “It should be happy. Even the house could be lovely.”

  I hobbled after Angus to the garage, but all our luck had run out – the one and only bike had a puncture and there was nothing to mend it with; and now Cousin Mary was calling me from the house to breakfast.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded, her face lined with anxiety. “Breakfast has been and gone long ago, and you haven’t eaten a thing.”

  “We want to look for Phantom. We want you to take us out in the car,” my brother said. “He must be somewhere.”

  10

  We searched all morning, and again in the afternoon, until our eyes ached and Cousin Mary had no money left for petrol. Everywhere we stopped and asked people, “Have you seen a beautiful golden dun horse?” And all the time deep inside me I knew that we were wasting time because by now Phantom was across the sea, or locked up somewhere out of sight.

  We stopped at a police station while Cousin Mary went inside to inquire and Fiona said for the twentieth time, “I’m awful sorry, Jean. I feel so guilty. If only I could help.”

  Angus said, “It’s all my fault, that’s obvious, isn’t it? If only I hadn’t gone out on Peppermint none of it would have happened.”

  “We all know that ‘if only’ are the saddest words in the English language,” I replied.

  “I think ‘too late’ is even sadder,” replied my brother. “But if no one minds about the beastly guns in the attic, why the kidnapping?”

  “Because the police can’t turn a blind eye if they are told about them,” replied Fiona. “They must take action; it’s a terrible situation that we are in.”

  Cousin Mary returned and I sat hating Ireland because it had taken Phantom from me.

  “Perhaps there will be a message for us at home,” suggested Cousin Mary, looking at my miserable face. “The police have heard nothing of him, but they are going to look among the tinkers.”

  “The tinkers?” I cried. “They must be mad. He’s hidden away somewhere. They should search every farm and stable, every turf-cutter’s shed, every ship.”

  “You think he’s been stolen then?” inquired Cousin Mary.

  “Yes.”

  Cousin Mary showed no surprise, probably she was beyond surprise by this time. Clouds were gathering in the sky promising more rain. “We must hear something soon. He can’t just disappear for ever. People are very honest round here. Perhaps Father Paul will have heard something …”

  Postcards of Nigeria waited for us in the hall. They seemed hopelessly out of date. Wish you were here, too. We miss you. Lovely, exotic food. But horses here too thin for your liking. We saw a herd of elephants the day before yesterday. Mine was of monkeys up a tree. It seemed irrelevant. What did I care for monkeys when I had lost Phantom? If only they would send a phone number, I thought. If I could just talk to Dad for a few minutes, just ask what we should do. The hills outside rumbled with thunder.

  “They’re all right. Swop?” said Angus.

  There was an elephant on his postcard. Wish you were both here, it said. Lots of singing, dancing and strange food. Hotel air-conditioned, Love.

  “I wanted a proper letter,” I said. “Not a silly postcard.” I stood staring out of the window at the darkening hills. Rain was falling again, bouncing off the rocks, and lightning flashed, lighting up the gorse.

  I started to pray for Phantom’s return, silently, without moving my lips. I imagined him shut up somewhere listening to the thunder, the rain falling on a corrugated roof. Suddenly there seemed no hope any more. Our parents would offer to buy me another horse. They would try to console me. But I didn’t want another horse. I only wanted Phantom.

  “You might help. We are all getting tea,” exclaimed my brother. “Your foot can’t be that bad.”

  I went on praying, hoping that the thunder would somehow help, that the lightning would suddenly reveal Phantom standing like a sentinel on the hilltop, almost as yellow as the gorse. But nothing happened; the rain simply fell harder. Endless, Irish rain. I didn’t care about helping – they could manage well enough without me. Let them call me lazy. Nothing really mattered, not any more.

  Cousin Mary pushed me towards the table and into a chair. “You look awful,” she said. “What’s the matter now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No.”

  “Does your foot hurt?”

  “No.”

  I hated her. I knew it now, because she was all part of a country which had taken Phantom from me.

  I resolved to go to the police in the morning. I would hobble there alone and tell them everything, for nothing could ever be worse than it was now. Let them shoot Phantom. All right. But I would have revenge. I would see that the boy who kidnapped Angus and demanded money with menaces went to prison for years and years. And if Cousin Mary was put in prison for keeping ammunition in her attic, who cared? Not me. Donnie O’Reagan? Let him go too.

  “You’re crying,” said Cousin Mary.

  “I’m not.”

  “There are tears falling on your plate and you’re not eating anything.”

  Suddenly I couldn’t bear it any more. I rushed from the room, banging my plaster on the door. I hobbled upstairs, slammed my bedroom door and stood staring outside, hating everything and everybody, wishing the whole gloomy, doom-laden house could go up in flames – ammunition and all. For an insane moment I even contemplated setting fire to it. I saw myself standing outside watching the flames and laughing hysterically.

  “I’ve brought you a plate of cakes, sausage and bread and butter,” said Angus, standing nervously in the doorway. “Do cheer up.”

  “Cheer up?” I shouted. “What’s there to cheer up about? Tell me. Just tell me.”

  “While there’s life there’s hope,” replied Angus, advancing with the plate. “If you eat, you’ll feel better.”

  “I’ve always been afraid I would lose Phantom,” I answered, taking a sausage. “But not in this way; not miles from home. If I knew he was dead I could stop hoping. As it is, every time I hear a neigh I think it’s him.”

  “It is always darkest before the dawn,” said Angus. “Have another sausage. Fiona is on our side now.”

  “I’m going to the police in the morning. I’m going to tell them everything. They can’t let blackmail go unchecked. It’s a terrible crime. Do you think it was really a bluff, that I could have got you back without trading Phantom for you?”

  “I don’t know. I think they need money. Perhaps they are being blackmailed. I think it’s far more dangerous than we ever imagined.”

  “And they really do kill people?”

  “Yes.”

  “And everybody’s frightened of them?”

  “Yes.”

  Another day was ending. I had lost count of the days we had been in Ireland, but suddenly it seemed like eternity.

  “We never think dreadful things will happen to us,” I said. “And when they do, it’s an awful shock.”

  “We chose a bad moment to visit.”

  I stayed in my room for the rest of the evening, my face swollen from crying. Before I climbed into bed I heard shots coming from the hills and the cries of frightened birds. It was a very dark night and by midnight rain was falling in torrents from an ink-black sky. Cousin Mary and Fiona didn’t come near me; probably they thought it better for me to grieve alone.

  I didn’t sleep. I listened to the big clock downstairs chime the hours, and each hour seemed to take away a little bit of hope. I was still awake when the first thin light of dawn pierced the night sky. In the distance cocks began to h
erald another day. It was then that I heard a noise which sounded like hoofs coming down the rough drive towards the house. I sat up and listened, telling myself it was only my imagination, that it was simply the sound of rain falling on stones, that I had heard the noise simply because I had wanted to hear it for so long. But I climbed out of bed and found that I was shaking all over.

  Pulling back the curtains I looked out. I rubbed my eyes and stared and couldn’t speak for the lump rising in my throat; then I shouted “Phantom!” He raised his head and neighed. The next moment I was running downstairs, struggling with the bolts on the front door, throwing the door wide, charging out into the pouring rain – still in my pyjamas. Bits of rope hung from his fetlocks. Rain and sweat dripped from his golden coat.

  “You’ve come back. In spite of everything …” He nuzzled my hair as I put my arm round his neck and he followed me to the stable. Only Peppermint was inside, but he welcomed us with a whinny.

  “Come on, Phantom. I’ll put you inside, then I’ll put on some clothes and rub you down and I’ll give you the best feed you’ve ever had.”

  He followed me like a dog. I found the flashlight which hung in the stable, and now I could see how tucked up he was. He had lost a shoe and there was a sore on his head where he must have fought against a headcollar. I bolted the door and gave him a heap of hay, then hobbled indoors for dry clothes because, by now, my pyjamas were soaked through. All the time, over and over again, I was thinking: He’s come back, he’s found his way back! And it seemed like a miracle as dawn broke slowly over the hills. I hurried upstairs and shook Angus.

  “He’s come back!” I cried. “Wake up. He’s come back.”

  “What? Who?” said Angus.

  “Phantom!”

  “You must be dreaming,” cried Angus, sitting up.

  “He’s in the stable, soaking wet.”

  I put on jeans and a polo-necked jersey and Angus met me in the passage. “They may come after him,” he said. “We need a gun.”

  “No, no guns, please,” I replied quickly.

  “They were shooting in the hills half the night. Perhaps they were shooting at him.”

  “No,” I answered, for I didn’t want to believe him, to listen to any more bad news. I just wanted to feed Phantom and be happy. “They were shooting at birds. I heard them.”

  “No one shoots birds at night.”

  Phantom looked worse when I reached him. I put a rug on him inside out and fetched him water. I cut the bits of sad, tattered rope from his fetlocks. I fetched more peat and put it in his box, wishing for long, golden straw. Angus appeared, carrying a stick.

  “There’s no one about at present,” he said. “But they will come, never fear.” He ran his hands down Phantom’s tendons and found a thorn.

  “We must get a padlock for the door, and mount a guard day and night,” he said.

  “He’s stopped shivering,” I replied. “And he’s eating. Couldn’t we take him somewhere safe?”

  “We haven’t enough money,” replied Angus. “But at least we can keep an eye on him here in the stable.”

  “They hobbled him,” I said, “and kept him tied up.”

  “They must have been afraid he would jump out.”

  I fetched him a feed from where the food was kept. “They won’t come in daylight, will they?” I asked.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Angus.

  I was suddenly tired, tired and wonderfully happy at the same time. The nightmare’s over – he’s come back! We’ve won! I thought.

  “I’ll stay with him while you go back to bed. You look most peculiar,” Angus told me. “Your eyes have sunk in to the back of your head. And you should be resting your foot.”

  “You won’t leave him, will you?”

  Angus shook his head. “Not till Donnie O’Reagan takes over.”

  I went across the yard and back to the house. Another day had come – a beautiful day with everything sparkling with rain. Fiona was looking out of her window.

  “Phantom’s back!” I shouted. “He’s come back.” I wanted to tell everyone, the whole world.

  “Thanks be to God!” she cried.

  Donnie O’Reagan had sent for a vet. Phantom’s temperature was very high. He stood shivering in spite of two rugs and a hot mash, resting his unshod hoof. He had lost part of his mane, and looked a sorry sight in the light of midday.

  “They couldn’t keep him however hard they tried,” said Donnie O’Reagan, with wonderment in his voice. “He found his way back here. What a horse!”

  “Will he live?” I asked. “He’s not going to die, is he?”

  The vet had arrived. We heard the crunch of his car tyres outside on the gravel. He was a quiet man who called Phantom “My little darling” but none of it made any difference. Phantom was terrified of him. He stood on his hind legs and rushed round the box, banging his head on the sides. I couldn’t hold him and nor could Donnie O’Reagan, so at last we put a twitch on him, and he stood then as tense as a taut rope.

  “What’s been happening to him?” the vet asked. “He looks in awful bad shape.”

  “He’s been lost on the hills, stolen by tinkers more than likely,” replied Donnie O’Reagan.

  “Or by the gangsters who live in these parts,” said my brother in a loud voice.

  But the vet was a man of few words. He looked at me and asked, “Has he been like this before?”

  I replied, “Yes, in Virginia. He nearly died there one winter.” I remembered the icicles hanging on the trees in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the long trek home.

  “I thought so.” The vet was listening to Phantom’s heart. I saw myself never riding him again. I prepared myself to hear the fateful words: “His heart’s finished.”

  “That’s all right,” said the vet, putting the stethoscope away. “He’ll live yet. We’ll give him a shot of penicillin. His lungs are a bit dicey and there’s quite a few crackles; but keep him warm, feed him well and he’ll pull through.”

  Angus’s eyes met mine. Phantom was going to be all right. Everything would be back to normal. It was all I wanted at that moment.

  The vet slipped the needle into Phantom’s neck. We took off the twitch.

  “Do you want to settle up now or at the end of the treatment?”

  “At the end,” replied my brother. “How long will he take to get well?”

  “He should be better by tomorrow, but it will take him a month to be really well again. You won’t be able to hunt him before November at the earliest.”

  “I don’t care about hunting. I just want him to live, and to be all right to ride in the end,” I said.

  Angus thanked the vet and shook him by the hand. He suddenly seemed very grown-up.

  “And don’t let him out on the hills again. They’re wicked for a horse like him,” said the vet.

  “We’ve still got some money left and we can always borrow off Cousin Mary,” said Angus. “But I think we’ll have to stay up tonight, don’t you? It would be awful if we lost him again. They might simply come and shoot him out of spite. They’re quite mad.”

  Donnie O’Reagan was mixing another feed for Phantom. I wondered for the first time who was meant to pay for all the feeds, the clean loose box, the endless haynets bulging with hay – Mum and Dad, Cousin Mary, or me from my money in the building society at home?

  “Lunch!” called Fiona from the house. “Hurry up, it’s roast chicken.”

  11

  “You had better read this,” said Cousin Mary after lunch, handing us the morning paper to read. It told us that the kidnapped envoy had been released.

  “So you won’t be with us much longer,” Cousin Mary told us. “Poor Fiona. We will be so quiet without you.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  I wished that our parents were already with us. “How long will it take them to come?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Mum and Dad.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, dear. It will be
a few days, I expect.”

  It seemed literally years since we had parted. Even Aunt Nina seemed to have stayed with us a century ago. We started to wash up. “I expect they’ll fly to Dublin, hire a car and come straight down. It’s years since I’ve seen either of them,” continued Cousin Mary, washing a plate.

  “I expect they’ve aged. We all have.”

  “Mum is still all right; but Dad’s showing it a bit – you know, wrinkles round his eyes, that sort of thing,” replied Angus.

  “I hope they don’t go home first,” I said.

  “I expect they’ll bring you back lots of knick-knacks and African shirts. I must get some whiskey in for your father,” said Cousin Mary, hanging up the dishcloth.

  After the lunch things were washed up and put away we drank great mugs of coffee. Cousin Mary told us about her youth: about hunt balls and dancing all night long, and how the men wore scarlet coats; also how there was soup and bacon and eggs before you went home at four in the morning. I thought how sad it was that we all grow older.

  “But Fiona won’t have anything of that if she’s going to be a nun,” she finished.

  Fiona looked out of the window. I never knew what she saw there; most likely only what was in her mind at the moment; perhaps herself dressed as a nun. Certainly the rough grass wasn’t interesting.

  “I want peace,” she said. “I’m tired of the killing which is always going on everywhere. I want to forget it.”

  “Why don’t you come and stay with us?” Angus asked. “If Mum doesn’t mind.”

  There was a sudden rapping at the door and we found Donnie O’Reagan outside saying, “You had better come quick. Phantom’s down. I’m afraid he’ll twist a gut. I can’t get him up on my own.”

  I forgot my foot in plaster and ran with the others as best I could, cursing myself for ever leaving Phantom. He was kicking against the partition, making a terrible noise. He was soaked in sweat. His tattered mane clung to his neck and his sides were spattered with peat.

  Angus hit him while I pulled, talking to him all the time, saying over and over again, “Phantom, get up. Stand up, come on, move!” My heart was beating against my side like a piston engine and I was imagining the end again – Phantom dead.