The Book of Horses and Unicorns

by Jackie French

  ‘Sunlight! Here boy!’ The little horse approached again. This time Zushan tied the rope in the same way her father would fix a reindeer harness — around the neck and chest, with the load attached to the harness so that it balanced on either side of Sunlight’s back.

  The foal kicked up his legs and pranced around the trees, half frightened, half fascinated by the weight on his back, his head shaking backward and forward as he tried to see it. But this time the load stayed in place.

  Zushan laughed. ‘It’s alright!’ she cried. ‘You’ll get used to it!’

  The young horse looked at her. He seemed to be considering her, as though he were thinking: ‘Do I trust this human enough to do this or not?’ Then suddenly he halted, and trotted closer again.

  Zushan looked back at the sheep. The snow was melting quickly. She took hold of the sheep’s forelegs and tugged.

  Nothing happened. The sheep lay where it had lain all winter, frozen in the snow. Sunlight butted her, as if to say: ‘Can I help too?’

  Zushan tugged again. She felt something give, as the sheep moved slightly. Suddenly the sheep gave way so abruptly that Zushan and the horse fell together in a mass of legs and arms.

  Zushan got to her feet, laughing. The little horse whinnied, and it seemed to Zushan that perhaps he was laughing too.

  ‘Now, home!’ she ordered, as she began to tug the sheep across the slush and snow. The small horse bucked again and craned his head around to try to see the bundles on either side of his back. Then he noticed Zushan was ahead of him, and trotted after her.

  It wasn’t easy. The way was rough; the sheep’s fleece kept catching as it began to thaw, and Zushan had to keep untangling it from twigs and bushes and lifting the body over rough bits. The strange weight on his back kept frightening the little horse too. He would trot a few steps, and then remember and grow skittish again. He had to be coaxed along.

  But finally the camp was in sight, the round tents silhouetted against the pale spring sky. The reindeer were nuzzling at the ground for grass and lichen, the white of their winter coats giving way to summer brown.

  ‘Ahoh!’ yelled Zushan triumphantly.

  The reindeer raised their heads, their antlers dark against the sky. Aunt Meran looked up from the fire where she had been cooking a fish — one very small fish, thought Zushan happily. Blani looked up too, and old Farna and all the others.

  ‘It’s a sheep!’ yelled Zushan. ‘A whole sheep! And Sunlight has more things too!’ She laughed as the little horse trotted beside her, carrying his load as steadily and obediently as any reindeer.

  It was a good summer after that.

  The colt grew taller and broader. He carried small loads regularly now, not heavy ones — perhaps just a skin scraped clean of fat and membrane, ready for tanning — and trotted after Zushan from one end of the camp to the other. But there would be time enough for Sunlight to carry proper loads, thought Zushan proudly, when the horse reached his full sturdy growth.

  ‘I would never have believed it,’ said Auntie Meran in wonder, watching the little horse trot obediently after Zushan as she carried firewood back from the trees. Blani said nothing but he gave Zushan the best helping of fish whenever he caught one, as though in apology. Blani wasn’t so bad, thought Zushan cheerfully, once he got over his disappointment at being left out of the hunt.

  ‘You should tether that horse,’ advised old Farna, ‘or put him in the yard at night like the new reindeer, or he will wander off.’

  Zushan shook her head. ‘But he likes it here!’ she said. ‘We’re friends. We’re his family.’

  Old Farna shook her head. ‘Friends you may be,’ she said, ‘but one day he’ll wander off.’

  Zushan smiled. Sometimes she dreamed that one day Sunlight would pull a sled, just like a reindeer, or even carry her on his back once he was fully grown. But she never mentioned that in case everyone laughed. But one day, she said to Sunlight in her mind, one day we’ll show them all …

  Yes, it was a good summer. The camp moved northwards to join the hunters, as did the other camps of the region, and the young horse came too, trotting behind the sleds with the spare reindeer. Unlike them he carried no packs of furs or dried meat; Auntie Meran judged he was still too young to carry anything far.

  It was wonderful to see Da again; to be with so many people and enjoy laughter and roast thick reindeer steaks every day and sit around fires that sparked into the night. The rivers ran thick with fish and foam, and berries ripened on their low bushes away from the trees.

  Berry-picking was best of all, thought Zushan. You could eat as you picked, as long as you were careful to watch out for the bears who loved the berries too. More than once the young horse neighed nervously, as he scented danger on the wind, and each time Zushan hesitated till she too caught sight of the lumbering brown bears and was able to edge around them safely.

  Towards the end of summer, the camp split up again into family groups, and they all headed back to their winter territories. Half a moon after that, Da took the sled with three large reindeer and headed east. By the time the moon was small again he had returned, and a woman shared his sled.

  ‘This is Fanshan,’ he said to Zushan.

  Fanshan held out her hands. They were square muscular hands; hands that spent their time gutting fish and making felt and slicing meat for drying. ‘I hope we will be friends,’ said Fanshan, and Zushan saw her smile and knew they would.

  It was a good summer until the end.

  The moon hung low in the sky, a hunter’s moon, but there was no need to hunt tonight. Autumn had been rich this year, and the last month busy. The bags in the tents were filled with seeds and lily roots, and yellow fat which had been melted and strained and mixed with dried berries and strips of lean dried meat. Bundles of dried fish lay on the outer layer of the tents as well, tied together with plaited felt rope so they didn’t fall off in the wind. Soon, after the first freeze and snow fall, it would be time to hunt and fish again. They would leave the freshly killed meat to freeze under piles of snow and rocks where they could find it later in the winter, and put the frozen fish next to the dried ones on the roof of the tent.

  Zushan snuggled into her furs and listened to the breathing of her father and Fanshan. It was good to be in their own tent again, and Fanshan had promised her a new brother or sister by next spring too. Outside the tent she could hear the shuffle of the colt’s hooves as he nosed around the tents. Horses, it seemed, didn’t sleep as long as human beings.

  A sudden whinnying broke the silence. For a moment Zushan thought it was the colt, calling for help perhaps. Then she realised it was further away.

  Another whinny, but this one was closer. Sunlight calling back …

  Zushan leapt from the furs and out of the tent. The frozen ground bit at her feet and the cold air stripped the warmth from her arms and legs. The fur tents were so warm that you needed to wear little inside; out in the night air the wind was breathing ice again.

  ‘Sunlight!’ she yelled.

  The colt glanced at her. He was on the far side of the encampment now. Dimly in the moonlight Zushan could see other horses, their pale hides gleaming in the night.

  ‘Sunlight! Please!’

  The colt snickered softly, as though in apology. Then he was gone.

  Zushan’s father staggered from the tent, ‘Zushan, what’s wrong?’ he cried. Fanshan crawled through the tent flap too.

  ‘It’s Sunlight!’ cried Zushan. ‘He’s gone!’

  Fanshan held her as she sobbed. ‘But darling, you knew this must happen! A horse isn’t a reindeer, after all! Horses don’t live with people!’

  ‘I should have hobbled him,’ sobbed Zushan. But in her heart she knew she could never have hobbled Sunlight, or kept him in a pen. Sunlight was a wild animal who had chosen to stay with her and if he now chose to live with his own kind, she might cry, but she could never really wish to keep him prisoner.

  One year passed and another and another, each year
following the same pattern, but each one different. The golden horse didn’t return.

  Each time a hunter brought horse meat back to camp, Zushan was afraid it might be Sunlight. But each time the horse’s hide was dun or brown, or shaggy white in winter, not the colour of Sunlight, the horse she had loved.

  Zushan grew taller. Boys began looking at her sideways at the big summer camp, and she looked at them as well. Soon, she knew, she would choose to go to another family’s tent, or perhaps some boy would join hers.

  Her family was larger now. Her brother Hari toddled round the winter camp, following everyone as they worked, falling into puddles and pulling over baskets, just like the colt had so long ago. Zushan had a sister too, still a baby, but growing fast.

  It was cold this winter, the coldest winter since her mother had died. But this year there was no illness. The food bags were full, there was fresh meat frozen under the piles of stones around the camp and frozen fish on the roof. The big tent was full of laughter and stories, and the children played around the camp in the winter sunlight.

  It was a clear day when it happened. The wind had dropped. The snow had frozen firm and crisp on the ground, tinged with blue as it reflected the sky; the pale high sky of winter. The air was as crisp as ice stretched thin.

  Zushan’s father left the tent first and stared at the early morning sky. ‘There’ll be a storm by evening,’ he decided, looking at the faint wisps on the horizon, ‘but it should stay clear till midday. Enough time to check the fish traps at any rate.’

  You had to break the ice to check the fish traps in winter, even though the holes were covered with reindeer hide so the ice didn’t freeze too thick, but most times there was something to bring home. Fresh fish was a welcome change from dried meat, or the frozen fish that was shaved so thin that the raw flesh melted on your tongue.

  He banged on the hide of the next tent. ‘Worri!’ he called, ‘are you going to sleep all winter? There are traps to be checked!’

  A tall man crawled out of the tent, then two men from the next.

  ‘Hari go too!’ yelled Hari, crawling through the tent flap. Zushan made a hurried dive and grabbed him. ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she informed him, bearing him down onto the fur rugs and tickling him. ‘Next year you can go help the men with the fish traps maybe, or the year after that!’

  I might be gone to my own tent by then, thought Zushan, with a touch of wistfulness. But the thought was exciting too.

  It was a busy morning. In the brief spell of sunshine the bags of moss used as a toilet had to be emptied, scraped out with fresh snow and lined with more moss. Clean snow was gathered and melted on the fire of wood, reindeer droppings and long-dried bones. By mid-winter the snow around the camp was trodden and dirty, and it took a while to fetch enough fresh snow to melt.

  Leather bags of snow and grain and herbs and dried meat were slung across the fire, to cook slowly in the heat. As long as the fire didn’t burn too high, the water seeping through the leather would stop it from burning. The grain would swell and soften, and the dried meat too.

  When the storms blew long and furiously and it was too cold to go outside, the family could survive in their warm tent on dried meat, shaved raw fish and dried berries mixed with fat. But it was good to have warm food instead and today, with luck, there might be fresh fish to grill, or meat from the snares.

  Zushan helped the others pack more snow on the big windbreak around the camp, then set out to check the snares. Many animals hibernated in weather like this, or migrated south, but the sun might have tempted a few out to scrape away the snow and find greenery below, or to prey on others.

  It was a silent world, away from the camp. The trees stretched green and brown above the snow, but they too carried their burden of snow. The only sounds were the occasional thud, as snow slipped off a branch, or a crack as an overladen branch broke.

  Zushan settled her hood further down her face, not so much for warmth — in the gentle sunlight there was no need — but to shade her eyes from the glare of the snow. On a day like this, the reflected sunlight might burn your skin as well.

  Here and there prints made patterns in the snow: bird tracks and, once, the prints of a fox, weaving through the trees. Zushan hoped he hadn’t found the contents of her snares.

  As she had expected, most of the snares were empty but one held the small, hard, frozen body of a hare; ice glistened on its fur. Zushan unlooped the plaited sinew from its leg. The animal was winter thin. It must have caught its leg in the snare yesterday or even the day before, thought Zushan, and froze to death when it grew cold again.

  A sudden wind blew a gust of coldness against her face and sent beads of ice rolling across the snow. Zushan looked at her tracks in the snow. Already the wind was filling them with ice. Soon there would be no record of anyone walking this way, or any animal either.

  The storm would come soon, thought Zushan, as she carried the hard body of the frozen hare back to camp. She hoped there would be time to cook the hare before the weather broke, though it would keep fresh — and frozen — outside the tent, until another break in the weather.

  She was nearing the camp when she heard the scream. Zushan broke into a run. ‘What is it?’ she cried.

  Fanshan ran from the tent. ‘It’s Hari! I can’t find him! I was feeding Taran, and Hari was playing with the knuckle bones, but when I looked again he wasn’t there!’

  Auntie Meran glanced at the sky. ‘The storm is coming! We’d better find him quickly,’ she decided. ‘We’d best all take a different direction. Fanshan, you stay here in case he wanders back. You,’ she said to Zushan, ‘go that way, through the trees. I’ll head downstream to the river and tell the men to hunt for him too, and you and you go upstream. Keep a lookout for his tracks — there may be some in the shelter of the trees, where the wind hasn’t got to them — but if you don’t find anything by the time the sun is below the branches, turn back. We can’t have anyone else getting lost as well, and the wind will rise soon!’

  Zushan nodded. She slipped into the tent and filled her pouch quickly with the dried berry and fat cakes. Hari would be cold, and hungry too, and food was one way to keep the cold from taking you.

  ‘Find him. Please find him,’ whispered Fanshan.

  Zushan nodded and trudged back the way she had come, though the wind had blown away all traces of her prints now.

  ‘Hari! Hari!’ The cries drifted across the snow, slowly growing fainter as the other searchers moved away.

  Luckily the snow was still firm, thought Zushan gratefully, as the thin crust of ice crackled under her feet, so there was no need for snowshoes. If it snowed too much today, then no-one would be able to go anywhere for days without the wide flat willow and leather shoes that stopped you sinking down into the slush. But now at least, it was still possible to walk without them.

  Zushan peered through the trees. No footprints, no small figure in the distance …

  ‘Hari! Hari!’ Only her voice could be heard now. Zushan hesitated. Surely Hari couldn’t have gone this far without a sign!

  Suddenly she saw it. A footprint, small and deep, in the soft snow next to a giant tree. The trunk had sheltered it from the wind.

  Zushan ran over to it. The track was pointing outwards, away from the camp.

  What should she do now? Run back and fetch the others, so they could search this area too? But that would take so long! Or should she keep on going? Surely one small boy could not have gone far!

  ‘Hari!’ she yelled. ‘Come here at once!

  Nothing answered her, not even an echo. The snow had swallowed her words.

  Zushan ran through the trees. Yes, there was another print … and another. Above her the clouds hovered green and grey, lower and lower in the sky.

  Snowflakes began to fall. Zushan ran on. There was no choice now. She had to go faster … faster … She had to find him before the snow covered every sign.

  ‘Hari! Hari!’

  ‘Zushan! Zushan, I�
�m here!’

  Zushan blinked into the thickening snow. Something darker than the snow huddled against a tree trunk.

  ‘Hari!’ Zushan raced over to him. ‘Are you hurt? Are you alright? Oh, you’re in for it when I get you home. Why did you run away? Naughty, naughty boy.’ But she was hugging him as she scolded.

  ‘I want go to home,’ wailed Hari. ‘I want my mummy and my dadda and …’

  ‘I’ll get you home now, don’t worry. Can you walk?’

  Hari shook his head. ‘My legs are cold. They won’t go, Zushan.’

  ‘Well, try,’ said Zushan.

  Hari nodded.

  Zushan took his hand. It felt tiny in hers. ‘You don’t even have your over-gloves on!’ she scolded as she helped him up. ‘It would serve you right if the ice giants got you.’

  ‘What are the ice giants?’

  ‘They’re monsters who live down under the ice and they gobble up naughty boys!’ It was better to think of ice giants, thought Zushan, than real dangers like snow and cold and wolves …

  Just as she thought the word, a howl broke the silence. Zushan froze. How far away had it been? Not far, she decided. The snow muffled all but nearby noise.

  But the snow might protect them too. If the wolves couldn’t hear them or smell them, they wouldn’t attack.

  ‘Shh,’ she whispered to Hari. ‘Better not talk now. Just walk, alright?’

  Hari nodded. He stumbled next to her, one step, two, then fell again.

  ‘Oh, alright,’ whispered Zushan, lifting him up and holding him against her. Better just the sound of one pair of feet anyway; any noise might bring the wolves closer. She wondered how far wolves could smell in the snow. Wolves could smell far better than humans, but perhaps the coming blizzard would hide their scent.

  The snow was falling ever harder now. The flakes were larger, till they weren’t flakes at all, just a steady whiteness falling from the sky. It lay thicker on the ground too, so every step was an effort.