“It’s better than giving in,” June said. “For the horses and us.”
“Better anytime,” said Arthur.
From the shed they took all the buckets of gasoline, fuel they had in store for the jeep. In the yard, while Cripps snored away in the hammock and the others continued sleeping inside, they loaded up the back of the jeep and looked at the house a final time. Naked still, they got into the jeep, and Arthur put on the bright headlights as he drove down the hill. Over the next hour or so they crisscrossed the forest and rammed through foliage pouring out the gasoline, and they would murmur and talk to the horses whenever they passed some trotting along.
“You have to go. You can’t stay here.”
Happy horses, friendly horses, horses that would whinny at them. But would the fire they were setting provoke the stampede that could take the horses to safety? Arthur saw it as a kind of prison break, albeit a gamble. If a horse panicked, got trapped in the flames, that horse would die. But even a few casualties among them would be worth the loss if the rest escaped.
“We have to do it,” he said, and June nodded. “I think they’ll understand.”
He remembered how in England he had seemed to experience an exchange of thoughts with a racetrack horse, and now he tried to send a mental message out to the jungle horses.
The sea, the sea, the sea.
The flames started up as they’d expected, spreading out from the gasoline trails after each match they dropped. And close to the house they parked the jeep before descending the hill a ways, ready to watch the explosion. Arthur had used an empty rum bottle to fashion a Molotov Cocktail, and he threw his device over at the jeep, aiming for a spot near the gas tank. The gasoline in the bottle caught fire, the glass pieces went flying through the air, tongues of flame shot under the jeep and he and June dove for cover as the gas tank blew.
Around them the forest had become an inferno, the vegetation burning fast. They could hear the horses running, neighing in fright and apparent confusion. To listen to that fear was painful, but they knew they had to steel themselves. Torching the island served a higher purpose. If the horses got away, nobody would be testing them, breeding and selling them, using them as exploitable merchandise.
Vaughn and Jenny, the pilot, and Cripps, were doing exactly as they’d anticipated, dashing away from the house and yard, abandoning their things to the fire. No great loss, their travel possessions, and all of them had put on clothes for their run down the hill.
“Arthur! June! Arthur! June!”
Jenny and Vaughn were shouting to them. They were screaming above the horses’ squeals and the hiss of the flames, but Arthur and June stayed flat on the ground, hidden at the side of the path. Eight clothed legs went striding by, four sets of shoes tearing up the dirt, and Arthur and June only rose when the heat became too intense.
The fire was approaching them.
How to do this? Throw themselves into the blaze? Run headfirst into oblivion? They stood embracing, skin against skin, seeing nothing but fire and smoke, smelling the aroma of burning flowers, and in their loins they felt with astonishment the yearning to have sex right then, sex in the flames before they died.
Arthur lifted June by the thighs and lowered her beneath him to the ground. They felt a warmth within themselves and on the outside a falling tree threw up a shower of sparks that singed them. Then a silver horse appeared, just below them on the path, and it jerked its head and kicked a foreleg, inching ahead down the hill. It seemed to be asking them to follow.
Lucky the horse was silver, that in the midst of the fiery chaos they could see its radiant coat. They heeded its cue, springing into motion, and let it lead them down the hill. Smoke and flames were licking at the path and they couldn’t hear any other horses, any more squeals or thudding hooves. Had they killed them? Was this horse the last alive? What on earth was it doing?
“They can’t be dead.”
“We failed,” said Arthur.
“We couldn’t have.”
The answer came at the bottom of the hill. They’d come to the beach and out in the water, swimming away, was the pack of island horses, their heads rising and falling in the surf. With no time to waste the silver horse knelt before them in the sand, and Arthur and June understood what it wanted. It wanted them to climb onto its back.
“Why not?” Arthur said, and he got on. June mounted in front of him and grabbed hold of the horse’s mane, and once it knew it had them secure, it leaped forward and into the water, propelling itself through the current.
A migration of horses, swimming through the sea. To June and Arthur the destination mattered little so long as the place had a forest. Arthur gripped June in his arms, feeling her body against his own, planting a kiss on the nape of her neck. The air smelled less and less of smoke as they moved farther away from the island, from the flames shining orange in the night, and above to the west they saw the plane taking Jenny, Vaughn, and Cripps to safety.
“We’re the new keepers of the horses,” June said. “Just us.” And as they continued to ride through the waves, splash through the cool white breakers, Arthur looked over the unique creatures. They swam with confidence, an untiring group, and he pulled June even tighter against him, pulsing with an ardor that would not die.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Scott Adlerberg grew up in the Bronx and a wooded suburb just outside New York City. His debut novel was the Martinique-set crime novel Spiders and Flies. His short fiction has appeared in various places including THUGLIT, ALL DUE RESPECT, and SPINETINGLER MAGAZINE. Each summer, he hosts the Word for Word Reel Talks film commentary series in Manhattan. Jungle Horses is his second longer work that has to do with the Caribbean, a place where he spent a lot of time and became a connoisseur of rum. He now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons.
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