The Thunderbolt Pony

by Stacy Gregg

  Beneath me, Gus gives a panicked snort, nostrils flared wide. He looks down the length of the beach ahead of him where the eggshell cracks are multiplying in the sand, and in that split second his equine instinct takes over. He bolts.

  I’m still gasping for air, weak and shocked by the blow to my gut, and I’m like a sack on his back. I’ve got no balance, I’m barely capable of clinging on, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

  So I hang on for dear life and my ears fill with the train-roar. When I finally manage to raise myself in the saddle and look ahead of us I am struck with terror. The smooth stretch of black sand that blanketed the bay just moments ago is changing shape before my eyes. The earthquake is splitting the sand apart in great fissures. Along the entire beach, giant cracks are beginning to open up. It’s as if the sand is shattering like glass, splitting wide, as cracks like chasms spread in a great sweep down from the boulders all the way to the sea!

  “Gus!” I force myself up in the saddle and dig down my heels, thrusting hard against my stirrup irons to give me the strength as I struggle to pull on the reins.

  “Pull up!”

  I can see the first sand chasm looming ahead. Gus is in full gallop and he’s not listening to me. The instinct in him to run, the primal urge, is stronger than my power over him. I’m still gasping for air, winded and exhausted, and my tired arms cannot possibly hold him back. I’m screaming against the train-roar, yelling at him to stop, holding on for dear life. And even now I think it’s too late to stop him. I can see the edge of the chasm and from the distance I try to look into it, down into the void that looms ahead. I wonder how deep it goes, how far we will fall before we hit the bottom.

  There’s a place in the Greek myths, Tartarus, that’s even deeper than Hades. Is this the gateway?

  Then something kicks in. I stop looking down at the gates of hell and I pull myself together. Because Gus is not the only one with honed instincts, and although mine aren’t primal like his, they’ve been schooled into me. The athlete’s mindset, my eventing brain hardwired into me by years of training ever since I began riding, suddenly takes over. As we approach the chasm, it’s like a switch flips in my mind. I’m not on the beach any more, I’m at the One-Day Event and I feel this sense of calm as Gus goes into the start box. I can see myself setting my stopwatch, tightening my back protector, looking at the first fence across the field and listening to my mother’s voice.

  Evie, remember at the ditch – look up! Never, ever look down or he’ll stop. Your eyes will take you where you want to go!

  There’s a chasm in front of me and for all I know it splits wide open all the way to Tartarus. What I do know for sure is that if I look into it, I’ll end up inside it, because Gus will follow my eyes. Since we can’t stop in time, since there is only one choice, I must look up. My eyes switch to the horizon and I wrap my legs tightly round my horse and instead of holding him back as I’ve been trying to do since the quake struck, now I urge him on, asking him to increase the power in his strides. I move my body up in the stirrups so I’m standing in two-point position and grab hold of a hunk of Gus’s mane, just in case I get left behind by what is to come. Because I know now, we have no choice. We have to jump.

  At the chasm, I nearly abandon my bold new plan and pull him up at the last second, because when I look ahead across the sands I realise what we are about to confront. This isn’t just one sand chasm. The entire beach is splintering apart – even if we do clear this chasm, there are so many more to come! How can we possibly navigate the entire beach? But then I think about what Willard Fox taught me, how riding cross-country is a lot like beating OCD. You tackle the course one fence at a time. You don’t think about the future, you stay focused on the hurdle that lies immediately in front of you.

  So that’s what I do. I assess the obstacle, judge my striding, and then I give a brief check on Gus to get him in the right spot to take off. Then I sit up and put my legs on and I ride it! I ride in so hard, it’s as if I am a world-famous eventer approaching the first hurdle at the Badminton Horse Trials. I hold Gus straight and I urge him on, and at that moment I feel the trust he has in me as his rider and suddenly we’re working together on this, we aren’t fighting any more. We both want the same thing, to go forward, to jump, to stay alive.

  As we reach the edge of the chasm, I have to fight so hard against the urge to let my eyes drop and look down into the pit below. The urge gets worse when I feel Gus’s hooves sink into the crumbling edge of the chasm and the sand starts to fall away beneath us. I think we’re going down with it, but he takes off just in time and as the sand collapses we defy gravity and fly up! We are suspended in mid-air for that breathtaking moment, and then we’re landing on the other side, solid sand beneath us once more. It isn’t the smoothest landing. I’m thrown back and for a moment I think I’m going to fall. But my reflexes are honed and quick and I manage to grab hold of a chunk of his mane and keep my balance. When I look down I realise I’m clinging on at the point of his wither where the two braids used to be. As Gus surges forward I regain my seat and I put my legs back on and ride hard for the next chasm in two-point position, with my backside out of the saddle and my knees digging deep into the knee rolls of the saddle, heels low to keep my seat secure. There isn’t much time to prepare – the next chasm is coming up on us fast.

  This time we take it on a perfect stride, and I look between Gus’s ears and can see the next crack opening up ahead of us. I put my legs on really hard because I know we’re on the wrong leg and the striding is all wrong, and beneath me I feel my clever, clever horse do a flying change and adjust his stride, so when we jump it’s perfect.

  With each chasm that we’re taking I can feel the power between me and Gus growing, and my fear falling further behind us.

  I’m in charge, OCD, I’m taking the reins.

  The next chasm is massive. On a cross-country course we’d call it a “rider frightener”, because it looks terrifyingly wide – maybe two metres across.

  Don’t look into the void – trust your horse!

  We clear it with room to spare and now we’re galloping on and the roar of the train is gone, the quake is over and it’s easier to hit our stride because the earth is no longer rocking beneath our feet, and no fresh hells are opening up before us. The only things we have to contend with are the obstacles that already exist, and now Gus and I have our blood up and we’re riding this beach as if it’s nothing more than a training course and we’ve settled into our pace and I never would have ever believed this if you’d told me, but we are having the best time! The wind is in my face and I can feel the power of Gus, and the sharpness of his instincts as he comes in boldly to each challenge and adjusts his striding and chips in an extra stride to make the take-off point, or stands back if he needs to and arcs over the ditches in a neat bascule.

  As my pony’s strides devour the sands, I feel exhilarated, as if this is what Gus and I were born to do. I don’t fear what lies beneath us any more. I don’t fear anything. I am alive in the moment, perfectly at one with my pony.

  As we take the final chasm at the end of the beach, I let Gus pull up to a canter and then a trot so at last I can look back over my shoulder to check for Jock. My valiant dog is right there! He’s been keeping pace all the way, making bold leaps over every chasm in our wake, and despite the injured shoulder he’s on track right behind us, running for all he’s worth.

  “Come on, Jock! You can do it!” I call back to him as he comes in to leap the final sand chasm. My voice is lost on the wind but I know he hears me say his name because I see his ears prick up and his strides gain speed. He leaps and I see his paws scrabble as the sand caves when he lands, but then he’s out the other side of the ditch and he runs to us. I pull Gus up to a halt now and all three of us are heaving, our breath coming in frantic pants, the heat off us bristling and humming like electricity.

  I think, Wow, my heart is really pounding hard in my chest from the adrenalin, but then I feel
this wild squirming beneath my sweatshirt and I laugh out loud because it’s not my heart beating at all. It’s Moxy. She wriggles and shoves her way up through the neck of my hoodie until her little face pops out the top and she gives a yowl straight in my face, a victorious battle cry. I know she’s feeling exactly the same way that Gus and Jock and I feel right now, because we’ve been in a war and we have won. We’ve beaten the earthquake. We’ve taken ourselves to the limit and survived.

  Panting and exhausted, we turn back and stare at the beach. The surface of the sand looks like it’s been shattered by a giant’s hammer. I can’t believe that we’ve made it across without tumbling into those chasms.

  We sit there for as long as we can, all four of us gasping in deep huffs of air, trying to get our breath back, trying to make sense of what we’ve just been through. And then at last I turn Gus, and Jock follows to take up his position at our heels, and as if it was nothing more than a cross-country gallop that we’re putting behind us, we head on. Because there isn’t time to think about where we’ve been when we still have somewhere important to go.

  Up ahead of us, the very next cove is South Bay where right now the HMS Canterbury is about to drop anchor.

  We’ve just ridden through the gates of Tartarus and we’re still alive. We’re alive and we are getting on that boat. All four of us. Together.

  Only once the adrenalin has left my veins do I begin to feel the stabbing pains in my chest. I pull up my hoodie with the blood specks soaking through it and see the deep red gouges that Moxy made with her claws when she panicked as the quake struck.

  Moxy bites my cheek, as if to apologise, and I smooch her right back. It wasn’t her fault. We were all terrified in the moment and it feels right for me to have battle scars to show for it.

  All of us have wounds. Moxy with her arrow graze, so thin and frail after her long solo journey, Jock with his bloodied shoulder where the sea lion bit him, and Gus, who has pulled up lame after his heroic gallop across the sand chasms. He pushed himself to the limit to get us through and I feel the soreness in him from the effort, his tired strides faltering as he distinctly favours his off hind.

  We’re all exhausted but we’re so close now. This goat track leads us to the end of the headland. Any moment now, South Bay will come into view and we will see what we have been travelling towards for so many miles – the HMS Canterbury waiting for us.

  “It’s not much further,” I whisper to Gus, leaning low over his shoulder. He gave every last ounce of his strength to beat the sand chasms, and he’s totally spent. His body is wet with sweat, his neck where the reins have rubbed and chafed is crusted with the lather of white foam and his breathing is laboured and rasping.

  And yet still he walks on. As we reach the end of the headlands I feel my heart soar as the blue sea of South Bay comes into view.

  And there in front of us is … nothing. My eyes search the water in utter disbelief. There’s no sign of the HMS Canterbury. No rescue ship and no people waiting on the shore. Nothing here at all, except the vast, isolated emptiness of the South Island coastline.

  CHAPTER 14

  Six Legs at Dusk

  I choke down a gasp of despair as my eyes fill with tears. I saw the HMS Canterbury coming into shore! It couldn’t have disappeared!

  So where is it?

  And then I realise. Our journey isn’t going to end in South Bay. I had assumed all this time the ship would be dropping anchor here, where the big vessels often do. But watching from the shore it’s impossible to pick the line a boat is travelling. That ship was never coming to South Bay. Its direction was always set further north, charting a course straight into the next bay, in Kaikoura township. That must be where it’s anchored now.

  The next bay! So now yet again there are miles to go. And the four of us are so very tired. So yes, I’m crying because I’m exhausted, but truly the tears aren’t for me. I’m upset because I promised Jock and Moxy and Gus. I told them that this was our destination, and now I have to admit I mucked up and I must rally them once more, tell them that although they’re weary, I need them to give me the very last scraps of the strength they have left. We have so much ground to cover, and no time. That ship has already anchored in Kaikoura Bay by now – we need to get there, and fast!

  I look at my companions with their heads hung low, and I realise that if I’m going to ask the impossible of them, then it must be as their equal. Gus can’t carry me any longer.

  Aching and stiff, I slip my feet out of the stirrups and slide down from the saddle, running the leathers up.

  “Hey, Gus,” I whisper to him. “Change of plans. I’m walking with you now.”

  Gus has given me so much, tried so hard for me for so very long. Now, instead of riding him, I walk alongside him, our six legs standing together. No matter what happens, I will be there the rest of the way at his side.

  As we move off there’s a yowl from up above me and I see Moxy make a flying leap down from Gus’s rump. She lands on the sand, right beside Jock on her soft paws, and then gives herself a shake and trots forward to take up her position at the head of our party. Then she turns back and gives a meow over her shoulder to all of us as if to say, “Come on, then! Let’s stop moping and get moving, shall we?”

  So now we are all walking in unison, across the sands of South Bay, making for the final headland that will take us to Kaikoura and the end of the journey.

  ***

  The Pier Hotel is the first landmark that comes into view when you round the curve of the bay into Kaikoura township. It’s a two-storey tavern, a local icon, plastered in dusty pink with picnic tables on the lawns. Usually the place is humming with people, night and day. They come here to order platters of rosy red crayfish, split down the middle, drizzled with butter and served with a salty, piping hot side order of chips. Today, though, the Pier Hotel stands desolate and empty. I call out as we pass to see if there’s anyone inside, but nobody answers me. The front doors are locked tight.

  There’s a sea fog rolling in. And there, through the mist I see it. A grey monolith sitting lonely and vast in the deepest part of the harbour. The HMS Canterbury.

  A wave of relief washes over me. She is here.

  I stare at the ship. She’s like a brick on the water, square, painted dark grey with radar turrets in the middle and enormous flat decks big enough for helicopters to land on at the front and rear. She seems impossible to me, like how do ships as big as this one even float when they’re made of steel?

  Has anyone seen me from the ship? If I yelled to them from here they would never hear me. My stomach knots at the idea that I could have made it all this way and they might still leave without me!

  I can see the crew lowering inflatables off the decks and I notice that the sea is rougher and choppier than it was back in South Bay. The wind has changed and little white caps crest the waves. They splash up against the hull of the HMS Canterbury, and they fling the inflatables about as they hit the water below.

  I’m so tired but I know we need to keep moving. As if to confirm this, Moxy starts yowling, insisting that we need to keep on if we’re going to make it in time, and the rest of us obey her and fall in behind her lead, heading down the main road that will lead us into town. We can’t go across the beach from here to reach the ship because the bay at Kaikoura is large, hard pebbles, impossible for Gus to walk on. Instead we stick to the main seaside street, walking past the beachfront houses and the monkey puzzle trees, into the town.

  As we walk, I peer through the windows of houses. There’s no one home. No one in the corner dairy either, and the pub is boarded up. No people on the streets and no sound except the sea wind and the chime of Gus’s metal shoes on the sidewalk. We are like a posse riding into a ghost town.

  On my journey from Parnassus I’ve seen the damage an earthquake can do. I’ve seen fields turned upside down, cliffs falling away, mudslides and boulders covering the roads, giant pillars of salty rock risen up out of the sea. Now I’m co
nfronting a different kind of devastation. It’s like the Titans, the giants in the Greek myths, have held a running race through the streets and their enormous feet have crushed anything they touch. Some buildings have been razed to the ground, others look almost untouched by the quakes, and then you notice the cracks in their plaster, the broken windows, the buckled rooflines.

  When Jock takes up growling, I know only too well what’s coming. I feel my feet turn unsteady beneath me, and then there’s the creak and groan of girders followed by a crash as a window shatters nearby.

  We all stand still, waiting for the shaking to stop. Then we keep walking, circling round the newly broken glass so that Moxy and Jock won’t get their paws cut. The weird thing is, it’s not even a big deal now. Gus doesn’t even startle this time. The Arabian blood that would normally put him on his toes has been beaten into submission by his absolute exhaustion. We’re so very tired that nothing gets much of a jolt out of any of us any more. We’re just putting one foot in front of the other and making our way towards the end of the town and down through the car park to the beach where I can see the crowds have gathered right up on the shoreline and three grey inflatable rescue boats are coming ashore to ferry the evacuees to the ship.

  At the sight of me and Gus and Jock and Moxy walking towards them, a murmur rises up. There are people talking and pointing at us and then, through the crowd, a face emerges and I feel my heart choke with joy.

  “Evie!”

  Moana waves frantically at me and comes running across the pebble beach. Her two dogs, Black and Decker, catch sight of us too and come right behind her.

  “Mo!”

  I’m so relieved to see her that I start to cry. Moana is crying too, and when she reaches me she throws her arms round me and gives me this massive, tight hug. The Labradors are bounding around as if this is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to them. They jump up on me with their big paws and then wag their way round the whole group and greet Jock with their tails erect and ears pricked, sniffing muzzle-to-muzzle greetings. They try to greet Moxy in the same way but she isn’t having any of it! She gives Black a clean swipe across the muzzle and he yelps and steps back, and Decker does too. Moxy might be tired, but she’s still in no mood to be sniffed by any dogs except her Jock!