The Secret Invasion of Port Isabel

by Mark Douglas Stafford

CHAPTER 7

  WILD GOOSE CHASE

  Harry sat high on Stanley’s back and Sally Sloth hung beneath Stanley’s neck like a scarf as they searched Port Isabel for pirates. He was wet to the skin, his whiskers drooped and all four of his paws were cold. His sunglasses were spotted with rain, but this was better the being dazzled by the sun. His nocturnal eyes didn’t do daytime well, even when the clouds were heavy and dark like today.

  The three animals inspected blind alleyways, empty warehouses and dozens of narrow backstreets but there was no sign of pirates, sheep, dogs or any combination thereof. There was plenty of water, mud and some very deep puddles through which they sometimes had to wade. They saw very few other animals, everyone wisely staying inside where it was warm and dry.

  ‘You sure know your way around. I always get lost in the old part of town. It’s so tangled,’ said Harry.

  ‘When I first… when I f-f-first got out of school I delivered mail. So I know all the back ways,’ said Stanley, proudly. He tripped over some words and stuttered others.

  ‘You didn’t stick it out?’

  ‘I was only relieving for a zebra postie who took some t-t-t, time off to be with her newborn foal.’

  ‘Did you like it?’ asked Harry as they passed through another crossroad, tall buildings blotting out the sky on all four corners, drizzle running down the walls. He looked left and right but could see no one.

  ‘It was better than ploughing fields for Farmer Weasel. You meet more people and its easier work, delivering mail. But it was a bit routine for m-m-m… Always the same route, always walking, never galloping.’

  Stanley sloshed through a puddle that reached halfway up the lower part of his legs. A nearby drain was blocked.

  ‘What would you like to do, dear? For a living, I mean,’ asked Sally from below.

  Stanley was silent for a time. ‘I can’t say, Mrs Sloth. I thought by now I’d know, but I don’t. All I know is what I... All I know is what I don’t want to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Harry.

  ‘Plough fields for Farmer Weasel,’ Stanley replied without hesitation.

  ‘It can’t be that bad, can it?’

  ‘Yes, Harry, it can.’

  ‘Then why do it?’

  ‘Because I’m a farm horse and that’s what farm horses do.’ He said this as if it should be self-evident. ‘It’s what m-m-m... It’s what m-m-my…’ One eye jammed shut and no words came out. He took a steadying breath and said slowly: ‘It’s what my family’s always done; it’s what we were made for.’

  ‘That’s what your dad said yesterday, that you were a farm horse. It’s true what they say, then: a leopard can’t change its spots? Once a farm horse, always a farm horse?’ Harry didn’t believe it himself, he just wanted to provoke Stanley into considering he could do something other than plough fields, if he wanted.

  Stanley turned a corner. There were deep gutters either side brimming with rainwater. The overhanging balconies provided very little protection from the rain. Not that it bothered Harry for he was already wet through and couldn’t get any wetter. He looked up and down the alley. There were no pirates and he was beginning to think the whole thing was a wild goose chase.

  ‘What else did he say?’ asked Stanley.

  ‘You dad? Oh, that Elizabeth’s a superior breed. And that she shouldn’t go around with a farm horse,’ said Harry.

  ‘Well I suppose he-he’s right about that. You’d never see mud on her hooves.’

  ‘Stanley,’ said Harry, leaning forward. ‘Don’t you think you’re old enough to make your own decisions?’

  ‘You don’t know m-m-m... You don’t know m-m… Dad,’ said Stanley.

  The alleyway opened onto a street tightly packed with narrow townhouses, each identical to the next. Neatly trimmed rosebushes, with buds but no flowers, pressed against the white picket fences of tiny gardens. The doors were painted black with brass knockers, heavy curtains were tightly drawn. They turned onto Zigzag Road that led down to Curiosity Quay, Stanley slowing because the cobblestones were slippery. This was the way he and Flossy had come last night, before they were ambushed by the townspeople who believed Flossy a pirate and him, her captive.

  ‘I shouldn’t bring shame on our, on our family by thinking above m-m-m... beyond my station,’ said Stanley as if reciting a lesson at school.

  ‘That sounds like you father in all but voice,’ said Harry.

  Stanley’s father was a bulky black stallion, and every bit the farm horse. Harry had met him briefly in Town Square yesterday, before chasing after the pirates and tricking them into wrecking their ship, the Interloper, on Kidney Reef. He struck Harry as having high standards for his son and a fierce pride in his family’s reputation for hard work. Worthy qualities, but not the only ones worth having.

  ‘Well it’s true!’ said Stanley, adamant.

  ‘Your father made his own decisions. You should too. I think it’s time for you to break out a little. Tell him what you think. Tell him you appreciate his advice but you’re not a foal anymore. He’ll come round, you’ll see.’

  ‘You really th-think so?’ Stanley said, brightening. He lifted his head and turned back towards Harry.

  There was mud on his nose and a twig tangled in his mane. Harry pulled at it but it didn’t come free.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Harry said.

  ‘I agree,’ said Sally. ‘Your dad’s a decent sort of horse but he’s…’

  ‘…a farm horse?’ Stanley said, grinning.

  ‘Well, yes. And you’ll never be, really. And trying will just make you unhappy. I think you were meant for other things.’

  ‘You really… you really th-th-think that?’ said Stanley, surprised.

  ‘How do you know Stanley’s family, Sally?’ asked Harry as they rounded a switchback on Zigzag Road. Over a low wall on his left Harry could see the whole of Gateway Quay. It looked deserted and was shrouded in misty rain. The Happy Trader and many small fishing boats bobbed about in the gentle swell. Few would be fishing following yesterday’s scare and the fire. They were passing by a shop he had often used to buy rope, when he could afford it. A closed sign hung on the door and a brown paper package wrapped with string waited on the doormat for the return of the shopkeeper.

  ‘We’ll there’s a whole story around that,’ answered Sally.

  ‘Do tell,’ said Harry, leaning forward to see Sally better. He loved a good story.

  ‘Before Stanley was born, and before I had tiny, little Elsie, my daughter, and even before I met Cecil, my husband—it was so long ago when I think about it, but it still feels like only yesterday—before Mayor Lion was elected, before Reginald was a town councillor…’

  ‘I was still in Treehaven then, at school, just a joey,’ said Harry.

  ‘Now you’re making me feel old,’ said Sally, laughing.

  Turning again, Stanley descended the last hill before reaching the sprawling docklands, hooves clip-clopping noisily on the cobblestones. They passed a granary, its wide barn doors shut tight. They passed a rusty anchor leaning against a pile of old lobster traps stacked against the granary’s side wall. No one was about and there was nothing to suggest pirates were in Port Isabel. There had also been no sign of sheep or dogs of any description. The rain continued to gently fall, causing water to spurt from a hole in a nearby rusty downpipe.

  ‘Tell your story, Sally. How did you come to know Stanley’s family?’ said Harry.

  ‘Well then, it happened twelve years ago. It seems so long! It was an unusually hot summer and the escarpment above Twin Rivers…’

  ‘That’s an elephant t-town, isn’t it?’ asked Stanley.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. There a university there, at Twin Rivers,’ said Sally.

  ‘Reginald studied there when he was young. It’s famous for its ice-archaeology and they’ve got a big library,’ said Harry. They had reached the bottom of the hill and were passing the first work sheds.

  Sally Sloth returned to her story
. ‘So the heat had melted the glaciers more than usual and all the runoff ended up in the Rio Grande, which was peaking downstream. I had the misfortune of finding myself clinging to a plum tree after the Rio Grande burst its western bank, a mile or two from the river mouth, and flooded the lower pastures.’

  ‘So there we were, all ten of us or so, clinging for our lives as the waters rose. Sloths are good at climbing and hanging about but none of us were strong swimmers. My little sister was there too. She wasn’t much older than my daughter Elsie is now. We had all been picking field mushrooms. Stanley’s father was ploughing nearby when…’

  Harry sat up, suddenly alert. ‘I think I heard something, down there.’ He pointed to a gap between an upturned fishing boat and the wall of a shed.

  Stanley turned sharply towards the noise but was too late. A lasso landed around his neck and two big dogs leapt from the shadows barking ferociously. He rose up on his hindquarters and kicked wildly.

  Harry was caught off guard. He fell to the ground and landed on his back, sunglasses bouncing free. Dogs pounced on him before he could stand and pinned him down, jaws closing around his throat.

  More dogs poured from the gap like swarming ants. They quickly subdued Stanley, tightening the lasso and fettering his legs. Then they tied Harry’s arms behind his back and put a sack over his head so that everything went dark.

  The rope binding Harry was tight and he knew by the wild look in the pirate’s eyes that it would foolish to cry out.

  When he last saw Sally she was still clinging rigidly to Stanley’s neck. Now he could hear her whimpering.