Beyond Rope and Fence

by David Grew

Off on the slope horses were energetically pawing the snow and Queen wondered what they were doing. When the old sorrel, somewhat clumsily, beat the snow with his heavy front foot, she watched him curiously. She saw him laboriously expose the brown grass underneath and the sight of the grass relieved her, for she had been worrying about its disappearance. Though the snow was still packed in between the blades, he cropped up the grass just as soon as it appeared. She then watched for the next bit to appear and tried to get a bite before he had it all. She succeeded in getting only a few blades and since he did not seem to mind it, she tried to be quicker next time. She did get a mouthful occasionally but it was not enough for her appetite and it finally dawned on her that she ought to work for herself. She pawed the snow very close to him and as soon as she spied him eating, she would seize as much of the grass he had uncovered as she could, then quickly go back to her own.

A hundred times that morning she wearied of pawing snow, and each time her head would raise and she would look wistfully off into space with the irrepressible impulse to go looking for her mother; but she did not know which way to go. In every respect, in every aspect, her life and the earth had changed in the night. When, as she looked, it seemed to her that a certain direction was the right one, she would think of the coyotes and fear would extinguish the impulse. She made several attempts to get the old sorrel to go with her. She would start off in what appeared to her the right direction, and walking a few paces would stop and call to him. He would pay no attention to her for a while; then as if to stop her calling, he would walk over to where she was and begin to paw the snow there. But it took so much energy and so much time to get him over each bit of space, that she made little headway; and when darkness began dulling the whiteness, her fear of the coyotes who seemed to people the shadows became so intense, she did not dare to leave the sorrel even to the extent of a few paces.

Several very sad, dull days went by. Then came a day during which the sun shone for a while and made her feel better. But it melted the surface of the snow and the cold evening froze it into ice. The struggle for grass became harder and her constant slipping made life very disagreeable.

She saw the black colt now and then. Though he was livelier and far more happy than she, he made no attempts to molest her. Tolerance characterised every move of every member of the herd. The rigours of the sudden winter seemed to strengthen the racial bonds of these good-natured creatures. Each one went his plodding way, thankful for the silent companionship of the herd and showing his appreciation by refraining from any offence to his neighbour.

Queen clung to the old sorrel though she did not thrive on his passive fosterage. She was losing weight rapidly. Her eyes dulled, her head began hanging low and even her long winter hair could not fill in the hollows between her ribs.

In pawing snow she found that her strength was not equal to the desire for food; and, resting often, she was almost always hungry. As she became weaker from day to day, she became more and more unhappy, and longed more and more intensely for her mother, who was nevertheless growing dimmer and more distant in her mind.

There came a grey day. A north wind whistled over the hard crust on the snow and loaded, black clouds dropped more white flakes with listless irregularity. Something pervaded the air of this day which was so similar to the day when she had lost her mother that she became irresistibly restless. All day this restlessness made it hard for her to dig. Late in the afternoon she started away with a suddenness that she herself could not understand. Up the slope and over the plains she went, sinking into deep drifts, pulling out again and going on without a pause, pursuing the image of her beautiful mother that had suddenly lighted up in her soul and as suddenly gone out again, before she could touch it. Somewhere in the dismal swirl it was and she struggled bravely but blindly after it, calling in vain as she went.

For fully an hour she plodded through snows that were piling up a foot above the harder crust, slipping, bruising herself on the jagged ice, resting when she could not go on any farther and coming at last to an understanding that she had been madly pursuing nothing, that she was lost, and that she wanted the protection of the old sorrel. She called to him again and again before she stopped to listen for a reply and suddenly became aware of an agreeable sound floating on the wind.

She called again striking out meanwhile in the direction from which she instinctively felt the sound had come. Night was close at hand. The light that was still left was weakened by the showers of snow flakes that now fell rapidly and without interruption. Again it seemed to her she heard a reply. She spent more energy in calling than she did in pushing on, occasionally falling into a deep drift and remaining there for some time before she made an effort to extricate herself. Who it was answering her in the fast darkening night, she did not know. All she knew and felt with every living cell of her being was that in the cold desolation that was submerging her, the thing that was answering her could save her from the unthinkable horror of being alone.

Her strength ebbed fast from her limbs, only the steadily nearing whinny made her last efforts possible. Then suddenly, much sooner than she expected it, a black object appeared in the darkened snows before her. The last whinny was more distinct than any of the others. Before her, struggling toward her as she had been struggling toward him, was the black colt. If Queen had had any strength left, she would have bounded off to the side; but she could not move.