Beyond Rope and Fence

by David Grew

The man came back. She heard him coming and her eyes began to blaze again and her sides throbbed for fear. He walked around to the front of the manger and approaching her head, extended a hand carefully. She pulled her head back as far as the ropes would allow her and snorted with fright. He said something to her angrily and she listened in terror to the sound of his voice. He made another attempt to touch her with his hand, but this time she threateningly bared her teeth. He withdrew his hand quickly and lifting the long end of one of her ropes he struck her with it. It hit the sore on her upper lip and Queen pulling on the ropes with all her might, cried out for pain.

Then the second man appeared and the boy and the dog came behind him. Queen expected a new battle, but they only brought her hay and water. They stood near the manger watching her and talking. They took handfuls of hay and touched her lips with it but she only shook her head violently and whinnied fearfully. So, too, she disdained the water they gave her. The man seemed to know that she wanted the water, however, and so he set the pail down into the manger. When they finally went out Queen looked after them anxiously.

Night came down. The man came back again and offered her some oats in his hands; but even if she had desired to eat the oats, the smell of his hands would have destroyed that desire. Seeing that she had touched neither hay nor water he threw the oats into the hay and walked away. Suddenly as she looked sideways, she saw the man lead the horse out of the barn. It was too dark to see clearly but she could feel that the horse was going out and she could hear the tread of his heavy feet. Forgetting all her previous emotions, Queen shamelessly begged him to return and the terror in her voice seemed to break up the shadows that filled the barn into monstrous creatures which she felt were surrounding her. She called again and again till the fear of the sound of her own voice finally hushed her. She hoped that the horse would return and waited and listened for his coming, but he did not return. Faint queer sounds of scratching came from above and behind her. Chickens roosting somewhere in the darkness tortured her with their sleepy peeping. And a bat flying around the barn, buzzing every few moments near her head, kept her nerves on edge. But when the dog came into the barn, Queen went mad. She had fought coyotes and dogs but she had never been helplessly tied before. She pulled at her ropes and kicked with her legs till she shattered one of the crate-like sides of her stall and tore the top board of her manger loose at one end.

The frightened dog ran out of the barn and barked so loud he brought the man from the house. Queen heard him coming and when she saw rays of light break through the cracks in the walls, she almost jumped over the manger. He opened the door and a flood of light poured into the barn and when he began to talk to her she calmed down a bit.

He retied her and fixed the broken board of the manger. She seemed to fear him less now than before and as he talked she listened, her eyes fixed as if fascinated on the lantern he had hung up not far from her head. Suddenly the dog reappeared. Queen jumped involuntarily. The man kicked the dog and the dog ran out of the barn crying for pain. It was then that the first slight sense of gratefulness came over Queen; but it left her with the man’s going out and gave way to the puzzle of his strange light, which for some time obscured everything else in her mind.

The night dragged horribly and when dawn came at last she was exhausted. She saw the barn-door open and was relieved by the shower of daylight. Though the man came into the barn and seemed to have much to do there, he did not come near her. Chickens moved around her, some of them even jumping up on her manger to pick the grains of oats that she had refused, and Queen watched them with interest. For a while she was afraid of them, but their contented sing-songs as they ceaselessly searched for food bespoke their harmlessness.

The man had gone out and Queen was dozing from sheer exhaustion when the boy appeared. He came over to Queen’s manger and seized the ropes, drawing her head toward him. She resisted as best she could and because she bared her teeth when he tried to touch her with his hand, opening her mouth as with the intention of biting him just as soon as the hand was near enough, he let go his hold on the rope and picking up a stick began to prod her with it. At first she just struggled to pull her head out of reach of the stick but when he persisted she became furious. Snorting and whinnying she kicked right and left against her stall and the boy, afraid that his father would come in, quietly sneaked out of the barn.

All day she stood stolidly without touching the hay, drinking a little of the ill-tasting water only when alone and when she could not resist the desire for it. When night came again Queen began feeling most uneasy about the shadows and the strange nocturnal sounds; yet she seemed more able to endure this night than the first. When the second dawn appeared she was partially resigned to her evil-smelling confinement; but the monotony of standing on her feet in one place, standing, standing, standing endlessly, like a new kind of pain was far more distracting than bodily pain.

The pain of the brand seemed to grow dull and then it bothered her only when the healing wound touched something. The other pains in the many places about her body also kept growing less tormenting; but these tortures of the first days of her captivity gave way to the less perturbative, more gnawing anguish of imprisonment.

Calls of distant horses sometimes penetrated her prison and Queen would make the very walls surrounding her tremble with the agony of her aimless replies. So, too, wafts bearing familiar fragrance often strayed into the smelling atmosphere of the barn, rekindling smouldering fires. The love of the plains, the desire to lope over them with the freedom she had retained so long would at those times seize upon her with maddening hold and she would kick and pull till she hurt herself or until she realised once more, each new time more forcefully than the last, that all her storming was as futile as it was hurtful.