Beyond Rope and Fence

by David Grew

One day she tried her old trick. Very early in the race she happened to be in the lead, having started the race. When the younger horses saw her leading a few of the old plugs, they started after her, soon, of course, overtaking her. Dora swerved to the side, in the hope that they would follow her, and found herself alone. They not only refused to follow her but they did not even look back to see what had happened to her. Dora was so unhappy she started off again after them, but soon stopped, realising that she could not catch up to them and that she would soon be out of breath once more. She stood still a while and watched them enviously. Then she turned, intending to paw the snow for grass, when she saw another group of horses coming from the southeast.

Dora raised her head and looked with absorbed interest. The wind lifted her mane and fluttered it gracefully in the air. For a few moments, absorbed in the creatures that moved toward her in single file, she looked like Queen once more in all the glory of her regency. When they were a hundred yards away, Queen neighed with all her strength. At once the marching line stopped and all heads went up high in the air. Then from the rear of the line a white horse broke from the path he had been following and with a call of recognition started hastily toward her. It was White-black and, with a strength born of the very sight of him, Queen loped to meet him.

Four of the other horses recognized her, too, and the air vibrated with the music of that happy reunion. Noses touched noses and happy whinnies greeted happy whinnies. With the five of them had come a young mother, a sorrel mare with a fuzzy little colt who had been born in the spring. When the others had gone to meet Queen she remained in her tracks, hesitating to get into any kind of an assembly where through joy or anger her colt might be hurt. He stood right behind her, his fuzzy little head against her haunch, his eyes filled with wonderment.

When Dora had greeted her old friends, she went to greet the mother and her colt, running her old muzzle, on which were still the marks of her struggle with the basket, down the fuzzy little fellow’s forehead, murmuring tremulously. The proud young mother looked on almost eagerly and commented softly and good-naturedly.

But when the big group returned there was dissention at once. The ugly red mare seemed to think that there was entirely too much fuss made over Queen, and turned upon her with open mouth. White-black, right behind the old nag, nipped her severely. A quarrel followed which spread to the rest of the group and finally ended in a race which divided the two groups, Dora going off with her friends. All day the two groups dug the snow a goodly distance apart and in the evening came the worst storm of the season.

The storm approached quite suddenly, though all day there had been vague signs of its coming. A northern gale blew up, tearing the weaker branches from the trees and sending them sliding over the surface of the snow, tearing up the looser snow and blowing it into their eyes and ears and nostrils. Queen led her group to a fairly sheltered spot in among the trees near by and together they lay down.

The warmth of their bodies, one touching the other, was so comforting that the slightest move on the part of any one of them brought a low, patient protest from the rest. The night came rapidly. The wind grew more and more furious, howling and shrieking overhead, and the tall poplars groaned as they bent with its lashing. Gusts of wind, loaded with snow, which it raised on the open, struck the trees and the snow fell in powder upon them below, covering them as with a blanket.

In the open the savage north wind went mad. It tore along at a terrific rate, taking everything that was loose with it, then, as if it had in its savage eagerness fallen over itself, there was a pause for a moment, after which, picking itself up again, it went on with even greater ferocity, shrieking as with some ineffable, primordial pain. It seized the fallen snow and whirled it around with the falling snow, scattered it high in the air, lifting it again when it had fallen and sending it like waves across the plains, gathering great showers of it and hurling them against the wall of the woods, sending these showers down upon the tree tops, tearing it all up again as soon as it had fallen into drifts below and once more hurling the restless dust into space—a display of insane, futile effort—a cosmic passion bereft of purpose.

But if this wild night could have been wilder and had raved with even more threat in its raving, it could not have diluted the contentment in Queen’s heart. The touch and the subtler feeling of the presence of her companions did as much to keep her warm as the heat of their bodies, and, like a light, illumined the long trail of life behind her. She moved through the corridor of her past like a curious child, walking in its sleep and dreaming of a beautiful, incoherent fairyland. The light was silvery as that of the moon and in the shadows detached images which she only half recognised glistened like reflections on the snow. And when dawn ushered in a calm day, Queen rose with a feeling like that of having returned home from a long visit and shook the snow from her body.

Queen knew the country there as none other knew it. Leading the little group to the best feeding grounds, she took her place once more at the head, for at the head only could Queen be happy. In spite of the deep snows through which they were obliged to plow to get their food, Queen began to fill out rapidly and the greater part of her old strength came back to her. With the return of her strength came the old fear of man. Every move was accompanied by an investigation and in every sound of wind and tree she seemed to hear the sound of a voice.