THE WILD HORSE OF WINDY RIDGE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19379, 31 December 1932, Page 13

THE WILD HORSE OF WINDY RIDGE

Imperceptibly at first, the blessed air crept back into my lungs. When that awful restriction about my throat was released, I think I must have been unconscious, but quite suddenly I knew that I was grasping and choking and struggling—thrashing over and over in the little pool, and sucking the cool, sweet air into my lungs in great, sobbing gasps. My head was singing until it felt as if it must burst, and all my body seemed to be a burning fire, and my nostrils and wind-pipe were dry as though they had been seared with flame, so that every new breath was an agony. My very eyeballs burned, so that I was blind, and. I was deaf with the roaring in my ears—the throb and hammer of my heart that had all but stopped.

Then, suddenly the fight for life was finished, and I lay weak and spent, and there was golden sunlight against my eyes, and I could hear the birds singing—overhead, in the scrub, a little rio-rio, and far down the valley a blackbird, and further still, high up in the bush, a bell-bird intoning his deep, solemn notes—“tonk-tonk!” And I could smell the wind—cabbage-tree flower, and willows, and the bruised and trampled grass—and water . . . Water!

I was soaked with it—chilled to the bore with it—and dying of thirst! I began to struggle again—and there was a sound that drove all thought of water out of my mind, and sent me lurching to my feet with only one thought in me—to run—run frantically and blindly until I could run no longer. A human voice, harsh and uglj r and merciless. ‘‘Watch him—and if he shows fight, choke him again!” If he shows fight! The mockery of it! What chance had I, half-dead from starvation, thirst and strangulation, to show fight? If I had been in full possession of my health and strength, instead of numb with exhaustion, and dazed with the shadow of death that was still shaking its wings above me, I should have fought. I should have turned on them, and shown them with tooth and hoof that no man should ever master me, but as it was, bruised and dazed, I could only flounder to my feet, and stagger into a blind run until the cruel noose tightened again, with a jerk, and flung me headlong. I lay where I had fallen, nor would I rise again although they beat me until the blood ran. The noose held me inescapable. By it Kaihikotoa and Shade had died, and I had fought it for many hours—fought it unto the death, and I would net fight it again. I would die there, on the ground, moveless, in sullen despair. To this day, I am not quite certain how many men were round me, for I was past caring; but always I was

conscious of that merciless voice directing those who beat me. When I would not rise it became coldly venemous. “I’ll move him, the sullen little brute! Here—Martin—get me some dry scrub!” Martin asked, “What for?” and the other snarled. ‘‘To light against him, idiot! Get it!” But Martin would not. I found afterwards that though he was a poor weak tool in the other’s hands, there were things that he would not do —a margin beyond which even fear could not drive him, and this was one of them. There was a dreadful scene between the master and the man, but the others backed Martin, and in the end, after slipping a great stiff leather halter on my head, and loosening the noose’ I heard them ride away. It was hours before I moved again. I was dreadfully stiff and sore, and the pain in my back and sides where they had beaten me was like tongues of flame leaping all about my body. Very slowly I sat up, shaking my head angrily to try and rid it of the stiff halter that galled it so painfully. At first I sat wracking my muddled, dazed head to try and plan some way of escape, but there was none. Though the noose was loosened, it was sfriii about my neck, and. in addi-

by EMARY GURNEY

tion was the halter on my head, strapped round my nose and forehead, behind my ears, and under my throat.

Gradually the sun warmed me through, arid again I became conscious of my great thirst. Behind me the spring gurgled and laughed, but for all the hope I had of reaching it, it might as well have been a thousand miles

away. If I had been a human, I should have moaned, but being a horse—just a horse! I simply lay back again, and waited to die.

Perhaps if I had been human, I should have wished to die, but I did not. I wanted to live —to live and gallop over the hills, leading a herd of beautiful horses like my lovely dead mother. It was spring, and the air was warm and full of the splendour of young things—growing things.

I must have dozed then, and dreamed that I heard a horse call. So real was the sound that I lifted my head and called back; and then I saw that there was a rider coming over the hill. Panic seized me again, and I struggled to my feet, only to find that I was held by the head on either side, by thick ropes that ran from the halter to the stout, twisted trunks of manuka trees.

So I stood and watched fearfully, and as the rider came closer I could see that he carried something that shone in the sun.

When he dismounted quite close to me, I could see that it was the tin in which the man George had carried

water to my mother. But the man was not George. Oh, how I wished that it was and that he would give me water! For, some minutes he stood watching me, and then he spoke and I knew by his voice that it was the man Martin.

He said, “When you get some condition on you, you’ll be a picture, little fella!”

He had a funny, husky way of speaking and his eyes were never still. They were pale blue, and I think that they were kind, but they had a beaten sort of look, as though he were afraid, and his mouth sagged so. that his lips were never closed, but gaped open foolishly.

I knew afterwards that he was continually afraid, mostly of the man with the cruel voice, whose name was Frobisher; but more he was afraid of life, of being ‘out of a job.’

Until then, all humans had been alike to me—things to be feared, and run from, if possible—to be hated and feared and killed, if one could not run; but now that I was helpless I wanted to know which of these creatures I must hate and fear; and I knew in those first seconds that from this man I need fear no active cruelty —but only cruelty of the passive order, bom by fear. He turned away from me, stumbling —he always stumbled, and went to the spring, holding the tin under the trickle

of water, until it was full. Then he brought it to me. He came up very slowly, talking all the time, as much I think, to reassure himself as me. I strained back, but, remembering the noose, I dared not move my feet, though I could not help snorting with fear and anger. Presently he put the tin down, almost under my nose, and stretched out his hand. • “He said you warn’t to have no water, but I couldn’t stand for that, either!” he whispered. “If he knew what I came back for, he’d fire me, I guess!” He glanced about furtively, and then made a sudden determined movement, and laid his hand on my nose! I squealed, but dared not move, and he jumped back as though I had bitten him, and stood staring from me to his hand, and I could see that he was trembling. “Crikey!” he said, in his queer, husky way. “I touched yer!” He rubbed his hand on his trousers, and looked at it again. ‘‘Guess I’m the first man ’at ever did, you little beauty!” Men touched me when they loosened the noose, and must have touched me again when they put the halter on me, but that, somehow, was different—did not seem to count. I stared, at him mistrustfully, but the soent of the water rose from the

tin, and though I was half afraid of it, I remembered that my mother had drunk from it, and taken no hurt, so I lowered my head, and gulped in great, healing mouthfuls. Long afterwards, when “Pug” Pennyworth, of Windy Ridge, trained me for racing, he fed me molasses and malt and gruel, but none of it ever tasted as sweet as the icy spring water that I drew then, from that rusted tin. When I had drained it to the bottom, I stood with the bright silver drops beaded on my muzzle, and we stared at each other a while, he with a sort of childish wonder—l with contempt beginning to over-ride my instinctive fear. But for the noose, I should not have feared him at all. I should have killed him.

Before mine, his eyes fell, and he moved uneasily and sidled forward and grasped the tin, which he tossed away into the scrub, but he did not try to touch me again. Then he mounted, but as he turned his horse away, he spoke.

“Little fella,” he said, “I touched yer. I’m the first man that ever has —an’ don’t you forget it!” To me, then, the repetition seemed merely silly, but in the light of sub.

sequent events, I was to realise that the fact meant even more to me than it did to him. (To -be cotnfcinuedJ