Season of Ponies (7 page)

Pamela told him all about it, down to the last detail, from the plumes on the ponies’ headdresses to the hoops of fire the riders jumped through. When she had told everything she could remember, Ponyboy jumped up excitedly. “Let’s do it!” he cried.

“Do it? What part of it?” Pamela asked.

He gestured impatiently. “Everything. All of it.”

“But you can’t just do those things. I mean not really. We could sort of pretend; but to really do the tricks, you’d have to practice and practice and it wouldn’t be easy. I read in a book once about how you start in a practice harness and—”

“A practice harness?” Ponyboy asked.

“Yes. It holds you up if you fall off the horse. Its fastened to a sort of crane overhead and—”

“Bring the book next time,” Ponyboy interrupted. “I want to see it.”

“Oh, I can’t. It was from the library in town. I got it out once when I went to town with my aunts.”

“Well, take it out again then.”

“I’m—I’m not allowed to go to the library any more.”

“Oh?” Ponyboy asked. “Why not?”

“I don’t know, really. Right after I got that book out, Aunt Sarah decided to go to the library and pick my books out for me. She said she would select more suitable material.”

“Just like Them,” he muttered disgustedly. “What’s wrong with a book about bareback riding, I’d like to know.”

“I don’t know. I wondered about it.”

Ponyboy’s shrug said that the whole thing was beyond sensible comment. “We don’t need a book,” he said cockily. “We’ll learn without it. It’ll be easy.”

The very next day Pamela had scarcely reached her room when she heard the flute’s call. Ponyboy had never come two nights in a row before. Surprised and delighted, Pamela scrambled down the trellis and arrived breathless under the oak tree where he waited impatiently. When they reached the meadow, Pamela saw that he had outlined with stones a small practice ring. It lay at the end of the clearing under a huge old oak, and from a sturdy branch there hung a practice harness.

“I made the harness from some stuff I found in the old barn,” he said proudly. “And I’ve been training the ponies. I think we’re ready to start learning.”

Pamela wasn’t nearly so sure. To stand up on a galloping pony’s back seemed pretty scary even with a harness. “But the ponies can’t be ready,” she hedged. “They have to be trained for a long time.”

“Not my ponies,” Ponyboy said. “Watch!”

He led Nimbus and Luna into the ring. He clapped his hands, and they began the slow rhythmical gallop of ring horses, their lovely heads tucked down sharply; their manes rippling gently to the softly rocking gait.

“Oh-h-h,” Pamela breathed, lost in admiration.

“Well, let’s get started,” Ponyboy said briskly. “Do you want to be first?”

“No! I mean, you go ahead. I don’t mind.”

“All right. I just thought you might want a head start. After all, I’m sure to learn much faster than you.”

He ran to Luna and vaulted onto her back. He caught the practice harness and strapped it around him. Very slowly he raised himself to a squat. He grinned at Pamela triumphantly as he went by. Then he very slowly began to stand up. Suddenly he waved one arm in the air wildly and then one leg and went sailing into space, dangling upside down in the harness. Luna snorted, as he sailed past kicking wildly.

That was the way it went for some time. Pamela sat on a rock and watched and tried hard not to laugh. Finally Ponyboy unfastened the harness and stopped Luna. He got down and put Nimbus into the ring. “Your turn,” he said. “I want to laugh at you for a change.”

“You know I can’t jump on her when she’s galloping,” Pamela complained. Looking exasperated, Ponyboy stopped Nimbus and helped Pamela up. Then he handed her the harness.

As he sat down at the edge of the ring he remarked loudly, “This ought to be good.”

Pamela let Nimbus gallop around the ring once or twice while she got up her courage. “Well, I might as well get it over with,” she thought. She put her hands flat on the pony’s back and started to lift herself into a squat. To her complete surprise, her muscles suddenly seemed to know what to do. Confidently she lifted to her feet, keeping her knees relaxed, giving with the pony’s action. Then she stood with outstretched arms as Nimbus rocked on, around and around the ring. Ponyboy stared in astonishment, but he was scarcely more surprised than Pamela was herself.

She was so amazed and delighted at being able to stand erect on the galloping pony’s back, as though she had done it all her life, that it wasn’t until the fourth or fifth trip around the ring that she noticed the look on Ponyboy’s face. She stopped Nimbus quickly and got off. She couldn’t help feeling a little triumphant, but she really didn’t want to hurt Ponyboy’s feelings.

She led Nimbus up to him. “I don’t know how I did it,” she said. “I guess it was just an accident.”

Ponyboy was generous with his congratulations; however, Pamela noticed that he sent her home rather early on Nimbus, and he didn’t go with her as he usually did. In fact, he stayed away for three days; and when he came for her again, she found he was quite good at riding standing up. So she was fairly certain that she knew just about how long it had taken him to learn.

She never tried to explain to him how she had learned so easily, partly because she didn’t think he wanted to talk about it, but mostly because she couldn’t begin to understand it herself.

T
HE CIRCUS GAME SOON
absorbed most of their time together. After they had both practiced for several evenings, they moved the ring out to the center of the meadow and made it much larger. They harnessed the two white mares, Neige and Nuage, together and learned to ride them standing with one foot on each pony. They taught all the ponies to gallop in formation, to whirl and turn in unison, and to walk on their hind legs.

Sometimes they would have a complete show with all the acts planned and scheduled just as if they were performing before a huge audience instead of a few rather indifferent birds and squirrels.

The ponies would be decorated with bridles made of flowering vines, with plumes of ferns and lilies nodding over their heads. First would come the grand entry with Ponyboy seated on Cirro, Pamela on the lovely pink Aurora, and all the other ponies following two by two. Cirro and Aurora were chosen as the parade leaders partly because they didn’t do well as ring ponies. Neither of them could resist adding all sorts of fancy flourishes to a trip around the ring, flourishes that could easily make a standing rider wind up upside down on the grass. But they were gorgeous as parade leaders, and they knew it.

They pranced and danced, sideways and backwards, their necks tightly arched and their tails like banners, one of blue flame and the other pink cotton candy.

After the parade came the pony drill. Seated on Cirro and Aurora and cracking vine whips, Pamela and Ponyboy directed the other ponies as they galloped in pairs, fours, and single file around the ring. The pony drill ended with all the ponies on their hind legs, and then the bareback riding began.

First, Ponyboy was ringmaster. He would stay in the ring while Pamela on Aurora led all the ponies out of the clearing—or Big Top as they called it—and into the edge of the forest. Two tall pines growing close together made a perfect archway for entrances and exits.

After a moment, Pamela would enter on Nimbus with a lacy tutu of ferns tied over her hitched-up skirt. Sometimes she would unbraid her hair so it could float out behind more gracefully. Once in the ring, Nimbus would begin her steady dependable gallop, and Pamela would rise slowly to her feet, sometimes shifting even to one foot. When her act was over, she would jump down and curtsy daintily while Nimbus bowed on one bent foreleg and Ponyboy, as ringmaster, pointed to them grandly with his whip.

Next Ponyboy on Luna did all sorts of daring acrobatics, jumping on and off the steadily galloping pony. Sometimes Pamela would drop her role as ring mistress long enough to sit on a log and be several hundred cheering spectators.

“Hurrah for Ponyboy!” she would shout, clapping loudly.

Next Neige and Nuage would be brought in harnessed together, and Pamela and Ponyboy would both ride them at once; first with one standing on each pony, and then one behind the other with a foot on each white back.

Solsken, of course, was too little to be in the show, but he loved to be in the midst of things and blundered about getting in everyone’s way. Finally, Pamela made him a floppy hat that tied under his chin with a big bow, and the circus had a clown.

By the time the circus was over, it was usually quite late. The ride home was always one of Pamela’s favorite times. They moved slowly through the forest, talking and laughing; but when they came to the valley, they always broke into a headlong run. There was wild excitement in the dash down the dark plain, with the night wind in their faces and the ground flying backward beneath the racing hooves. Beside her, Ponyboy crouched low over Cirro’s neck, while from close behind came the rhythmic beat of the hooves of the pony herd.

Pamela was always breathless when they reached the woods near the old barn. There in the shadow of the barn she said good-by while Nimbus nickered and nudged her gently with a dove-gray nose.

O
NE NIGHT, WHEN THE
circus had become almost a nightly thing, Pamela watched and waited until darkness came, and there was no sign from Ponyboy. So reluctantly, she went to bed. It was several hours later when she awoke quite suddenly. She knew at once that it was very late, and that something had awakened her. She listened intently. What could it have been? Then it came again. Faint but clear—the whinny of a horse. Pamela felt her way to the window. There, directly below, a pale shadow moved. Not at the edge of the trees as usual, but right beside the house.

Pamela suddenly felt that something must be dreadfully wrong and she must hurry. Still in her long, old-fashioned nightdress she scrambled out the window and down the trellis. Almost before she reached the ground, Nimbus was beside her. Pamela felt a surge of fear. She knew that only something very serious would make Nimbus come so near the house. Nimbus knelt quickly, and leaped into a run almost before Pamela was settled on her back.

Faster than Pamela had ever ridden before, they flew through the dark night. Over hills, down into valleys, and then into the forest. Pamela hid her face from the slashing branches. She glanced up finally to find they were racing without pause through the familiar meadow. Very soon they were climbing again, and Pamela recognized the rocky slopes that Ponyboy had called Sleeping Lady Mountain. As they reached the crest of the hill, Nimbus paused for a second and with a gasp of horror Pamela looked down on the endless black water and twisted mossy trees of the Pig Woman’s swamp. A shiver of fear raced over her and Pamela felt Nimbus shudder beneath her; then he plunged downward towards the swamp.

At the edge of the swampland they came upon the pony herd. They were standing close together with their lovely heads and tails drooping mournfully. They greeted Pamela with pleading, forlorn eyes. She noticed that they seemed to be continually looking out across the marshland into the mysterious darkness. Then Cirro began to move forward, stopping to look back as though beckoning her to follow. Pamela urged Nimbus on, but she could feel the terror that shook the little mare’s body, so she slipped from her back and followed on foot.

Cirro led the way through tall marsh grass, over spongy, shaky ground, to a spot where, just ahead, stretched the dark water of the swamp. And there before them a narrow ridge of muddy earth wound away into the darkness. Cirro lowered his head as though sniffing the earth, and Pamela knelt beside him. By the pale light of the moon, she could just make out footprints—human prints—and the tiny hoofprints of a colt. The prints were deeply cut in the spongy earth. They seemed to be headed straight for the center of the swamp.

Pamela turned and looked back at the ponies. As her glance flew frantically from one trembling drooping pony to another, she knew suddenly what had happened. Solsken was missing. He must have strayed away from the herd and into the swamp, and Ponyboy must have gone after him. She was sure that nothing else could have made Ponyboy go into the swamp.

The ponies gazed at Pamela with frightening pleading eyes, and she knew what she had to do. Slowly, she started out over the narrow slimy path.

As she picked her way cautiously along the narrow trail, her mind raced. Where was Ponyboy? Would she be able to help him? Who was the Pig Woman? Pamela stopped. At the back of her mind a thought flickered, but she couldn’t quite get hold of it. It hung there like a name you can’t quite remember. She was almost sure it was something she had read. It had something to do with the Pig Woman, but the rest just wouldn’t come. Somehow Pamela felt sure it was very important. She could almost remember ...

Just then Pamela forgot everything and drew back in horror. Almost under her feet a part of the path squirmed, and a fat black snake oozed away into the slimy water. She stifled a scream.

She looked around her. A thick swirling mist drifted everywhere. Behind her she could not even see the familiar shape of Sleeping Lady Mountain. Ahead and on both sides through swirling mist she could see dark water, clumps of marsh grass, and huge dark shapes that could be twisted, mossy swamp trees. Or could they be crouching monsters waiting to spring? Frozen with terror, Pamela watched and listened. Now all around her she could hear faint rustlings and gurglings, as unknown creatures swam or crept.

Moments of frozen fear crawled by before Pamela could force herself to go on.

She watched each step even more carefully now. From time to time she caught a glimpse of Ponyboy’s footprints or the marks left by Solsken’s hooves. At times the trail narrowed to nothing, and Pamela had to jump to the next tiny island of mud and marsh grass.

After a long time she looked up to see a startling sight. Looming up straight ahead of her, half hidden in mist, was a house. With small dark windows and high teetering turrets, it had a gloomy forbidding look.