The little hollow is still and quiet. Maybe, thinks Mary McCamley, if I am patient I will see the Sand Ponies come down to the shore.
The wind stirs the grass, and behind the faint rustle Mary McCamley imagines she hears horses running, faintly, almost not a sound at all, running along the beach. Sand Ponies, running on the beach, she thinks dreamily, running over the dunes. The sound grows louder. Suddenly she stirs, sits up. I’ve been dozing, she thinks. The noise is louder. It is a noise; it is horses running; closer, getting louder. She stands up to see, but it is too dark. Now the pounding is like thunder. Men are shouting. Can she run? But where? Into the sea? There is not time.
Then suddenly there is the sound of screeching brakes, a crash, and the pounding thunder is nearly on top of her. She crouches down into the hollow in the dunes, huddling there. The pounding is all around her; dark bodies break across the dunes above her, leaping to the beach. More bodies, leaping across the dunes; then they are past, running down the hard-packed sand along the edge of the water.
She can hear men’s voices behind her. She waits. There is no more sound of horses; she gets up. She doesn’t want to see what is behind her, she wants to get away from it. She starts down the beach toward home; then she stops. There is something on the beach ahead of her. Something no bigger than a dog. She goes closer.
It is a tiny colt, looking dazed, shaking and breathing very hard. She takes off her scarf to tie him, but then she thinks, He won’t know how to lead. Can I carry him? She tries to pick him up. He is heavy, but she gets him settled, finally, legs dangling. He is too tired to resist her, his sides wet and his breath still coming in great gasps. She hurries as fast as she can, nearly falling when she reaches the barn.
“Bring him in, bring him in,” says Sarah Paddyfoot, seeing Mary standing uncertainly in the door. “My heavens, child. What on earth have you got? Get some straw, John. Tom, fix a stall. Poor thing, poor little thing.”
They get the colt into a stall, still standing, but dazed. “Get a blanket, John, and wrap him up,” Sarah says. “Hurry!” But John is already there with one, folding it around the little creature.
“What’s the matter with him?” Karen says. “Oh, poor thing!”
“I think he’s only tired and frightened,” Tom says, feeling the colt all over.
The twins have come to the doorway, pajamaed and staring. “It’s a fairy colt, a Sand Pony colt,” Lisa whispers. Jana nods, eyes wide. “Where is his mother?”
“It’s a little stud colt,” says John, rubbing the tiny head with a towel. “Looks black, but he’ll be gray, I’d guess.”
“A little stallion,” says Tom, “with one white foot. Whatever happened to him? How did he get off by himself?”
It is much later when Jack Tillman comes in with the sheriff and Mr. Elber. The colt is warmer and moving about, sucking canned milk from John’s fingers. The twins are snug in one corner of the stall, covered with a blanket, and Mary sits in the straw near them, watching the colt.
“Why, here he is,” says Dan Elber. “Here’s the little one. Spent half the night looking for him. Let’s see, boy. Why, he looks fine. Orphan,” he says. “Mother hit on the road. No marks on him?” he asks Tom.
“No. He’s all right, I think. But what happened?”
“First, better fix it so he can get some more milk in him,” says Jack Tillman. “Get an old inner tube, John.”
Soon the rubber inner tube is cut and folded into a makeshift nipple, and the colt is getting his dinner, Mary McCamley holding the bottle as he drinks.
“I’ve got a mare with a new colt. Might take this one, too,” says Mr. Elber. “Don’t know, but we can try. We’ll take him up there in the morning and see what she makes of him.”
“But he’s yours, I reckon,” says the sheriff, seeing Mary McCamley’s face. “Finders, keepers, looks like. Sand Pony colt.”
Mary smiles and hugs the colt.
“Told you! Told you it was a fairy colt,” shouts Jana. “Sand Pony colt!”
“Shhh,” says Mary, “you’ll frighten him.” She looks at Jack Tillman. “People say you can’t tame them. Is that true?”
He smiles. “No, you have a young one there. He’ll he tame as a kitten, if you care for him like that, Mary McCamley.”
“Of course he will,” says Dan Elber. “Can break him yourself, likely.”
“Now,” says Sarah Paddyfoot, bringing coffee and drawing up boxes to sit on, “I’m about to bust, wondering what’s been going on. Last thing we knew, there was a noise like thunder, then something sounded like a wreck on the road and Mr. Tillman was out of here in a flash. Thought I heard a shot, too,” she says. “Made the children stay here. What’s been happening out there:1”
Having gotten himself settled on a nail keg, coffee balanced on his knee, the sheriff leans back against the wall. “Dan here,” he says, “had got himself some horses lost up in the hills. We were out after them, with the boys from Lindley’s. We were working down into the draw, when all of a sudden that bunch of Sand Ponies came boiling down the hills, and the next thing, Dan’s horses broke out right in front of us, the ponies on their tails, and it was getting so dark you could hardly see. All mixed up together, the whole bunch of ‘em—couldn’t tell what you were roping. Little varmints messed up the whole thing. There was someone chasing them, though. Man on foot. Must have been crazy, running down the draw swinging his rope. Finally got tired and went back to his truck.
“The horses kept on down to the beach. We got a couple roped, and the others split up, some coming on across the road. That’s when the truck came barreling down. Crazy fool! A wonder he only hit one. Had to shoot her. Got the ambulance, finally, took the man away. Dan went hunting for the colt. Mr. Tillman, too. Gave up finally; came back here to get warm.”
“You didn’t catch all your horses, then?” Karen asks, looking at Mr. Elber.
“Oh, we’ll get out in the morning, try to find them,” he says. “Got three, two still loose. Shouldn’t be any trouble, if those Sand Ponies stay out of it.”
The colt has lain down finally, full of milk, and sleepy. Mary sits beside him, rubbing his ears.
Jack Tillman watches her. “You want your bed in here tonight?” he asks.
She looks up at him and nods.
“Can we, too?” shout the twins. “Can we?”
“No,” says Mr. Tillman. “Scoot!” And he smacks the closest bottom, sending J.L. off to bed, complaining.
When they have tucked themselves in, Jana says, “We’ll go back when everyone is asleep. Miss McCamley won’t mind.”
“Are you sure?”
“I said so!”
But by the time everyone is asleep, so are the twins. Mary McCamley crawls into her bed and reaches out her hand to feel the colt’s soft neck. Abbey snuggles next to her, purring, not minding the colt at all.
CHAPTER 18
Mary wakes to find a warm muzzle in her face, and sits up to stare into gentle colt eyes. She puts on her robe and heads for the kitchen to heat some milk, but Sarah Paddyfoot is there before her, holding the bottle out.
She’s pretty in the morning, too, thinks Sarah. Well, what’s for breakfast, now? Biscuits. Biscuits and blackberry jam.
When the truck arrives from the ranch the men tie the colt inside and Karen and the boys ride with him to hold him. J.L., mutinous, are made to sit in front.
The colt is unloaded trembling from his ride, but Mr. Elber soon has him calm again, then picks him up and carries him across the yard to the stall while everyone stands back and waits. “You must be still,”
Jack Tillman tells the twins. “Very still. We don’t know what the mare will do, but if you upset her, she sure won’t take that little one.”