Firehorse (9781442403352) (26 page)

W
HEN WE WERE OUT OF SIGHT OF THE LIVERY
, M
R
. S
TEAD
pulled Balder to a stop, dropped the reins, and unexpectedly buried his head in his hands. I didn't know what to do. Tentatively, I touched his shoulder.

“They say you get used to losing them,” he finally mumbled between his fingers. “But I haven't yet. I still feel like I'm leaving a funeral every time, carrying the shovel in my own two hands.” His shoulders rose and fell beneath my hand. Sucking in a deep breath, he straightened. He gathered the reins, pointedly looked away from me, and laughed bitterly. “Now, you don't really want to be a veterinary, do you, after what you just saw?”

What I'd just seen made me more certain than ever. “Absolutely.”

The hazel eyes he turned on me lingered so unblinkingly that I shivered again. I got the sense that he was trying to decide something about me, just as the Girl had done. Composing
myself, I gazed back just as unblinkingly. Slowly, gradually, a smile lit his face. “Then I suppose you'll need to learn how to drive, won't you?” And before I could open my mouth, the reins were draped across my lap.

My heart bucked. Impulsively I caressed the leather, but … what if Balder ran away with us?

“Anytime before dark would be satisfactory.”

I laughed nervously. Surely it couldn't be any more difficult or dangerous than jumping Peaches over Mr. Jude's big gate, so I scooped up the reins. They were surprisingly light, and just as alive with messages as telegraph wires. Every movement Balder made was instantly relayed to me. He chewed the bit and the reins danced between my fingers. He stretched his neck and the reins began slipping through my hands. Instinctively I made fists. Balder flicked an ear, confused, then shifted his weight. The buggy began rolling backward. Swallowing a gasp, I looked to Mr. Stead for help.

“Whoa,” he said firmly and the gelding came to an obedient halt. Reaching over, he adjusted the tension on each long rein and sat back. “That's it. Keep your hands lifted. Now, give a steady pull on your left rein—not too much. And cluck to him too. That's it. Good girl.”

By following his directions, we were soon rolling forward. Late afternoon dusk was settling over the city, and I thanked the Lord for the dim light and the cool air, because my cheeks were burning hot. Driving a horse, rather than riding him, felt like trying to work a long-stringed marionette when you were
more used to placing your hand right inside the puppet. Where I might have folded a knuckle on one of Peaches' reins, here I felt as if I had to swing my whole arm.

“That's too much,” Mr. Stead corrected. Gently he guided my elbow back into place. “The movement is in the wrists.”

That made it clearer. Refining my signals, I kept tugging and releasing. Balder, unaccustomed to my cues, swayed like a drunkard, first in one direction and then the other.

“A little tighter. Your right wheel is almost off the street.”

I pulled hard. Balder's head jerked up and we came to a rattling stop. The buggy's wheel made an ominous scraping sound before dropping off the cobblestones with a thud. A gasp escaped me.

“That's all right,” Mr. Stead soothed. “You're doing fine.” I noticed that he used the same measured monotone he did with nervous horses. “Just give him some slack. Now cluck to him again.” It was working. Although my heart still beat doubly fast, my hands shook less. I took a deep breath, let out some rein, and clucked. Balder dropped his head and leaned into the harness. With a lurch, the buggy regained the street. I clucked again and we proceeded in our weird, meandering way.

“You
can
look around.”

I didn't take my eyes off Balder's ears. “
You
look around, I'm driving,” I answered with exaggerated seriousness. Mr. Stead chuckled.

When we reached the end of the street, I pulled back on the reins and Balder came to a stop. There was more traffic here—people
were hurrying to get home before dark—and I waited a long time to find the right moment to plunge into it. Balder shook his head impatiently. The imp even looked over his shoulder at me. Finally, taking the bit in his teeth, he started his way into the chaos, expertly negotiating the opposite paths of a plodding coal wagon and a speeding hack. I sat up tall, feigning control. Whether anyone could tell the difference, I didn't know. The coal man, for one, continued whistling to himself. The driver of the hack was gone in a flash.

Crackling leaves and bits of litter, scattered by late-September gusts, swirled beneath hooves and wheels. Other vehicles hurried past, but we crept along at a walk, keeping to the very edge of the street. The reins felt quite comfortable in my hands now; in fact, I didn't want to give them up. I liked being able to direct our travels.

“How did you come across the name Balder?” I asked.

“Balder the Beautiful? He's a character from Norse mythology. Apparently he owned a horse who broke a leg. By tying a knotted black thread around the fracture and reciting a charm, he cured him. Let's see if I remember how it goes. ‘Balder rade' (that means ‘rode'), ‘his colt slade' (that means ‘slipped'). ‘He lighted and he righted, set joint to joint and bone to bone. Heal in Odin's name.'” Smiling, he said, “In a way, Balder was the world's first veterinary.”

That made me think about his work in the livery. “Aren't you worried about keeping Balder with all those sick horses?”

To my surprise, he chuckled. “Balder? He's built of bricks. Besides, you'll no doubt recall from your manual that if a horse
survives distemper he can't get it again. Balder had it when he was a yearling.”

The distance to my house was all too short, and well before I was ready, I had to pull Balder to a final halt. He stopped on a dime and Mr. Stead, misplacing the credit, nodded approvingly. “A fine job. I should hire you as my private driver.”

I swelled with pride and glanced toward the parlor window to see if Mother or Grandmother was watching. The lamp shone yellow behind the new glass. But silhouetted above it was Father's glowering face.

Mr. Stead didn't see him. “I'll just wait here for you to help me down,” he joked until, noticing my stricken look, he turned toward the house.

Reluctantly I handed him the reins. He wrapped them around the whip post and hurriedly climbed out of the buggy to help me down with the utmost propriety. Father came out of the house to meet us at the bottom of the stairs. Extending his hand, he said, “Mr. Stead, isn't it? The veterinary?”

“Yes, sir. How are you this evening, Mr. Selby?”

“Fine. Just fine. Lovely autumn weather, isn't it?” A particularly chilling gust of wind raked the street, but Father stood by his words. He waited, rocking back and forth slightly, enjoying our discomfort. “Are you here to attend to that horse in my stable … or to something else?”

My face burned like a flame was being held to it.

“Oh, she's made remarkable progress, sir,” Mr. Stead replied. “The Girl, I mean. The Governor's Girl.”

“Yes … well then, I'll have my son, James, return her to the fire station and to her duties.”

My heart plummeted.
No!

“Begging your pardon, she's better off here for the meanwhile. You see, there's this nasty business of distemper—”

“I'd heard that,” Father interrupted. His newspaperman's instincts for a story were aroused. “Is that why a man can't get a horsecar these days?”

“Well, yes, and-”

“And a lot of the other workhorses around the city are absent with it?”

“Yes, but-”

“And”—he was just like a cat, I thought, a smug one that toys overlong with a mouse before whomping it flat with a decisive paw—“and you don't want that burned horse back at the fire station because this distemper's flared up there. Is that true?”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Mr. Stead answered innocently.

Oh, no.

“Wait until the populace learns about this!” Father crowed. “Take me over there. Now.”

Mr. Stead didn't know what to say. He glanced toward me, but I was no help: Father was already brushing past us and climbing right into the buggy. His brash behavior came as no surprise. What did put me on my toes, however, was the sharp odor of kerosene on his clothes. That made my mind spin wildly.

With guarded generosity, Mr. Stead climbed into the buggy as well and unwrapped the reins. Just as they started to drive
away, though, the fire alarm jangled. Balder was pulled to the side of the street and, out of habit, we all paused to listen for the response. Around the corner and down the street, men could be heard shouting orders. The dalmatian was barking, as were other dogs in the neighborhood, but there was no clatter of hooves. We looked at one another in wonderment and waited.

Time took a strange turn and everyone sensed it. Up and down the street people came to a stop and waited. They ceased their sweeping, their chatting, their hurrying. They cocked their heads and listened for the reassuring response of the horses galloping forth to quench yet another upstart fire. But it didn't happen.

At long last, hooves were heard and three horses did round the corner. But at the sight of them my hand flew to my mouth: These creatures were mere ghosts! Although they were the engine team, chosen for their combined strength and speed, this trio was struggling to go at a shaky trot. While the steam engine hissed menacingly, the horses stumbled, coughed, and gamely struggled forward. A whitish phlegm seeped from their nostrils. I looked past them. No hose cart, no ladder wagon.

“Oh, that's murderous!” Mr. Stead protested. “Those horses are sick. They shouldn't be made to work!”

“Let's follow them,” Father urged.

Out of the dusk, James came running up the street, easily besting the sickly animals dragging the engine. He gasped for breath. “It's your newspaper building,” he called to Father. “It's on fire!”

Time took another strange turn and, again, everything happened too slowly. I watched Father cock an apparently interested ear to James's words. He digested them with a composed face. And then, as if his cue had been whispered to him offstage, he suddenly responded, “It is? No, it can't be.” Leaning forward on the edge of his seat, he motioned to Mr. Stead. “Hurry!” he shouted. “You have to drive me there. I have to save my newspaper.”

TWENTY-FOUR

T
HE WORDS KEPT RINGING IN MY EARS
: “T
HEY SHALL
hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.”

It was the reverend's graveside farewell to the two young men killed in the newspaper building fire. They were brothers, valiantly trying to carry out the trays of type when a wall collapsed on them. Father called them heroes. A sickening feeling inside me moaned that they were sacrifices.

A fretful wind swirled leaves around our feet. Grandmother coughed and leaned more heavily on my arm. Ironically, the widow's weeds she'd worn ever since Grandfather passed away were finally appropriate. As the reverend droned on, bandaging the few mourners with his Scriptures, she stared into the two holes with such a wistful gaze that I worried she was going to leap in before the caskets were lowered.

I sneaked a glance at Father. He was standing a little apart from the circle, an equal distance from his surviving employees
and their families and from Mother and the rest of us. A journalist might describe him as pensive, but he didn't seem sad.

Maybe that was my own misinterpretation, based solely on something I'd overheard last night. It was late and I was on my way to bed after checking on the Girl one more time. I was so worried she'd somehow catch the distemper that was spreading like wildfire that I'd gone out to see her between each one of my chores. A basket with my neatly folded laundry sat at the bottom of my stairs, and as I bent to pick it up, I heard Father and Mother talking in their bedroom. Their words were as starched as the laundry, the pauses between them heavy with meaning. I didn't want to listen, and yet I did.

Mother was opening and closing the dresser drawers, putting away their laundry. “I found a large stain of kerosene on your gray trousers,” she said matter-of-factly.

With knee-jerk speed, Father had replied, “I spilled some when I was refilling a lamp.”

There was a pause.

“It was a lot of kerosene,” Mother said.

“I spilled a lot.”

Another, longer pause.

“Yes, you did.”

A blue jay shrieked from a tree limb right above my head, scolding me back to the service. “Yea, Lord God, the Almighty,” the reverend beseeched before setting off on another long verse.

A pair of squirrels, unmindful of the solemnity in their midst, came dashing around and between the weathered headstones,
across the twin piles of fresh dirt, and over by the two black horses waiting patiently in front of their hearses. I was sure that the nearer vehicle was the one I'd seen at the livery, only the black plumes had been freshened and the silver polished to a gleam.