One Hundred and Four Horses. Mandy Retzlaff

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ self-assured look about her. The foal was so striking that Charl decided to name her Lady, after her mother. But in the first few hours after Lady was born, Charl knew that something was wrong. He had been around horses all his life, and instinct told him that this was bad. That night, Pat arrived at Two Tree to see for himself. In her paddock, Lady Richmond lay, weak and exhausted, seemingly not having recovered from giving birth. There was very little to say, for both men understood what had happened. In giving birth, Lady Richmond had torn herself inside; her foal, Lady, was strong and healthy, but Lady Richmond herself was rapidly fading away.

      Come the morning, Lady Richmond’s eyes were closed, her breathing shallow and ragged. Come the evening, she was gone, leaving behind her day-old foal.

      Lady Richmond was buried on Two Tree, but her foal needed Charl and Tertia now. They would have to act as surrogates to the orphaned horse. Now, when Pat and I took the children to visit Two Tree farmhouse on a weekend, we would find Tertia and Resje sitting on the lawn with the dainty little foal greedily sucking on her bottle. Once she was full, Lady would race around the lawn, cutting circles around her adoptive family, kicking out with her hooves.

      Watching the tiny creature hurtle around the garden, seeing how Resje delighted in watching her tumble, I knew that our new neighbors were the very best kind of ­people: the kind who would reach out to a creature in need and step up to whatever challenge life threw at them. Without Charl and Tertia, Lady would have perished at her mother’s side. Now, watching as Kate was allowed to hold out a bottle and let Lady suckle from its tip, I was reminded more than ever of the trust that our horses, and indeed all our animals, put in us. It was a thought that would come back to me time and again over the following years as, too often to mention, I would look into a helpless horse’s eyes and, though I knew we did not truly have the means to help, promise them we would never let them go.

      As the months and years passed, Pat and Charl sat up long into the nights, reminiscing and dreaming of the things they could do with this land. I had always known that my husband was a very specific kind of dreamer: the kind of man who could concoct an elaborate, wild scheme and actually see it to fruition. He had been that type ever since he was a boy, building great chicken empires or collecting his own herds of cattle, and I began to see now how our new life on Crofton was the natural conclusion. He and Charl would ride the boundaries and talk about which corners of bush might be conquered next. They would dream of new dams and roads, irrigation schemes so ambitious they might bring greenery to deserts. But most of all, they dreamed about their horses, and how they might breed something very special into their herds.

      The opportunity for something a little special came soon after Lady was orphaned. When a fellow farmer was looking to transport one of his Arabian stallions to its new owners in Zambia, Charl agreed to provide a temporary home for the stallion on its journey north. This, Pat and Charl both agreed, was an opportunity too perfect to miss, a chance to add something of the Arabian’s natural versatility into the bloodline on Two Tree. Arabian horses are one of the most recognizable of all horse breeds and date back almost five millennia, to when they were first bred by the Bedouin ­people on the Arabian peninsula. Selectively bred for the strength of the bond they develop with their riders, as well as their high spirits and endurance, Arabians have a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage—and the thought of letting this opportunity pass by was more than any avid horseman could bear.

      The Arabian stallion, then, would not only be fed and watered during his stay at Two Tree; he would be catered to in other ways as well. The day after he arrived, Charl led him into the paddock where Charl’s mares were grazing and let nature run its course.

      I had never seen Pat and Charl more delighted when the news came back about two months later: several of the Two Tree mares were coming into foal. A new dynasty was about to be born.

      Almost a year later, the stallion long gone to his new home in Zambia, Two Tree was home to a fantastic new generation of half-Arabians. Grey was a silvery male, his half sister a bay whom Resje named Princess. As we stood in their paddock and fussed over them, we didn’t know how well we’d get to know them over the years.

      I would always look back on one particular moment in the lives of those foals.

      Princess had grown to be a delightful little mare, the kind without any natural instinct to fear or mistrust humans. Most horses need gentle teaching on how to have their hind feet handled, to rein in that instinct to kick out at what they cannot see, but Princess loved being handled from the very start. She was gentle, she was patient, she delighted in having a saddle on her back and a girth fit around her—and, as she grew into adulthood, she loved nothing more than venturing out onto the farm, a rider in her saddle, to explore the bush.

      The new horses of Two Tree had become as familiar to us as the horses of Crofton. One herd mingled with the other, so that soon I would more often find myself in the half-Arabian Grey’s saddle than in the saddle of any other horse. When Frisky was still with us, she would nose around Princess, Grey, and a little foal named Fleur as if they were her very own offspring. So, as the Retzlaffs and Geldenhuyses became such strong friends, so too did our horses.

      Frisky had been gentle and patient in teaching Kate to ride, and Princess was just as gentle and patient in teaching Charl and Tertia’s daughter, Resje. Princess had developed into a beautiful horse, with the temperament of her Arabian sire and the stature of her dam, Chiquita. Now, when Pat and I took the children out on rides, we could see Charl and Resje following the same trails. Sometimes they were just small silhouettes on a distant contour, a fleeting glimpse between the fields of crops, Charl on another Arabian stallion named Outlaw or the silvery shimmer that was Grey, Resje trotting on Princess in his wake. Sometimes our rides converged, and we cantered with them alongside the herds of tsessebe.

      There is one particular day that will forever stick in my mind. We had been riding down by the dam, and as the afternoon light waned we turned to follow the tracks up, out of the bush, and toward Crofton. We saw Charl long before he saw us, riding a trail deep between fields of tall wheat. Behind him, Resje sat proudly in Princess’s saddle. As we got near, I could see her hands loose around the reins. Princess, so gentle and patient with her riders, simply followed Grey and Charl, seemingly pleased to be out in the fresh African air.

      We called out to Charl, but we were too far away for him to hear us. In her saddle, Kate started waving her arms, as if to catch Resje’s attention. Resje must have seen Kate, for she lifted one hand to wave back. Then she took hold of her reins and carried on riding. Soon the tracks would snake together, and we would meet Charl and Resje in a clearing of red dirt between the fields.

      Suddenly, something changed. Princess, normally so sedate and calm, reared up. In the still afternoon air, we could hear her whinnying, even at this distance. She brought her two rear hooves up from the ground, scrabbled at the air, kicked and then bucked. In the saddle, Resje clung to the reins. The buck tore them from her hands. I saw her little hands grappling out to catch them again, but the reins flew free. She was about to fly out of the saddle when something caught her. She snapped, taut, in the air, and seemed to be snatched around Princess. Too late, I understood what had happened: one of her feet was held in the stirrups; she could not be thrown free.

      In panic, Princess crashed down and began to hurtle forward. Up ahead, Charl turned Grey to see the commotion—but it was too late. Princess cantered past, with Resje dangling beside her, one foot still in its stirrup, the whole of her body being dragged across the ground.

      I looked at Pat. Pat looked at me. In that same second, he dug his heels into Frisky’s flank and drove her on. Princess was cantering in our direction. Perhaps he could head her off before Charl.

      Moments later, we took off too, cantering in Frisky’s wake. Though Pat and Frisky surged ahead, we tried to keep up. For a moment, they disappeared over a ridge in the track, obscured by the undulating СКАЧАТЬ