The Boat in the Evening Read Free

trampling down a new piece. He knows what he is supposed to do; all that’s necessary is to take hold of the rein with scarcely a word.
    â€˜H’up, Brownie.’
    But something is said to him, at least, so that he will feel they are working together, that there are three of them. He wades, darkening with the wet, is given a breathing space, tears at a piece of birch bark, and wades on ahead again.
    Using all his strength.
    The only one who has any strength.
    His steel-shod hooves trample erratically in the deep snow. It is difficult to control his feet in it. He tramples and wades, determined to go forward. A long, long time until supper—and thus is my song.
    What was that now?
    Was it a sound?
    No sound, but something has happened. Something red on the lumps of snow tossed up by the struggling horse’s hooves. Blood on the lumps of snow.
    Not a sound. No pause either.
    But the man turns the horse in a flash, so that he wades the short distance back again. The child gets out of the way, knowing what this is.
    â€˜Has he kicked himself?’
    â€˜Obviously.’
    Shortly after: ‘He’s kicked himself badly.’
    The man cautiously strokes the bloodied snow away from the horse’s foot. There is a long red weal in the leg just above the hoof. The shining sharp shoe on the other hoof trod in the wrong place. Cut by his own shoe. Dirty melting snow trickles down the leg and into the wound.
    Dumbly hurting.
    The horse droops his head as if dreaming, takes his weight off the leg, then droops lower. He is with man, with man in good and evil times. Has given himself over to man.
    *
    His stem master is hurriedly searching his memory. He does not see his staring child, but looks back into distant times, searching for the threads of experience: Never be at a loss. Don’t stand uncertain in the desert places and the blizzard. No man must do that.
    Centuries of life with horses and snow. Lore from father to son. Harmful or wise. Inherited down the ages.
    Advice about accidents, when far from any first aid: Use whatever means you have, quickly and firmly. A cold breath from far back in time: Cleanse the warm wound with your own salt water. It has been done since heathen times. Whether it helped or hindered nobody knows.
    So the stem man kneels down beside the horse’s hoof, fumbles with his wet clothes and makes himself ready.
    An echo from heathen times, unknown to the half-grown child. The child is ignorant of what it knows.
    *
    The big boy watches, embarrassed. Why embarrassed? He does not know. He does not know about this, there has never been any need for it. He sees his father making himself ready, sees the horse leaning forward, sees his father fumbling nervously.
    No washing of the wound. Nothing at all. He has nothing to offer.
    His father, never one to fail, flushes. He raises his voice, as if in pain, turning to the child.
    â€˜I’ve been sweating too much today.’
    As if this defeat is the child’s fault—that’s what sounds like. The child senses danger. Wants to get away It is much too late.
    No, I won’t.
    Too late.
    His voice chops the air: ‘Come on, you try! What are you waiting for?’
    *
    The embarrassed child is drawn into it, into blind, dark rings. Swelling, incomprehensible opposition, helpless opposition when it is precisely help he must offer.
    I can’t do this.
    Why not?
    A thought shoots far out to one side, out towards the ring of mist, out to the big creatures standing there with red muzzles and lifted tails and small eyes—standing there making their hidden ring.
    He thinks of them as a help.
    But they make no move. He is and remains utterly alone With wild courage he stammers to his father: ‘What about you, then?’
    Although he saw his father’s failure well enough, he manages to say it in defiance, stammering inside the walls of snow.
    But what’s to be done besides stammering it to this wall of rock and