Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [38]
The pony came out of nowhere, filled his vision and struck the car all in the same frantic second. By the time Jonas hit the brakes, it was behind them.
The car slewed briefly and stalled with a lurch.
'Shit!' said Marvel.
The engine ticked quietly in the silence.
Marvel looked in his wing mirror and saw the dark shape of the animal in the road twenty yards behind them, lit faintly by their brake lights.
'I think it's still alive,' he said. 'We'd better go and see.'
He looked at Jonas but the younger man just stared at him blankly, as if he hadn't heard.
'We'd better go and look at it,' he repeated, and this time Holly registered what he'd said and looked in his rear-view mirror. Then he backed up the car until they were just a few feet from the horse.
Marvel got out. It was much colder up here on the moor, and drying out too - as if the sky was sucking the moisture from the air and preparing for something much more spectacular than mere rain. He walked round to the back of the Land Rover. By the dull red of the tail lights, even Marvel could see that the pony's front leg was broken at a sickening angle. The animal was trying to get up anyway, heaving itself on to its chest then flailing helplessly - its hoofs drubbing the tarmac and leaving pale scrapes in its surface - before collapsing back on to its side, snorting, ribs heaving under its shaggy winter coat, and its eye rolling wild and white around the edges.
'Its leg's broken,' he said, looking up for a lead from Jonas, and surprised to find him not there. He looked round. Jonas had got out of the car with him but was still at the door of the Land Rover, silhouetted against the stars.
He raised his voice. 'It's got a broken leg.'
Through the vague red darkness he saw the silhouette nod its head.
'What are we going to do?' asked Marvel.
'I don't know.'
'Well you're the bloody local! People must hit these buggers all the time.'
'I'll call the hunt,' said Jonas after a pause.
'What?'
'I'll call the hunt. They'll come out and shoot it and take it for meat.'
'Meat?' Marvel was utterly confused.
'For the hounds,' said Jonas.
'You're fucking joking!' said Marvel.
'No,' said Jonas, 'I'm not.'
Marvel tried to regain a sense of normality. Two minutes ago, he had been off to the pub. Now he was confronted with a dying horse, a remote companion, and the mental image of a pack of hounds tearing the dark-brown hide from a still-warm beast, while faceless men in scarlet stood by laughing.
And he wasn't even drunk.
Maybe he was in shock. Maybe Jonas Holly was too, with his monosyllabic responses.
He had to keep things in perspective. Be practical.
'We should put it out of its misery,' said Marvel, knowing that he wouldn't be able to, but hoping that a countryman like Jonas would take control.
He knew nothing of horses. He wasn't sure he'd ever touched one, but something made him hunch down now beside this pony's head and reach out to it. The animal let out a shrill whinny, driving his hand away from it briefly. But because Jonas had already seen him scared at Margaret Priddy's house, he reached out again.
This time he touched the horse's neck. The coat was thick but surprisingly soft, and slightly damp. He let his hand sink into it until he could feel the hot skin.
For a moment his touch seemed to calm the beast and he felt the faint throb of the pulse under his fingers. Then it squealed and started to thrash about, knocking Marvel on to his backside in the road. Disorientated, he opened his eyes to see its hoofs blurring close to his face. He put up a protective hand and it was immediately kicked aside. He shouted in pain, then felt a rough tug at the scruff of his neck and was dragged out of range of the flailing hoofs.
His hand was agony. In his head he ran through every expletive he'd ever heard, but in reality he just bit his lip, laid his cheek on the cold tarmac, squeezed his hand in his armpit and tried to stem the tears of pain that threatened to drown his eyes.