Doc - Mary Doria Russell [112]
Standing on an upturned bucket so he could see into the stall, John Henry knew exactly what he was looking at: the homeliest pony he’d laid eyes on by the tender age of eight, and if nature had produced another who could take the title away, he had not seen evidence of the achievement in all the years since.
Snickers the little horse was unkindly named, in recognition of the response his appearance provoked. He was a dirty white with flecks of black that looked like dried mud missed by a careless groom. Against that grayish mediocrity, the gelding’s pink-rimmed eyes seemed as bloodshot as a drunkard’s. His unloveliness might have been forgiven had it not been for a protruding and slightly wobbly lower lip that made the poor animal look addled.
“Nothin’ wrong with this horse wasn’t wrong with the fool who rode him,” said Robert.
Faced with inconsistent expectations, defeated by unreasonable demands, Snickers would stand still, looking confused. He’d been beaten for his prior owner’s failures, and having learned to fear men, the gelding no longer waited for meanness to be made manifest. Walk by his stall too quickly or too slowly or too carelessly and, like as not, he’d snake his neck out at you and clamp his teeth on whatever he could catch hold of.
“Hittin’ a horse is plain stupid, John Henry. There’s no excuse for it,” Robert declared with the serene instructive confidence of a ten-year-old boy who’s made a careful study of a single subject and knows all there is to know about it. “Horses are mirrors. They’ll show you back whatever you show them. Watch a man with a horse, and you’ll see what’s inside his own self.”
What the stable hands had, inside and out, was an entirely rational eye-rolling fright. They were scared to death of Snickers. John Henry clearly remembered the worried gray-haired uncle who’d set aside a muck shovel and hurried over to warn young Marse Robert not to let his little cousin John go near that crazy damn horse. Looking back now, he realized, there was irony to be discovered. The old man knew exactly who’d be blamed and beaten if a white child was bitten. It sure as hell wasn’t Snickers.
By contrast, what Robert Holliday had inside, even at the age of ten, was a master’s unconscious self-assurance, along with a basic decency that made him patient with a small, shy cousin who still talked funny. Robert had stepped toward Snickers, speaking low and friendly, not a bit scared, even when the pony tossed his head.
“Hey, now,” Robert said, quiet and firm and kind. “Hey, now. Settle down, you.”
That was the voice John Henry Holliday heard as he approached Dick Naylor’s stall. Part of him wanted to look at his watch again, to see how much time he had to get out to the track before the race began, but he could almost feel Robert at his side, saying, Hey, now. Settle down. Take it slow or he’ll make you pay.
At the sound of unfamiliar footsteps in the aisle, Dick faced around and blew a wary snort, halfway between curiosity and fright. There was no answering exhalation in the barn. That would be a source of concern to the horse, who was down in the last stall, away from the corrals where the cowboys’ mounts were penned.
Standing a few yards away, John Henry let Dick take a good look at him before asking sympathetically, “Y’all by your lonesome in here? Where’d all your friends go? Off havin’ a fine time at the fair, I expect, and here you are with nobody for company.”
He reached into a bucket of carrots hanging on a hook nearby, allowing it to clank a bit against the wall so Dick would recognize the sound. He put a couple of carrots in his pocket, keeping another in the palm of his hand, and waited to see how Dick would take this turn of events.
The horse backed away, nostrils flaring, ears flicking in all directions. Tense and ready to shy, he stretched out his neck, measuring the distance