Читать книгу Painted Ponies - Alan Le May - Страница 10

He was riding on an elephant. What the elephant looked like was somewhat unclear in his mind, for he had never seen an elephant before. It gratified him, however, to realize that it was a pacing elephant, and therefore an unusually good one, probably one of the best.

Something had happened to the reins, something peculiar, for although they were looped over his wrist he was unable to reach them. This was a pity, for he had a feeling that the elephant was going the wrong way. The animal appeared, in fact, to be pacing backwards; Morgan was of the opinion that he had mounted the animal the wrong way, facing the tail. This idea was partly grounded on the extremely awkward feel of the saddle; it didn’t seem likely that a saddle could be so uncomfortable if sat in correctly, in the usual way.

He brooded over this a good deal. If he were in truth facing the elephant’s tail, and the mount were proceeding backwards (probably as an accommodation), then they must be receding from the place that they were going to. He thought that they might get there in this way, but it would take much longer.

The boys would probably think it odd to see him riding backwards, and be surprised; but he would act as if it were a matter of course, and maybe they would think it was just a way of his. But his main worry was caused by the fact that the elephant seemed unable to keep his feet on the ground.

They had, in fact, reached a considerable height; the elephant was now pacing very slowly across a dark expanse of clouds. His efforts to keep the animal near the ground had been of no avail. Perhaps some son-of-a-gun was holding the elephant up, for a joke. That was Slide’s idea of a pretty serious kind of a joke. Still—

The elephant suddenly stepped into a post hole in the clouds, and plunged headlong—

The shock of solid, uprushing ground against his face and the harsh reality of a mouthful of sand brought Morgan to his senses. He knew instantly that his horse had stumbled and gone down. As he gathered himself to rise he saw his mount heave to its feet scarcely two strides away. There was a slap and jingle of saddlery as the horse shook himself.

As Morgan got to his feet the black horse was walking away. The animal broke into a trot as the man tried to approach.

“Whoa, boy! Whoa-o-oa!”

Words took no effect. The man tried to reach the horse by a sudden rush. Then sand spurted into his face from the animal’s heels, and the black rushed off into the dark.

Morgan shook his head to clear it of the last wisps of his fantastic dreams. He recalled feeling his way rapidly northwest from Roaring River, keeping his bearings by occasionally swerving toward Red Creek, along which ran the trail. At one time he had thought he heard horses on the run, some distance away. But, as he had expected, he had heard nothing that sounded like Talky Peters, singing “Maria Suzanne.”

He judged that he had traveled in this way for perhaps two hours more, before he had begun to doze in the saddle. There his memory quit. He knew that from time to time he had awakened, and at least twice more had sought the Red Creek trail, to be sure of his way. Probably his horse had chosen to follow the trail itself while the rider slept.

A dim gray light was invading the east, indicating that it must be past four o’clock. Assuming that he had left Roaring River at nine, he judged that he had traveled somewhere between thirty and thirty-five miles from Roaring River, the distance depending upon the performance of his horse while he slept in the saddle.

No sign of the trail, nor of any watercourse was perceivable in the dim light. The trail to Hickory Lookout he assumed must lie to the northwest; for he knew that it swung west from the creek, and the horse would not be likely to cross the trail without turning into it. Therefore, he thought, by walking northwest he would be likely to cut into the Hickory Lookout trail without going out of his way.

Long afterward Slide Morgan realized that this bit of careless reasoning irrevocably altered the course of his life.