Man O'War (4 page)

After a few minutes the boy turned away and walked quickly to the foaling barn. He entered the barn almost on tiptoe and stole quietly down the corridor. When he came to Mahubah's stall, he looked inside and knew for sure she was going to have her foal that night.

She was restless, moving about in the dim light without noticing him at all. And that was very unusual for Mahubah. But anyone could have seen that she had other things on her mind. She rustled her straw bedding and pawed the clay beneath, her warm smell enveloping the stall.

Watching her wasn't like watching the stallions. Here there was peace and quiet … but there was even more than that, the boy decided. It was hard for him to explain how he felt. It was as if Mahubah seemed to know she was playing a part in something very big, and she got that feeling over to him. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that soon he would be witnessing something
that was as old as time—the giving birth to a new creature—that filled him with awe. Anyway, he knew that whatever it was, Mahubah aroused a special feeling in him and the stallions didn't, impressive as they were.

She was gentle, like her father, Rock Sand, and his father before him. Might not her gentleness and willingness to please help control the hot, surging blood of Hastings and Fair Play? Mr. Belmont thought so. But “nicks,” as they were called—the breeding of one illustrious line to another to produce a still finer line—were common breeding procedures in that part of the country. Everybody had something to say about them. Sometimes they worked. More often they didn't. But nobody was going to quarrel with Mr. Belmont. His thinking behind the mating of Fair Play and Mahubah was pretty sound. Besides, it was his own money he was spending.

All that wasn't too important just now. What mattered was that Mahubah should have a sound, healthy foal and stay well herself. It didn't matter what “nicks” figured in it. Except, of course, when one remembered that all this planning had started more than three hundred years ago, when horse owners first began trying to breed faster and hardier horses.

No, the boy decided, it wasn't going to be easy, this final waiting for Mahubah to have her foal and wondering if he might not be the fastest, the strongest, the bravest of them all. Maybe, after more than three hundred years, the perfect horse would be foaled tonight.…

The boy shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, more restless than Mahubah. How much longer would he have to wait for her to foal? Minutes? Hours? There was one way of finding out. There was one man who would know, almost to the very second.

Turning away from the stall, the boy went to the small room at the end of the corridor. He found the old black groom sitting in his rocker as patient as could be, rocking back and forth and reading a magazine. A good foaling man, the boy knew, should take everything very calmly, almost like a doctor, but still …

“How's Mahubah?” he asked, trying to keep the uneasiness from his voice. “How is she?”

“She's fine, Danny, jus' fine.” The man put down his magazine but didn't stop rocking. “You been climbin' down your mom's rose trellis 'most every night now, ain't you?”

“It's the only way I can get out,” Danny answered, meeting his friend's watchful, kindly eyes. “They don't like my prowling around nights.”

“This ain't prowlin', boy. No, I wouldn't call it that.”

“I know, but you tell them that.” He found himself swaying back and forth to the slow rhythm of the rocking chair. “Why do most mares have to foal so late at night? Why do they have to make it so tough on everybody?”

“To make it easier on themselves, I guess,” the man said softly. “They prefer the dark hours, Danny, an' I reckon it goes back a long time, maybe even to the first horse. It's always safest to have babies when no enemies are pokin' themselves around. Foaling's a bad time for a mare to be caught, so the darker it is the better.”

“Mahubah's about ready to have her foal, isn't she?” Danny knew his voice sounded anxious, but there wasn't any reason for covering up his uneasiness any longer.

“About ready … but not just yet.” Like his eyes, the man's voice was patient and kind. “We got time, Danny, plenty of time. Don't you worry none now.” He took a big gold watch out of his baggy coveralls, glanced at it, and added, “Besides, she hardly needs me none. Mahubah ain't goin' to have no trouble, no trouble at all.”

The boy felt the anger begin to rise within him. How could the man be so sure she didn't need help now? What did he have anyway, X-ray eyes?

“Maybe we ought to get out there,” he suggested, “… just in case something's happened.”

His gaze shifted to the foaling equipment in the room … to the clean pails and hot water, to the antiseptic and bandages and scissors and soap and towels and jars and hose. All was in readiness for Mahubah and the colt to come. He turned anxious eyes on the foaling man again.

“Don't you go worryin' so,” the man repeated. “I got everything I need to know right down here.” He took a small notebook from his pocket and waved it in the boy's face.

“Here's the real work, Danny, done another time, some of it years ago. This tells me what I need to know about Mahubah and all the other mares havin' colts this season. Some mares will foal early, some late. Some will walk an' kick the sides of their stalls just before havin' their colts; others will jus' lie down and foal quiet as can be. Some will have plenty of milk an' some won't have nary enough. Some will hate their foals; others will be pow'ful jealous, not even lettin' me get close to them.” He shut the book, grinning as if he'd explained everything. “So I jus' sit around and wait for things I know are goin' to happen. That's all I have to do.”

But the boy wasn't satisfied. His voice, like his eyes, became fierce. “What notes do you have on Mahubah? What makes you think you can sit 'round here reading when she might be having her foal even now? How do you know she's not going to have trouble? How do you know?”

There were only patience and understanding in the man's voice when he answered, “I know how you feel, Danny. And I know, too, a little about how Mahubah feels. She'd like to be left alone right now.” Again he glanced at his gold watch. “In a little while she'll break out in a sweat an' pin her ears back. Then we'll go to her.”

The boy knew that when he had left Mahubah, her dark coat had been dry and slick and polished. “You mean she'll break out in a sweat just before her time comes?”

The man nodded. “An' she'll have her foal quickly. She won't be mean, no suh, an' she'll have plenty of milk.”

“But how will you know when it's time to go to her?”

“She'll neigh when her times comes,” the man said. “That's here in the book, too. She sort of trumpets her foal's coming. Until then we best leave her be.”

The boy sat down in an empty chair. What he'd been told sort of finished things. They'd just have to wait for Mahubah's
trumpeting. That's all he could do, wait … no matter how hard it was.

“I've decided to quit school,” he said finally.

“You're what?” For the first time the man stopped rocking. “Why would you do anything crazy like that, Danny?”

“I made up my mind tonight.” The boy looked up and had trouble meeting his friend's gaze. “I want to work around horses all the time. I'm sick of books.” His voice wavered, not sounding nearly as fierce as he had meant it to be. “I want to be like you.”

“A foalin' man? Sure, Danny.” The man's voice was soft and kind. “Not many of us left around, that's for sure. Good ones, I mean. Maybe only five in the whole county. It takes time, an' a foalin' man's judgment has got to be as good as his experience is long. You got to be a born animal man to begin with. You got to have patience an' gentleness an' good sense or all the technical things you learn about foaling mares don't do you no good, nohow.”

The boy's eyes held the man's. “Do I have it? Can I learn to be a good one?”

“You're a fine boy, Danny, an' you're smart. It's in you to want to be a lot of things just now. It takes a little more time to find out for sure jus' what it is you want most an' what you're best at. Remember last year how you were goin' to be a jockey? Remember?”

“I remember,” the boy said dismally. “But I grew too much. I got too big. Look at me.”

The man stood up, only a little taller than the boy. “It would take a big horse, Danny … a big one for you to ride, all right. You ain't even stopped growin' yet.”

“That's what I mean. That's why I'm going to be a foaling man!”

The old man smiled. “Like I said, Danny, it's got to be more
than that. Why don't you jus' look around a little more before you decide for sure? You got plenty of time yet. Maybe you'll find something you want to be even more than a foalin' man.”

“But I want to work with horses.”

“I didn't mean for you not to, Danny. But there's no good reason for you to go quittin' school. It won't take you much longer to finish than it will for one of this season's colts to get to the racetrack. You jus' keep comin' 'round here like you been doin'. I was lucky to get my start with good people. You be lucky too. Folks 'round here can teach you a lot. You jus' watch 'em and listen … that's all you got to do.”

“Just keep coming around,” the boy repeated, puzzled, “… like I been doing?” He shook his head vigorously. “But don't you see, I want more than that! I want something I can hold on to. I want to
do
something.”

He stopped abruptly. How could he expect anyone to understand what he meant when he wasn't even sure himself? Maybe it was something a lot of fellows his age went through. He wanted to be something but he wasn't sure what it was. And yet he was anxious to be on his way.

“… somethin' you kin hold on to,” the man repeated slowly. “Is that what you said, Danny?”

The boy nodded and for a moment he felt lower than he ever had in his life. And that, too, he couldn't understand or explain. He felt the man's hand on his shoulder and then heard the soft voice, almost as if the words were meant for a young, frightened colt.

“Danny, I got myself an idea. You take one of these new foals an' you hold on to
him.
Go along with him, learning with him. Maybe by the time he's ready for the racetrack, you'll be ready too. At least, maybe you'll know better what you want to do.”

Mahubah's neigh reached the small room, shrill and high pitched, as if echoing the old groom's words. They ran for the door together, the boy reaching for the knob ahead of the foaling man.

“I'm going to take Mahubah's colt,” he said eagerly. “That's what I'm going to do. I'll go along with him, learn with him … like you said.”

This was the way he had heard that it happened sometimes. As if everything was being arranged by Fate. As if this was the way it was supposed to be.

“I'm going to stick with Mahubah's colt from the very beginning,” he went on. “I'm going the same places he is and hold on to him tight!”

The man's eyes twinkled. “Sure, Danny, but you'd better not get your heart set on a colt. This one jus' might be a filly.”

“No, it'll be a colt, all right,” the boy said. He couldn't have been more sure of anything in his life. He wasn't going to spend his time hanging around with any girl!

The lights were turned on, and the barn came alive with a festive brilliance. When they reached Mahubah's stall, they found her moving restlessly about, her ears pinned back and her body flecked with sweat.

“You'd better go right in,” the boy said anxiously.

“Nope. Never hurry a foalin' mare, Danny. Learn that the first thing. Stay outside unless she's carrying the foal in a bad position for delivery. Mahubah ain't. Hers is fine, jus' fine. She won't have no trouble, no trouble at all.”

But in spite of the man's reassuring words, the boy began to perspire even more than Mahubah. And his eyes never left her even for a second.

“Don't you go frettin' because you're anxious about her,” the man went on. “I got forty-one years behind me an' you
ain't. I've seen every problem that can come up. I've turned foals so they can be born right. I've brought 'em back to life even when you'd swear they were dead. An' I've quieted mares who wanted to kill their colts after havin' em. No, Danny, don't go frettin' none. You jus' watch, that's all I want you to do. Jus' watch and learn.”

The boy said, “But aren't you going to tell them at the house?”

The big gold watch came out of the coverall pocket again, and the man glanced at it. “I told them she'd have her colt 'bout now. Besides, they'll see the lights.”

Mahubah kept walking around her stall, flicking her ears in their direction every once in a while as if she were listening to them.

“Won't be long now, Danny. All we got to do is make sure she lays down near the center of her stall an' not up against the wall where it would be hard to help her if she does need a hand. But she probably won't be gettin' herself into any trouble. Nature will take care of everything.”

The boy tried to stop worrying about Mahubah but it wasn't easy. Then she finally went down very carefully, right in the center of her stall. This was it. This was the beginning of life for Mahubah's colt.

From the far end of the barn there was a scurrying of feet as several men ran down the corridor and came to a stop before the stall. “Any trouble?” one asked urgently.

“None at all,” the foaling man answered without taking his eyes off Mahubah. He watched every movement to make sure. He watched one tiny foot protrude from Mahubah and waited anxiously for the other to appear. Becoming a little worried, he opened the stall door and went quietly inside. Making out the tip of the second small hoof, he took hold of it and pulled
gently until it, too, was free. The knees of the foal followed next and then came the tiny muzzle against the forearm.