The Purple Pterodactyls

Darius

The big black horse looked perfectly normal, except for his size. Denise said: "This great rosse looks too large for me, Willy. You will have to push me up by the behind."

The animal looked indifferently towards us and lowered its head to scratch behind its ear with its hoof.

"Don't worry none, Mr. Newbury," said Seymour Green, the horsemaster. "Darius is the tamest one we got. In fact, he's so lazy you can't hardly keep him moving."

"Sure, darling," I said to Denise. "Go on; I'll give you a boost."

With a vigorous push, I got Denise into the saddle. It did seem like a lot of horse for a small woman. Denise looked down apprehensively. "It is a long way to fall. Take care of our poor children, if anything should happen to me."

The horse gave a loud whinny, like an equine laugh. One of Green's helpers, Jim, was saddling a couple of other hacks. Green asked:

"Ain't I seen you around here before, Mr. Newbury?"

"Sure," L said. "I've been here off and on in the summer since I was a kid."

"I thought—" Green began, but then he yelped: "Watch out!"

I turned to see Denise's horse stalking me. As I turned, the animal shot out its huge head, with teeth bared.

I jumped like a startled bullfrog. Denise screamed and hauled on the reins. Green cursed, grabbed a length of strap, and whacked the horse across the muzzle. The animal backed up, gave its loud whinny, and became quiet.

"Ain't never seen him do nothing like that before," said Green. "Maybe I hadn't ought to send him out with you."

"Oh, I think we'll be all right once we're all mounted," I said. I swung into my own saddle, which I was glad to see was a Western. English saddles are all very pretty, but the Western gives more security. As you get on in years, your bones don't knit so easily.

The ride went smoothly. Jim led Denise, two other summer visitors, and me on an hour's ride over the local paths, through the advanced second growth of maple, beech, and birch. The red squirrels chattered and the deer flies thrummed.

We had left the children with my Aunt Frances at her camp on Lake Algonquin. We were spending our vacation there. Since her daughter Linda had gotten married, Frances Colton had urged us to come and keep her company. Wanting at least one good ride, I had driven Denise down to Gahato, where Green maintained his stable in summer; in winter he trucked his animals down the line to Syracuse.

Denise's alarm became impatience as Darius stopped at every juncture to munch a fern or just to stand still. Hence she was always at the tail of the procession. When the rest of us cantered, Darius trotted. Bouncing on his back, Denise fell further behind. When she heeled him, he merely gave his braying whinny and refused to speed up.

When the ride was over, I swung off and stepped up to Darius to help Denise down. "He is too big for me," she said. "Sacre nom! I am like an ant trying to guide an elephant."

As she was sliding off, Darius suddenly moved and brought one big hoof down on the toe of my boot.

"Ouch!" I yelled, jerking the foot away. With Denise in my arms, I staggered and almost sat down in the mud and manure.

Green shouted and took another whack with a strap. The horse brayed again.

"Seems like he's got it in for you," he said. "How's that foot?"

"Nothing broken, I'm sure," I said. "The ground is soft, so he just pushed my toes down into it."

"When you coming back?"

"Tomorrow, weather permitting. We'll be stiff tomorrow, and the best way to get rid of it is to go right out for another ride."

"Ayuh. I'll put you down in the book."

Not having ridden for a couple of years, we were, as I predicted, stiff as boards the next morning. Weather did not permit that day's scheduled ride. Instead, we had a two-day Adirondack downpour. We could only hobble about the Colton camp, read, and play games with the children. I got to telling Denise and my aunt about some of my boyhood experiences in these parts.

"When the Ten Eycks had that big place on the island between Upper and Lower Lakes—the one that sank in the earthquake—they used to run a regular free boarding house in summer. All their friends and relatives came in relays. My folks, with my sister and me, were regular guests.

"Alfred Ten Eyck and I used to go out in a rowboat to frog around the little bays and inlets, especially Porcupine Bay. I had a microscope, and we'd scoop up some of the muck from the swamp to look at the little wiggly things in the 'scope. Once Alfred got out into that patch of quicksand at the far end of Porcupine Bay, and I had to haul him back into the boat by his hair.

"Once, we caught one of the locals poaching deer out of season. He'd just shot the animal and was dressing it out on the shore of Porcupine Bay, when we came around the point and saw him. Nobody much ever went in there, so he wasn't expecting company.

"I knew who he was: Henri Michod, one of the lumberjacks who worked in Pringle's sawmill. Larochelle, Pringle's forman, used to say Michod was strong enough to do two men's work but so lazy he did only half a man's. He had a couple of funny habits, too: always scratching behind his ear, and laughing so that one could hear him half a mile away. Some said he augmented his earnings by breaking into camps in the winter.

"Well, I've always been a wild-life enthusiast and a red-hot conservationist. At the time, I was around thirteen and full of self-righteous wrath. Anyway, I told the warden, old Roy Newcomb, about this kill, and he ran Henri Michod in. Henri had to pay a fine and lost his deer carcass.

"A week or so later, he passed me on the street in Gahato and said: '1 hear you tell the warden on me, hein? By damn, you better watch yourself, you little son of a bitch. I get even, you bet!'"

"I worried for a while, because Michod was a tall, powerful fellow with the reputation of being a bad man to cross. To me he looked as big as Goliath of Gath. But nothing happened, and the next couple of summers we went elsewhere. When we later visited the Adirondacks, I saw nothing of Henri Michod. In fact, I'd forgotten about him until that damned horse reminded me of him yesterday."

On the second rainy day, the treasurer of our bank, Malcolm McGill, showed up at Joe Briggs's Algonquin Lodge with his wife. (He was only assistant treasurer then.) I had recommended the place when he spoke of wanting to see the Great North Woods. While Denise, my Aunt Frances, and I were eating dinner with the McGills at the Lodge, Denise mentioned our recent ride.

"Oh, can you ride here?" said McGill, all enthusiasm. "Say, I'd like to try that!"

"Then come down the line to Gahato with us tomorrow, if the rain lets up," I said.

The rain did let up, so next morning found us at Seymour Green's stable. McGill and his wife were in jeans and sneakers, which are poor riding shoes because they lack heels. I wore the boots and breeches I had ridden in for twenty years, although Denise had let out the pants.

I am no cowboy or Cossack. Still, I have ridden a fair amount, starting at a fancy prep school my parents sent me to, before the Great Depression took us down several financial pegs. At that place, equitation was on the curriculum. I have even jumped a few times without falling off.

"Hey!" said McGill, "I want that one!" He pointed to the huge black that had stepped on my foot.

"Okay," said Green. "He won't give you no trouble; he's too lazy. Saddle him up, Jim."

Then McGill started to mount Darius from the wrong side. The horse shied away, and Jim corrected McGill.

"I never can remember which side is the right one," he said.

"Imagine you're wearing a sword on your left side," I said. "Then, if you tried to mount from the right, the scabbard would poke the horse in the rump and make him shy."

"But I'm left-handed, so I'd wear my sword on the right!"

I did not try to answer that one. Green handed McGill a switch cut from a tree branch to wake up Darius if the horse ignored its rider's heels. We started out along the trails.

Darius gave no trouble at first, but the McGills caused me apprehension. In conversation, they had given the impression of being old horsepersons. But the way they sat, and McGill's ideas of mounting, did not confirm that impression.

Furthermore, the deer flies bothered them, so that they were always slapping. They had come out bareheaded, not knowing that a deer fly goes for anything that looks hairy. Then you suddenly feel as if somebody had stabbed you in the scalp or neck with a hot needle. McGill rode with his knees sticking out, so that one could see greenery between them and the horse.

"Malcolm," I said, "how much riding have you actually done?"

"Oh, I've been on a horse maybe twice."

I gulped. "Well, if you want to stay on, press your knees hard against the animals's sides and keep them that way."

"Oh," he said. He tried to comply, but the knee grip is tiring when one is not used ot it. Soon his knees were sticking out again.

Still, he managed until we came to an open space, near the Gahato airstrip. Jim began a canter. McGill survived Darius's first few shambling bounds. Then McGill's saddle began to tip from side to side, going a little further each time as he swayed his body to compensate. Having no knee grip, he could not hold the saddle in place by main force.

I started to call: "Hey, Malcolm! Watch—"

Over he went. The saddle slid until it was under the horse's belly, and McGill landed on his back in a mass of raspberry bushes. Darius stopped to eat the vegetation.

The rest of us pulled up. Jim handed his reins to me, vaulted off, and helped McGill to his feet. McGill limped, and his hands and face were scratched by the raspberry thorns.

"Oh, boy!" he said. "I think I busted my big toe in pulling it out of the stirrup."

He was lucky at that. A fall from a horse may look funny but is no joke. If he had landed on his head on something hard or had caught his foot in the stirrup, he could have been killed. In one of my few falls, I hurt my shoulder in a way that took a year completely to heal.

Examining Darius, Jim said: "He's pulled that goddam trick again. The smart ones learn to take a deep breath when you go to tighten the girth. Then, when they let it out, the girth gets loose. Damn your hide, hold still!" This was to the horse, whose girth Jim was ferociously tightening. "Now it won't come loose. This critter's lazy, but he's the smartest damn horse I ever seen. Seems almost like he's got a man's brain. Can you get back up, Mr. McGill?"

When McGill was again mounted, the rest of the ride was made in a subdued and cautious spirit.

Wisely, the McGills elected to go boating on their second day, so Denise and I did not ride again until they had left. This time, I took Darius.

"Sure you want to?" said Seymour Green. "He don't like you."

"We'll see about that," I said. "I think I can handle him."

"Oh, Willy!" said Denise. "You have one of your tetu— your stubborn streaks on again."

"Yep," I said. "Saddle him up."

When the black was ready, I stepped towards him. Darius bared his teeth.

"None of that," I said. Then, not so loudly as to be overheard: "Tell me, are you really Henri Michod?"

Darius threw up his head and gave his thunderous whinny.

"And you've been laying for me for the last quarter-century, eh?"

He whinnied again.

"How'd you know me? By hearing Green say my name?" The horse nodded.

"Well, you'll have to behave yourself."

I walked to the animal's nigh side and put my foot in the stirrup. Darius reached down and back and tried to bite my foot, but I got up without damage.

I watched Darius, lest he lie down and roll or try to buck me off. Luckily, he was too lazy to lie down, because that meant that he had to get up again. With his weight, that was a job. As for bucking, perhaps he did not know how.

"Be careful, darling!" called Denise. She was up on a docile little mare.

We rode with four other summer people. Jim led us. It was one of those beautiful summer days that you get now and then in the Adirondacks, if you don't mind waiting through a week or two of cold, overcast, fog, and rain.

Then the Gahato fire-house siren went off, out of sight but plainly audible. All the horses danced and fidgeted. I leaned forward to pat Darius on the neck to gentle him down. I did not quite know whether to deal with the creature as a man or as a beast.

Darius chose that moment to throw up his head, so that his great skull hit me in the face. I heard my sun glasses go crunch. A little dazed, I lost a stirrup but got it back before Darius could take advantage of me.

"Are you hurt, Willy?" said Denise.

"Don't think so," I said, "except for having these glasses pushed into my face. Probably have a black eye tomorrow."

I took off the glasses and examined them. The frame was cracked, so the glasses would have to be replaced. I put them in my pocket, resolving never to wear glasses of any kind on horseback again.

For a while, all was peaceful. We walked, trotted, and cantered. None of the other riders was such a tyro as the McGills had proved.

"All right there, Henri Michod," I said to my horse. "You see, it's not so bad when you do what you ought—"

We were trotting along one of the dirt back roads and came to a fork. One way led to Gahato; the other, to the Lower and Upper Lakes. As Jim pulled up to collect his riders, the whole Gahato high-school track team—a score of youths in fluttery running gear—came racing towards us along the road from the village.

"Yippee!" yelled one of the youths. "Ride 'em, cowboy!"

That was all we needed. The horses spooked. Denise's mare whirled and started back for Green's stable at a dead run; so did those of the other riders.

Darius headed into the other fork of the road, towards the lakes. I leaned back and hauled on the reins, but the accursed beast had clamped the bit in his big yellow teeth. There was no holding him.

On he went. I heard yells behind me but was too busy keeping my saddle and stirrups to pay heed.

The dirt road petered out into an old logging road, partly overgrown with saplings. Darius pounded on through the saplings, which lashed my legs. I grabbed the horn of the Western saddle and hung on, glad there was nobody to see me commit such an unhorsemanlike gaffe.

"God damn it, Michod, use some sense!" I yelled. Darius merely whinnied and thundered on.

The logging road in turn began to peter out. Trails, on which we had ridden before, branched off. Darius raced along one of these, up and down and then, leaving the trail, cross-country. We came to a place where no trees had been cut for many decades, so that the area was almost like a virgin forest. Darius aimed at a big beech, whence a massive horizontal branch stuck out at just the right height to scrape me off.

I flattened myself out on the horse's back. The branch grazed my head and carried away my cap but left me otherwise unharmed.

Twice again, Darius tried the same stunt. Each time, I avoided disaster by a hairbreadth. Then he ran down a slope, beyond which I glimpsed water through the trees.

We burst out of the woods on the swampy shore of one of the lakes. As Darius plunged into the water, I recognized Porcupine Bay, on Upper Lake.

"You idiot, you'll get us mired!" I shouted.

Darius careened on, up to his knees in water. The toes of my boots threw up little bow waves.

He scrambled out on a shallower place. I saw yellow, sandy bottom an inch or two below the surface—and then, suddenly, his legs sank in again. He had blundered into the quicksand.

The next thing I knew, Darius was in up to his belly. My feet were dragging in the quicksand. Darius snorted and plunged, but his struggles only got him in deeper. The quicksand rose halfway up his barrel, almost to the tops of my boots.

"Serves you right, you son of a mule!" I told him.

I remember that, while a man cannot walk on quicksand, he can in effect swim in it. The trick is to keep yourself spread out.

I gathered my legs up until I got my right foot on the saddle. Then I heaved myself erect, standing on the saddle, and threw myself backwards, away from the horse. I came down with a splash on my back on the thin film of water over the sand. Not trying to raise myself, I went through the motions of swimming a backstroke, digging my elbows into the yielding quicksand.

After a few strokes, I found myself on firmer ground. I reached up, caught a branch of an overhanging hemlock, and hauled myself out of the muck. Darius was still struggling and sinking. He snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Yah!" I yelled. "See what you got yourself into, Henri?"

He made a strange noise—not exactly a whinny; more like whine, if you can imagine a horse's making such a sound.

"Oh, you'd like me to haul you out, eh?"

He whinnied.

"Serve you right if I left you to sink," I said. Again the piteous whine.

I heard a faint halloo from the woods and shouted back. Presently Seymour Green, Jim, Denise, and one of the other summer people appeared on horses, pushing through the undergrowth. Denise said:

"My God, darling, have you been swimming in the swamp? You are mud all over, from the head to the foot."

"Exactly," I said, and told my tale.

Green said: "How d'you reckon we can get that horse out, Mr. Newbury? I'd sure hate to lose him."

"Somebody ride back to the village and fetch me a hundred feet of half-inch rope from Tate's Hardware store," I said. "If you hurry, maybe you can get back before Darius goes under."

Jim galloped away. The others dismounted, tied their nags, and squatted on the bank. Denise tried to dab the mud off me, but the task was hopeless.

Out in the quicksand, Darius till gave an occasional heave. He seemed, however, to have become either exhausted by his struggles or resigned to his fate. His head, neck, and saddle were still above the surface.

I asked Green: "Seymour, how old is that horse?"

Green thought. "Eight and a half or nine year, I guess. Why?"

"Ever know a French-Canadian lumberjack named Henri Michod?"

"I don't—ayup, there was a guy by that name, I think. He was working somewheres else for a few years, and then after the war he came back. Worked as a guide in the hunting season."

"What became of him?"

"Dead. One of them tenderfoot hunters mistook him for a deer, for all his red shirt and cap, and shot him."

"When was that?"

Green scratched his head. "Let me see—forty-six? Forty-seven? About nine year ago, anyways. Why do you want to know, Mr. Newbury?"

"Oh, just a crazy idea. Here comes Jim, with the rope. Now, I'm going out into the swamp. You fellows hold on to my shirt tail, so I can't sink in."

I tied a bowline on a bight in the end of the rope and felt my way out through the shallows towards the horse. The water squilched in my boots. When I felt the bottom begin to give beneath my foot, I stopped advancing. While I am no lariat artist, I got the loop over the horn of the saddle on the third cast.

"Do we haul him in, now?" said Jim.

"Not yet."

I carried the rope back to shore, looped it around the trunk of the hemlock, and went back into the water. I threw another loop around the saddle horn. My purpose was to get a mechanical advantage, as you do with a compound pulley.

Then, with five people on the free end of the rope, foot by foot we hauled Darius shoreward. In another ten minutes, he stood in the shallows with drooping head, shivering, with mud and water running off him.

"All right, Henri," I said to him, "will you behave yourself now?"

Green and Jim stared at me. They stared even harder when Darius took a shambling step forward, stuck out a tongue the size of one of my boots, and sloshed it against my face.

"By God, I never seen that before?" said Green.

I sputtered, wiping my face with a paper handkerchief that Denise handed me. The incident proved, as far as I was concerned, that Darius was either possessed by the spirit of Henri Michod or was a reincarnation of Henri Michod. No mere horse ever had the intelligence to know when somebody had saved its life or to demonstrate its gratitude afterwards.

Darius was a perfect gentleman, as horses go, on the way back. When we got in the car, however, he broke loose from Green's men and bounded up to us, whinnying.

"Hey!" I said. "He wants to adopt us! If—blub—"

Darius had stuck his muzzle in the window of the car and licked my face again. I pushed his nose out and cranked up the glass. Green's men came running up to collar their horse. I started the car, backed, turned, and headed for Lake Algonquin.

"He is coming after!" cried Denise. "Could we maybe buy him?"

A glance in the rear-view mirror showed Darius, still saddled, galloping in our wake, with his empty stirrups flopping. I stepped on the gas and left him behind.

"No," I said. "We don't have a place to keep him, and it would be too expensive to board him at a stable. Don't forget that we have three children to put through college some day.

"Besides, you know how people are. They can ooze gratitude today. Then, tomorrow, they say: 'But what have you done for me lately?' and turn against you. I'm sure it would work out the same way with Darius."

"But," she said, "Darius is just a horse!"

"Oh, yeah? Maybe so, but I for one don't intend to find out!"