Chapter One
<>
MY FRIEND FLICKA
<>
Mary O'Hara
<>
Ken McLaughlin and his family live on a ranch in Wyoming, where they raise
thoroughbred horses.
<>
WHEN KEN OPENED his eyes the next morning and looked out, he saw
that the house was wrapped in fog. There had been no rain at all since that
day a week ago when the wind had torn the "sprinkling system" to pieces and
blown all the tattered clouds away. That was the day that he had found
Flicka. And it had been terribly hot since then. They had hardly been able to
stand the sun out on the terrace. They had gone swimming in the pool every
day. On the hills, the grass was turning to soft tan.
<>
Now there were clouds, and they had closed down. After a severe hot spell
there was often a heavy fog, or hail, or even snow.
<>
Standing at the window, Ken could hardly see the pines on the hill across
from him. He wondered if his father would go after the yearlings in such a fog
as this—they wouldn't be able to see them; but at breakfast, McLaughlin
said that there would be no change of plans. It was just a big cloud that had
settled down over the ranch—it would lift and fall—perhaps up on Saddle
Back it would be clear.
<>
They mounted and rode out.
<>
The fog lay in the folds of the hills. Here and there a bare summit was in the
sunshine, then a little farther on came a smother of cottony white that
soaked the four riders to the skin and hung rows of moonstones on the
whiskers of the horses.
<>
It was hard to keep track of each other. Suddenly Ken was lost—the others
had vanished. He reined in Shorty and sat, listening. The clouds and mist
rolled around him. He felt as if he was alone in the world.
<>
A bluebird, the color of the deep-blue wild delphinium that dots the plains,
became interested in him and perched on a bush nearby; and as he started
Shorty forward again, the bluebird followed along, hopping from bush to bush.
The boy rode slowly, not knowing in which direction to go. Then, hearing
shouts, he touched heels to Shorty and cantered, and suddenly he came out
of the fog and saw his father and Tim and Ross.
<>
"There they are!" said McLaughlin, pointing down over the curve of the hill.
They rode forward, and Ken could see the yearlings standing in a bunch at
the bottom, looking up, wondering who was coming. Then a huge coil of fog
swirled over them, and they were lost to view again.
<>
McLaughlin told them to circle around, spread out fanwise on the far side of
the colts, and then gently bear down on them so that they would start toward
the ranch. If the colts started running in this fog, he said, there'd be no
chance of catching them.
<>
The plan worked well; the yearlings were not as frisky as usual, and they
allowed themselves to be driven in the right direction. It was only when they
were on the county road, and near the gate where Howard was watching, that
Ken, whose eyes had been scanning the bunch as they appeared and
disappeared in the fog, realized that Flicka was missing.
<>
McLaughlin noticed it at the same moment, and as Ken rode toward his
father, McLaughlin turned to him and said, "She's not in the bunch."
<>
They sat in silence for a few moments while McLaughlin planned the next
step. The yearlings, dispirited by the fog, nibbled languidly on the grass by
the roadside. McLaughlin looked at Saddle Back, and Ken looked, too—the
passionate desire in his heart reaching out to pierce the fog and the hillside
and see where Flicka had hidden herself away. Had she been with the bunch
when they were first found?
<>
Had she stolen away through the fog? Or hadn't she been there in the
beginning? Had she run away from the ranch entirely, after her bad
experience a week ago? Or—and this thought made his heart drop
sickeningly—had she perhaps died of the injuries she had received when she
broke out of the corral and was lying stark and riddled with ants and crawling
things on the breast of one of those hills?
<>
McLaughlin looked grim. "Lone wolf—like her mother," he said. "Never with
the gang. I should have known it."
<>
Ken remembered what the colonel had said about the lone wolf type—it
wasn't good to be that way.
<>
"Well, we'll drive the yearlings back up," said Rob finally. "No chance of
finding her alone. If they happen to pass anywhere near her, she's likely to
join them."
<>
They drove the yearlings back. Once over the first hill, the colts started
running and soon were out of sight. The fog closed down again so that Ken
pulled up, unable to see where he was going, unable to see his father or
Ross or Tim.
<>
He sat listening, astonished that the sound of their hooves had been wiped
out so completely. Again he seemed alone in the world.
<>
The fog lifted in front of him and showed him that he stood on the brink of a
sharp drop, almost a precipice, although not very deep. It led down into a
semicircular pocket on the hillside that was fed by a spring; there was a
clump of young cottonwoods and a great bank of clovers dotted with small
yellow blossoms.
<>
In the midst of the clovers stood Flicka, quietly feasting. She had seen him
before he saw her and was watching him, her head up, clovers sticking out of
both sides of her mouth, her jaws moving busily.
<>
At the sight of her, Ken was incapable of either thought or action.
<>
Suddenly from behind him in the fog, he heard his father's low voice, "Don't
move—"
<>
"How'd she get in there?" said Tim.
<>
"She scrambled down this bank. And she could scramble up again, if we
weren't here. I think we've got her," said McLaughlin.
<>
"Other side of that pocket the ground drops twenty feet sheer," said
Tim. "She can't go down there."
<>
Flicka had stopped chewing. There were still stalks of clovers sticking out
from between her jaws, but her head was up and her ears pricked, listening,
and there was a tautness and tension in her whole body.
<>
Ken found himself trembling too.
<>
"How're you going to catch her, Dad?" he asked in a low voice.
<>
"I kin snag her from here," said Ross, and in the same breath, McLaughlin
answered, "Ross can rope her. Might as well rope her here as in the corral.
We'll spread out in a semicircle above this bank. She can't get up past us,
and she can't get down."
<>
They took their positions, and Ross lifted his rope off the horn of his saddle.
Ahead of them, far down below the pocket, the yearlings were running. A
whinny or two drifted up, as well as the sound of their hooves, muffled by the
fog.
<>
Flicka heard them too. Suddenly she was aware of danger. She leaped out of
the clovers to the edge of the precipice, which fell away down the
mountainside toward where the yearlings were running. But it was too steep
and too high. She came straight up on her hind legs with a neigh of terror and
whirled back toward the bank down which she had slid to reach the pocket.
But on the crest of it, looming uncannily in the fog, were four black figures—
she screamed and ran around the base of the bank.
<>
Ken heard Ross's rope sing. It snaked out, just as Flicka dived into the bank
of clovers. Stumbling, she went down and, for a moment, was lost from view.
"Goldarn—" said Ross, hauling in his rope, while Flicka floundered up and
again circled her small prison, hurling herself at every point, only to realize
that there was no way out.
<>
She stood over the precipice, poised in despair and frantic longing. The
sound of the colts running below drifted up. Flicka trembled and strained over
the brink—a perfect target for Ross, and he whirled his lasso again. It made a
vicious whine.
<>
Ken longed for the filly to escape from the noose—yet he longed for her
capture. Flicka reared up, her delicate forefeet beat the air, then she leaped
out; and Ross's rope fell short again as McLaughlin said,
<>
"I expected that. She's like all the rest of them."
<>
Flicka went down like a diver. She hit the ground with her legs folded under
her, then rolled and bounced the rest of the way. It was exactly like the
bronco that had climbed over the side of the truck and rolled down the 40-foot
bank; and in silence the four watchers sat in their saddles, waiting to see
what would happen when she hit the bottom—Ken already thinking of the
Winchester, and the way the crack of it had echoed back from the hills.
Flicka lit, it seemed, on four steel springs that tossed her up and sent her
flying down the mountainside— perfection of speed and power and action. A
hot sweat bathed Ken from head to foot, and he began to laugh, half-choking.
The wind roared down and swept up the fog, and it went bounding away over
the hills, leaving trailing streamers of white in the gullies and coverlets of
cotton around the bushes. Far below they could see Flicka galloping toward
the yearlings. In a moment she joined them and then there was just a
multicolored blur of moving shapes, with a fierce sun blazing down, striking
sparks of light off their glossy coats.
<>
"Get going!" shouted McLaughlin. "Get around behind them. They're on the
run now, and it's cleared— keep them running, and we may get them all in
together, before they stop. Tim, you take the short way back to the gate and
help Howard turn them and get them through."
<>
Tim shot off toward the county road, and the other three riders galloped down
and around the mountain until they were at the back of the band of yearlings.
Shouting and yelling and spurring their mounts, they kept the colts running,
circling them around toward the ranch until they had them on the county road.
Far ahead Ken could see Tim and Howard at the gate, blocking the road. The
yearlings were bearing down on them. Now McLaughlin slowed down and
began to call, "Whoa, whoa!" and the pace decreased. Often enough the
yearlings had swept down that road, through the gate, and down to the
corrals. It was the pathway to oats, hay, and shelter from the winter storms—
would they take it now? Flicka was with them—right in the middle—if they
went, would she go, too?
<>
It was all over almost before Ken could draw a breath. The yearlings turned at
the gate, swept through, went down to the corrals on a dead run, and through
the gates that Gus had opened.
Flicka was caught again.
Mindful that she had clawed her way out when she was corralled before,
McLaughlin was determined to keep her in the main corral into which the
stable door opened. It had eight-foot-tall walls made of aspen poles. The rest
of the yearlings must be maneuvered away from her.
<>
Now that the fog had gone, the sun was scorching, and both the horses and
the men were soaked with sweat before the chasing was over and, one after
another, the yearlings had been driven into the other corral, and Flicka was
alone.
<>
She knew that her solitude meant danger and that she was singled out for
some special disaster. She ran frantically to the high fence through which
she could see the other ponies standing and reared and clawed at the poles.
She screamed, whirled, and circled the corral first in one direction and then in
the other. And while McLaughlin and Ross were discussing the advisability of
roping her, she suddenly espied the dark hole that was the open upper half of
the stable door and dived through it. McLaughlin rushed to close it, and she
was caught— safely imprisoned in the stable.
<>
The rest of the colts were driven away, and Ken stood outside the stable,
listening to the wild hooves beating, the screams, the crashes. His Flicka
within there—close at hand—imprisoned. He was shaking. He felt a
desperate desire to quiet her somehow, to tell her. If only she knew how
much he loved her, that there was nothing to be afraid of, that they were
going to be friends—
<>
Ross shook his head with a one-sided grin. "Sure is a wild one," he said,
coiling his lasso.
<>
"Plumb loco," said Tim briefly.
<>
McLaughlin said, "We'll leave her to think it over. After dinner we'll come up
and feed and water her and do a little work with her."
<>
But when they went back after dinner, there was no Flicka in the barn. One of
the windows above the manger was broken, and the manger was full of
pieces of glass.
<>
Staring at it, McLaughlin gave a short laugh. He looked at Ken. "She climbed
into the manger—see? She stood on the feed box, beat the glass out with
her front hooves, and climbed through."
<>
The window opened into the six-foot pasture. Near it was a wagon-load of
hay. When they went around the back of the stable to see where she had
gone, they found her between the stable and the hay wagon, eating.
At their approach, she leaped away, then headed east across the pasture.
<>
"If she's like her mother," said Rob, "she'll go right through the wire."
<>
"Ay bet she'll go over," said Gus. "She jumps like a deer."
<>
"No horse can jump over that," said McLaughlin.
<>
Ken said nothing because he could not speak. It was the most terrible
moment of his life. He watched Flicka racing toward the eastern wire.
A few rods away from it, she swerved, turned, and raced diagonally south.
"It turned her! It turned her!" cried Ken, almost sobbing. It was the first sign of
hope for Flicka. "Oh, Dad, she does have sense! She does!"
<>
Flicka turned again as she met the southern boundary of the pasture, again
at the northern; she avoided the barn. Without abating any of her whirlwind
speed, following a precise, accurate calculation, and turning each time on a
dime, she investigated every possibility. Then, seeing that there was no
hope, she raced south toward the range where she had spent her life,
gathered herself, and rose to the impossible leap.
<>
Each one of the men watching had the impulse to cover his eyes, and Ken
gave a howl of despair.
<>
Forty feet of fence came down with her as she hurled herself through. Caught
on the upper strands, she turned a complete somersault, landing on her
back, her four legs dragging the wires down on top of her, and tangling herself
in them beyond any hope of escape.
<>
"Dang the wire!" cursed McLaughlin. "If I could afford decent fences . . ."
<>
Ken followed the men miserably as they walked to the filly. They stood in a
circle watching while she kicked and fought and thrashed until the wire was
tightly wound and tangled around her, piercing and tearing her flesh and hide.
At last, she was unconscious, streams of blood running down her golden
coat, and pools of crimson widening on the grass beneath her.
<>
With the wire cutters that Gus always carried in the hip pocket of his
overalls, he cut the wire away; and they took her into the pasture, repaired
the fence, placed hay, a box of oats, and a tub of water near her, and called
it a day.
<>
"I doubt if she pulls out of it," said McLaughlin briefly. "But it's just as well. If
it hadn't been this way, it would have been another. A loco horse isn't worth a
thing."
<>
Ken lay on the grass behind Flicka. One little brown hand was on her back,
smoothing it, pressing softly, caressing. The other hand supported his head.
His face hung over her.
<>
His throat felt dry; his lips were like paper.
<>
After a long while he whispered, "I didn't mean to kill you, Flicka. . . ."
<>
Howard came to sit with him, quiet and respectful, as is proper in the
presence of grief or mourning.
<>
Ken's eyes were on Flicka, watching her slow breathing. He had often seen
horses down and unconscious. Badly cut with wire, too—they got better.
Flicka could get better, too.
<>
"Gosh! She's about as bad as Rocket," said Howard cheerfully.
<>
Ken raised his head scowling. "Rocket! That old black hellion!"
<>
"Well, Flicka's her child, isn't she?"
<>
"She's Banner's child, too. . . ."
<>
There were many airtight compartments in Ken's mind. Rocket—now that
she had come to a bad end—had conveniently gone into one of them.
After a moment, Howard said, "We haven't given our colts their workout
today." He pulled up his knees and clasped his hands around them.
<>
Ken said nothing.
<>
"We're supposed to, you know—we gotta," said Howard. "Dad'll be sore at us
if we don't."
<>
"I don't want to leave her," said Ken, and his voice was strange and thin.
<>
Howard was sympathetically silent. Then he said,
<>
"I could do your two for you, Ken . . ."
<>
Ken looked up gratefully. "Would you, Howard? Gee—that'd be great . . ."
<>
"Sure, I'll do all of 'em, and you can stay here with Flicka."
<>
"Thanks," Ken said and put his head down on his hand again, and the other
hand smoothed and patted the filly's neck.
<>
"Gee, she was pretty," said Howard, sighing.
<>
"What d'ya mean, was!" snapped Ken. "You mean, she is—she's beautiful."
<>
"I meant, when she was running back there," said Howard hastily.
<>
Ken made no reply. It was true. Flicka floating across the ravines was
something quite different from the inert mass lying on the ground, her belly
rounded up into a mound, her neck weak and collapsed on the grass, her
head stretched out, and senseless.
<>
"Just think," said Howard, "you could have had any one of the other yearlings.
And I guess, by this time, it would have been half-tamed down there in the
corral—probably tied to the post."
<>
As Ken still kept silent, Howard got slowly to his feet. "Well, I guess I might
as well go and do the colts," he said and walked away. At a little distance
away, he turned. "If Mother goes for the mail, do you want to go along?"
<>
Ken shook his head.
<>
When Howard was out of sight, Ken kneeled and looked Flicka over. He had
never thought that, as soon as this, he would have been close enough to pat
her, to caress her, to hold and examine her. He felt a passion of possession.
Sick and half-destroyed as she was, she was his own, and his heart was
bursting with love for her. He smoothed her all over. He arranged her mane in
a more orderly fashion; he tried to straighten her head.
<>
"You're mine now, Flicka," he whispered.
<>
He counted her wounds. The two worst were a deep cut above the right rear
hock and a long gash in her chest that ran down into the muscle of the
foreleg. Besides those, she was snagged with three-cornered tears, through
which the flesh pushed out, and laced with cuts and scratches with blood
drying on them in rows of little black beads.
<>
Ken wondered if the two bad cuts ought to be sewn up. He thought of Doc
Hicks and then remembered what his Dad had said: "You cost me money
every time you turn around." No—Gus might do it—Gus was pretty good at
sewing up animals. But Dad said that the best thing of all is usually to leave
them alone. They heal up. There was Sultan, hit by an automobile out on the
highway; it knocked him down and took a big piece of flesh out of his chest
and left the flap of skin hanging loose—and it all healed up itself, and you
could only tell where the wound had been by the hairs being a different length.
The cut in Flicka's hind leg was awfully deep—
<>
He put his head down against her and whispered again, "Oh, Flicka. I didn't
mean to kill you."
<>
After a few moments, "Oh, get well—get well—get well . . ."
<>
And again, "Flicka, don't be so wild. Be all right, Flicka. . . ."
<>
Gus came out to him, carrying a can of black grease.
<>
"De Boss tole me to put some of dis grease on de filly's cuts, Ken—it helps
heal 'em up."
<>
Together, they went over her carefully, putting a smear of the grease wherever
they could reach a wound.
<>
Gus stood, looking down at the boy.
<>
"D'you think she'll get well, Gus?"
<>
"She might, Ken. I seen plenty horses hurt as bad as dot, and dey yust as
good as ever."
<>
"Dad said—" But Ken's voice failed him when he remembered that his father
had said she might as well die, because she was loco anyway.
<>
The Swede stood for a moment, his pale blue eyes, transparent and spiritual,
looking kindly down at the boy; then he went on down to the barn.
Every trace of fog and mist had vanished, and the sun was blazing hot.
Sweltering, Ken got up to take a drink of water from the bucket that was left
for Flicka. Then, carrying handfuls of water in his small, cupped hands, he
poured it on her mouth. Flicka did not move, and once again Ken took his
place behind her, his hand on her neck, his lips whispering to her.
<>
After a while, his head sunk in exhaustion to the ground. . . .
<>
A roaring gale roused him, and he looked up to see racing black clouds
forming into a line. Blasts of cold wind struck down at the earth and sucked
up leaves, twigs, tumbleweeds, in whorls like small cyclones.
<>
From the black line in the sky, a fine, icy mist sheeted down, and suddenly
there was an appalling explosion of thunder. The world blazed and shuddered
with lightning. High overhead was a noise like the shrieking of trumpets and
trombones. The particles of fine, icy mist beating down grew larger; they
began to dance and bounce on the ground like little peas—like marbles—like
Ping-Pong balls . . .
<>
They beat upon Ken through his thin shirt and whipped his bare head and
face. He kneeled, leaning over Flicka, protecting her head with his folded
arms. The hailstones were like Ping-Pong balls—like billiard balls— like little,
hard apples—like bigger apples—and suddenly, here and there, they fell as
big as tennis balls, bouncing on the ground, rolling along, splitting on the
rocks.
<>
One hit Ken on the side of the face, and a thin line of blood slid down his
cheek with the water.
<>
Running like a hare under a pall of darkness, the storm fled east, beating the
grass flat upon the hills. Then, in the wake of the darkness and the
screaming wind and hail, a clear, silver light shone out, and the grass rose up
again, every blade shimmering.
<>
Watching Flicka, Ken sat back on his heels and sighed. She had not moved.
A rainbow, like a giant compass, drew a semicircle of bright color around the
ranch. And off to one side, there was a vertical blur of fire hanging, left over
from the storm.
<>
Ken lay down again close behind Flicka and put his cheek against the soft
tangle of her mane.
<>
When evening came, and Nell had called Ken and had taken him by the hand
and led him away, Flicka still lay without moving. Gently the darkness folded
down over her. She was alone, except for the creatures of the sky—the
heavenly bodies that wheeled over her; the two bears, circling around the
North Star; the cluster of little sisters clinging together as if they held their
arms wrapped around each other; the eagle, Aquila, that waited until almost
midnight before his great hidden wings lifted him above the horizon; and right
overhead, an eye as bright as a blue diamond beaming down, the beautiful
star, Vega.
<>
Less alive than they, and dark under their brilliance, the motionless body of
Flicka lay on the bloodstained grass, earthbound and fatal, every breath she
drew, a costly victory.
<>
Toward morning, a half moon rode in the zenith.
<>
A single, sharp, yapping bark broke the silence. Another answered, then
another and another—tentative, questioning cries that presently became
long, quavering howls. The sharp pixie faces of a pack of coyotes pointed at
the moon, and the howls trembled up through their long, tight-stretched
throats and open, pulsating jaws. Each little prairie wolf was allowed a solo,
at first timid and wondering, then gathering force and impudence. Then they
joined with each other, and at last the troop was in full, yammering chorus,
capering and malicious and thumbing noses and filling the air with sounds
that raise the hair on human heads and put every animal on the alert.
Flicka came back to consciousness with a deep, shuddering sigh. She lifted
her head and rolled over on her belly, drawing her legs under her a little.
Resting like this, she turned her head and listened. The yammer rose and
fell. It was a familiar sound, she had heard it since she was born. The pack
was across the stream on the edge of the woods beyond.
<>
All at once, Flicka gathered herself, made a sudden, plunging effort, and
gained her feet. It was not good for a filly to be helpless on the ground with a
pack of coyotes nearby. She stood swaying, her legs splayed out weakly,
her head low and dizzy. It was minutes before balance came to her, and
while she waited for it, her nostrils flared, smelling water. Water! How near
was it? Could she get to it?
<>
She saw the tub and presently walked unsteadily over to it, put her lips in,
and drank. New life and strength poured into her. She paused, lifting her
muzzle, and mouthed the cold water, freshening her tongue and throat. She
drank deeply again, then raised her head higher and stood with her neck
turned, listening to the coyotes, until the sounds subsided, hesitated, died
away.
<>
She stood over the tub for a long time. The pack yammered again, but the
sound was like an echo, artless and hollow with distance, a mile away. They
had gone across the valley to hunt.
<>
A faint luminousness appeared over the ground and a lemon-colored light in
the east. One by one the stars drew back, and the pale, innocent blue of the
early-morning sky closed over them.
<>
By the time Ken reached Flicka in the morning, she had finished the water,
eaten some of the oats, and was standing broadside to the level sunlight,
gathering in every ultraviolet ray, every infrared, for the healing and the
recreation her battered body needed.