Starting with Tolly and Ginger, Kippy begins to herd the horses together. He is not going alone across the mountains. He gets them moving with nips that leave marks on their rumps. Like a sheep dog he is, quick and willful. Next, Rex and the pony, then the old mare. He doesn’t bother the two Thoroughbred mares. He will not attempt to drive them with the others.
Why are they so slow, these horses? It is spring, can’t they smell it? Don’t they know he is giving them freedom? They mill and resist him. Tolly fights back; she doesn’t want freedom just now. Rex is more willing. Ginger doesn’t understand.
The old mare doesn’t want to go. This is her colthood pasture. She retires to her corner. Kippy drives the pony through with Ginger and Tolly and Rex, so that five of them go through the fence, go along the stream between the trees away from the ranch. There is a long way to travel. It will take them many days, many weeks, but it is early spring, and the sea is calling Kippy home.
CHAPTER 9
The children sit in the meadow looking at the ocean and watching the morning grow lighter. As the sun breaks away from the hills and hangs like a red ball in the sky they start down to the lower fields which flank the sea.
There is one small grove to go through. A stream enters it, coming out the other side to spill itself into the ocean. “We’ll have a drink,” Tom says, and they start down. Then they stop suddenly, for there in the grove strange shapes are moving. It is too dark in there to see what they are. The children watch for a long time; then Karen whispers, “I think it’s horses.”
Tom nods and stands quietly, watching. As their eyes grow more accustomed to the scene they are sure of it. “There are no fences,” Karen says. “It’s not a fenced pasture, Tom.”
“Let’s try to get closer,” he says.
Down they go, looking as much like shadows as they can. But not enough like shadows. The horses begin to move around a little. The children stop still. The horses settle down. After a while the children move ahead again. They get a little farther this time; then suddenly the ponies come to life in a great swirl of movement, like birds taking wing, and are out and running across the meadow to the hills.
They are roans and grays, all of them.
They cross the meadow bunched close and melt into a patch of dunes where they can hardly be seen. Sand-colored ponies on the sand hills.
The children watch the ponies as they drift away over the dunes and into a valley, out of sight.
Karen sighs. “They were lovely.”
Tom laughs. “Did you see the leader nip at them to make them run faster? Sand Devils, I’d call them.”
“There must have been fifty, Tom.”
“At least.”
“I think they’ll bring us luck!”
“Maybe.”
The children go on down to the stream. Wherever the soft ground is bare of leaves, it is covered with small hoofprints. There is a nice horse smell about the place, mixed with eucalyptus. The ponies have muddied the water, and the children go farther up to drink, then return to explore. Karen finds three silver hairs on a bush and ties them into a knot around her finger. “A magic ring, to wish on,” she says.
Tom smiles.
The crow returns and lands in a tree and caws at them.
The children leave the grove and start toward the sea. They follow a narrow path which goes to the edge of the cliff, then along it.
Suddenly Karen pauses. Farther on there is a black mass of rock rising from the surf, breakers pounding against it.
“It is my dream, Tom. It is the place I dreamed of.
“Those ponies have you bewitched.”
“No. I remember it.”
“It looks like a dozen places at home, Karen. You must have dreamed of one of those.”
“Perhaps.” But she does not believe him. Something is on the other side of that rock, she is thinking. Something is waiting there. But it is a nice thing.
The crow flies overhead, circles the black rock, and caws loudly. Karen hurries ahead. There is mustard growing in the field; the path is grassy. Crickets sing.
Before she gets to the rock Karen stops and waits for Tom. They go on together.
On the other side of the rock, standing in the sand looking up at them, is a small, dirty child. Karen nearly laughs. It is a little girl not more than six, bedraggled, muddy, but rosy underneath. Her hair is dark and straight; her eyes are dark and very bold.
“There was hardly time to wish,” the child says. “Did you wish?”
“I made a wishing ring.” Karen holds out her finger.
“Might do. Never heard of that.”
“I’m sorry if we spoiled your wish.”
“Oh, I made it all right. Had to hurry, though. Didn’t see them till you started them up.”
“Were they Sand Ponies?”
“Of course! You’re new here!”
“And they’re wild?”
“Yes. And magic.” “For everyone?”
“Not if you hurt ‘em.”
Tom is silent, listening.
“Where did you come from?” asks the child.
“From across the fields,” says Karen. “And you?”
The child points silently. Karen and Tom see footprints making a long line in the wet sand to the base of the cliff. They look away to where she is pointing, but they see only a clump of trees, with hills beyond.
“What is your name?” asks Tom.
“Jana,” says the child, scratching her knee. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere much,” says Tom.
“Are you running away?”
The children look startled. What has made her say this? Their canvas packs, perhaps.
“Would you tell if we were?” ventures Karen. Tom looks at her. This is a crazy thing to say.
“No, we won’t tell,” the child says. “You can come with us.”
“Us?”
“There’s more. There’s Lisa. We’re twins.” The child turns, looking over her shoulder. Coming from a spot out of sight against the cliff is a second child, exactly like the first, and just as dirty. The crow screams loudly.
Now there are two muddy urchins. They put out two grubby hands. Karen takes Jana’s, Tom, Lisa’s. They start to walk down the beach.
“You don’t live anywhere,” says Lisa. It is not a question.
“Not now,” Karen says. I must be bemused, she thinks. What’s the matter with me?
“You will live with us,” says Lisa matter-of-factly.
When they have skirted odd fields and crossed another stream and have walked through the fragrant twilight of a redwood grove and have waded a larger, deeper stream, there, in a field of tall grass, sits an ancient barn, silvered by the sea wind. It has no house, no fences—there is no sign of life at all.
A shaft of sunlight cuts across the open barn door, making a spider web glitter. A moment later, a spry, gray-haired person steps out into the sunlight wiping her hands on a ragged apron. A lop-eared hound comes out behind her, and the smell of ginger cookies floats out with her like a cloud. There is no house to hold a kitchen, but ginger cakes are cooking somewhere, and the crow has come to sit on the roof of the barn. A willow tree stands in the yard.
“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.” The little girls let go of hands and run madly ahead. “Sarah, look what we found!” they both shout.
There she stands in the sunlight, wiping her hands and watching the children come across the field, her blue eyes bright. There is Sarah Paddyfoot, and she looks like someone you might have known forever.
But let us go back a minute, before we go ahead.
It is a frosty, blue-hazed morning, early in the spring, about the time that Kippy began to yearn for home. The crow sits on a dead bush near the barn, watching for mice in the white stubble of the field. But something is amiss. There is something strange in the air, and he flies up toward heaven, where he can see the land below.