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After he had poked and felt of Misty, Grandpa threw up his hands in despair. "Could be a week yet."
Paul groaned, wondering if maybe the foal was dead inside her and that was why it wouldn't come out, wondering if she was really going to have a colt at all.
"Yup," Grandpa said, "mebbe she's goin' to wait till her stall dries out. She's still got plenty hay, so you feed the cat, whilst I take a quick gander about the house."
As Grandpa hurried down the hall, Paul searched the refrigerator. He took out the pitcher of milk and smelled it. "Phew-eee!" he said to himself. "She'll just have to be satisfied with the left-over beans."
Grandpa soon came back, rubbing his hands. "Water seeped into only one bedroom," he announced. "But the rooms is colder'n a tomb, and they stink like old fish. Beats all how nice it is here. Somethin' companionable in the smell of a hoss."
Misty, as if in appreciation, offered to shake hands.
"Sorry, gal. No time for tricks 'n treats today. Now then, Paul, come along. We can't keep the DUKW man waiting forever, and I got to see 'bout my herd up to Deep Hole."
Tom Reed was getting into his boat when the DUKW reached his place on the north end of the island. "Figured ye'd come along about now," he called. "Get out of that new-fangled contraption, Beebe, and climb aboard my old scow."
"How come she didn't get blowed away, same as mine?" Grandpa asked as he and Paul waded over. "And how come you and the missus didn't evacuate?"
"I tied her up to the rafters of my barn, that's why."
Paul grinned. "Is she still hanging there?"
Tom chuckled at the idea. "No, son, 'twas the boat. Truth is, Marjie just flat refused to go."
The driver of the DUKW was turning around, ready to leave. "Hey, Mr. Beebe," he shouted, "how soon should I come back?"
Tom answered for him. "No telling, captain. Could be all day. Ye'll just have to keep checking."
As Paul climbed into the boat, he noticed a bundle of sticks and a cellophane bag stuffed with pieces of cloth. "What they for, Tom?" he asked.
"They're rags from my wife's scrap bag. They're to make flags to mark where the dead animals are. Can't expect the 'copters to find 'em if they don't know where they be."
Although the air was bitter cold, the wind had lessened and holes of blue sky showed through the clouds. But the water about them was muddy-brown and full of drift. Grandpa reached for an oar.
"Wait a minute!" Tom said. "I got strict instructions from Marjie to give you coffee afore we set out. Wait a minute."
Grandpa guffawed. "We got a cat by that name 'cause she never does."
Paul broke in excitedly. "And she just had four kittens—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."
"Well, I'll be a chipmunk's tail," Grandpa chortled in surprise. "No worse'n namin' people for saints who they don't resemble a-tall."
"Easy to remember, too," Tom said, "and no hurt feelings if you call one by t'other." He was pouring thick black coffee into the lid of his thermos. "Its extry stout," he said, offering it first to Paul, "to fortify us for what's ahead."
Paul tasted it, trying not to make a face. Then he gulped it down, feeling it burn all the way.
Grandpa sipped his, meditating. "Over to Assateague," he thought aloud, "over in those dunes there's plenty hollows to ketch nice clean rain. Whatever ponies is left, there's places for 'em to drink. But here...." All at once he dumped the rest of his coffee overboard. "We got to rescue the live ones right now, or they'll bloat on this brackish water. Let's go!" he bellowed.
With Tom directing, they each took an oar and poled off into the morass. It was heavy going. The sludgy water was choked with boards from smashed chicken houses, and with briar and bramble and weedy vines so thickly interlaced it was like trying to break through a stout wire fence. Silently the three in the boat threaded their way along, stopping time and again to push rubbish aside and to scrape the seaweed from their oars.
Suddenly there came a thud and a jolt. The three oars lifted as one. All movement ceased. The men stared down in horror.
"Oh God!" Grandpa whispered. "It's my Black Warrior!"
No one spoke. Tom Reed reached down and took one colored square out of the bag and tied it to a stick. He drove the marker into the mud next to the stallion's body. "'Twas a piece of Marjie's petticoat," he said nervously, just to say something. "I allus liked it with all the bright pink flowers."
Grandpa's eyes looked far off. "I was proud of the Warrior," he said quietly. "He used to help on Pony Penning Days to drive the really wild 'uns to the carnival grounds, and his tail was so long it sweeped the street, and his coat a-glistenin' like black sunshine. Recomember, Paul?" He wiped his arm across his eyes. Then his voice changed. "Move on!" he commanded. "We got to find the livin'."
The grim search went on. A quiet hung over the bog, except for the sloshing of oars and twigs snapping as the scow moved heavily along. Then a raucous, rasping sound sliced into the quiet of the morning.
"Look!" Paul cried. "Crows!"
The men poled faster until they came to a cloud of bold black birds flapping over a huddle of dead ponies.
Grandpa's face twisted in pain. "The Warrior's mares and colts," he said in utter desolation.
It was almost as if they were alive. Some were half-standing in the water, propped up by debris. They looked as if they were old and asleep.
"Guess they just died from exposure and cold." Tom's voice quavered, but his words were matter of fact. "One flag can do for all."
Grandpa got out of the boat and he grabbed the flag from Tom's hands. He stabbed it hard and fierce into the mud. Then he took a good look, and he began to name them all, saying a little piece of praise over each: "This one's a true Palomino. She had extry big ears, but gentle as the day, even though she'd never been rode. And this great big old tall mare was blind of one eye, but she had a colt ever' spring, reg'lar as dandylions. And this mare, she's got some pretty good age to her. She's somewhere in her twenty."
The crows came circling back, cawing at Grandpa. Angrily he whipped them away with his hat. "Likely she's had twelve, fifteen head in her day, and expectin' again." He sighed heavily. "That Black Warrior was a good stallion. He died tryin' to move his family to safety, but ..." his voice broke "... they just couldn't move."
The heart-breaking work went on. They came upon snakes floating, and rabbits and rats. And they found more stallions dead, with their mares and colts nearby. And they found lone stragglers caught and tethered fast by twining vines. As the morning dragged into noon, and noon into cold afternoon, the pile of flags in the boat dwindled.
Sometimes an hour went by before they came on anything, alive or dead. Then Tom would chatter cheerfully, trying to lighten the burden. "Not ever'thing drowns," he said. "Early this morning I found me a snapper turtle under a patch of ice. He'd gone to sleep. Y'know, Paul, they snooze all winter, like bear."
Tom waited for an answer, but none came. "Funny thing about that little snapper," he went on, "he was a baby, no bigger'n a fifty-cent piece, and he was froze sure-enough. 'Tom,' I said to myself, 'he's dead.' But something tells me to put him in my inside pocket. And walking along I guess the heat of my body warmed him up, and guess what!"
"Grandpa!" Paul screamed. "I see something alive! In the woods!"
They turned the boat quickly and went poling through the soggy mass of kinksbush and myrtle. And there, caught among broken branches was a forlorn bunch of ponies, heads hanging low, their sides scarcely moving.
Grandpa slid overboard, trying not to make a splash, trying not to panic them. Softly he called each one by name. "Nancy. Lucy. Polly. Gray Belle. Princess. Susy ..."
The low, husky voice was like a lifeline thrown to drowning creatures. They lifted their heavy heads and one tried a whinny, but it was no more than a breath blowing. They were held fast, rooted in the boggy earth.
Tom and Paul were beside Grandpa in an instant. Without any signals between them, they knew what had to be done. They must drive the ponies to higher land near Tom's house, or they would die. Grim and determined, they maneuvered their way behind the ponies. Then grabbing pine boughs for clubs, they brandished them, whacking at the water, yelling like madmen, stirring the almost-dead things to life.
A pinto mare struggled free and led off in one desperate leap. The others stumbled after, trying to keep ahead of the wild thunder behind them. Scrabbling, crashing through up-rooted trees, squeezing through bramble and thicket, they slogged forward inch by inch. And suddenly a mud-crusted stallion leaped out of the woods to join them.
"It's Wings!" Paul shrieked.
Men and ponies both were nearing exhaustion. But still they drove on. They had to. Shoving the boat, the men nosed it into the laggards, frightening them ever forward.
And at last they were in Tom's yard. Safe! As one, the ponies headed for the water barrel. Single-handed Grandpa overturned it, spilling out the dirty water tainted by the sea. He tried the spigot above it. "Pressure's good!" he exulted. "They got to blow first, then they can drink."
He and Tom and Paul were blowing too. But it was a healthy blow. Something at last had gone right.
