The Fire Pony by Rodman Philbrick

Author:Rodman Philbrick [Philbrick, Rodman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

I’m sound asleep when the horses scream. Dreaming I’m at this rodeo and I’m too small to look over the side, and there’s just these big cowboy hats flying by, and I really want to see what’s going on, and that’s when all hell breaks loose.

The horses scream and Joe Dilly’s feet hit the floor and he’s standing over my bunk and shaking me. “Come on, Roy, there’s something wrong!”

Them horses aren’t in my dream at all. They really are going wild in the middle of the night.

Soon as I sit up there’s a loud crack of thunder, sounds like a tree splitting. No lightning yet, but you can tell there’s a storm coming fast across the sky.

Joe’s pulling on his pants and boots and he’s saying, “Where’d you leave that pony? In the barn or the corral?”

“The corral,” I say, and that’s when it hits me — all the noise is coming from the corral.

I’m at the door when Joe stops me and goes, “Better put on your pants.”

So I do, only I get the legs crossed and I have to start over, and every time a horse screams it sounds like Lady, like she’s dying, or being scared to death.

Which as it turns out is pretty close to the truth.

At first I can’t see much of anything. Because the night is soaking up the lights from the bunkhouse, and the air is hot and thick and syrupy and hard to see through, and the noise from the scared horses comes from all around. Like I’m still asleep and sleepwalking or something.

Joe’s there beside me and he goes, “It ain’t just a storm coming, make them go crazy like this. Something else has got ’em riled. Maybe you better get back inside and let me handle it.”

I pretend like I don’t hear him, and then I scoot sideways around the corner of the building so he can’t make me go back. Not with Lady in trouble.

I’m almost to the corral before I notice the cool dirt under my feet. Forgot my boots. So I’m barefoot like a fool. And that’s when I wonder: Was it another snake that has Lady and the horses in such a panic? Which makes me feel like each of my toes is a magnet for rattlers, and when I look at the ground my eyes play tricks and make me see snakey shapes slipping through the shadows, coming right at me.

I’m so scared I can’t feel nothing, not even my feet.

The moon comes out of a storm cloud and there they are, all the horses in the corral reared up and going wild. Their eyes are dead white and crazy-mad and they’re kicking their forelegs high in the air, like they want to scrape away the darkness and make it daytime.

Lady Luck is racing around in circles, going as fast as she can, and every few seconds she gives the rail a butt with her head. She’s trying to bust out of that corral and she don’t care what it takes.

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