The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence Page B

horses marched on, until it seemed she was looking right back between her shoulders. Then she reached a hand toward me and curled her two middle fingers toward her palm. “Get back!” she said. “Get back where you were!” And she stood like that, staring and pointing, until the wagon rose on the next crest, and dropped out of sight. It looked as though she was sinking into the ground.
    “She’s put the evil eye on you,” said Mary. “You’ll have to watch for her.”
    Our poor ponies had gone half mad. They stood trembling, their ears pressed catlike against their skulls, their eyes rolled up to the whites like hard-boiled eggs. “Hush,” said Mary to hers. “Hush now.” It flinched when she touched it, then calmed slowly under her hand.
    “The Widow’s tetched,” she said, tapping her head. “People say she’s a witch, but I think she’s just crazy. Years ago she saw her brother drownded. Before that, her husband; his body was never found.”
    “But the way she looked at me. It was—”
    “She thinks you’re him come back from the dead.” Mary grabbed the pony’s mane and sprang up on its back. “It’s not just you,” she said, looking down. “She thinks the same of any man or boy who gets ashore from a wreck.”
    “How does she know I came from a wreck?”
    “News travels fast.” Mary watched as I hauled myself onto the pony. “They probably know of you in Polruan by now, and that’s better than twenty mile from here.”
    We started off down the road, side by side in the Widow’s wake. The dust from her wagon flurried ahead of us like a little tornado.
    “So there have been others,” I said.
    “Others what?” asked Mary.
    “Saved from a wreck.”
    “A few,” she said, “have reached the shore.”
    It was all she would say. And then she shouted at me to race her, and set her pony into a gallop for home.
    Though we ran at a breakneck speed, we never caught up with the Widow. The cloud of dust moved along at the same pace as ourselves until we turned inland on the path to Galilee. We hurtled round that bend. Mary was a length ahead—the hind hooves of her pony kicked divots of sod as we swung out onto the edge of the moor. She glanced back, and I saw her face through a veil of hair. I leaned forward like a jockey, stretched so flat along the mane that I peered between the pony’s ears. I could feel it writhing under me, pounding along like a boat in a seaway. I edged ahead, fell back a bit, surged forward again. Neck and neck we flew over the rise where Simon Mawgan hadstopped to look at the view. Mary was laughing. “The loser,” she cried, “has to stable the ponies.”
    Into the glen the ponies ran shoulder to shoulder, paced so closely that their hooves sounded like a single animal. I was on the side closest to the manor; Mary would have to pass ahead or behind.
    The path turned to the left. Mary, on the inside, inched ahead. She too was lying flat, her hands right up at the bits. The dust rose around us.
    The path straightened, then curved the other way. I could see the opening in the hedgerows. Mary was beside me, her lips dusted gray. And then she was gone.
    I could spare only a glance. She’d reined in the pony and passed so close behind that I’d felt a jolt as its head brushed the flanks of mine. And now she was running across the open moor.
    As I slowed for the opening, Mary braced her knees on her pony’s ribs. She hugged its neck. She aimed it straight for the hedgerow.
    I passed through the gateway. And ahead, to the right, Mary’s pony came soaring over the hedge. It flew as though winged, carrying her up in an arch, its forelegs clear by a foot, its belly just touching the leaves. And atop it sat Mary, graceful as an angel. She seemed to hang there for a moment, absolutely still. Then she came rushing down, and the pony’s hind legs crashed through the hedgerow in a litter of twigs and old leaves. The pony stumbled forward, almost touching its knees to the