Traveller by Richard Adams

turned to Jim an’ talked some more. The way I figured it, he was asking Jim whether he could have me for his own horse, and of course Jim was saying no he couldn’t, though it was all very friendly. But then I thought—best as I could understand it—Jim was saying maybe he could fix it up. I lost track of the talk; but somehow, as the General and his ‘uns rode away, I got a hunch I hadn’t seed the last of him. He didn’t know it—Jim didn’t know it—but I
did
.
    The next day I got another surprise. Jim rode me right down through the woods to a camp of soldiers where we’d never been before. This was a horse outfit—any number of horses—but that warn’t the surprise. The surprise was that the first man I seed was Captain Joe, the soldier who’d come to the meadow back home and tried me out. So that was it! He
had
bought me, and now the time had come for Jim to turn me over to Joe.
    â€˜Fore he went away, Jim more or less cried on my neck. He went off without looking back, like he couldn’t bear to. I never seed him again from that day to this. Like Zeb said, horses are forever parting. At the time, though, I didn’t feel it like I should have, because Captain Joe began making sech a fuss over me. I was hungry as could be, and first thing off he gave me a real good feed—’bout the best I’d had since we come to the mountain. After that he jest natcherly couldn’t resist showing me off to a whole passel of his friends. I spent that night on the picket lines with the other horses. It was nice to be back in a crowd of company again, even though every durned horse was wishing he was somewheres else. I remember there was a mare called Daffodil, an’ she told me she’d been up and down this mountain country for somethin’ like five months and felt ready to lie down and die on it.
    During the rest of the time we spent on the mountain, I was ridden every day, sometimes by Captain Joe and sometimes by another fella— his brother, I reckon, ‘cause they was so much alike in their ways, as well as to smell and to look at. But although they was a couple of real nice fellas, and looked after me best as they could in that place and that weather, somehow I jest couldn’t settle down with ‘em in the kind of way that ought to be between a horse and his master. It was partly the hard conditions, of course, and partly jest wanting to be back home, but the real thing was that every time a bunch of us horses was rode out to have a look round the mountain—which seemed to be our job— we’d often as not meet the General riding around. Even if he seed us some ways off, and we wouldn’t natcherly have met, he’d still ride acrost to speak to Joe—or to his brother—whichever one was a-riding me.
    â€œAh, there’s my colt,” he’d say, keeping his own horse up tight. “How’s my colt making out?”
    â€œOh, jest fine, General, sir,” they’d answer. “Best horse in the Army, that’s for sure.”
    One day the General rode me again—not far; half a mile, maybe— and this time it left me with the feeling that I’d never be really happy again, on account of I didn’t belong to him. Well, when you’ve had a taste—even if it’s only a taste—of what’s perfect, it’s hard, ain’t it, to settle for anything less? I jest had to keep telling myself that I mustn’t go a-pining an’ getting a lot of ideas ‘bove my way of life. The General had jest taken a fancy to me for a while, and that was all there was to it.
    Only, somehow, it didn’t altogether feel that way. I mean, it didn’t feel like it was a passing notion to him, any more’n it was to me. For one thing, his own horse was so terrible. His name was Richmond, and the best I can say for Richmond is that sometime or other he must have been treated