Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show Read Online Free PDF Page A

nostrils. Also, it was huge—higher, broader, and thicker than any horse or cow we had on the farm or in the stables or had ever bred. And bulky as a cliff.
    On and on it came, its speed getting up to a near-gallop, loping wildly along by the fence, crashing into the white rails, bouncing off them and smashing into them again; how they didn’t shatter I’ll never know. At any moment it would careen through the gate, pound onto the gravel of the forecourt, and perhaps head straight at the glass porch where we were standing.
    My father’s double-barreled shotgun stood in the corner of the porch. He often took a potshot at a juicy pheasant and then lamented the side of his nature that caused him to “Kill-kill-kill God’s creatures.” I looked at the gun, but I knew it would be too small to bring down this thundering black beast. My great-grandfather’s elephant gun, a bell-mouthed blunderbuss, sat on a bracket over the fireplace in Mother’s little study—but what ammunition could we use? My terror grew.
    Mother stared as only she can, her eyes narrowing, her body a tall, slim cylinder of concentration. Hands on hips, she peered harder—and then walked out of the house and strode across the gravel to the open gate. Toward the creature!
    On came the Animal and my heart came close to stopping. I didn’t know what to do. The manly part of the boy fought the coward, the self-preserver. Should I help? And what assistance could I give? Shouldn’t I be at Mother’s side, indeed ahead of her—but who would run for help if the monster destroyed both of us?
    I split the difference, as, when I can, I’ve learned to; I left the porch but didn’t go as far as the gate. And, as I most certainly always do in life, I watched and watched.
    The Animal slowed down and I heard its noises. Like a distressedasthmatic it wheezed and spluttered; and it seemed in agony. Explanations for its existence seared through my head: It had come from a family of prehistoric creatures long hidden in a land beneath the caves up in the mountains, and one of their number had now found a way into the outside world and was frightened at being unable to find its way home.
    Or it had come from the next farm, the Treacys’. Mr. Treacy was a vet and a breeder, and his house was full of exotic stuffed animals. Maybe he had for years been experimenting at crossing ordinary breeds with exotic animals and this strange hybrid result had broken out of his sheds. Or maybe such a creature had indeed long existed in Borneo, known only to a few adventurers and zoologists. And it had at last been captured and, in circumstances of great secrecy, was being transported to England for a zoo there, but the ship had docked at Waterford to discharge cargo, and when the holds opened the Animal escaped.
    I was soon answered. The Animal slowed down to a walk, still heaving its great head. I could hear Mother speaking to it, soothing and soft, “Yes, good boy, good old boy,” and the Animal was responding. Now it had slowed to a saunter. Then it hung a hesitant mooch over toward the gate on which Mother leaned. The creature’s great head drooped lower and lower; I thought it was probably abashed at its own foolish carry-on. And then it stopped, right at the gate. Another miracle from Mother! Whom I had seen juggle plates for a bet. Who could cast a dry fly into a salmon’s mouth from Ballygriffin Bridge. Who could do coin tricks.
    Cautious as a fish, I walked over. By the time I got there, and saw Mother stroking the creature’s nose and forehead, and with her sleeve wiping away the foam from the mouth, the Animal had quieted.
    Not a prehistoric fugitive from beneath a time-trapped lake in the Galtee Mountains; not a Frankensteinian crossbreed escaped from Mr. Treacy’s sheds; not even an exotic capture from Borneo. This was a massive Clydesdale plow horse, twenty-one hands high if an inch. By way of comparison, our tallest three-quarter-bred was seventeen and a half