Just meeting Detective Kar was an adventure in itself. The horses, traveling to better training grounds, would also play a big role in making this the most remarkable vacation of my life. But as yet I didn’t know they were part of the cargo, let alone the significance they would have for me.
Generally, I’m considered odd with my white hair and pale skin, but Kar was far more unusual. He was the sort no one would dare tease to his face. If anyone chose to talk about him at all, the words would be whispered in another room, or country. Enormous jeans and a stained black shirt covered a big, burly and incredibly smelly body. I had the dubious pleasure of sitting between him and the window for three days on the train taking me to a popular single’s resort in the warm south.
Often you meet interesting people when traveling by rail, sometimes repulsive ones. Kar combined both qualities. I cannot say I didn’t initially seek other seating arrangements. During my quiet, desperate conversations with the porter, he insisted no other seats were available and thereafter proceeded to silence me with a fixed, ingratiating smile each time he sidled past.
Kar and I immediately developed an agreeable relationship based on as much silence as possible. He’d gone as far as telling me his name and I reciprocated. His stink eventually desensitized my ability to smell and therefore his closeness didn’t repel me quite so much as it had at first. He carried a worn shopping bag filled with old, coverless paperback books which he breezed through at a rampant rate, always clutching one in a meaty, sweaty hand. I suspected they were romance novels and even made a halfhearted effort to confirm this during one of his frequent naps, but his habit of folding the books between his massive palms successfully hid the incriminating print.
On the second night out, the train lurched to an unexpected halt in the blackness of a heavily wooded area. Most people in our car woke up and adjusted their seats to an upright position, the better to peer outside and speculate. Some ostentatiously flipped on their reading lights in order to glance at a book or magazine. I joined the gawkers. The eerie silence that replaced the constant ‘thacka thacka’ of the train helped spread uneasiness through the travelers. Kar just kept sleeping, lips tight together and his breath rattling through wide, hairy nostrils.
Faint interior light reflecting off the windows made it difficult to peer into the outside darkness. This contributed to my uncertainty as to what I actually saw.
Two horses galloped silently by. They passed close enough to touch and I could almost make out their markings. Heavy clouds blocked out the moon and starlight, so I really shouldn’t have seen much of anything, but the horses seemed to glow with their own light. As they disappeared from view, the image of warm, sunny meadows flashed through my mind and a feeling of the most intense longing almost overwhelmed me. Strangely, I thought of my mother. I had missed her horribly when she died several years ago, but had long since come to terms with the painful loss and seldom though of her now. Odd that she would come to my mind here.
Somewhat shaken, I stared over the back of my seat to see if anyone else on this side of the passenger car had shared my vision of the horses, but no one even hinted at anything unusual. I shook my head to regain my senses. Best to forget what I’d seen and felt. The train began to creep ahead and gradually accelerated. I quietly tilted my seat back, and lulled by the sound of the moving train, went to sleep.
"I understand your name is Surrey Kar."
I awoke with a start. Streams of morning light warmed my face as the train rested in the station of a small town.
"I understand that you do detective work."
"How’d you know that?" Kar muttered.
"Someone pointed you out to me." The reply sounded repressively noncommittal.
I focused my attention on the speaker. An unsmiling, striking looking man in a smooth, shiny gray suit, stood in the aisle. His sparse, slick hair was gray, his tie was gray, his shirt had a gray tint and I suspected his shoes and socks were also gray. Even his small, close-set eyes glistened a light, clear gray.
Kar mumbled and tried to dismiss the man with the wave of a hand.
"I can pay you well," the gray man persisted.
"I’m on vacation," Kar grunted.
The gray man sighed. "My horses are priceless. I need them back. I’ll pay just about anything."
I don’t know why I said it. "Horses? I saw ..."
The ferocity of Kar’s stare took me so much by surprise I was instantly silenced. The gray man turned his attention to me immediately. The cold, unsmiling eyes narrowed as though he would look right through me.
Kar wouldn’t allow it. "My assistant here," he regained the man’s attention with his booming voice, "would also require sufficient financial compensation. Now we’re talking in the range of thousands, not hundreds, plus expenses. Interrupted prepaid vacation, you know. Very costly."
The talk of money in those quantities and the feeling of being out of my depth kept my mouth shut. I watched and listened as a swarm of details was worked out, a thick wad of large bills exchanged hands, and the gray man finally left. Kar carefully divided up the money and tucked a substantial amount into my shirt pocket. He surprised me further with a broad, warm smile.
***
In no time at all, I was bumping along with Kar in a cheap, rented vehicle over an old road running parallel to the railroad tracks. We headed for the wooded area where the horses had allegedly been stolen. My mind overflowed with questions but each time I tried to speak, Kar would hold up a meaty paw. "Shh," he’d rumble. "Gotta think."
The gray man had holed up in a dilapidated hotel back in town. We were to report to him when we found something.
Kar had already barreled through the aisles of the train, questioning the passengers and crew, seeking anyone who saw anything, but apparently I remained the only witness. The engineer couldn’t explain why the train’s engine just suddenly stopped, then again, after a time, restarted. The railway car in which the horses had traveled showed no evidence of forced entry.
Dusk began to close in when we finally reached our destination, pulling over and stopping at a point where the road veered away from the tracks to follow the edge of an extremely dense wood. I began to feel inexplicably apprehensive. I turned to find Kar gazing at me speculatively. He grunted and yanked a shabby leather bag from the back seat, then pulled out two large flashlights, tossing one to me.
"You go to the left, then head straight into the woods," he said nonchalantly. "I’ll meet you somewhere along the railway tracks. Look for footprints or the marks of horses hooves."
I glanced at him with an expression of disbelief. Surely he did not intend that we split up?
Reading my expression, he growled in reply. "The wood is too small to get lost in."
I proceeded without enthusiasm. The dense forest roof turned dusk into darkness and I flipped on the flashlight. A quick look back showed Kar standing there, gazing about in a pensive fashion. I pressed on awkwardly through thick, weedy undergrowth. Tension tightened the muscles across my shoulders. What was I doing here? The money was definitely not my motivation, nor the hastily formed partnership with Kar. Then, suddenly, my anxiety eased and I felt I belonged here. I couldn’t explain why.
I entered a large clearing and saw footprints, there, to my right. The beam of the flashlight painted the soft soil. A child’s bare foot marked the ground here, and here. I followed the trail, not looking up, striding faster, faster, then I tripped over an exposed root and fell headlong into the base of a solitary tree. Dazed, I struggled to get up but could rise only as far as my knees. My head throbbed.
A shimmering luminescence slowly spread and displaced the darkness. I found the glow soothing. Two magnificent horses appeared several feet away. The one to my right was a chestnut with a golden mane and tail. It regarded me with a deep, curious intelligence. The other horse differed only slightly, with the mane and tail colored chestnut, but its dark eyes reflected suspicion and fear. Each animal glowed with the faint, warm light I had seen the previous night.
"You’re leading him to us," the voice of a young boy startled me.
The child stood in the middle of the clearing, his hands planted on narrow hips. His long white hair tumbled over pale shoulders. He wore only golden shorts that matched his piercing gold eyes.
"He stole my horses," the young boy continued without waiting for a reply. "I took them back. But you’re leading him to us. You’re like a beacon."
"What?" My head continued to pound and I could make no sense of his words.
"You really don’t know?" The boy relaxed slightly. His hands dropped to his sides.
"No."
"Then just go, please, away from here. Lead him away. The door will open for us soon and we’ll be able to return back home to our pastures."
I managed to stand up, shakily. "You stole the horses from the train?"
"They’re mine," he replied.
A cracking of footsteps, snapping twigs and branches stopped our conversation. The horses whinnied fearfully and the boy darted to my side. His cold hand grasped my elbow.
"Stop him," he pleaded.
I looked directly ahead and saw the gray man burst into the clearing. Kar followed close behind at a slow, lumbering pace, his face twisted at the effort, yet a satisfied grin cracked his caked lips. He didn’t appear at all awed by the scene. I seriously believe that nothing could ever surprise him.
"Well, well, Eclipse," the gray man taunted the young boy. "I’m here to reclaim the horses. To take them where I can enter them in good races. Don’t you want your horses to be the best in this world?"
"Never," Eclipse cried. A golden tear ran down his cheek. "You were banished. Where did you get the power to break back through?"
"You forgot something." He pulled a small metal disc from his inside pocket. "This doesn’t work anymore, but it did the job at the time. It was the last one." He tossed it onto the ground.
Eclipse stared at the gleaming metal for a long moment then sighed. "I thought all of the keys to the gates had been destroyed. How could you know he would lead you here?" He pointed a finger in my direction.
The gray man laughed bitterly. "It’s obvious that he has mixed blood, and he saw the horses while the others didn’t. Now turn the animals back to me!" He strode towards us.
Eclipse stepped behind me. "Help us," he hissed in my ear. "Stop him!" He then pushed me towards the gray man. A whirring noise suddenly rose from a spot in the center of the clearing.
"Too late!" the gray man shouted and brushed me aside.
I recovered quickly, and grabbed him around the shoulders from behind. "Kar!" I bellowed. "Do something! Can’t you see he’s wrong?"
The gray man shrugged me to the ground much too easily. Then Kar was beside me. The weight of his hand pressing on my shoulder kept me down. The look on his face clearly showed he was reassessing the situation.
I followed Kar’s line of sight to a whirling vortex of spinning colors that had formed in the clearing. Behind this a circular window opened and exposed a landscape of rolling green and yellow pastures. A pang of deep longing stung me and knowledge that had been hidden in my subconscious suddenly spilled to the forefront, secrets never told but stored away for a time when I might accept them. My mother’s memories now became my own. She had come from a world I had never known, yet had always unwittingly sought. In my mind I saw her, pale skin and bright blonde hair, striding tall and lovely through golden fields. I visualized her, curious, in a long time gone by, when she passed through the gate by the pastures. I saw her stranded on this side, when the gate closed and failed to reopen. This world became her home until she died, but not before she married and gave me life.
I now understand why Eclipse accused me of leading the gray man here. The horses, Eclipse and myself all shared the same origins and I had been automatically drawn to them.
The gray man lost this affinity when he had been banished from the sunny fields. I struggled to accept this new knowledge of myself and at the same time tried to think of a way to undo the damage I had unwittingly caused.
Eclipse now formed the only barrier between the gray man and the horses. The fear of impending loss showed in his face and body’s posture.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible for Kar to move so quickly. The space he had occupied was suddenly filled only with his lingering smell. He planted himself between the gray man and the young boy.
"I think I made a mistake," Kar said.
"I paid you well," the gray man replied.
"For the job I have done." Kar smiled. "And I thank you."
The vortex behind him suddenly cleared of all color and became a round door now open into that other world. The horses whinnied joyously and turned. They waited then and simultaneously looked over their shoulders at the boy. The gray man dived toward Kar, but could not budge the mountain of flesh.
"Go," Kar ordered Eclipse.
The boy did not hesitate. He ran and hopped onto the back of the chestnut horse with the golden mane and tail. Both animals reared slightly, then galloped through the circle and into the breathtaking pastures. They halted and glanced back. For a second I thought I caught the gleam of a smile in their eyes, and suddenly all was blackness, the picture gone.
I scrambled over to my flashlight where I had dropped it a lifetime ago. A strong beam still shone through the smeared lens.
"I want my money back," the gray man whined.
"Fat chance," Kar grunted and ambled towards me.
We left the gray man standing there like a lost thief who had forgotten what he was supposed to steal. Kar led the way back to the road and our rented vehicle. As we drove to town I asked how he was sure that I could help him find the horses.
"Just a hunch," he replied. "I’ve been in this business a long time and I know people, and I’ve seen enough in my day that even the existence of other-worlders doesn’t bother me." He smiled and thumped a meaty palm on my shoulder. "Some of my best friends are other-worlders."
Kar offered me a further share of the gray man’s money, and I took it. I intended to travel and try to find others like me, and maybe clear up the mystery of my mother’s world.
Years later, I saw Kar’s picture in a newspaper when I stopped for breakfast in a small, eastern town. He’d been promoted to police chief of a large city. I thought for a moment I might look him up, as I was sure under these new circumstances he probably now bathed regularly. But then his smell came back to me, and I had to leave my bacon and eggs untouched.
END
Published in Parsec, Spring 1998 © 1998 by David Shtogryn
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