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where the pines and spruce came right down to the water. It was beautiful and peaceful. After a while I lay down on my stomach in the hay and stared through the window. The air, which was fresher and cooler than down around our house, came in smelling salty. I put my hands under my chin and closed my eyes to see if I could smell both salt and hay at the same time. . . .
    I had decided to go for a ride on McLeod’s horse and was about to put a saddle on him when I noticed several things: he was about four times the size of any ordinary horse—more like an elephant, his ears rising above the stall were getting larger and larger, his eyes were bright red, and he was going to kill me. To achieve that he was backing me into a comer, neighing wildly and rearing and shoving me in the side with his hooves. I was terrified but also puzzled as to why I wasn’t already dead, because his hooves, which were like blades, kept coming at me, but instead of slicing off the top of my head, they merely nudged me in the ribs, like mitts. Then I
    6I
    got really frightened, because that stinking horse bared his teeth and spoke, just like that putrid commercial. It said in McLeod’s voice, “Wake up, Charles.”
    I opened my eyes. McLeod was standing over me. “Sorry to disturb you,” he said drily.
    I couldn’t think what he was doing in my bedroom and was wondering how I could smuggle him out of the house without Mother or Gloria seeing him when he said, with equal sarcasm, “Whenever you’re ready.”
    I sat up, saw the hay, and then felt like a fool. McLeod moved around the loft, stepped to the edge, put his hand on it, and vaulted down. Neat. I started to follow.
    He looked up. “Use the ladder.”
    But of course I didn’t. My landing left a lot to be desired. I fell on my back and knocked the wind right out of me. It was awful. I felt like I was drowning. I couldn’t get in a breath. Dimly I saw McLeod turn, look at me and then come back on the double. He picked me up, bent me over, and started pounding on my back. Suddenly I could breathe.
    “Are you all right?” he asked as I stood up, drawing in great gulps of air.
    I nodded.
    “You seem to have a mania for picking the one way of doing anything that will get you in trouble. Next time do what I tell you.”
    “Yes.” I didn’t feel up to arguing.
    “All right, come on. I can’t get Richard in here until you get out.”
    We started walking out. “What do you mean?” I asked, and saw the empty stall as I passed it.
    “What I say. When I led Richard in here he started going berserk. Neighed and reared and tried to pull the reins out of my hand.”
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    “So that’s what I heard! I mean I was dreaming I was in the stall with Richard and he was rearing and neighing and trying to kill me.” My head was beginning to clear. “You mean that even though I was upstairs in the middle of all that hay he knew I was there?”
    “That’s not unusual. A horse won’t go over an unsafe bridge even though it looks perfectly all right to his rider. You know that.”
    “But what spooked him?”
    “He’s been abused. All people spook him, as you put
    it.”
    I had stopped short of the door. “But he’s all right with
    you.”
    “Now he is. It took me weeks to get near him without his trying to stampede or shy, and more weeks to mount
    him.”
    “Did you know he was that way when you bought him?” “Of course.”
    “Is that why you bought him?” I was galloping ahead with my questions to get as much as I could of this new slant on McLeod. I thought it would be hard to imagine him gentling a frightened animal but to my surprise, it wasn’t. And of course, the moment I came to that conclusion, he clammed up.
    “I think that’s enough of the press conference this morning. You’ve managed to delay your lesson for half an hour so you should not feel it’s been in vain.”
    But I wasn’t entirely finished. “Is that how you knew I was up there?”
    “It seemed a logical