Mending Horses by M. P. Barker

writhing weight on his chest would crush him to death. He spat and rubbed his sleeve across his face to clear his eyes and nose and mouth. The thing pinning him down looked like a creature dredged up from the depths of the sea, covered in a glistening membrane. Blossom’s huge pink tongue descended on the thing, and a bedraggled, damp head emerged. The colt snorted in his face, then blinked sleepily at him. He and the colt stared at each other in breathless wonder. Then the colt touched his forehead with its nose and claimed him for its own
. Yes.
Jonathan had heard it as clearly as if the colt had spoken
. You’re the one for me.
And Jonathan’s heart had answered with the self-same words
.
    And the damn fool beast had been saying it ever since, more than twenty-five years now. Jonathan smiled and wiped his eyes before puttinghis spectacles back on. The girl stared solemnly back at him. Her frown deepened, bracing for his mockery
.
    â€œHe said yes, eh? Now ain’t that funny?” he said. “First time I met him, he said that exact same thing to me.”
    â€œ. . . and it’s been me and Billy and Phizzy ever since,” Jonathan said. “I know less about being a daddy than Phizzy does, but I’m a better father to her than Hugh Fogarty ever was.”
    â€œBut it’s a son you’re making of her, not a daughter.” Daniel said. “Don’t you even know her true name?”
    Jonathan shook his head. “It’s Billy she wants to be and Billy she’ll stay until it don’t suit her no more.”
    â€œIt just ain’t right, her going ’round with a peddler and singing for her supper like a trained canary. What sort’a life is that for a lass?”
    A pretty sorry one
, Jonathan thought, but that wasn’t the point. “It was all right when you thought she was a boy.”
    â€œThat’s different.”
    â€œWhich would you rather do? Spend your days cooking and cleaning and sewing for a pack of unthankful men, or travel around the wide world with a coupl’a fine horses and a coupl’a fine fellas such as us?” He spread his arms and swelled out his chest.
    Daniel squirmed. “That ain’t a fair question. I’m not a lass.”
    â€œSo a girl can’t hanker to go adventuring, same as a boy can?”
    â€œBut lasses are . . . well, different. It’s unnatural. ’Tisn’t the way things’re s’posed to be.”
    Jonathan’s voice turned serious. “Son, the way things’re s’posed to be is, you’re s’posed to spend another five years slaving away for your Mr. Lyman, and maybe another ten slaving away for somebody else before you scrape together enough money for a little shack and an acre or two of rocks and swamp. But here you are with a fine horse, a pack of goods, and a full purse. The way it’s s’posed to be is, she keeps house for her daddy and her brothers until they wear her down with work and beatings.” Daniel winced and looked down at his feet. Good, Jonathan thought. Hewas getting through to the boy, making Daniel understand that he and Billy were cut from the same threadbare cloth. “If she’s lucky, maybe her father won’t kill her, and she can escape to a husband who’ll wear her down with work and babies. And if she’s very lucky, maybe he won’t beat her. As a boy, she’s safe.”
    Daniel chewed his lower lip and scuffed his feet in the dirt. “And what happens when she can’t be playing the boy no longer?”
    â€œI’ve been thinking on that, believe me.”
    Daniel apparently had been, too. “Your cousin seems a motherly type,” he said.
    â€œYou think so?” Jonathan asked.
    â€œShe could do worse,” Daniel suggested.
    â€œBilly or Sophie?”
    Daniel peered more closely at Jonathan’s face. “You been playing games with me, ain’t