The Pony That Walked Back to the Ring

What I Told Him

I’ll tell you what I said to him next, because I’ve thought about it more than anything else in this whole story.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” I said. “Penny won’t ever be going anywhere again. Not to you, not to anybody. And every person on those hay bales knew what happened.”

“I know,” he said.

“But Junie’s out at that creek bridge every morning at first light,” I said. “If you ever wanted to see a pony walk sound, that’s where she’ll be.”

He looked at me a long time. Then he looked at Junie. Then he looked at the ribbon in Penny’s mane.

He didn’t say yes. He didn’t say no. He just touched the brim of his cap to Junie, the way the old men out here still do for a lady, and turned and walked off across the grounds toward the parking field.

Odell

Odell came over a few minutes later on his cane. He didn’t say anything to me at first.

He went straight to Penny, and he bent down slow as a gate swinging, and picked up her right front foot.

He looked at it a long time. Then he set it down and patted Penny on the shoulder and turned to Junie.

“Told you,” he said.

“You told me she’d have a sound foot,” Junie said.

“I told you you’d make her one,” he said. “I just kept it out of its own way. You walked her sixty mornings. That’s what grew that foot.”

Junie put her arms around his waist and hugged him so hard he had to grab the rail with one hand.

He patted her back with the other one and looked off at the hills for a while.

The Gate

We got home a little before dark. Clell unloaded Penny and Junie walked her around the paddock twice to cool her down, the blue ribbon still clipped to her halter.

That night Junie slept with the letter from Opal under her pillow. I know because I went in to check on her, and the corner of it was sticking out, and I left it there.

The next morning was a Sunday, and the frost had come for the first time that fall. The grass was white in the low places and the ridges were burning gold in the early sun.

Junie went out to the barn as soon as the sun cleared the ridge, like she always did on Sundays. I came out on the porch with my coffee to watch her go.

She wasn’t leading Penny out. She was standing at the paddock gate, very still, looking down the lane toward the road.

I looked where she was looking.

Burl Tackett was walking up our lane in the early sun, slow on the gravel, carrying a bale of good alfalfa to the gate.