From Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter, pages 141-143
In sleep she knew she was in her bed, but not the bed she had lain down in
a few hours since, and the room was not the same but it was a room she had
known somewhere. Her heart was a stone lying upon her breast outside of her;
her pulses lagged and paused, and she knew that something strange was going to
happen, even as the early morning winds were cool through the lattice, the
streaks of light were dark blue and the whole house was snoring in its sleep.
Now I must get up and go while they are all quiet. Where are my things?
Things have a will of their own in this place and hide where they like. Daylight will
strike a sudden blow on the roof startling them all up to their feet; faces will
beam asking, Where are you going, What are you doing, What are you thinking,
How do you feel, Why do you say such things, What do you mean? No more
sleep. Where are my boots, and what horse shall I ride? Fiddler or Gaylie or Miss
Lucy with the long nose and the wicked eye? How I have loved this house in the
morning before we are all awake and tangled together like badly cast fishing lines.
Too many people have been born here, and have wept too much here, and have
laughed too much, and have been too angry and outrageous with each other
here. Too many have died in this bed already, there are far too many ancestral
bones propped up on the mantelpieces, there have been too damned many
antimacassars in this house, she said loudly, and oh, what accumulation of storied
dust never allowed to settle in peace for one moment.
And the stranger? Where is that lank greenish stranger I remember
hanging about the place, welcomed by my grandfather, my great-aunt, my five
times removed cousin, my decrepit hound and my silver kitten? Why did they
take to him, I wonder? And where are they now? Yet I saw him pass the window
in the evening. What else besides them did I have in the world? Nothing.
Nothing is mine, I have only nothing but it is enough, it is beautiful and it is all
mine. Do I even walk about in my own skin of is it something I have borrowed to
spare my modesty? Now what horse shall I borrow for this journey I do not mean
to take, Graylie or Miss Lucy or Fiddler who can jump ditches in the dark and
knows how to get the bit between his teeth? Early morning is best for me
because trees are trees in one stroke, stones are stones set in shades known to be
grass, there are no false shapes or surmises, the road is still asleep with the crust
of dew unbroken. I’ll take Graylie because he is not afraid of bridges.
Come now, Graylie, she said, taking his bridle, we must outrun Death and
the Devil. You are no good for it, she told the other horses standing saddled
before the stable gate, among them the horse of the stranger, gray also, with
tarnished nose and ears. The stranger swung into his saddle beside her, leaned
far towards her and regarded her without meaning, the blank still stare of
mindless malice that makes no threats and can bide its time. She drew Graylie
around sharply, urged him to run. He leaped the low rose hedge and the narrow
ditch beyond, and the dust of the lane flew heavily under his beating hoofs. The
stranger rode beside her, easily, lightly, his reins loose in his half-closed hand,
straight and elegant in dark shabby garments that flapped upon his bones; his
pale face smiled in an evil trance, he did not glance at her. Ah, I have seen this
fellow before, I know this man if I could place him. He is no stranger to me.
She pulled Graylie up, rose in her stirrups and shouted, I’m not going with
you this time—ride on! Without pausing or turning his head the stranger rode on.
Graylie’s ribs heaved under her, her own ribs rose and fell, Oh, why am I so tired, I
must wake up. “But let me get a fine yawn first,” she said, opening her eyes and
stretching, “a slap of cold water in my face, for I’ve been talking in my sleep again,
I heard myself but what was I saying?”
Slowly, unwillingly, Miranda drew herself up inch by inch out of the pit of
sleep, waited in a daze for life to begin again. A single work struck in her mind, a
gong of warning, reminding her for the day long what she forgot happily in sleep,
and only in sleet. The war, said the gong, and she shook her head.