A Christmas Fable
(Author Unknown)
The old gray horse sidled up to the pasture fence with little dancing
steps. The place seemed familiar, yet somehow strange. The grass
was greener than any grass he'd ever seen, and when he looked closely
at the white paddock gate it had a kind of pearly sheen. And, there
was another funny thing. A big, black cloud hovered just inside the
gate. The cloud wasn't up in the sky where it properly belonged. It
was like a great puff of black smoke rising from the grass.
Suddenly the cloud dissolved and revealed a horse. He was a small
chestnut with a blunt head and one white stocking and brownish hairs
in his tail and mane. The gray horse thought he had a kind of old
timey look to him.
"Hello, old gray horse," the chestnut from the black cloud said.
"Hey, that's a real good trick!" the gray horse exclaimed. "Where'd you
learn it?"
The chestnut disappeared into the cloud again, but emerged
immediately. "Learned it the day I was born," he replied, with a
whinny that sounded like a chuckle. "You see, I was born on April
Fool's Day and there was a total eclipse of the sun. So they named
me Eclipse. I was always playing tricks on people too. Used to kick
my grooms and try to throw my riders and I bit the auctioneer that
sold me."
"My name is...." the old gray horse started to say politely, but the
tricky chestnut ducked in and out of his cloud and interrupted rudely.
"Native Dancer," he said. "I ought to know you. I'm your
great-great-great-great-great- I always lose count of the `greats' -
but anyway, you're a descendant of mine. Almost everybody is, in
fact. The Thoroughbreds, that is.
"Are you the gatekeeper?" Native Dancer asked.
"Mostly," Eclipse replied. "I'm on duty whenever one of my descendants
is coming up. That's mostly so far as the Thoroughbreds go. Old
Matchem has a few left and he takes over when one's due. And poor
old Herod, he's posted here occasionally, but there's not many of his
male line that aren't here already."
"What is this place?" Native Dancer asked. "I guess I'm kind of
lost."
"The Green Place," Eclipse replied. "That's what it's called. The
Green Place. Most of the horses that get lost, come here. We have to send
some back of course."
"Why?" the Dancer asked.
"Because they don't belong here, that's why. Long before I came up
there was this fellow Bayard, for instance. He was a devil-horse.
Belonged to an old necromancer named Malagigi and he did the devil's
work. Helped that villain Aymon of Dordogne to triumph over
Charlemagne, they say. And a wizard named Michael Scott had a big
black beast who used to stomp his feet and set all the bells of Paris
ringing. He even caused the towers of the palace to fall down one
day. The Big Guy doesn't want that kind here.
But we have Jesse James' horse, and Dick Turpin's too. The Big Guy
says they did nothing wrong themselves. They were just faithful to
their masters, and The Big Guy thinks that's a virtue."
"Who's The Big Guy?" Native Dancer asked.
"You'll find out!" Eclipse answered airily. He lowered his muzzle and
pushed the gate open.
"You might as well come in. You understand you're on probation though.
The Big Guy makes his decisions about new arrivals every Christmas.
Let's see, it's November 16, the way you figure things down there.
So you won't have long to wait anyway."
"I'll bet The Big Guy is Man O' War," Native Dancer said as he moved
inside and gazed over the emerald green expanses that seemed to
stretch into infinity.
Eclipse snorted. "Don't get smart, boy," he said. Then he added
maliciously, "You'd lose you're bet too. The way a lot of people lost their bets
on you at Churchill Downs one day."
Native Dancer felt hurt, for his ancestor had touched a raw nerve. His
lip trembled a bit as he replied defensively, "That Derby was the only
race I ever lost."
"I never lost even one race," Eclipse said unsympathetically. "So don't
get smart up here. The Big Guy doesn't want any smart-alecks in The
Green Place. Remember that."
Native Dancer was a sensitive sort. He felt as if his eyes were teary
and he hoped Eclipse didn't notice. "I won 21 out of 22, and Man O' War
only won 20 out of 21," he declared. "And my son Kauai King won the
Kentucky Derby."
"My sons won three Derbys at Epsom," Eclipse said. "Young Eclipse took
the second running and Saltram won the fourth and Sergeant won the
fifth, and I'd have won the bloomin' race myself, only they didn't
run it in my time. So quit bragging. Somebody's coming and they
might overhear you and tell The Big Guy, and that would be a mark
against you."
A bay horse who seemed even more old-timey than Eclipse ambled up.
"Is it my time now?" he asked eagerly.
"Not yet, Herod," Eclipse answered in a kindly fashion. "Old Fig's on
duty now. One of his is on the way."
"Who's Old Fig?" Native Dancer asked. "I never heard of that one."
"There's a lot of things you never heard of, boy," Eclipse replied.
"His real name is Figure, but down there they called him Justin Morgan, after
his owner. Here he is now."
A very small, dark bay horse with a round barrel, shiny feet, and furry
fetlocks came bustling up to the gate. "OK, OK, I'll take over," he said
busily. "Where is that boy? Can't stand tardiness. I've got things
to do. A load to pull, a field to plow, a race to run, a trot to
trot. No time to waste. Where is that boy?"
In the weeks that followed, The Dancer met hundreds, maybe thousands
of horses. Some of them were famous, some of them weren't, and some
of them were his ancestors, and a few of them were his own sons and
daughters.
He met a snorting white stallion named Bucephalus who had been
approved for The Green Place by The Big Guy even though he was
rumored by some that he was cursed by the deadly sin of pride because
he had carried a conqueror named Alexander. He met another gray
horse who limped because he had stepped on a rusty nail back home
just before he became lost forever. His name was Traveller, and he
was a war-horse too, in the days when a man named General Lee had
owned him. There were other soldier steeds, two of them descendants
of the bustling little stallion they called Old Fig up here. One was
Phil Sheridan's black Rienzi and the other horse called both Fancy
and Little Sorrel who had been the mount of Stonewall Jackson.
Native Dancer found Man O' War an amiable sort despite his proud
aristocratic bearing, and he grew especially fond of a bony old
fellow named Exterminator, who patiently answered all but one of his
questions. He asked the question of everyone: "Who is The Big Guy?"
And the answer was always the same: "Wait til Christmas."
He met Messenger and Hambletonian and Hindoo. He met horses that
had dared the dreadful fences of the Grand National. He met a horse
who stared blindly into the emerald darkness. His name was
Lexington. He met horses who had pulled circus wagons and horses who
had pulled brewers' trucks and horses who had drawn man's plows over
the fields of the earth, and he met others who had been the mounts of
kings and captains. Every horse he met had been loved by someone,
but not one horse would answer his question.
The answer was always the same: "Wait til Christmas."
Eclipse fussed over him and kept a watchful eye on his behavior and said
he neighed too much and asked too many questions. Eclipse could not
stand the thought of The Big Guy banishing one of his descendants
from The Green Place.
And Native Dancer did not wish to leave. He doubted he could ever find
his way to Maryland again if The Big Guy disapproved of him. And The
Green Place was very pleasant in all aspects. The grass was lush and
he met so many interesting horses. Back home he had sometimes been
troubled by nightmares, for a Dark Star haunted his dreams, but now
he slept peacefully and rarely remembered the Derby he had lost.
He became nervous though, as the weeks went by and the stars grew
brighter.
And, finally, it was time. On a night when the skies burned with
starlight all the horses gathered as near as possible to a little hillock of
the vast paddock. There were hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of
them, a murmuring and expectant throng that seemed to stretch over
the emerald grass beneath the diamonds in the heavens.
Eclipse was very tense. He hovered over Native Dancer, whispering,
"Look your best now. Be quiet and be humble. The Big Guy will be here any
minute."
Suddenly the vast throng was as silent as the stars themselves.
The Big Guy stood on the hillock in a blinding blaze of starlight, and
Native Dancer could barely contain himself. He choked back a whinny
of derision and whispered to Eclipse, "Is he The Big Guy? He's so
little! And, he's not even a horse! What did he ever do?"
Eclipse whispered, "He's a donkey. He carried a woman heavy with child
to a small town on another night when the stars were bright. It was
a long, long time ago."
