Between the Raindrops

A Horse and a House Call

Emelia was lost.

It was the dead of night and it was pouring. The sort of constant, driving rain that plastered hair and heavy skirts to skin and chilled to the bone. Even with her lantern, the pelting downpour obscured and distorted everything rending already poor directions useless. How do these folk issue directions at all without street signs? She was afraid to open the map for fear of soaking it.

Belladonna's dark ears were flattened against her head. She looked sullen and irritable. As miserable as Emelia felt.

They clomped passed a gnarled tree with a split trunk, grey and shriveled, and Emelia felt the sinking feeling that they managed to wander in a complete circle.

"All these rocks and trees look the same," she cried aloud to the storm. Bella whickered. The storm, for its part, answered with mocking thunder and fatter drops.

"Come on, girl," Emelia said, trying to muster her confidence, patting the horse's hot neck with soaked gloves. She shook the rains and kicked her heels. Belladonna snorted and stamped her way off the path and up a little grassy hill. "No, no no," Emelia said. She tried to encourage Bella, with a gentle steady pull on the reins, back to... well, she thought it was the trail. The horse tossed her head and obstinately backed up from the direction the doctor desired to go.

"Come on, Bella," she pleaded. "There's a kid out there who needs me."

Belladonna ignored her silly greenhorn rider entirely and focused her attention on the shoots of grass on the hillside. Her conscience was clear. The rain or the well-being of some stranger a secondary concern to a good grazing. She whickered happily.

"Please?" Emelia tried. "I'll get you extra oats...?"

The horse snorted derisively and remained fixed. Emelia dropped the reins and sniffled. She stared up at the sky and let the cool rain wash her tears away. She could hear her mother, voice melodic and soft as velvet. I told you. You are too naïve and the world is harsh and cruel. You're not cut out for the mess of it all.

"What the bloody Hell d'ya think yer doin', miss?"

Emelia startled at the voice, and Bella lifted her head, suddenly alert, ears pricking forward. They looked at the bottom of the hill, at a large man with a shotgun. Water beaded off his thick brows and moustache. A child stood at his side with a lantern, huddled in a coat.

"I... I beg your pardon, Mister?" Emelia said trying, futilely, to dry her eyes.

"Get yer damn horse off my house!" he snapped.

"Your... your house?!" she asked, incredulous.

"Yes, you loony," he said, gesturing with the butt of his rifle. "Yer standing on it!"

"Oh!" She said, though she did not fully understand. "I'm sorry! I'm lost."

She tried again to urge Bella forward, but the horse remained motionless. Now in a full unmitigated sulk. Emelia threw her hands up in the air.

"I'm a miserable rider," she declared. "I am so sorry, Mister."

"Where you headin'?" the man asked, working his way up the hill.

"The Buller Homestead."

"Christ... you're the doctor?" he asked. He laughed. "Guess we're lucky!"

It took a moment for his words to register. "You're Mister Jeb Buller?" she asked.

"You betcha! Git inside and see to my boy. I'll get this stubborn filly off my roof."

Mr. Buller took hold of the reins and Emelia dismounted. She unhooked her satchel from the saddle and proceeded to go back the way Jeb came, down the hill. The child, a girl wrapped in a shawl, smiled nervously and lead the way. They walked around the hill and Emelia saw it. The little cracks of light coming through shutters and a door set into the hillside.