The Winter Horses(13)

Max nodded. “I understand.”

“By the way,” she said, abruptly changing the subject, “thanks for the chocolate. I’d forgotten how good it tastes.”

Max started to wash the mare’s wound. Again, the horse didn’t shy away when he touched it.

“And where was this, then? Your home city. You’re not from round these parts, I reckon.”

“It’s not my home. Not anymore. I don’t have a home. I mean, you can’t, can you? Not without a family. It’s family that makes a home, don’t you think?”

Max shrugged. It had been a long time since he had thought about home in the way that she was describing, but all the same he knew she was right; unless there’s someone or something to care for, the whole idea of home is meaningless. It was fortunate that he remembered Taras, his dog, whom Max cared for a great deal and who he thought must care for him almost as much.

“All right, I understand that. But where was this? I’d still like to know, Kalinka.”

“Dnepropetrovsk.”

“Dnepropetrovsk? Why, that’s almost three hundred and fifty kilometers north of here!” said Max.

“Is that all?” said Kalinka. “It felt like more.”

“Good grief, you mean to tell me that you’ve walked all this way? Alone?”

“Walking is easy when you’ve no place to go.”

“Aye, there’s a truth, right enough.”

“But a geography lesson, I don’t need. Please, look to the mare, will you? I don’t want to talk about this anymore. There’s no point in it, you see. What good would it do? It certainly won’t bring any of them back, will it?”

All of her timidity was gone now; Max put the change in her down to the chocolate.

“No, I suppose not.”

Having washed and disinfected the wound, Max did the same with his forceps. At the same time, he was carefully watching Temüjin, the stallion, who was watching him. The horse met his eye with an attentive intelligence he found slightly unnerving.

“There’s a bullet in Börte’s shoulder,” said Max. “Just under the skin. It was more or less spent when it hit her, which explains why it’s not any deeper in the flesh, but it’s still going to hurt when I dig it out.” It felt like he was explaining himself to the stallion as much as to the girl.

“My father used to say that if you can’t endure the bad, then you won’t live to see the good,” said Kalinka.

Max let that one go; it seemed rude to point out to the girl the obvious irony in her father’s words. But she was there ahead of him.

“Not that he did, of course,” she muttered. “Live to see the good, I mean.” She shrugged. “But that doesn’t stop it from being true, though.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Even now Max hesitated to probe Börte’s wound for the bullet.

“Go on,” said Kalinka. “What are you waiting for? She can take the pain. These tarpan horses are tough.” Max glanced at Kalinka and considered that, given all she had been through, the girl might just be as tough as the horse.

“That’s true,” he said. “But what’s also true is that I’ve had too many bites and kicks from these horses not to be in a hurry to get more of the same.” He frowned. “Strictly speaking, they’re not tarpans at all. I know that’s what the locals call them. Tarpan, or takhi. But they’re actually Przewalski’s horses.”

“It’s a vet she needs, not a zoologist.”

“Yes. All right. You’re very impatient, aren’t you?”

“Do you want me to hold her head?” asked Kalinka, ignoring his zoologist’s explanation.

“I should like to see you try,” said Max.

Kalinka shrugged and put her arms around the mare’s neck. “Hey,” she told the mare. “It’s going to hurt for a moment, but then it will be all right.” She caught Max’s eye. “Go on. She’s as ready as she’ll ever be.”

“You live long enough, you see everything,” said Max, and pushed his forceps into the hole in the horse’s shoulder.

Temüjin snorted and turned away as if he couldn’t bear to look and drank some of the water in the trough. In truth, he was rather squeamish for a wild horse and didn’t care for the sight of blood at all.

Börte lifted one hoof and began to pace at the floor; if Max hadn’t known better, he might have said that Börte was counting through her pain—almost as if she was trying to distract herself from what was happening with the forceps.

Finally, Max lifted the forceps nearer the light to reveal a piece of metal smeared with the mare’s blood. He showed it to Kalinka, who simply nodded.