Free The Fall of Light by Niall Williams Page A

jump minutely.
    “She’s a lively one,” Finbar said.
    Teige raised his hand to let her smell it, but she mistook the gesture and swung around and the brothers had to pull back
     and Teige whispered
shshsh
sounds and put his hands out with palms raised as if he could touch and smooth down the irrational and make the animal feel
     the radiance of his respect for her. The gypsies watched him. The women had come from their chores and were standing not far
     distant in the small clearing. The pony was turned into the trees. The brothers sensed the expectation of the audience behind
     them, and when Tomas looked back the gypsy who had led them there pointed once again at Teige and made a small rising gesture
     with his hand.
    “They want you to ride her,” Tomas said.
    “She’s wild,” Teige said lowly, not taking his eyes from the eye of the pony and moving another half step closer.
    “Of course she’s wild.”
    “I won’t be able to.”
    “If she’s a horse, you will.”
    “Go on, Teigey boy. Get up. Go on.”
    The three brothers watched then as Teige angled his head forward and raised and lowered it in an exaggerated slow nodding
     mime that the pony watched from the corner of her view. He made himself smaller and then raised his right hand slightly and
     proffered it to the air between them. The pony let a low whinnying down its long face and opened its nostrils as if to breathe
     in the message of the boy and discover for herself the veracity of his heart. Teige stepped forward and the pony did not move.
     Her feet were planted. He reached and held out his fingers inches from her face. He held them there proffered a long time.
     The pony did not turn away. She took hard short breaths and was as one growing slowly accustomed to something in which she
     did not believe. The company assembled may have been spirits to her eye and the boy the dead Mario. Hershoulders flickered. Quick, skittish movements of uncertain purpose passed through her. Then Teige moved the hand that hung
     in the air and placed it upon her and stroked the warm, hard length of her face. He ran his fingers under her chin and scrabbled
     softly while whispering not words but sounds. He moved inside her tethering then until his chest was against her. He pressed
     himself against the quickened breathing of her flank and ran his hand up and along her back. He stroked the length of her
     and kept the pressure of his fingers even upon her flesh as he moved across her back and down her haunches and round the hocks
     of each of her legs. Then he reached behind him with his left hand and untied the rope that held her and let it fall loosely
     across his fingers, moving her backward from that place with one hand on her side and the rope slack in the other. He took
     her a few paces and she moved easily for him, her step not full or graceful or true but marked by relief and the notion that
     she was free. The boy and the pony moved away from there into the trees, and the gypsies and the Foley brothers walked after
     them and the gypsy women did the same.
    In a place where the ash trees thinned and the ground was softer and gave beneath each hoof, Teige swung himself onto the
     pony’s bare back and felt the hushed inhale of the gypsies watching. The pony did not flinch. She did not run or buck or stamp.
     She stood with feet planted like the statue of herself and waited and felt the presence of the boy. The rope was around her
     as a halter, but Teige held it loose and then squeezed her with his thighs as softly as he could and at once rode quickly
     away.

11
    The morning rose grey and still and held the air of new creation. The fields looked unfolded fresh in the dawn.
     The grass was wet and caught whatever light fell and appeared more green and young than it was. Teige held the rough rope
     of the halter loosely and tried to allow the pony to race her frustration and confinement away. He sat on the broad working
     muscles of her back and felt her