Chapter 24. Bloody Trail

Farry was there, and then he was not there. Ferdi didn’t know how long he lay on his back, blinking at the sky. He wanted to get up, but even sitting up seemed beyond his present capabilities. He settled for rolling over on his face, pushing himself up with his hands, trying to get his feet under him, but excruciating pain in his right leg left him collapsed on the ground, gasping. Further movement seemed beyond him.

There was a nudge at his shoulder, a nibbling along his neck. He struck out wildly, connecting a glancing blow with something above and behind, and heard a snort that sounded more equine than canine. A moment later there was another nudge, strong enough to roll him over this time. He lay gazing up at a grey pony.

 ‘Socks,’ he whispered. ‘How’d you get here, old lad? Where’s Pip?’

The pony whuffled at his shirt, at the pocket where he invariably kept pieces of carrot. The long, tangled mane tickled Ferdi’s face. He reached up, grabbing at the pony, and the stallion jerked his head upwards, bringing Ferdi upright with the motion. Ferdi instinctively tightened his hold. ‘Steady now,’ he murmured, and though his head was swimming he clung fiercely to consciousness. ‘Steady.’

The grey pony’s ears remained pinned back as Ferdi used him as a brace to lever himself erect. The hobbit avoided putting weight on the bad leg, leaning on the pony instead. Once Ferdi was upright, the pony’s ears came up and swivelled back and forth. Ferdi felt an absurd desire to laugh. ‘Quite comical, I’m sure,’ he whispered. ‘We’ve five good legs between us.’

He stroked the soft nose, tried to untangle the long forelock half-hiding the pony’s face. ‘How did you get out, Socks?’ he said. ‘And into such a state? You’ve been rolling in the mud, to all appearances, and wandering amongst the cockleburs. Old Tom will be fit to be tied. Still, I’m that glad to see you.’ He remembered Farry, then, as if it were a dream. ‘Did Farry take you out?’ he asked, and shook his head. No, of course not. Farry had wandered away on foot, and Ferdi had followed on Dapple. He remembered suddenly the mare’s despairing scream and his breath came short.

 ‘Dapple!’ he whispered. He eased his arm over the grey pony’s neck, blessing the creature for bearing his weight, and slowly looked all about. There was no sign of the mare. The dogs had not killed her, then, not outright. She would have stood after the dogs left, and not gone alone back to the stables, unless there were a rider on her back... that was where Farry was! He’d ridden Dapple to find help! Bright lad.

 ‘Well we don’t have to wait for help, now, do we?’ he murmured. ‘You’ll take me back, won’t you, lad?’ The pony blew softly. Further thought confirmed that they had better not wait for help. Ferdi was feeling worse by the moment.

There was a stump by the tree that had served as Farry’s refuge; Ferdi remembered seeing it as he was lining up his first shot. If he could just get to it, climb up; if he could just manage to slide onto the pony’s back... He found himself talking aloud, talking the plan over with the pony, talking himself through each hopping step. The pony seemed to understand; he turned his head easily in the direction Ferdi indicated and walked slowly towards the trees as Ferdi hobbled beside him.

Ferdi wondered if Socks would stand for him to mount. The grey stallion tended to dance as Pippin leapt aboard, indicating his eagerness to go. But no, the pony seemed to understand Ferdi’s need. He stood quietly by the stump, waiting as patiently as an old plough pony while Ferdi managed to surmount the stump, clinging to the pony the whole time to keep from falling.

At last Ferdi stood atop the stump and leaned on the pony. He grasped the right knee of his breeches and pulled the damaged leg over the pony’s back, leaving a bright streak of crimson on the dusky hide. He was bleeding steadily, he noticed with an odd detachment, another good reason not to wait for rescuers.

The grey pony craned his neck around, for all the world as if he were making sure that Ferdi was comfortably settled and secure.

 ‘Home, lad,’ Ferdi said, patting the soft neck and twining his fingers in the tangled mane. ‘Home,’ he whispered again, weakness washing over him. He laid his head down, trusting the pony to find their way.

The grey pony moved as smooth as Elven glass, cutting across the ploughed field by the shortest way and skirting the field as if seeking to avoid jarring his incapacitated rider, though in all probability he was simply after the best footing. He did not follow the way Dapple had gone. The wind blowing from that direction brought the scent of many hobbits, and from the smell of them they were in a perturbed state.

The pony turned to go around the other side of the large hill in the direction of the Great Smials, where a little wood followed a stream there. Brambles and heavy underbrush promised cover. The pony blended like a wraith into the trees, and so the searching hobbits did not see him as they entered the ploughed valley.

***

Elanor was quite hysterical. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she sobbed over and over again. ‘If I had been watching, if Goldi hadn’t wandered...’

In the end, Mistress Rose had had to slap her eldest daughter sharply to bring her round, and then as Ellie stared at her mother in consternation and shame, Rose pulled her close. ‘There-there,’ she murmured, stroking the tumbled curls. Merry-lad had brought the awful news that Ferdibrand had been eaten by dogs while searching for little Farry, who’d come riding home on Ferdi’s blood-soaked mare.

 ‘We were playing hidey-seeky,’ Goldi said. ‘Not dogses.’

Thankfully the child had not understood the breathless message, Rose realised, even as Elanor’s weeping was renewed.

 ‘Don’t cry, Ellie,’ Goldi said, patting Elanor with her little dimpled hand. ‘Don’t cry.’

 ‘O Mum!’ Elanor said, pulling away to hide her face in her skirts, sinking down on the bed with its bright new coverlet.

 ‘It was to be such a nice surprise,’ Rosie-lass murmured, her eyes wide and her face blanched of all colour. Her mother caught her as she swayed, easing her down next to her older sister. It had been a lovely plan. Frodo-lad had ascertained that Ferdi was going for a ride instead of attending the festive picnic, and so the Gamgee children had put into action the plan that had been in the making ever since their last visit to the Great Smials.

Ferdi’s bed sported a bright new coverlet, pieced together of colourful scraps. More scraps had been hooked into a warm and cosy rag rug that graced the floor by the bed. An embroidered cloth covered the little table, and comfortable cushions were tied onto the chair drawn up before the table. Ferdi’s plain room had been transformed by loving hands into a veritable haven of comfort. And now...

 ‘He’s not dead,’ Frodo-lad panted from the doorway. He had pelted out of the Great Smials when Merry-lad had brought the dreadful news from the yard where he’d been watching against Ferdi’s early return.

 ‘Not dead?’ Rose said, relief washing over her. Of course Ferdi wasn’t dead. This was just one more example of the Talk of the Tooks run wild before it could be reined in by sensible folk.

 ‘They’re not sure,’ Frodo-lad said cautiously. This was better than definitely dead but not much comfort. ‘They’re sending out searchers; Dad and I are joining them.’

 ‘I want to come too!’ Merry-lad said.

 ‘No, Merry,’ Frodo-lad answered, putting a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. ‘You and Pip-lad are to stay and watch over... Where is Pip?’

 ‘I sent him to fetch a healer,’ Mistress Rose said. ‘Your sisters have taken the news awful hard.’

 ‘And here I am,’ Healer Woodruff said, bustling in, Pip-lad in her train.

 ‘But you ought to be with them!’ Elanor said incoherently. ‘If he’s not dead...’ She was breathing spasmodically and gulping back tears.

 ‘Mardi went out with the Thain,’ Woodruff said briskly. ‘And you, lass, are going to drink a cup of something soothing and lie down until you get yourself in hand. Come, Mistress,’ she said to Rose. ‘You take that one,’ meaning Rosie-lass, ‘and I’ll take this one.’

 ‘And we’ll take this one!’ Merry-lad said, pouncing upon little Goldi and making her squeal. Pip-lad read his meaningful look and took up Goldi’s other hand, and the two swung her between them, chortling all the way to the Mayor’s quarters. She didn’t even realise, at first, that they were leaving Ferdi’s quarters behind. The original plan had been to wait for him to return from his ride, shout “Surprise!” and grandly escort him to Diamond’s birthday tea, old clothes or no.

A healer’s assistant was there before them, just filling a teapot. ‘Chamomile tea,’ she said. ‘Very soothing. Let us slip off their things down to their chemises and tuck them up for a nice nap.’

 ‘I don’t want a nice nap,’ Elanor said, but Mistress Rose hushed her, saying automatically, ‘Now Ellie, set a good example for your younger sisters.’

Once everyone had taken a cup of “soothing chamomile” and Elanor and Rosie-lass and even little Goldilocks were tucked up for a “nice little nap”, Woodruff turned on Mistress Rose.

 ‘You could stand to put your own feet up for a bit, is what I’m thinking,’ she said in a no-nonsense tone. ‘All this fuss and worry is not good for you, nor your little one!’ Despite her best intentions to seek out Diamond and reclaim Ham and Daisy from whatever tweens Diamond had assigned to watch them, Rose found herself in the easiest chair of the Mayor’s sitting room, her feet propped up on a stool and a lap warmer spread over her.

 ‘There now,’ Woodruff said. ‘You rest, and I’ve told them to send you news as soon as there’s any.’ She turned to Merry-lad and Pip-lad. ‘You two stout fellows watch over your mum, now,’ she said.

 ‘Yes’m,’ Merry-lad said politely, and little Pip nodded. They sat down upon the hearth rug, before the cheerful fire, and toasted their toes while talking quietly and eating apples from the bowl on the table. Young as they were, it wasn’t long before they too, once hunger was satisfied, fell asleep.

***

 ‘This is the field!’ little Farry shouted in excitement. ‘This is the one!’ He waved both arms while his father steadied him on the saddle, and pointed across the furrows to the stand of trees at the far end.

Savilard, chief huntshobbit for the Thain, looked at the ground. ‘Could be a pony,’ he said, studying the marks in the furrows. The ground was too rough to show a clear print. He led the party to one side of the trail of marks, towards the island of trees. Just before reaching the trees they stopped, seeing the bodies on the ground.

 ‘That’s the ones!’ Farry shouted. ‘That’s the ones Socks kilt! I saw him!’ He leaned forward in a frenzy of enthusiasm to hug the grey pony’s neck. ‘Good old Socks!’

Savilard shot a glance at the Thain, but that hobbit only shrugged. He did not know what his son meant, either. The hunter dismounted, the better to scout the ground. ‘Something big here,’ he said, ‘pony perhaps.’

 ‘Dapple fell there!’ Farry said, his eyes wide with remembered horror. ‘Ferdi was under her, and the dogs were tearing at her and she was squealing and thrashing...’

Pippin’s hands tightened on his son.

 ‘I was in that tree!’ Farry said, pointing, then swivelled to indicate two of the bodies. ‘That’s the ones that were tearing at Ferdi. Socks stomped them! The rest all ran away,’ he added, dissatisfied somehow. He wished Socks had stomped them all.

Pippin shot a look at Savilard. Where’s Ferdi?

Savilard took a deep breath and went back to the ground, searching for signs to tell if the dogs had come back.

 ‘Is Ferdi...?’ the Thain asked delicately, not wanting to alarm Farry.

 ‘They’d’ve left something,’ Savilard said obliquely. He frowned absently as he tried to read the story left in the furrows. He walked slowly towards the trees, leading his pony, the others following silently, a little to one side in case he wanted to go over the ground once more.

Suddenly the hunter uttered a sharp exclamation, pointing to a blood trail on the unploughed grass beneath the trees. ‘Here!’ he said. ‘Something...’

 ‘Farry led Dapple to the stump,’ Pippin said. ‘She was bleeding heavily.’

 ‘O aye,’ Savilard said dismissively. He gestured vaguely at the ground. ‘Two trails,’ he said. ‘One’s fresher than the other.’

Pippin looked down at the ground, wondering how the hunter could tell amongst the red-to-brown splotches on the grass. ‘The fresher one would be Ferdi, I’ll warrant,’ he said.

The hunter made an affirmative noise and continued to follow the splotches of blood to the stump. ‘Climbed up,’ he said. ‘Stood, and...?’

Pippin waited. ‘And what?’ he finally asked.

Savilard lifted his cap to scratch his head. ‘Dunno,’ he said slowly. ‘There's no marks on the tree... he climbed no further. Why would he climb on the stump, anyhow, bleeding as he was?’

 ‘To get on a pony!’ Farry said brightly. ‘I told you Socks was here...’ His look turned puzzled. He hadn’t quite figured out how his Da could have been riding Socks, when Socks was rescuing them from the dogs.

 ‘He might have something,’ Savilard said slowly. He began to scout the ground, moving in widening circles about the stump, casting about. ‘Here’s Dapple,’ he said, pointing to a browning splotch on a bush. ‘But here...’ crimson drops shone like rubies atop the leaves skirting a bramble patch. ‘This way,’ he said, as if to himself, and followed the new trail. ‘Ha!’ he said at the edge, where the furrows started.

There was the clear mark of a hoof in the dirt, heading away from the island of trees. ‘Unshod,’ Savilard said, a question in his voice. ‘Another pony?’ He looked up at the Thain. ‘I don’t understand.’

 ‘Nor do I,’ Pippin said, ‘but you say Ferdi’s trail went this way...’

Savilard nodded sharply. ‘Aye,’ he said with more confidence. ‘I’d lay a wager on this trail, I would, more’n anything else there is to see hereabouts.’

He followed the rough marks as they cut across the furrows, calling out in triumph when they reached the far side. ‘More blood!’

 ‘Let us follow,’ Pippin said. ‘Let us hope we find the end of the trail before Ferdi runs out of blood.’

 ‘Aye,’ Savilard said softly. He began to walk more swiftly, and then to jog. ‘Aye,’ he said again, as the rest of the Thain’s party fell in behind him. ‘Let us hope...’