Phantom of the Mist

The sideways rays of the sun painted a soft glow over the land, a familiar scene for this time of year. The deserted dock was a common sight during winter, and today was no exception. A lone figure walked toward the end of the pier and stepped into a small rowboat. Glancing skyward, the man in the dory silently pleaded with the sun for its guiding light to navigate the perilous channel.

In the summer, this channel was teaming with seagoing vessels, large and small. Sailors and yachtsmen came from all directions inland to vacation here in this coastal paradise. But now, only mist and fog and the occasional sea bird kept these waters company. The man rowed his boat rhythmically, keeping time to an inner clock. He didn’t even have to turn around to see the island; he knew by instinct when to turn the boat at the correct angle to float to a stop by the empty dock.

With a flip of his wrist, the man sent a rope flying, and with sea legs intact, climbed from the boat. He bent down and took hold of two bundles after securing the small sea craft, then set out up a narrow path, away from the shore. The sun was nearly setting, even though it had only come up five hours ago.

The man remembered a time in his younger days when he had plenty of light, any day in winter, to row the two miles to the mainland and back. He suppressed the thought—and the implications—that kept trying to root themselves in his mind. His previously pain-free back now throbbed from the demanding rowing, while his joints protested with every movement.

Up ahead, on a little rise overlooking the ocean, sat the cabin, with its door and one of only two windows facing the west and the mainland. Upon entering the little abode, the first thing the man did was wipe his feet on the doormat; he was a tidy man and couldn’t bear to have sand grating on his handmade wooden floor. In front of the second window that faced the open sea stood two chairs and a table upon which the man set his packages.

On the north side of the one room building, the man kept his supplies; food, blankets, clothes, et cetera—all neatly arranged on wooden shelves. The wall on the south side was nothing but bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and the man moved the picture of a small group of people over to the windowsill above the table, to make room for the contents of the parcels he brought in. There was a bed off the wall opposite the supply shelves jutting out into the room, and at the foot of the bed was a stand with an old saddle and bridle on it.

After stoking the fire, the man lit the wick in his oil lamp and put some soup on the potbellied stove to heat. While waiting for his dinner, the man thumbed through a couple months worth of the daily publication the store owner had given him that afternoon. He didn’t want to, but found his eyes dwelling on the pages of obituaries.

“Ol’ principle Newman,” the man tsked when he read the name of his former boss. Phil Newman had lived a good long life and left behind a son and two daughters and a gang of grandkids and great-grandkids. The man lamented his own obituary would probably be short and a little pathetic with no wife or children to mourn his passing.

After finishing his soup, the man stepped out into the night to gather enough firewood to last until 11:00am, when the sun would peak out for a brief visit on its southerly route. Through the thick fog that moved like the ocean, the man could hear the waves crashing on the shore below. The crashing turned to thunderous pounding as the man turned to stare, searching for the origin of the noise.

“Did you hear that?” he said to no one.

He thought it sounded like a four footed animal galloping and as it drew near; the man dropped the logs he held and tried to clear the fog as if waving thorough smoke. A blast of wind pushed the sound of hoofbeats past the man and sucked the fog along with it like a funnel, leaving the curious figure standing alone in the clear night air.

The man shook his head, wondering when the weather out here would ever cease to amaze him. He turned to retrieve the dropped firewood and went inside.

During these long nights the man spent his time reading, sleeping, then reading some more. Tonight he had a stack of mail to go through, for the weather had made it impossible to trek across the channel for over a month and he had some catching up to do on the latest correspondences. Brewing a pot of tea, he sorted the letters in chronological order and settled in to read.

The letters from his sister were a carbon copy of the ones she sent the last time. She was always questioning why he stayed on the island alone throughout the year. There were a few letters from former students who had long since graduated and moved on to careers in the many science-related fields. One letter, in particular, aroused his interest. It was a student announcing the birth of a grandchild. The man lingered on the concept of his students having children. Staring thoughtfully as he dipped his spoon into the soup, he digested the information, then moved on to another letter from his sister, asking him to please move back to the mainland.

After going through the entire stack of mail, the man sat contemplating. His eyes came to focus on the photo he had placed on the window sill earlier. Studying the picture, he scanned the familiar faces of family and friends who had gathered for his sixtieth birthday celebration. He still saw himself as that man; someone's uncle, brother, son. He still felt sixty though over twenty years had passed.

He remembered that time in his life when he still enjoyed teaching. He used to look forward with anticipation to each new crop of highschool freshman and made it his quest to inspire every one of them. And he did. Many were the students who became productive members of society, some of whom may have gone astray but for the strong discipline administered with genuine compassion from the man they all called Mr “B”. To him, they all felt like his children.

Being a single man, he had spent his summers abroad, discovering that kids in India or China or Afganistan did not differ from the ones here. There were pranksters and clowns, athletes and “A” students—all needing a role model. Just by being a friend, he had influenced as many kids from other countries as he had from his own.

The man finished his cup of tea, blew out his hurricane lamp, and felt his way to the bed. Crawling under the heap of down blankets, he drifted off to sleep. He began dreaming, and the whistle of the wind outside took its place as the gale blowing in his vision. In his dream, Sable, his favorite horse, appeared.

When at sixty-seven years of age, he had given in to the pressures and retired from teaching; he had bought the seventeen acre isle off the northeast coast of Canada and built the cabin and a stable with a secure paddock.

In retirement, he had the time to pursue his lifelong passion for horses and he bought the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. He didn’t listen to the inlanders, who warned him not to bring and keep her out here. People believed a wild herd lived on an island ten miles farther off the shoreline, and they said the renegade stallion that ran the band would steal the mare. The man had dismissed the idea, and Sable came to live with him. They had spent many happy years on their tiny island paradise, and retirement had seemed not that bad after all.

One stormy night, the man had awakened to the thunderous pounding of hooves and the wild screams that left chills running down his spine. He also thought he heard the frantic whinnying of Sable, so he had run out into the nasty night to see what was wrong. A powerful gust of wind had thrown him off his feet, and as he fell, he caught a flash of white when his head collided with a rock, causing a deafening blow. He hadn’t been able to rise to his feet, but watched from the ground where he lay. He thought he saw his beloved Sable, who, plagued by old age arthritis, of late, would barely trot along the beach, had run off into the darkness with the stallion leaving the fog to close in behind her. Upon waking the next day, he found his dear equine companion had passed away in the night.

The man sat bolt upright in bed, wakened from the nightmare of the memory, but still hearing the frightful screams the stallion had made the night he stole Sable away. Upon lighting the lamp, the thunder of the squeals faded. He tried to convince himself that it was only a storm, but his pounding heart betrayed his fear. Glancing at his timepiece, he realized it was eight in the morning, and the sun would be up in a few hours. Today, he would check the crab traps on the far side of the island.

The sun peaked over the far horizon enough to light the land, but the man couldn’t see it through the fog. He walked along the path he knew by heart, for he couldn't see two steps in front of him. As he shuffled along, he could hear the ocean waves crashing onshore to his right. To his left, he heard the faint rustling of leaves and twigs, a sign of something moving through the tangled brush. He remembered when Sable would follow him on his crab trap rounds and longed for her company. Straining his eyes through the soupy mist, he sought to identify the noisemaker in the undergrowth. There was a whistle so loud that it made his ears ring and sent chills down his back.

“Did you hear that?” He said to no one.

In front of him, the fog dissipated, revealing a breathtaking view. As he looked into the distance, a mysterious grey shadow took shape. Moving towards him, the shape gradually took the form of a horse, its thick and glossy alabaster coat accentuating the rippling muscles beneath. He could see the powerful, even and definite movement as the horse drew nearer.

As quickly as the fog had lifted, it settled again, leaving the man feeling suffocated. Waiting in silence as all things seemed to stand still around him, even the crashing waves became muted. Where had the horse come from? Why had the horse moved toward him with such purpose?

As if on cue, the fog lifted and unveiled the horse, standing patiently before him, ready to provide answers. The man studied the horse’s small ears, pricked forward with interest. Steady were his wide, intelligent eyes. He saw the pink inside of the flaring nostrils and noted the quiver of the horse. As if studying the man before him with equal curiosity, the horse drew in the sight and smell of the human.

The man noted something familiar about the white stallion and reached out to touch the wind-whipped forelock, but the horse snorted in surprise and spun away. Now running down the beach with the man on his back, the horse raced. Holding out his arms like wings, the man glanced to his side and recognized the sleek brown coat of his horse, Sable, running along with them.

“Look, Sable,” the man shouted into the wind, “we’re flying.”

The fog descended suddenly, wrapping around the rider like a thick, white blanket. Shrouded in the mystery, the man lost all sensation. Feeling like he was floating with the stallion rather than riding it, he heard but couldn’t feel the pounding hooves. With the fog as his cloak, he vanished from sight, leaving behind only a set of hoofprints on the sand, destined to be erased by the incoming tide on the deserted island beach.