by Danielle Culverson
smythja@aston.ac.uk
 

Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 13:47:33 -0500 (EST)
--------
This story titled "Horse" was written by Danielle Culverson to accompany my
story "Just Friends," which I posted to the XF fanfic list minutes ago.  Hope
you enjoy it - I did.

Gerry

This is a fiction story based on the characters created by Chris
Carter.  No infringement of  copyrights held by 10/13 Productions,
Twentieth Century Productions, or Fox Broadcasting is intended.
All unrecognised characters and plot-lines belong to me.  Names,
characters, and places exist solely within my imagination, or are
used fictitiously.  No connection to any person, living or dead, is
intended, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental.  Feel free
to distribute, but please keep me as the author.

Rating - PG.

Classification - X (Short).

This story is an accompaniment to Gerry Hill's "Just Friends"
which inspired it, just as Gerry's stories so often inspire my work.

Summary - A horse saves Mulder's life after he is dumped in the
desert by a faction of the "shadow government".
 

No spoilers.

Danielle Culverson.

                                 Horse.
 
 
     Sudden heat filled the air around me, and I felt the heat of the
     young yellow sun on my back.
 
     My back.  I turned my head around and looked down with large
     black eyes at the long hair-covered body that was now mine.  I
     gave a quiet snort of approval, and took a step forward, testing
     my new balance, learning how my body worked.  It was like
     learning to walk all over again, only this time I'd been told how
     do to it in advance.
 
     With a few minutes of patient practice, I got the hang of using
     my four long legs together, and bending the back legs in the
     opposite direction to the front ones.  I certainly had become an
     odd creature, but according to our research, the most appropriate
     for what I had to do, and probably the most acceptable.
 
     Humans called these animals horses, and I was a fine one, - which
     was hardly surprising.  Out of the centre corners of my large
     eyes, I could see part of the white blaze which ran down my nose.
     Turning my head to the side, I could see the glossy coat of a
     healthy animal.  Long eyelashes protected my eyes from the sandy
     desert I was now in, and hairs over my nostrils stopped me
     breathing too much of it in.
 
     I looked around at the area I had arrived at.  There was little
     to see, but I knew that somewhere not too far away was the man I
     had come to find.  He needed help, and I had come to give him
     that help.
 
     The man's name was Fox Mulder.  He worked with some sort of
     government agency, tracking down humans who had gone wrong.  He
     also had an uncommon interest in my people, which was hardly
     surprising, and was also the reason I wanted to help him.
 
     This particular human seemed more sensitive than most, and also
     more foolhardy.  Since the incident twenty-four Earth years ago,
     he had been constantly getting into dangerous situations through
     his eternal pursuit of us, and what he felt we had taken from
     him.  I had come to the understanding that he blamed himself for
     the incident, but the exact nature of the emotions he was capable
     of I was uncertain of.
 
     I set off across the sand, towards where the man was.  I used the
     sun's position to guide me to him, and it wasn't long before I
     saw him stumbling along.
 
     He was naked, which was unusual for humans, and his skin was red.
     He limped slightly as he walked, and I saw that he had been
     damaged by one of the desert plants.  He held a gun in one hand.
     - I knew what that was.  I hadn't had first hand contact with
     one, fortunately, but when the Syndicate turned on us, those who
     were left behind had been killed by guns. - We all knew the
     brutal, primitive weapons these men used.
 
     But this man was different.  In all the time we had been watching
     him, he had never used his gun except when he had to, sometimes
     getting himself into difficult and dangerous situations because
     of his determination to find the truth. - And where was the truth
     when it's keeper was dead?  It lived only as long as someone
     remembered it.
 
     The man didn't even seem to like the gun he was carrying.  His
     posture indicated that he carried it because he felt he might
     need it, but that he didn't want to need it.
 
     The man looked up and saw me.  He stopped walking, and looked at
     me, hope appearing in his eyes.  I stood still and waited for him
     to come to me, my long ears twitching as they followed every
     sound in the vast expanse of desert.  He approached me slowly,
     apparently afraid I would move away.  When he reached me, he
     gently placed his hand on my mane, studying me.
 
     A faint rattle drew my attention, and I saw a diamond-back
     rattlesnake on the sandy ground six feet away.  If it struck the
     man, he would in serious trouble.  I side-stepped, trying to
     convey my urgency to the man, who appeared to be debating how to
     get onto my back.  Then he saw the snake too, and froze.  He
     lifted his gun slowly, as though hoping he would be able to shoot
     the snake, but I think we both knew it was impossible.  The snake
     reared back, and then struck.  The man made a leap for my back,
     dragging himself up with a handful of my mane in his grip.
 
     The snake had fallen short of him, it's body not quite long
     enough to reach him.  Anyway, he was on my back now, and I
     decided we had both had enough of the situation.  I turned and
     set off at an easy canter across the desert.
 
     The sun-baked ground was hard, and hurt my feet.  I slowed to a
     walk, heading in a north-westerly direction, the direction I
     suspected help would be most likely to come from.  The man was
     drifting into unconsciousness, and finally he slumped down
     against my neck, too weary and dehydrated too remain consciouss
     any longer.
 
     I realised that too carry him much further would kill him anyway
     if he didn't get a drink soon.  I continued walking until I came
     upon a small tree which would offer both of us shelter from the
     blazing sun, and where a small creek passed by, where we would be
     able to drink.  I paused under the tree, and carefully bent my
     front knees a little so that the man slid forward and off to the
     side.  He landed on the dusty ground with a thump.  I moved to
     the creek to take a drink, and decided to wait through the night
     so we could both get some rest.
 
                       *          *          *
 
     The sun was low in the sky when the man awoke again.  He seemed a
     little disorientated, and I was anxious to get him to drink as
     soon as possible.  I turned my head to glance at the falling sun,
     and gave a whinny.  The man pushed himself up onto his elbows,
     and spoke to me for the first time.
 
     "What is it, boy?"  he asked.
 
     I knew he didn't expect an answer, but it still seemed strange
     that he should ask me a question.  I lowered my head to the
     sparse grass growing on the ground, to point out the availability
     of nourishment.  The man looked around, and then his eyes
     brightened as he saw the creek.  He got up with difficulty, and
     went over to it, using his hands to lift the small amount of
     water there to his mouth.
 
     Moving away from the creek again, the man did a short exploration
     of the place I had chosen to stop the night at.  He found the
     remains of a camp-fire which I had noticed when I stopped. - We
     were both hoping that it meant humans might come to this place. -
     Then he cleared an area of the small stones and thorns which
     littered the ground, and sat down.  He pulled his legs up to his
     chin, apparently afraid of what might be living nearby in the
     desert.  Then he looked up at the stars, evidently searching the
     skies, as always.
 
     "Oh, Scully, I miss you."  he murmured.  I twitched one ear
     forward.  The man sounded hurt.  He appeared to be concerned
     about someone or something, and I didn't know what I could do to
     help him.  I stood patiently nearby, watching for any signs that
     the water he had drunk had made him ill.  I suspected it had been
     contaminated, but my constitution could stand it. - I wasn't so
     sure about his, especially not in his current condition.
 
     As the night went on my suspicions were confirmed.  The man
     started to suffer from stomach cramps.  Then he was seized by
     fits of vomiting and diarrhoea, which did nothing to improve his
     dehydration.  He slept only fitfully, waking as the cramps racked
     him, and moaning in his sleep.
 
     By morning he was feverish, and when he woke up properly he
     rolled over into the creek, and lay in the water there, weakly
     splashing it over his burning body in an attempt to gain some
     relief.
 
     But I couldn't allow him to stay there all day.  We had to get
     moving again, because we were still too far into the desert for
     any humans who were looking for him to find us.  I went over to
     him, and looked down on him where he lay in the creek.
 
     "Still here, eh, buddy?"  he whispered hoarsely.  Then a cramp
     struck him, and he bent double in pain.  A low moan escaped his
     lips.  I bent down and touched my nose to his shoulder, urging
     him on.  He gave a short cry, my action had apparently startled
     him, but then started to try and get up.  He looked at me
     curiously for a moment.  I looked back in concern.
 
     "OK, Mulder, you've gone over the edge for sure."  he muttered,
     apparently to himself.  Then he caught hold of my mane, and
     dragged himself to his feet.  I stepped forward into the creek so
     that he could reach my back easier, while he scrambled out of it,
     so that he didn't have to jump as high.  He tried to throw
     himself onto me, but was so weak that he ended up pulling himself
     up with handfuls of my mane.
 
     "Go."  he muttered, his voice rasping, it was so dry.  I turned
     my head to look at him in concern, and then decided it was best
     to get him back to civilisation as fast as possible.  I stepped
     out of the creek, and set off in a north-westerly direction
     again.  The man was barely consciouss most of the time.  Violent
     cramps went though him, and I could feel them in my back as he
     shuddered on me, moaned, and sometimes screamed with the pain.
     Through all this he still clutched the gun he had been carrying,
     and it had become tangled up in my mane.
 
     Finally, during a period when he was fairly coherent, he started
     trying to remove the gun.  I had an unpleasant notion of what he
     was going to use it for, and hurried my pace.  Another spasm went
     through him, and he collapsed forward against my neck, slipping
     slightly to one side.
 
     My ears twitched around, tracking a noise they had picked up.  I
     could hear one of the low-flying machines the humans sometimes
     traveled in, and it was coming closer.  I turned about, and soon
     spotted the machine descending to the ground.  A huge rotor on
     the top of it was spinning, and apparently this was what kept it
     off the ground. - But I wasn't sure if the people inside it would
     be the same ones who had originally left the man in the desert,
     or people who would help him.
 
     I backed away a little, and watched as the helicopter landed,
     alert for any signs of danger to myself or my burden.  The rotor
     stopped spinning, and two men got out of the back of the machine,
     carrying a stretcher and what appeared to be emergency medical
     equipment.  I stepped back as they approached, still uncertain,
     but my action dislodged the man, who had already been sliding
     off, and he fell to the ground.  The two men hurried over, and I
     moved back a little to watch as they set up fluids to drain into
     the man's body, and moved him onto the stretcher.
 
     A car drove up in a hurry, and stopped near to the helicopter.  A
     woman got out, and I recognised her. - The auburn-haired woman
     who worked with the man.  She had a half-empty water bottle in
     one hand, although how she thought that would help, I wasn't
     sure.  She took the fluid bag from one of the men, and started
     firing rapid questions at him about the condition of the man.
     Then the two men picked up the stretcher, and the woman walked
     with it to the helicopter.  After a moment's discussion, the
     woman and one of the men got back into the helicopter with the
     stretcher, while the other man went to the car the woman had come
     from.  The helicopter's rotor started up again.
 
     I stood my ground as the machine rose into the sky on it's spiral
     of air.  The man would be alright now.  His partner was with him,
     and the men would repair him. - My work was done.
 
     As the helicopter disappeared from sight, and the car drove away
     over the rolling desert, I turned and trotted back out into the
     centre of the desert.  Once there, I said goodbye to the
     uncomfortable heat, and hard ground of the desert, and dissipated
     into a cloud of thin white smoke which spiraled upwards and into
     the clouds, moving with a purpose, and going home.
 
 
                               The End.
 
I'd greatly appreciate any comments or constructive criticism from fellow
X-Philes.  Email me at <smythja@aston.ac.uk>.

Danielle Culverson.