Collected Philippine Short Stories

The Beautiful Horse | D. Paulo Dizon

ONE day my father brought home a beautiful horse. She was the most beautiful white horse anyone in our barrio of Pulong-Masle had ever laid eyes on. She had long and slender legs, a silky mane, and a flowing tail. She was, however, not the kind of horse anyone in our barrio would have any use for. She did not seem fit for pulling a rig. She was good only for the track, or for riding but races were held only during the town funeral, and even the rich bachelors in town did not ride horses anymore. They preferred the bicycle. What good was such a beautiful white horse in Pulong-Masle?

My father did not exactly bring the beautiful white horse home. She followed him. When my father would stop to pull a thorn out of his foot or to scratch a bite on his leg, the horse would stop, too, and swish her tail from side to side. When my father continued on his way, the horse too would come along. She had a grand way of walking, proud and confident.

"Why, Estong," the people at the roadside or in the windows would say, "how did you come by such a beautiful horse?" But my father only smiled and stared straight ahead; he was as proud as the horse that was following him. He did not even notice my sister Victa and me. Victa and I walked behind among the other children.

The people we passed also wondered how my father had come by such a beautiful horse. He couldn't have bought her because he did not have that much money; everybody knew he earned no more that what was needed, and sometimes less.

I overheard some of the people say that my father might have stolen the horse, and I felt angry with my father and with the people and at the horse, and I knew my sister Victa also felt the same way. When I looked at her, I saw tears in her eyes.

Father was suddenly a stranger to us. He did not seem to be our father at all, and for the moment we hated him. In the past when we met him on the road on his way home, he would hug us or lift Victa or me way up in the air. We used to be very happy when Father came home.

When we reached home, Father led the horse straight through the yard into the field. He sat down on a fallen bamboo and watched the horse beginning to graze. So absorbed was he in the sight of the beautiful horse, he didn't notice Victa and me sitting beside him. For a long time we sat there watching the horse cropping the wild grass. We did not say anything to one another. It was getting dark.

"What a beauty!" Father said, sighing dreamily and gazing at the horse. "What beautiful legs!"

"They are not beautiful," Victa said, curling her lower lip. "They are thin and weak."

That was when Father perhaps first took notice of our presence. He turned his face toward Victa and all of a sudden there was anger in his dark eyes.

"Don't say that," Father said. "You know they are not thin and weak. They are slender and beautiful, are they not? Yes, they are. She is a beautiful horse."

"Doesn't she belong to us, Father?" I asked.

"She is such a beauty," Father sighed again, staring admiringly at the horse. She kept on swishing her tail, which was long and flowing and silky, as if she were enjoying herself immensely.

I was beginning to suspect the people were right after all. I trembled at the thought of my father stealing a horse. He used to tell us how good it was to be honest and truthful and obedient, and now, I thought, he wasn't any of those things he had told us to be.

Presently I heard my mother calling Victa and me, and then the chapel bells rang out the Angelus.

"Come up now, Victa, Marcos," Mother shouted from the window.

Victa crossed the yard and climbed up the stairs. I sat, silent, beside Father, who seemed to be immersed in thought. Then, suddenly, my mother was with us.