Invasion

Eighteen inches of new snow was on the ground, but that wasn't going to be the end of it. The sky was still low and leaden; and according to the radio reports out of Bangor-to which we had listened during breakfast-a second storm front, even worse than the first one which had not yet quite finished passing over us, had moved into the area. The snow and wind might have gentled for the time being, but they would be raging again by late this afternoon, no doubt about it.
        In fifteen minutes I had opened the path, and I switched off the machine. The winter silence fell in over me like collapsing walls of cotton. For a moment I was too stunned to hear anything at all. Gradually I began to perceive the soft whistle of the wind and the rustling branches of the big Douglas fir which stood at the corner of the barn.
        "Dad, isn't it great? Isn't it?"
        Toby had run over from the house to join me the moment I shut off the snow blower. He was supposed to be in the kitchen studying his lessons right now. Connie was an elementary school teacher by trade and had been granted a limited state license to act as Toby's tutor so long as we lived on Timberlake Farm. She kept him to a fairly strict study schedule, administering one state-prepared exam a week in order to monitor his progress.
        However, she had slept badly last night, and Toby had been able to con her into a brief postponement of this morning's session so that he could come with me while I watered, fed, and walked our horses.
        Grinning out at the white world, barely able to see over the wall of snow I'd thrown up on the right side of the path, he said, "Did you ever see so much snow at one time?"
        I stared down along the pale slope toward the pine forest that was dressed in snow and laces of ice.
        It was a glittering, pain-bright scene. "No, Toby, I never did."
        "Let's have a snowball fight," he said.
        "Later, maybe. First there's work to do."
        I went to the barn door and pulled back the ice-crusted bolt latch, slid open the door.
        Toby ran past me into the dimly lighted barn.
        I went inside and headed straight for the corner where I kept the grain bins and tools.
        As I was taking a bucket down from the wall peg on which it hung, Toby said, "Dad?"
        "Yeah?" I asked as I put the bucket under the water faucet that came out of the floor beside the grain bin.
        "Where's Blueberry?"
        "What?"
        "Where's Blueberry?"
        "What are you talking about?"
        "Dad?"
        I straightened up and looked at him. He was standing halfway down the stable row, directly in front of an open stall door,
        Blueberry's stall. He was staring at me and frowning hard; and his lips were trembling.
        He said, "Blueberry's gone."
        "Gone?"
        He looked into the empty stall.
        Abruptly, I was aware of how wrong things were in the barn. The horses were inordinately quiet: deathly quiet and still. Kate was standing in the third stall on the left, her head hung low over the door, not watching me, not watching Toby, gazing blankly at the straw-strewn floor in the stable row. Betty was lying on her side in the next stall down the line; I could see her blunt black nose protruding from the gap under the stall's half-door. Furthermore, there was a peculiar odor in the air: ammonia, something like ammonia, but not unpleasant, vague and sweet, sweet ammonia…
        And Blueberry had vanished.
        What in the hell is going on? I wondered.
        Deep inside I knew. I just didn't want to admit it.
        I walked over to Kate and quietly said her name. I expected her to rear back and whinny in alarm, but she had no energy for that sort of thing. She just slowly raised her head and stared at me, stared through me, looking very dull and stupid and empty.
        I stroked her face and scratched her ears; and she snuffled miserably. All of the spirit had gone out of her; during the night something had happened which had utterly broken her, for good and for always.
        But what had it been? I asked myself.
        You know exactly what it was, I answered.
        The yellow-eyed animal?
        Yes.
        You think it stole
        Blueberry?
        Yes.
        Couldn't Blueberry have escaped on her own?
        If she did, then she was thoughtful enough to stop and latch the bolt behind her. The door was closed and