The Black Stallion Challenged (14 page)

He approached the office at the far end of a large shed. Before reaching the door he heard his name called and Steve Duncan stepped out of the doorway. Startled, Alec took a step backward. “I must be nervous tonight,” he said jokingly.

“You and me both,” Steve answered. “I never expected to get this far with him. I mean, I’d hoped to race him here but I didn’t figure on it. It makes me jumpy just thinking about it.”

Alec said, “You’re bound to be jumpy. Waiting around for a race is always the worst. You must have played plenty of sports. You should know how it is.”

“No, I don’t know. I never played much of anything. I was always too light to make any of the teams. They always made me the towel boy or the manager.” Steve laughed, easing his tenseness somewhat. “I’ve handled more towels than horses. I can tell you that much.”

“Maybe you do a better job with horses than with towels,” Alec said.

“Maybe so.” Steve’s face continued working nervously and there was a wariness in his eyes.

“How come you’re so worried about him? You weren’t the first time we met,” Alec reminded him. “You were pretty cocky.”

“Not worried, just nervous … like I said. Maybe he won’t run his race. Maybe the long trip and the change will affect him.”

“Usually a horse runs his best race the first time out after a long trip,” Alec said. “Say five or six days after he arrives. It’s only after that when changes in climate, water and such things may affect him. He ought to run his race if you get him in soon.”

“I hope so.” Steve moved toward the doors of the shed and Alec followed. “Pitch is here, too,” he said. “I want you to meet him.”

“How long will they keep Flame here?” Alec asked.

“The Department veterinarian took a blood test when we arrived and we got an okay on it this afternoon. That’s why I called you.”

“You’re clear to go, then?”

Steve nodded. “For racing purposes only, providing Hialeah will have us.”

“Did you contact the track?” Alec asked.

“Yesterday. They want to see him work first. They want to be sure.”

Alec smiled. “Then what are you worrying about? If he’s all you say he is …”

“See for yourself,” Steve said, opening the door of the shed. The building, brightly lit, was a bedlam of bawling, chattering animals in pens and cages.

Alec followed Steve inside, listening to the sounds and identifying those from donkeys, parrots, monkeys and parakeets. There were many animals and birds from the islands and South America with which he was unfamiliar, all bound for zoos and new homes in the United States.

A slightly built man came down the corridor to meet them and Steve said, “This is my friend Pitch. Phil Pitcher.”

Alec shook Pitch’s hand, wondering if the man really felt as sad as he looked. There seemed to be worry, too, in the eyes that peered at him from behind steel-rimmed glasses. His soft, round face was deeply tanned but expressionless, his hair brown with no trace of gray. He wore knee-length shorts and held a sun-helmet in one hand, a combination—the shorts especially, attracting attention as they did to his nobby knees—which made him look a little ridiculous.

Pitch removed his limp hand from Alec’s but still peered shortsightedly at him. “Steve told me you were coming,” he said quietly; his voice was tired. “He seemed to think you might help.…”

Alec wanted to say something to alleviate the misery and worry in the man’s eyes. “I don’t know just what Steve wants me to do, but I’ll help if I can. It’s pretty much up to your horse.”

“Yes … yes, I know. I’m quite aware of that. He’s … well, come and see for yourself.”

There was a pause and an exchange of glances between Pitch and Steve. Then the man slipped back the bolt on a closed stall.

With the sliding of the bolt came the whinny of a stallion. Alec felt his muscles grow tense. No domesticated horse ever made quite that sound. It was the whinny of a wild stallion, and it faded to a few whiffling snorts when Steve entered the stall.

Alec would have followed but Pitch had placed a restraining hand on his arm.

“Isn’t it safe to go in?” Alec asked.

“Oh, it’s safe, all right,” Pitch answered seriously. “Steve works miracles. At least it seems so to me. I’m not much with horses. In fact, I know very little about them. And the more I’m around Flame, the more I realize how much I have to learn.”

“It takes time,” Alec said, “and nothing can take the place of experience.”

“I’m really not very much interested in horses at all,” Pitch confessed, actually looking bored. “I have my own work to do. You see, I’m a historian … I dabble a bit in archaeology, too.”

“I see,” Alec said. But he decided that Pitch’s bored air was completely false and that he was failing miserably in trying to convince his listener that he wasn’t interested in Flame.

“Then why are you here?” Alec asked.

“To do what I can to help, of course,” Pitch answered. “As I say, I’m not much good with Flame but I do act as Steve’s bookkeeper … or a better name for it might be his racing accountant. We have seven hundred ninety-eight dollars and sixty-three cents at the present time. Our expenses getting here were heavy, but Steve says I can expect another check soon, a big one.”

Alec noted the gleam in the blue eyes behind the steel-rimmed glasses but said nothing. He didn’t want to disillusion Pitch by telling him that winning a race at Hialeah wasn’t as easy as winning one at Nassau.

Steve called to them and they entered the stall.

Flame was not what Alec had expected. He had anticipated seeing a small horse, like most of the horses
from the islands, with just a streak of wildness in him. But as he looked upon Flame, standing against the rear wall of his stall, it was as if he had always known this horse. Flame had come from the same mold as the Black.

The stallion’s defiant gaze was centered on Alec; his wedge-shaped head was turned slightly to the side, and his small ears were pricked forward. He was as large as the Black and as finely made, from the well-muscled withers, chest and shoulders to the unusually long quarters and strong legs. His coat, of course, was altogether different—a glowing, red chestnut that made one think of fire.

Alec looked upon him for a long time, not knowing or caring if the two other persons there spoke to him or not.
There could not in this whole world be another horse so like my own
, he thought.
Henry said they broke the mold after the Black. I have said it. Time and time again I have said it … and believed it
.

But he and Henry had been wrong. The mold had
not
been broken. This horse had the same arrogance and stamp of nobility as the Black. And Flame continued to regard him much as a king might have done in granting one of his subjects an audience.

Alec listened as Steve talked to Flame in unintelligible murmurings accompanied by soft, gentle touches. It was a language that belonged solely to Steve and Flame, yet Alec recognized it for what it was. It was not unlike the way he and the Black communicated.

Flame lowered his head at the bidding of the boy beside him. Steve straightened the silky foretop that had dropped over his eyes and smoothed the mane, which was too long and heavy for a groomed race
horse. Alec now believed everything Steve had told him about Flame and his island, wherever it was. He noted several jagged scars on Flame’s body, scars that could only have been the result of battle with other stallions.

Suddenly Alec decided that he wanted to know nothing more than he already did about this horse and his master. The less he knew, the less he would become involved in Steve’s world, whatever and wherever it was. He had the Black, and that left no time for anything else.

Just then Steve turned to him and said, “The only trouble I had with him in Nassau was when I needed to take him away from the crowd to be saddled. Other than that he was okay.”

“He looks like the kind you can’t fool around with much,” Alec said.

“He’s fine as long as I don’t take hold of him and try to take him back. He wants to run too much.”

“No horse can go full speed all the way,” Alec said. “Even with one that’s always running and trying, you’ve got to give him a breather somewhere.”

“Not Flame. He doesn’t know where the end is. He just keeps going. You’ve never seen a horse like this one, Alec.”

Alec turned away from Steve’s beaming face and tried hard not to resent the youth’s confidence in his horse. There was a day not so long ago when he himself had talked the very same way about the Black. No one had listened to him or believed him until the Black had raced.

“It’s always hard to estimate a horse’s chances
before you see him run,” Alec said. “But he looks real good.”

Pitch reached into his pocket and drew out a short pipe, regarding Alec intently as he filled it. “I understand from what Steve has told me that you’re no youngster when it comes to horses. I respect your advice, as I’m sure Steve does. But although I know nothing about this business of racing horses, there are certain things I’ve observed. One of them, and the most important at this moment, is that no horse could possibly run as fast as Flame. All he has to do to win is simply get in a big race and avoid … uh, trouble.”

Alec shrugged his shoulders. “Avoiding trouble is part of racing,” he said quietly. “We all try to keep our horses clear and give them a chance to run their race. That will be Steve’s job, too.” He turned to the boy. “Even if you do happen to have the fastest horse in the world, no jockey is going to make it easy for you to win.”

Pitch put his filled pipe back in his pocket, and took a deep breath. “I understand, Alec,” he said, “and I want you to know that we’ll be good sports. But we came here to make money. We must leave with it.”

Alec smiled. “That’s why everybody’s here. You’re not alone.”

Pitch squinted through his glasses and scratched his head. Then he sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Everybody needs money these days. It’s a terrible strain.”

“But not everybody needs it quite as fast as you do, or needs quite so much. Sixty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money for a horse to earn.”

Pitch glanced at Steve, then back at Alec. “Then he’s told you?”

“That you need that much money to buy your island? Yes. Steve told me that.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Racing Flame was the only way we could think of to get it.”

Alec, looking at Flame again, said, “It might be possible, providing you give him and yourselves enough time. Even with the high purses we have today, it’s tough to get in the money. It takes not only a fast horse but lots of experience … and neither Flame nor Steve have had any except for the Nassau race.”

Steve said cockily, “They still pay off on the first horse around the track, Alec.”

“Yes, they do,” Alec agreed. He studied Steve’s face a moment and then asked, “When will you move him to the track?”

“I promised to work him tomorrow morning. If they like him, we’ll be able to race him in the Hialeah Turf Cup. That’s worth about $70,000 to the winner. It’s all we need. We could pack up and go home.”

“You’d have the Black to beat, you know,” Alec reminded him.

“I know.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“No, not really,” Steve said. “I don’t mean I wouldn’t like to avoid the Black right now, but we don’t have time to wait.”

“That’s what you said before.” Alec started toward the door. “Well, I’ll see you at the track tomorrow morning then.”

“Alec …”

“Yes?”

“Will you be working the Black tomorrow? I mean … if you are, do you think you could work him with us?”

“Together? The Black and Flame?”

“Yes. You see … what I mean is that it would impress the track officials more than if I worked Flame alone. They’d see the kind of horse he is when he could stay with the Black.”

Alec met the other’s gaze. “But what if he doesn’t?”

“Oh, he will, all right.”

Once again Alec tried hard not to resent Steve’s confidence in himself and his horse. He shrugged his shoulders. “Henry calls the shots in the Black’s training,” he said. “But I do happen to know he’s got a work scheduled for tomorrow morning. Maybe we’ll be on the track at the same time.”

“That’s all I want,” Steve said. “Just give us a chance to be out there together.”

On his way to the track the next morning the Black stopped every now and then to follow the antics of squirrels scrambling up and down the tall Australian pines. He pricked up his ears, too, at the sound of the birds’ trills.

Alec did not urge him on. Slow walks through Hialeah paths were an important part of the Black’s training. Also, they helped relieve the tiredness and boredom which might affect any horse stabled at a racetrack.

Alec glanced in the direction of the busy track, wondering if Steve Duncan and his horse, Flame, were already there. But they couldn’t be, he decided, for Henry would have mentioned it to him; the trainer was sitting in the grandstand with a bunch of old friends and clockers.

Henry had been less interested than Alec had anticipated when he had told of his visit to Steve the previous evening. “If Hialeah wants such a horse here, that’s their business,” he had said unconcernedly. “As for working him and the Black together, it’s a public
track. If he’s out there the same time we are, I can’t stop him from going around.”

Alec patted the Black’s neck. He wasn’t worried about Flame’s reported speed. No horse in the world could stay alongside the Black. Yet Alec knew that he was not the only jockey who thought his horse unbeatable. Most riders overestimated their mounts. Every jockey thought he could win on a special horse.

At the gap in the fence, Alec kept the Black on the outside of the track and let him go into a lope to loosen up. The stallion moved effortlessly, giving the impression to everyone who watched that running was wonderfully easy. For him it was.

Alec recalled the days when the Black was strictly a come-from-behind horse. It had taken a lot of racing luck as well as tremendous speed to break through large fields and win. Now the Black could be rated and Alec could take him out in front early if necessary, and place him where he thought racing would be easier for both of them. It helped to keep them out of trouble; and trouble, as he had told Steve last night, could be a decisive factor in any big race.