The Black Stallion Mystery (12 page)

“Only through Tabari and my own interest in fine horses,” the Sheikh answered soberly. “When reports reached me in the desert of Ziyadah’s ghost being seen by the native mountaineers I knew he was not dead after all. I do not believe in ghosts or wizards or magic of any kind.”

“You went after him?”

Abd-al-Rahman nodded. “Tabari was in England for a short stay, seeing friends and recovering from the loss of her father. I sent for her and moved some of our people and best mares here. I knew that if I was fortunate enough to recapture Ziyadah I could carry on Abu Ishak’s work as I longed to do.”

“And just how did you figure on catching this
ghost
horse?” Henry asked suspiciously.

Abd-al-Rahman smiled but his face was very serious, almost grave, when he answered, “By attracting Ziyadah’s attention to our mares.”

“It worked but you didn’t catch him after all,” Henry said. “Did you see him when he came after the mares?”

“Not in the fields but later on the mountainsides. He ran as they said he did, leaving a trail of sparks behind him and moving like the desert wind.”

“He never came down again?” Alec asked.

“No. We have been waiting for over two years with a doubled guard.”

“Yet you’ve seen him during that time?”

“Often,” Abd-al-Rahman answered Alec. “He runs where no horse has a right to be. But he is no ghost. He is Ziyadah.”

“If you’re so certain of that,” Henry asked quietly, “why did you register his yearlings under a false sire?”

There was no hesitation in Abd-al-Rahman’s reply and only surprise on his face when he said, “But I have told you already that I did not see him in the fields! It is the ancient law of our land that no pure-blooded mare is allowed to be bred except in the presence of witnesses. I could not as leader of my tribe attest that his colts were
asil
, of pure blood, even though I knew they were.”

“You mean it would have been dishonest?” Henry asked with sarcasm.

The Sheikh did not smile. “I mean that I do not break our ancient laws!” he said coldly.

“Besides,” Abd-al-Rahman went on, in a more conciliatory tone, “the Sales yearlings were only the means to an end. It is Ziyadah I want, and now that you are here I can use your help.”

Alec met his gaze. “You mean that since your mares have failed, you want to try something else. You want to send a stud to catch a stud.”

“Exactly,” the Sheikh answered.

“When?”

“The next time he appears. Perhaps even tonight … yes, it might well be tonight. He loves to run when there is a full moon.”

That evening Alec looked out his bedroom window into the night. Under the brilliance of a full moon the pasture grass held a tinge of green-gray. It was a peaceful mountain scene but it offered him little comfort. He hadn’t forgotten the new and dangerous note in Abd-al-Rahman’s voice when the Sheikh had suggested sending the Black after Ziyadah, perhaps that very night.

Alec had no doubt that his horse could run down Ziyadah if he had an even chance. The Black, too, had run wild much of his life and he had run to kill other horses. But how would he go with Alec on his back? And was it worth the chance they’d be taking in running over such terrain?

Alec looked up at the great mountain silhouetted against the sky, its peaks mounting like turrets into the stars, and then down at the gardens where hidden floodlights played upon the fishponds and fountains. As he took deep breaths of the cool air he watched the bats
and birds that flew bewilderedly in the glare of the fountain lights. With his eyes he followed the curving jets of water that rose from the mouths of marble lions and tigers, of crocodiles and eagles. He listened to the sound of it falling into green pools, and he thought of Tabari, who had created this enchantment. For whom? Certainly not her husband. For herself then? To keep busy while Abd-al-Rahman sought Ziyadah?

Turning away from the window, Alec stepped from an alcove into the large bedroom. Tabari had furnished it with a brass bed and choice pieces of mahogany furniture that had evidently been imported from England. Scattered over the stone floor were thick, hand-woven rugs of soft colors. A fire burned in the fireplace to take the evening chill from the room, its flames sending a hollow roar up the wide chimney.

A large bathroom, with doors of padded leather, separated Alec’s room from Henry’s. Now, as the boy walked into the adjoining room, his friend said, “Put another log on that fire, will you please, Alec?”

Henry, in the pajamas and robe Abd-al-Rahman had loaned him, was already in bed, trying to read. His gray eyes seemed paler and he was shivering.

“Are you all right?” Alec asked anxiously. The room was warm and the top logs in the fireplace were blazing. But he obediently put another log on as Henry had asked.

“Sure, just a little chill. I was thinkin’ about being out in that cold last night. I guess that brought it on.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Look at me now, stretched out in the lap of luxury.” He waved a hand toward his bedside table, which held a steaming tray. “The Sheikh
sent Homsi up with chocolate. Have some? There’s plenty and he brought an extra cup for you.”

“No, thanks,” Alec answered. Besides the hot chocolate there were dates, bread and honey. Henry looked very small in the big bed. A table in the center of the room was littered with English racing magazines and it was one of these Henry was reading; its cover showed the Black winning the Brooklyn Handicap.

A chill swept over Alec despite the warmth of the room. To shake it off he took a few turns around the room. The diamond-paned windows, recessed into an alcove like his own, were closed but he could see the lights of the stable towers.

“I wish I were tired,” he said.

“You will be if you get to bed,” Henry soothed. “There’s no sense worrying any more about it tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough. We’ll think better after a good night’s sleep.”

Alec remained by the windows, staring out into the night. The face of the stable clock was yellow and dimly lit, its gold hands pointing to ten o’clock. Bats flew within the range of its light and Alec could almost hear the flutter of their wings. He opened the window, not really knowing why he did so, for Henry had said he was cold. But Alec was sure Henry’s chill did not come from the night air any more than his own did.

“Do you believe his story?” Alec spoke softly and without changing his position at the windows.

“I guess so—now.”

“It’s too weird.”

“So’s life sometimes. What other reason would he have for bein’ here if it wasn’t to catch Ziyadah?”

“Maybe there’s no such horse,” Alec suggested. “Not alive, anyway.”

“We saw him ourselves … last night.”

“We saw
lights
last night,” Alec corrected, “lights and a dim silhouette of what we took to be a horse. But we could have been mistaken.”

“We heard hoofbeats.”

“I can pound out those, too.”

“You’re being too skeptical.”

“I’m scared of this, Henry. I’m not going to have the Black killed chasing a ghost horse.”

“Or yourself either. It’s not the Black I’m worried about. He’s big and can handle himself. It’s you.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Not if you don’t get some sleep.”

With the window open Alec could hear the clatter of the stream below. From not too far away came the slap of a rope on rawhide and then a whistle. Three Arab guards came down the stable lane, boots clinking. They walked along the stream and Alec watched them until they had reached the big tent. A fire was blazing before the opening and other Arabs sat around it eating while greyhounds hovered patiently, awaiting scraps of meat and bones. It was a desert scene, wild and beautiful and peaceful.

Why then, if it was so peaceful, did he start at his own shadow? Alec wondered. Why was he filled with all sorts of horrible doubts? As Henry had said, what other reason would Abd-al-Rahman have for being
here if it wasn’t to catch a
real, live
Ziyadah? What was more, wasn’t that the reason he and Henry were here too?

His troubled eyes followed the gravel road to the house. Even in the shadows he was able to make out the double flight of stone stairs that led to the front door, with its ponderous bars and bolts. The vast house was a fortress, today as in the past.

No wonder he was not sleepy. The house was getting on his nerves. Despite Tabari’s gardens and the modern plumbing and lighting and furniture the place belonged to the past and to the dead. It was as if Barjas ben Ishak were still alive, walking down the echoing length of his great halls.

Alec shuddered. He glanced at the circular stallion barn that stood on the high knoll across the stream. With the moonlight shining brightly upon its ancient stone, it seemed far more vulnerable to attack than this house. Perhaps, contrary to what he had been told, Barjas ben Ishak had been more afraid of losing his own life than his horses.

Alec closed the window, and Henry said quietly, “Now why don’t you go to bed? I’m turning out the light.”

The bedside lamp went off but the moon brightened the room. Alec made his way to the foot of Henry’s bed. “I—I can’t explain the way I feel,” he said.

Henry’s voice was muffled by the deep pillow. “Y’don’t have to. I know.”

“I don’t think you do. I have a feeling that—”

“We got nothin’ to worry about,” Henry said sleepily. “Even ghost horses don’t bother me none. My big
brother used to put me asleep tellin’ me the story of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Imagine ridin’ pell-mell up an’ down the Hudson River on that ol’ bag of bones. He wouldn’t have lasted a quarter of a mile on a dry track, that one. What a phony!”

With the window shut the only sound in the room was the roar of the flames sweeping up the chimney. Alec said, “I keep thinking about old Nazar, sitting in front of the barn and waiting through the years for Ziyadah’s return.”

“He’s old. They were humoring him.”

“I know, but it took a lot of love to wait that long.”

“Maybe they should’ve had him wait a little longer since Abd-al-Rahman’s so sure he’s goin’ to catch Ziyadah.”

Slowly Alec moved across the room. “Good night, Henry.”

“Pleasant dreams,” Henry said, stifling a yawn.

Alec undressed where he could look out the open window. Some of the mares had been left out and were grazing. The only sounds came from the Arabs sitting around their open fire. As in the desert they would talk until midnight before pulling their sheep-lined outer coverings about them and going to sleep. They were used to solitude, to extreme heat and cold. It was their ancestors who had first mastered the horse and yet had not looked down upon the animal because of it. Instead, they had been indebted to him for
his
friendship, knowing that the horse had reached his physical prime some twenty million years before their race had learned to stand on its feet.

Alec went to bed and closed his eyes to the distant
chattering of the Arabs. The moonlight reached out and covered him. From sheer physical exhaustion he fell asleep.

He did not fall immediately into a heavy sleep as would have been expected from one so young and tired. Instead he dozed in fits and spurts, half awake and half asleep, listening for the Arabs and not hearing them. Then it was past midnight and they had gone to sleep. The moonlight moved from his bed, leaving him in deep shadows. He dozed for longer intervals only to wake and listen. For what? A ghost horse?

Listen to the dismal neighing from downwind!
It was only the roar from the chimney draft.
Hear the pawing of a horseshoe on stone!
It was the scraping of his bedstead against the stone wall.
Listen to the rush of wings outside his window!
It was the whir of carriage wheels on gravel.

Then came deep silence and he fell heavily asleep. Toward morning he heard the thunder of hoofs. He turned over, refusing to believe them or to be awakened. They seemed to be racing round and round, coming closer and closer, louder and louder. Then his very being was pierced by the Black’s shrill scream, followed by the blast of another stallion! Yet when he jumped out of bed there was nothing to be heard but the far-off sound of running hoofs and the high, wavering whinnies of the mares.

It was the hour before dawn and the waning moon was partly obscured by a thin veil of mist. Alec stood at the window with not a muscle moving. As if in a hypnotic spell his eyes were fixed on a shimmering stream of sparks moving beyond the end wall. Yet only a few moments ago Ziyadah must have been within the
fenced fields! Alec had only to listen to the stabled Black and the excited mares to be certain of this.

He felt a nameless terror grow within him, as on the previous night when he had first seen this fiery spectacle. He watched the trail of sparks rise into the jagged mountain vastnesses where there was nothing but sheer rock. He leaned out the window, wanting to breathe the cold air and rid himself of his terror.

“It is Ziyadah, a stallion of flesh and blood,” he said aloud. “Moonlight and shadows are playing tricks with my eyes. He’s finding cracks and crevices and roots for a foothold. Listen to the Black screaming in his stall! He knows, too, that it’s no ghost horse. He wants to fight.”

The sparks became a single red glow which floated rather than moved, descending into the depths either of the night or some abyss then suddenly emerging into flight again. Perspiration broke out over Alec. Where was everybody? Where were the lanterns of the Arab guards? Where was Henry? He waited until the glowing light faded on a distant peak, then he went to a chair and sat down. He must not think of ghost horses and magic and wizards. He must …

There was a pounding upon his door. “Alec! Alec!” The voice was Abd-al-Rahman’s.

“I’m coming.” Alec’s steps were slow, his feet leaden. Abd-al-Rahman was already dressed.

“Come along!” the Sheikh said, his dark eyes bright. “We can still pick up his tracks. Hurry!”

“But Henry …”

“He’s sleeping. Let him be. We ride alone!”

Alec pulled on his clothes quickly. The Sheikh was right. Why drag poor Henry out at this hour?