The Black Stallion Mystery (20 page)

“No,” Alec repeated. But he said it with compassion, remembering again the girl of the desert he had known so well. He remembered her laughter as she had ridden beside him, trying to send her Jôhar past the Black. He remembered many other things. Then why couldn’t he understand the shock her father’s death had been to her? No—not when it drove her to take such brutal revenge upon a horse. But then, he reminded himself, he was not of Arab blood. There were many laws of the desert people which he would never understand.

“Tell your husband the truth,” he said finally. “If anyone forgives you it should be he. I never will.”

“Forgive me!”
she exclaimed, suddenly vindictive again. “For what? For revenging the death of my father? You are a fool! I want no one’s forgiveness, not even my husband’s!”

Alec wasn’t looking at her or listening to her.

Down the canyon he could see a dusky silhouette against the morning’s grayness.

His horse was alive!

“There will be more than that for your husband to forgive,” Alec told Tabari.

She was staring at him. “More?” she asked. “How could there be more?” Her puzzled eyes searched his. Finally she found her answer. “
Ziyadah dead?
You’re being ridiculous, Alec Ramsay.” She laughed but stopped abruptly and her eyes, following his, became
wild and desperate like an animal’s at bay. A scream burst from her and she ran forward.

Alec sought to catch her arm but she wrenched herself free. He felt only deep grief for her as, with tears in his eyes, he followed her into a blurred world which held only his horse. The Black was motionless and without sound. Ziyadah lay on the ground a few feet away. The Black had not shrilled his clarion call of victory because he had not killed the other stallion. There were no marks of his hoofs or teeth on Ziyadah. There was only a bullet hole, high on the golden neck.

Great sobs racked the girl’s body as she stooped to kneel beside her horse. And only then did Alec realize how much she had loved Ziyadah. For the first time in a long while he understood her, for he would have reacted in the same way if it had been the Black who was down. Her own vindictiveness, her own gun had killed her horse and no one could change things now. Ziyadah was dead.

When Alec put his hand on her arm she made no attempt to break free. For a long while she gave vent to dreadful, heartrending sobs. Finally they died away and nothing but the shell was left of the spiteful woman who had plotted the Black’s death with such cold calculation. Now she was like a very small girl, afraid to run away, afraid to go home. She flung herself upon the ground.

The Black came to them and Alec put a hand on his wet neck. “I guess we’re going to keep a lot to ourselves,” he told his horse. “We’re going to forget there ever was a Ziyadah and that we caught up with him too
late. We’re going to let Tabari tell her husband as much or as little as she pleases. It’s enough that we’re going home
together.
”

He lifted the girl to her feet. “Come on,” he said, “please.”

She nodded listlessly, her eyes swollen from weeping. “But I don’t like to leave him alone,” she said.

“You can come back,” he answered, “with your husband. You’ll need his help.”

“Yes, I will. I want Ziyadah buried beside the statue at the head of the road. You know the one, Alec …”

“I know,” he said, steadying her.

“My father would have wanted it that way.”

“I guess so. Now we’d better go.”

He felt the pressure of her hand as she answered, “Yes, we should. It’s a long way back.” There was no way of knowing whether she was conscious of the double meaning in her words.

“A long way,” Alec repeated, taking her from the deep shadows of the mountain into the burnished silver light of early morning.

María carefully lowered her big frame into her plane seat and had trouble getting the safety belt around her. Finally accomplishing it, she looked across at Alec and said, “Now he has a bad cold. He is like a baby always.”

Alec glanced at the closed cabin door. Angel González and his copilot had two engines turning over. A third coughed and took hold. One more to go.

Henry had his seat belt fastened. He was looking out the window at Abd-al-Rahman and Tabari, who were standing beside their carriage. The Sheikh was waving but Henry didn’t wave back.

“I guess you don’t need to tell me more if you don’t want to,” he said to Alec. “But what does she do now?”

“She’ll tell him after we’re gone,” Alec answered.

“How do you know?”

“I know
her
.”

“I thought you said you had trouble reading her mind.”

“That was before she lost Ziyadah.”

“That makes everything all right?”

“No, just easier for me to understand how she feels.”

“Maybe if I’d seen him …”

“It’s better that you didn’t,” Alec said. “Now you have nothing to remember.”

“As you do?”

Alec nodded. “As she does too,” he said quietly.

The fourth engine caught and Alec glanced nervously at the Black in his boxed stall. The stallion was alert to the loud noise but didn’t seem to be unduly disturbed by it.

Henry said, “Abu Ishak was a
noble
desert chieftain and she was his daughter. I don’t get it.”

“He was also a good hater.”

“What makes you say that?” Henry asked.

Alec smiled at María, who had unsnapped her seat belt momentarily to take a deep breath. “He had a lot of blood feuds that lasted for years.”

“That’s not unusual in the desert.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Alec said.

The plane’s wheels began to turn. Through the windows they could see Abd-al-Rahman with his arm around Tabari. No one could have met them without liking them. As hosts they were warm-hearted, cordial and hospitable, characteristics for which their race had always been known.

“What have blood feuds to do with it?” Henry asked.

“Only that the thirst for revenge comes easily to a race whose people have waged a perpetual war against each other for thousands of years.”

“I suppose so,” Henry agreed. “And besides, family feeling is very strong.”

“Doesn’t that make it easier to understand why she sought the Black’s death in return for her father’s life?” Alec asked.

“No,” Henry said, “but it helps a little. Do you think she has any regrets for what she did?” The plane was picking up speed but they could still see the two young Arabs standing beside the carriage.

“Yes, I’m sure of it,” Alec answered. “Taking Ziyadah’s life with her own hand destroyed all her passion for revenge. If you’d seen her when she found him you’d know what I mean. She’ll never be the same again.”

“And she still has to tell her husband what happened,” Henry said, grunting. “I’d like to be around.”

“I wouldn’t. He’s touchy and he’s lost Ziyadah.”

“He’s also in love,” Henry added wisely.

They didn’t speak again until they were airborne.

“Where are we going, Henry … home?”

“A race track would be nice and clean and simple after this. Got any suggestions?” The trainer picked up a Spanish newspaper from the seat beside him and tried to read it.

“No,” Alec answered, “not now.”

The big plane banked above the first peaks and slid back along the hanging plateau. For the next few minutes Alec looked down upon the massive house he had recently left and the patchwork of green fields and stone walls.

Then he heard Henry speak. “Here’s a fine looking race horse. What’d he do, anyway?” The trainer meant
his question for María, and he handed the newspaper to her.

Alec watched her take the paper in her big, fumbling hands. Her concern was for the health of Angel Rafael González and she glanced only casually at the picture and caption.

“Señor, he is not one of ours. He has won a big race in Cuba.”

“Is that right now? What’s his name an’ who owns him?”

She turned to the picture caption again, her small head cocked to one side as she read. “I believe … sí, it is
Flame
. There is no one owning him.”

“No one owns him?”

“No one. It is the truth. It says so in the paper.”

“Who picked up the purse money then?”

“
No one
, I repeat, Señor!” she answered in a fit of anger. “
Es verdad!
Read it for yourself if you do not believe me,” handing the newspaper back to Henry.

Henry said soothingly, “Now, María, I didn’t mean to get you all upset.”

She was watching the closed cabin door and wasn’t listening to him. “Always the baby,” she murmured. “He gives me no peace.”

“But, please, María,” Henry said insistently, going to her. “Who’s the jock?”

“Jock?” she asked. “Jock? Who’s a jock?” Her bright gaze shifted to Alec.
“Es loco!”
she called to him in a high-pitched voice, placing a finger on her temple.

Henry said patiently, “The rider, I mean. See, here he is, María, right up on the horse. They’ve got to give him a name.”

She snatched the paper from his hands, reading the caption again. “No name,” she said finally. “No one knows nothing,
nada!
” She flung her arms high in the air and the paper went flying. “They all went
pooph
after the race, even the horse! No one knows where they went. You understand, Señor,
entiende
? No one knows!”

“Go on,” Henry said unbelievingly, “you’re kidden’.”

María turned again to Alec, her finger beating a steady rhythm against her right temple.

Alec picked up the newspaper from where it had landed at his feet. The plane dropped into an air pocket, then steadied.

Henry said, “Thanks, María. I guess I don’t want to hear any more of it, anyway. We’ve had our share of mysteries, heh, Alec?” he asked, turning to the boy.

Alec nodded without taking his eyes from the paper. The Black appeared to be looking at the same picture for suddenly his nostrils flared and he snorted at the picture of the giant red horse named
Flame
.

Walter Farley’s love for horses began when he was a small boy living in Syracuse, New York, and continued as he grew up in New York City, where his family moved. Unlike most city children, he was able to fulfill this love through an uncle who was a professional horseman. Young Walter spent much of his time with this uncle, learning about the different kinds of horse training and the people associated with them.

Walter Farley began to write his first book,
The Black Stallion
, while he was a student at Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. He eventually finished it, and it was published in 1941 while he was still an undergraduate at Columbia University.

The appearance of
The Black Stallion
brought such an enthusiastic response from young readers that Mr. Farley went on to create more stories about the Black, and about other horses as well. In his life he wrote a total of thirty-four books, including
Man o’ War
, the
story of America’s greatest thoroughbred, and two photographic storybooks based on the two Black Stallion movies. His books have been enormously popular in the United States and have been published in twenty-one foreign countries.

Mr. Farley and his wife, Rosemary, had four children, whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and at a beach house in Florida. Horses, dogs and cats were always a part of the household.

In 1989 Mr. Farley was honored by his hometown library in Venice, Florida, which established the Walter Farley Literary Landmark in its children’s wing. Mr. Farley died in October 1989, shortly before the publication of
The Young Black Stallion
, the twenty-first book in the Black Stallion series. Mr. Farley co-authored
The Young Black Stallion
with his son, Steven.

Alec Ramsay opened his eyes and stared into the darkness of his bedroom. He could not sleep. The darkness was familiar enough, but not the complete silence that lay over everything.

Long moments passed and he could
hear
the stillness. It was more than the hush, the quiet of late night. It was more than the complete absence of sound. It was a vibrant, living silence and he listened to it as one would to the soft rustle of leaves in the stir of air. He listened to it while his eyes opened again, searching the darkness—for
what?

Suddenly he swung out of bed and went to the open east window. If he couldn’t sleep, the thing to do was to get up and find out what was the matter. He put his head out the window, listening to the stillness. If he wasn’t mistaken, it meant trouble. Something was going to break fast. It was the quiet before the storm, the quiet that preceded an onslaught of terrible force. Where would it come from? What would it be?