The Black Stallion Mystery (4 page)

They passed mud-colored villages with great, vast churches dominating the scene. Over long distances stretched the road and finally they turned off into a lane that led to a wide river. A glorious summer coolness filled the air. The area was thick with trees and irrigation ditches ran from the deep, dark river into the meadows.

González brought the car to a stop before a curved black iron gateway. A sign hung from it, reading:

“ ‘Where bulls are brave and horses swift …’ ” González translated. “Welcome, friends, to my home and yours.”

“Speaking of horses—” Henry began, only to be interrupted by their smiling host.

“First,” González said, “let us look at the bulls. See them over there, my friend. Seldom do they graze so close.”

The car was moving slowly, and behind a walled pasture on one side of the road the bulls grazed in ponderous silhouette against the late afternoon sky.

“Do not make the mistake of thinking they are like those you left behind in your country,” the man said quietly but with great seriousness. “They are
Los Toros Bravos
, The Brave Bulls, whose ancestors in ancient days ran wild. They are fast and bold and persistent in their attack on anything outside their own herd. A month-old calf, if separated, will attack a human being on sight. The instinct to run away, to escape, does not exist in our fighting bulls.”

Henry said, “It must not make for easy traveling around your ranch.”

“No, it is not easy. That’s why our horses must be swift.”

“Getting back to those horses …” Henry tried again.

But the man had turned away and once more was watching the bulls in the distance. “I realize that it is difficult for you to understand how we feel about our bulls,” he said. “We have bred for strength and courage and ferocity in our
toro bravo
as others have bred cattle for the maximum quantity of milk or beef or,” he turned to face Henry, “… as you have bred horses for speed and stamina.”

Now that González had turned in his seat Alec could see his profile again. He found it easier to listen to Angel Rafael González than to look at him. It wasn’t going to be easy to be courteous and polite, to look at their host without flinching before his unnatural ugliness.

“I’m very much interested in seeing your El Dorado,” Henry said.

Alec thought he caught a nervous twitching of the man’s cheeks. “Tomorrow will be time enough, Henry. He is in pasture.”

“We have a good hour before dark,” Henry suggested. “Wouldn’t it give us enough time?”

Again Alec thought he perceived the nervous tic just below the eye and directly above the deep running scar.

“It will take more than an hour to make you comfortable in my home,” González said graciously but with great finality. He glanced across the fields. “However, you can see him in his paddock from here. Look beyond where the bulls graze.”

Far in the distance and separated from the herd by another stone wall Alec could just make out the figure of a running horse and his band of mares and colts. He
watched the horse until the car started again and then he turned back to González. The man’s hat cord was drawn tight, cutting into the flesh of his heavy jowls.

Alec waited until an immense house rose into view behind a towering white wall before asking, “Did you breed and raise El Dorado?”

There was a moment’s hesitation and this time there was no doubt of the nervous tic high on González’ right cheek. The muscular contraction almost closed the man’s eye.

“No,” González said finally, “he was the gift of an old school friend who does not live in Spain.”

“Would you mind telling me the name of the country?” Alec asked cautiously, for it was apparent that his host was not pleased with his prying.

The golden sombrero dipped forward. “Arabia. El Dorado is desert bred.” The man’s words came sharply and it was plain this particular conversation had come to an end.

Alec didn’t care. He’d found out what he wanted to know. He tried to still his mounting excitement.
Was it possible that the sire of the Black was alive and that he had just seen him?

Don Angel Rafael González did not bring the car to a stop before the arched courtyard entrance of the big house. Instead he drove around it, going very slowly and carefully avoiding the crowd that suddenly emerged from nowhere.

Several old women carrying huge clay bowls of food moved among big-hatted men. From a building that must have been the kitchen came the smell of wood smoke and sizzling hot beef. The men doffed their straw hats to González and shouted at the children and barking dogs to clear the way for the moving car.

González said, “First we shall see your horse rubbed down and fed and bedded safe in a stall with clean straw.”

“Do you have any enclosure in which we could turn him loose for a few minutes?” Alec asked. “I like to turn him out while he’s still tired from traveling. That way he gets used to his new surroundings without being too playful.”

González nodded. “I have one such ring big enough for him to run in without getting hurt.”

They drove past the stables, leaving behind the smell of wood smoke. In its place the balmy air became heavy with the sour fermented odor of silage and grain. They passed the small, dark huts of the ranch hands and then before them rose a high whitewashed wall. A ranch hand rode by, hurrying to his supper and singing while his heels hit his horse’s flanks in a soft rhythm. His eyes moved over Alec and Henry in a bold stare but suddenly his tobacco-stained teeth showed in a broad grin of welcome.

As González drove through a gate in the high stone wall the grunt of a bull could be heard. The Black echoed the grunt with a shrill snort.

González said, “There is no reason for concern. The bulls here are penned.” The car was moving slowly through a tunnel in the wall.

“Where are we?” Henry asked.

“In my big bull corral,” their host explained. “It is here that I train my horses and prepare my bulls for shipment.” He continued on through the tunnel and they emerged into a large open ring encircled by four or five ascending rows of concrete seats. He turned the car in the center of the sand ring and then drove back into the tunnel, stopping when the rear door of the trailer was just within the ring.

“There,” he said, “now you can turn him loose.”

“But how about the bulls?” Alec asked with concern. He could hear their grunts, louder now than before.

“They are in the back pens and feeding,” González replied. “I shall show them to you if you like.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Alec said. “There’s no danger of their getting into the ring?”

The big man smiled. “Of course not, Alec, or I wouldn’t have brought you here. Come, let us turn your horse loose.”

The Black backed out from the trailer into the long slanting afternoon light. He snorted again, his nostrils widening as he smelled the bulls.

Henry said, “Maybe we should spread out so we can wave him down if he works up too much speed.”

Alec shook his head. “Let’s leave him alone. The smell of the bulls will keep his speed down.” He spoke to the stallion and unsnapped the lead shank.

At once the Black moved across the sand, slowly and cautiously. He was alert to every sound the bulls made. He went over to the high wall of the ring and encircled it until he’d reached the trailer again. He flicked a glance at Alec but that was all. His eyes followed the wall and he went on again until he came to the wide red door on the opposite side of the ring. There he stopped and snorted. From within came the loud bellows of the penned bulls.

“He is all horse,” González said, “or he would not be so interested in my bulls!” The man turned to Alec. “You see, I value courage more highly than speed.”

Alec said nothing. He wanted to turn away but couldn’t. He was held by the man’s piercing black eyes.

“Did you know that the Arabian horse is the only breed with the courage to face a lion?” González asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Or to face a fighting bull, an opponent every bit as fierce as a lion?”

Alec shook his head, and González went on. “History reports many incidents of wild bulls killing lions and tigers in combat. And seven hundred years before the birth of Christ men were riding the Arabian horse in the hunt of the wild bull for food.”

Henry broke the spell González had cast over Alec by saying, “You sound like you’re sorry you were born too late for it.”

“In a way I am,” the big man answered quietly. “That’s why I have mastered the lost art of the mounted hunter. In this ring my horse and I face the fighting bull.”

“That’s not sport, that’s suicide,” Henry said.

“Oh, no, Henry,” González answered, his eyes more alive than ever. “It’s art when done properly. Actually, too, it’s practiced every day in a more simple form by my mounted herders. They must use their lances in moving the bulls and cows from one pasture to another. It’s very often necessary to bowl over bulls to protect horse and rider.”

Alec said, “Except that in this ring you meet the fighting bull separated from his herd.”

“Yes, then he is at his fiercest and bravest.” González smiled. “It is here that I, too, must have great courage.”

“And your horse?” Henry asked. “How does he feel about it?”

“No differently. He must have courage as well. He has been bred and trained for this. He has no fear of the bull unless I should become afraid and then he would sense it quickly. But if that were the case I should not be in here at all.”

“Do you have time to change your mind?” Henry asked.

González laughed wildly. “It’s plain to see, Henry, that you don’t think much of my modern version of wild bull hunting. As a trainer you should, for it is my horse who has the greatest skill of all. Seldom do I need to use the lance to keep the bull from him. He is as swift as a racer, as powerful as a Percheron, as nimble as a polo pony. You must see him at work to appreciate him!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Henry said.

“I’d prefer showing him to you,” the big man said evenly. “You have come many miles to see him and it is only right that—”

“You mean it’s
El Dorado
?”

“Of course. And tomorrow morning I shall ride him into this ring. You will be most pleased with his work.”

That night Alec and Henry went to bed in a room so vast that it was the equal of two large-size living rooms back home. Long hand-hewn beams ran from one end of the ceiling to the other and many brightly colored rugs were scattered across the wide floor boards. On the bright green walls were lavishly framed portraits of horses and bulls. Over Alec’s bed hung a stuffed bull’s head, the polished horns reaching out like two huge grasping arms.

“How’d you like to be in the same ring with him?” Henry threw the question at Alec from across the room.

“I feel that I am,” the boy answered uncomfortably, his gaze on the sharply tapered horns which were
spread out over his head. To get away from them he turned on his side and looked over at Henry, sprawled out luxuriously on his oversized bed. Henry had closed his eyes. No wonder, Alec thought. A meal such as they’d had would have made anyone sleepy—roast beef and fried shrimp, bacon, omelets and chicken, salad, and caramel custard and fruit. He hadn’t eaten as much as Henry.

Alec’s gaze traveled on to the embroidered draperies and the richly carved chairs with gilded heads of bulls on the arms and backs. It must cost Angel Rafael González a great deal of money to live—and yet from what he’d told them today he was at his happiest defying death. What other reason would he have to pit his skill and horsemanship against a fighting bull?

Restlessly Alec left his bed and went to one of the open windows. The night was hot and full of spiced scents but he was aware only of the smell of sour silage from the bull pens and of deep grumblings from the bulls. Had he and Henry found the sire of the Black only to lose him to a bull in the morning?

Without turning from the window Alec said, “Henry, we’ll know the moment we see this stallion if he’s the sire of the Black or not. Now if he is …” But Henry was already in a deep sleep and beginning to snore.

Alec switched out the light but stayed at the window. It wasn’t late and he wasn’t ready for bed. He wanted to know if El Dorado was the Black’s sire
before
tomorrow morning.

Alec dressed quickly without waking Henry. He left the room and went down the wide marble stairs to
the patio, where a fountain was splaying water into a pool below. The splashing covered the sound of his feet running across the flagstone floor. He slowed down as he approached the grilled iron gate, and opened and closed it carefully. Now he was free of the house and courtyard. It was pitch-black but soon the moon would be up to help guide him on his way.

He followed the drive until he could make out the main wall in the darkness beyond. As he came closer he wondered if he’d find the entrance gate locked. It wasn’t. It swung open easily beneath his touch.

After walking a short distance down the road he came to the pasture fence. He had no trouble climbing it for the stones jutted out, giving him a firm foothold. At the top he hesitated a moment, then dropped down. He was in the pasture where he had seen the big bulls that afternoon.

He was proceeding cautiously when he stopped again, this time turning to look behind him
and listen
. He thought he’d heard the scuff of leather against stone, the same sound he himself had made while climbing the wall. But to his straining ears everything was absolutely quiet and he went on, believing his imagination to be playing tricks with him.

He turned to the east, waiting for the moon to rise and show him his way. A breeze sprang up, rippling the grass at his feet. From the far end of the pasture came the blowing of a bull; another bull answered.

Alec went on, satisfied that the herd was far away. He had nothing to fear from the bulls, and soon he’d find El Dorado behind his walled paddock.

He walked faster, at times breaking into a half run,
for he was very anxious to reach the stallion and return to the house. Yet he wasn’t taking any chances of being surprised by a lone bull. Such a possibility was very remote, he knew. The herd instinct, as González had mentioned at dinner, was very strong. Only a rogue or an outcast would be grazing alone. Alec’s sixth sense, an awareness of the presence of animals even when he could not see them, told him there were not any near by. He listened to the sounds of the bulls in the distance and hurried on.