The Island Stallion (13 page)

Steve saw Flame and the crane at the same time, and tried to avoid them both by flinging himself to the sandy floor. Then came a wild, horrible scream from the stallion as his hind legs caught in the rim of the short, steep embankment descending to the pit.
Thrown off balance by the abrupt grade, Flame pummeled the earth with his forelegs in an attempt to regain his balance. But his hind weight carried him over the rim, and before Steve’s frantic eyes the red stallion slid into the pool of sucking death!

For a few minutes all fear left the red stallion and fighting fury took its place. His hindquarters were in the pit, but he still held on to the rim with his pounding forelegs. He was fighting the battle of his life
for
his life, and his body swelled with untamed fierceness.

But the pit was an enemy far more formidable than the burly Piebald, more deadly than any living creature. And as the red stallion beat the earth with his forelegs, the pit slowly, steadily pulled his hindquarters deeper and deeper into its soft, yielding bosom.

Steve had remained by the crane but had risen to his knees. His body was limp, his senses numb, and only his eyes seemed at all alive as he watched the scene before him. Flame’s fight for his life was unreal and the fury of it didn’t wholly penetrate the boy’s dazed mind for a few seconds. But when it did, and he became aware of the sinking hindquarters, the terrible, pounding forelegs of the stallion, fear passed from him to be replaced by a frenzy such as he’d never felt before.

Steve moved quickly, wildly about the pit, not knowing what to do for the horse and wasting valuable time. Then he slipped on the steep grade descending to the rim of the pit, and brought himself to a stop by falling to the ground and digging his heels and hands into the loose dirt. His own narrow escape from the pit drove the frenzy out of his mind and he was able to think clearly.

Sitting on the ground, his heels still braced in the dirt, he looked at the raging horse. If only Flame would stop fighting so hard! If only he would keep his body still and his forelegs rigid on the rim, he wouldn’t sink so fast!

Steve was filled with anxiety for the stallion; he had an overpowering desire to help. But what could he do? Where would he start? There was that chain hanging over the pit. A moment later Steve moved toward the crane’s supporting pole with a swiftness that only comes in moments of great stress, when actions are never remembered in detail.

Reaching the pole with long, quick strides, he bent down, picking up the rope that he had dropped during his fall. Then he returned to the pit, moving closer to the stallion than he’d been before.

The horse’s forefeet had stopped thrashing and now moved only when his hoofs slipped on the loose dirt of the pit’s rim. His arrogant head, with teeth bared, was turned toward the boy, but Steve was unmindful of it. His attention was fixed on Flame’s hindquarters. Momentarily the stallion had stopped sinking. If he continued to remain still there might be time to save him.

The boy studied the chain dangling a few feet
above and a little to the rear of the stallion. He had to get his rope through the iron band at the end. For a matter of seconds there was indecision in Steve’s eyes; then quickly he made his way to the supporting pole, stopping for a second to gaze at the metal wheel around which the chain was wound. Steve’s hand went toward the handle of the wheel but he did not touch it. There would be time for that later, he told himself. He heard Flame resume pounding his hoofs and knew he had to work even faster. The coil of rope went about his neck and his arms reached high up the supporting pole and around it. Then he jumped, clearing the wheel, and his legs encircled the pole. His arms reached higher on the pole, and his shoulder muscles bulged through his thin shirt as he pulled himself up, his legs wrapped securely about the pole.

Upon reaching the top, Steve looked across at the wooden arm extending over the pit. He pressed his hand down on it, and found it solid and steady. Gradually he placed all his weight upon it until he was convinced that the aged wood was as strong as it had ever been.

He moved across the arm, straddling it with his legs locked together beneath him and with his hands moving along in front. Only once did he look down at the stallion and pit fifteen feet below; he saw that Flame’s haunches had sunk deeper into the quicksand with the stallion’s renewed, futile efforts to escape. Steve’s movements became faster until he was within reaching distance of the hanging chain.

Drawing the heavy chain to him until he had hold of the iron band at its end, he removed the rope about
his neck and doubled it, drawing the two ends through the band and tying them securely to it. He now had a long noose hanging from the end of the chain. Slowly he lowered the chain, then flung the rope down to the rim of the pit. That done, he made his was back quickly along the arm and shinnied down the pole.

Upon reaching the ground, he ran to where he’d thrown his rope. He picked it up and went toward the stallion, his strides slower now and more cautious. Taking hold of the doubled rope, he separated the two parts, forming a noose. Then he turned to the stallion, knowing that the most difficult job of all was ahead. For now he had to get the noose about Flame’s girth!

Carrying the rope, Steve approached the red stallion. For the first time he was able to get a good look at the raw red mouth now speckled with white foam, the matted blood upon the long mane. The stallion shifted his eyes toward him, and there was a brightness, a savageness to them that sent cold tremors through the boy’s body.

The red stallion’s forefeet slipped closer to the edge of the pit and his furious pounding began again. But powerful though his legs were, they could not free him from the deadly quicksand that had pulled its prey down as far as the flanks.

Steve twisted the doubled rope nervously, parted the two pieces again, then pulled the rope as taut as he could, swinging the chain far over the plunging stallion. Now for the hardest part of the job!

He took a step toward the stallion, knowing he would have no more than a foot of clearance between himself and Flame’s head when he tried to get the lower
part of the noose under the horse. And as Steve neared the stallion, the noose stretched wide, he began talking to Flame in a soft voice, not betraying his fear.

“You’re my horse, Flame. I’ll help you, if you let me,” he said, knowing it would be the sound of his voice and not his words that might convince Flame he was there to help him. “You need me now.… ”

Steve was getting very close to the red stallion, whose teeth were still bared and who was still snorting with rage and pain. For only a second did the boy stop talking, but there was no hesitancy in his slow-moving footsteps. He knew he couldn’t come to a halt now because if he did the red stallion would know of his fear and it would be the end. He must continue walking forward, as though he belonged with the stallion. It was that or forever lose his horse.

“Keep walking. Keep talking,” he told himself aloud. “It doesn’t matter what I say, it’s only the sound of my voice that matters to him. But don’t stop. Keep talking and keep going toward him. Isn’t that right, Flame? You know me. You know my voice. You’ve heard it before. I’ve heard yours before too. Your scream rises to such a high pitch that it sounds like a whistle that no other whistle can match. But you’re in a mess now. That’s what I meant when I said I wanted to help you. You’re in a spot where you can’t get out by yourself. You need help, Flame. You need me. Just …”

Steve was close enough now to the stallion to have the white foam splatter upon him. Close enough to begin feeling the stallion’s hot breath upon his outstretched hands as they held the rope.

The red stallion flung his hoofs at Steve but
stopped when he found himself slipping farther back toward the pit. His forelegs became still and rigid again, but his glaring eyes never left the boy.

Steve went on talking, but now he shifted his gaze to the lower part of the noose that hung to one side of Flame. Raising his left hand, he held the upper part of the noose above the stallion’s head. It was time to pass in front of the horse now. The stretch of rope gave him less than a foot of leeway. His body and raised hand would be clear of the raking teeth, but his other hand, carrying the lower part of the noose would be within striking range of the stallion’s hoofs.

There was a wavering to Steve’s low voice as he moved in front of the stallion, but recognizing it as fear, he drove it from him and his voice became steady again. “You’ve got to help me now, Flame. The rope’s got to go under your forelegs. It means you’ll have to raise them again. Just once more, then you can keep them still again.”

Haunches deep in the wet sand that held him fast, the red stallion swelled to greater fury at the nearness of this foe, who had tracked him down. He sensed the sucking death behind him, yet his forelegs still trod upon solid ground and his untamed heart would not admit defeat. But now this new enemy approached him, when he was unable to fight back! He bared his teeth, waiting. And all the time he heard the soft sounds this foe uttered as he approached him. He had never heard such sounds before, nor seen a foe who walked on hind legs only. His eyes met the newcomer’s. Shaking his head, the stallion snorted repeatedly in rage and fear. Now his foe was directly in front of him. He saw the
long, thin object close to his forefeet. It looked and moved like a snake. Furiously he struck at the thing and it passed quickly under his legs. Another frantic plunge at it, and it swept clear of him and entwined itself about his belly! The two-legged foe had moved away, too far for him to reach with teeth or hoofs. He screamed and pounded upon the ground in front of him, and then he felt the weight of the wet sand pulling more heavily on his hindquarters.

Carrying the lower part of the noose, Steve hurried around the rim of the pit, his heart beating wildly. He had the noose about Flame! He pulled it as far back to the sinking hindquarters as possible, then dropped it and ran over to the crane. Reaching the wheel, he took hold of the handle and breathed a short prayer before turning it. The handle moved, turning the wheel and winding the chain about it.

The chamber resounded to the long-unheard noise of the iron chain passing through the crane’s tackle and moving down the supporting pole to the wheel. Anxiously Steve watched the end of the chain ascend until the rope became taut about the stallion’s body. He knew the chain would not slip back, for the wheel was fitted with teeth into which a metal hook from the handle slipped as he turned, thus locking it and preventing the wheel from turning in reverse unless the metal hook was released.

Now that the slack had been taken up, it was harder to turn the wheel. Steve bore down on it with all his strength, knowing that with each click of the wheel’s teeth Flame’s hindquarters were being lifted from the quicksand. He stopped to rest only when he saw that
Flame’s flanks were clear. And then he realized that he would need Pitch’s help to raise Flame all the way out of the quicksand and swing him clear of the pit. After making certain the wheel was locked, Steve went over to the red stallion.

“You’re safe now, Flame,” he said. “You won’t sink any deeper. And I’ll be back soon. Then you’ll be free again to go back to your band.”

With one last look at his horse, Steve left the chamber at a half-run. And as he made his way back through the outer cavern and up the tunnel leading to the chasm, he was unmindful of the tiredness in his legs and the long trek back to camp.

Steve slowed down a little as he went through the chasm and then the smaller valley where he had first seen Flame that morning, hurrying again when he made his way to the gorge that would take him to Blue Valley and Pitch.

After leaving the cavern and Flame, Steve had moved as one in a stupor, his eyes unseeing and glazed, his senses numbed; yet even so his feet had held to the trail as though they had always known it. The lack of expression on his face and the limpness of his muscles were those of a person who had passed through a great crisis without realizing exactly what the crisis or the outcome had been.

But slowly, as he went along, the knowledge penetrated his dazed mind that somehow he had saved Flame from certain death. He knew that he had placed a noose about Flame’s girth—a noose he had made with his rope. He knew that the noose was attached to the end of the chain that hung from the crane over the pit.
He remembered that he was going back to camp to get Pitch’s help in swinging Flame clear of the pit. But other than that he remembered little. The details of what he had done from the time of his fall in the cavern until he had stood before Flame, knowing that the stallion was safe from the danger of sinking deeper into the quicksand, weren’t clear in his mind.

He glanced up at the sun as he entered the gorge. From its height he decided that it was early afternoon. But was it the same day? Had it been only this morning that he had set out looking for Flame? Surely it was much longer ago than that!

Steve followed the twisting, turning dry stream bed and passed the yellow overhanging cliffs. Gradually his eyes began to lose their glazed look.

“Yes,” he finally admitted aloud, “it has to be the same day. Just as it was only two days ago that I first set foot on Azul Island.”

Only two days ago—then this was his third day here. It was incomprehensible to Steve. Surely hours and days were no way of measuring time! Time should be reckoned by events that happen to a person, and not by the lapse of hours! It seemed months ago—almost years—since he and Pitch had headed for the sandy spit of land that was known as the only habitable part of Azul Island.

When Steve came to the marsh, he saw that the vapors were rising only from the low end of the hollow, near the cane. He made his way down the long stretches of soft green ground which still bore Flame’s hoofprints. Now for the top of the rise leading from the hollow. From there he would be able to see the floor of
the valley—and he would be looking for the Piebald. It would be the black-and-white-streaked stallion who would dictate the direction he would take in his journey back to camp.