The Island Stallion (15 page)

Pitch waited until Steve had finished eating before he said, “Steve, if we do succeed in getting him out of the pit, you’ve got to promise me that you’ll have nothing more to do with him. By that I mean I want you to forget about helping him, forget about that red stallion.”

“You mean—” Steve began.

“Exactly that, Steve,” Pitch interrupted, and his voice was harsh. “You will have nothing more to do
with him. It has to be that way. I know he’s everything you ever hoped to see in a horse—and I know now, if I never quite knew before, how much you love horses. But Steve, he’s as vicious and wild as—why, that Piebald! There’s no difference in their natures. They’re both from the same mold. They were born wild, Steve, and meant to stay wild. You’ve got to realize that before you’re killed.”

“But, Pitch, Flame is different. He’s not at all like the Piebald. He
knows
me now, Pitch. He knows that I don’t mean any harm to him, that I’m only trying to help him.”

“You’ve got to stay away from him, Steve,” Pitch said with finality. “Whether he goes back to his band or not will be no concern of yours or mine. If we get him out of this, you’ll have to let him go where he pleases without having anything more to do with it. Only on that understanding will I go along with you.” Pitch paused before adding, “We’ll have enough to do trying to find our way out of here. I have some torches that’ll help us in getting around the tunnels.” Then, changing the subject abruptly, “Picked up another spur and a pistol today,” and he tapped his pockets.

But Steve wasn’t listening. After several minutes he said quietly, “Do you mean what you said, Pitch? That if we get him out,
I have to let him go where he pleases?
”

“Exactly,” Pitch replied. “Without chasing him any more. Without trying to help that wild stallion, who doesn’t want any help.”

“Okay, Pitch,” Steve said thoughtfully. “I agree. I’ll let him go where he pleases.” But there was a brightness in his eyes that Pitch didn’t understand.

“You take a rest now, while I clean the pots,” Pitch said. “You need a rest.”

Steve stretched out upon the ground, his head on his pack. “We’d better take our packs,” he said, closing his eyes, “just in case we have to spend the night there.”

“Sure,” Pitch replied.

“And Pitch, wait’ll you see him close! You’ll forget all those things in your pockets. You’ve never in your life …” Steve’s voice dropped to a mumble, then died altogether as he dozed off.

Pitch’s gaze left Steve for the pot he held in his hand. “I can hardly wait,” he muttered. “Hardly.”

The western walls of the valley were casting lengthening shadows over the cane as Steve and Pitch, crouched low, cautiously moved along beside it.

“You shouldn’t have let me fall asleep,” Steve said.

“You needed it,” Pitch replied bluntly. “And we have hours of daylight ahead of us.” He pulled his pack higher on his back, but his eyes never left the bent-over figure ahead of him. After a while he asked with concern, “You don’t think that Piebald has moved, do you, Steve? Maybe we’d better look again.”

“We just got through looking,” Steve replied. “It’s better for us to keep going until we get downwind from him.”

“Maybe he’s coming across for water,” Pitch insisted gravely. “I don’t like this business, you know. That Piebald is capable of doing almost anything.”

“He can’t see us,” Steve said. “Just a few hundred yards more, Pitch—then we’ll look again. We should be well downwind from him by then.”

Pitch grunted in response, and Steve hurried forward faster than ever. His thoughts turned from the Piebald to Flame. He still had to figure out how to swing the stallion clear of the pit. He had thought of a few ways but had discarded them. Suddenly he said, “You’ve got your rope, haven’t you, Pitch?”

“Yeah,” Pitch replied shortly; then after a pause, “You’re sure we ought to go through with this, Steve? I don’t like being down here. What if the Piebald turns on us? Let him be their leader. Why risk our lives to save that red stallion? I really don’t see what difference it makes who leads this band. And I don’t understand what you mean when you say that it does.”

Steve didn’t answer and they walked on until the hollow was but a quarter of a mile below them.

“We’ll look for the Piebald now,” Steve said, “and then beat it for the marsh.” When he turned around, Pitch’s head was already above the cane.

“They’ve moved more to the center of the valley,” Pitch whispered excitedly, ducking his head again and turning to the boy. “And there’s a couple of them not more than a hundred yards away!”

Steve, raising his head slowly above the cane, saw that the Piebald and his band had moved a little closer to them, as Pitch had said. But the black-and-white stallion was still grazing and didn’t appear to be suspicious of anything. The two horses that had moved away from the band and were grazing nearby were a bay mare and her stilt-legged foal. Steve felt that the chances of the Piebald’s coming over were slim unless the mare squealed.

Steve knew that he should hide below the cane
again, but momentarily his eyes rested upon the foal, watching the young colt as he vigorously encircled his mother, seeking her long black tail and shaking mane for protection against the flies that bothered him. He couldn’t be more than a couple of weeks old, Steve figured. Noting the colt’s perfect wedge-shaped head, he thought of Flame. Surely this foal had been sired by the red stallion. There were many like him in the band.

“What are you doing?” Pitch asked nervously. “See anything? Let’s get going, if we’re going on!” His head too had risen above the cane beside Steve’s.

Together they watched the colt, who had stopped encircling the mare and now was stretching his head toward the grass. His legs were too long and his neck too short for him to reach it, so cautiously he bent his forelegs until he was kneeling. He pulled at the grass, not liking it at all; then he struggled to his long legs again and once more began encircling the mare.

Pitch and Steve were on their way again, and after several minutes Steve said thoughtfully, “That colt was
him
, Pitch. That’s exactly what I meant.”

“I don’t get you.”

“I mean that’s the sort of foal Flame sires. They’re beautiful—everything that he is.”

“Sure.”

“It would be very different if the Piebald had sired those foals.”

“Sure,” Pitch repeated.

“I mean it, Pitch.”

“I know you mean it.”

“Every bad trait in the Piebald would show up in
his foals,” Steve went on earnestly. “They’d be monstrosities—all of them.”

Pitch was silent awhile and then he said, “And if Flame does come back to his band, someday he’ll be dethroned and possibly killed by one of his own sons. Have you thought of that?”

“Yes,” Steve said slowly. “I’ve thought of that. There can only be one stallion in the band who’ll be the leader.”

“Some of those colts must be almost a year old now,” Pitch went on. “It won’t be long before things come to a head—less than a couple of years, perhaps.” Pitch paused, then added, “That ought to make you realize how little difference it actually makes who’s king of this band—Flame or the Piebald. Either one of them will eventually be killed by a younger and stronger stallion.”

There was a weary note in Steve’s voice as he said, “But it may be a very long time before one of these colts is able to defeat Flame or the Piebald. In that time the Piebald, if he remains the band’s leader, can sire many foals, and this breed will never be the same as it is now. Yes, Pitch, it does make a difference—a great deal of difference.”

They went on to the marsh in silence, and it was only when Steve set out over the green paths that Pitch spoke again. “You’re certain this ground will hold us?” he asked.

Steve pointed to Flame’s hoofprints in the soft earth, as though they were all the explanation necessary, and kept going. He was anxious to get back to the
cavern, for it was hours since he had left Flame and he was very conscious of the struggle his horse must be having. He had decided, too, how he and Pitch would attempt to swing Flame clear of the pit.

When they reached the dry stream bed, they followed it into the gorge. Pitch’s exclamations rose with the ascent, but ceased altogether when they reached the smaller valley. Steve too was moved again, even more deeply this time, by the solemn splendor of the hidden valley.

As they started across the valley floor there was no need for him to urge Pitch to greater speed.

Steve called a halt when they reached the spot where the stream had been diverted across the valley. “Let’s leave our packs here, Pitch,” he said. “There’s no need to carry them the rest of the way. And if we make camp tonight, don’t you think it should be here? Where we can get water, I mean.”

“Yes. Yes,” Pitch returned quickly, anxious to be on his way. He had his pack off before Steve and was already walking toward the chasm when Steve called to him.

“Your rope, Pitch. Where is it? We’ll need it.”

“It’s in my pack,” Pitch replied without stopping.

Steve got the rope and ran after Pitch, managing to catch up to him only when he had reached the entrance to the chasm.

Pitch took in the jagged walls rising above them. Then he turned to Steve, and his voice wavered as he said, “You realize what we’re doing, don’t you, Steve? We’re following the footsteps of the Conquistadores. This was their way to and from Blue Valley. And we’re
the first, the very first ones …” Without finishing the sentence Pitch walked forward again, and Steve followed.

The gusts of wind coming from the tunnel beyond began blowing in their faces as they made their way down the chasm; eventually they heard the sound of crashing waves on the outer walls.

There was no time for talk now, and they went forward eagerly, one thinking of his horse, the other of the Conquistadores’ exit to the sea.

When they reached the tunnel, Pitch, who still led, slowed his pace until the light became brighter as they went along, then he hurried on. But he came to an abrupt halt as the tunnel opened into the large cavern and before them, in the room’s dim light, was the canal leading to the sea.

Pitch stood there for a long while, and Steve was about to pass him when he moved quickly toward the canal. Steve followed, stopping again as he came to the adjoining chamber which Pitch had passed in his haste. Turning, Steve went inside.

When Pitch reached the canal, he saw the sunken, moss-covered piles. His hands touched them almost caressingly as he thought of the long centuries they had been there. He moved forward, watching the water in the canal rise and fall with the sea swells that came from the outer world. Upon reaching the hole, he stood to one side where he could see a little of the ocean. The wind tore through the hole, whipping the spray upon him until his face was wet.

“Steve,” he said quietly, “there must be a channel outside, running right up to this entrance. The way
must be clear through the reef and rocks, because they must have brought their boats in here. This hole is higher than I thought it would be from your description, but there must be some plant life on the outside that keeps it from being seen—that and the waves would hide it unless one got really close. The Spaniards must have protected this entrance with guns in the walls above and on the sides. I believe we could find them if we looked, Steve …”

Pitch turned, expecting to find the boy close behind him.

“Steve!” he called excitedly. “Steve! Where are you?” But his voice was lost in the roar of wind and waves.

Pitch went running back through the cavern until he saw the adjoining chamber. He stopped in front of it, startled by the semidarkness within; then, when his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, he went inside.

Pitch walked forward a few yards, his eyes wide with amazement at the sight before him. He caught only a glimpse of the heavy wooden structure he knew was the crane, for his gaze left it immediately for the sunken rim of the pit. Steve was kneeling upon it beside the still form of what had to be the red stallion.

Pitch’s pace slowed until he came to a halt a short distance behind Steve and Flame.

But it can’t be the same horse
, he thought.
It can’t be!

There was nothing beautiful or proud or defiant about this horse, whose limp body hung heavily upon the rope noose that extended from the end of the chain and encircled the hind part of his body. Only one
foreleg remained upon the rim of the pit and that was still; the other hung below him, dangling above the quicksand. White lather covered his body, from the flanks that rose above the quicksand to the small lowered head.

This couldn’t be the same horse, Pitch thought again. It couldn’t be the tall, long-limbed stallion who so proudly and gallantly had defended his band! This could be any horse outside Blue Valley—and he looks beaten, exhausted, almost dead.

Then Pitch became aware of soft murmurings within the chamber. Startled, he whirled around, his eyes seeking the chamber’s dark corners. Above the heavy sounds coming from the outer cavern, he still could hear the other, softer sounds. He moved closer to Steve, and as he did, the murmurings became more distinct, finally resolving into Steve’s voice! But there was a soft, melodious quality to it that Pitch had never heard in Steve’s voice before. And for some unexplainable reason, Pitch found himself thinking of the look that had come into Steve’s eyes that day. They went together, somehow—the eyes and the voice.

Pitch remained still, listening to Steve; not so much to what the boy said as to the sound of his voice.

“It’s done now, Flame,” Steve was saying. “It’s over. You don’t have to fight any more. We’re going to get you out now. You’ll be free again.”

When Steve had first arrived in the chamber, the stallion had raised his head at the sight of him and for a short time fire had gleamed in his large eyes. Then he had lowered his head again, and Steve had walked up to him, placing a hand upon his horse for the first time.

Now, as he talked to Flame, he continued stroking the lowered head. The stallion attempted to raise his head once, but let it fall again. Steve noticed that his teeth were no longer bared, nor was there any spirit in his eyes; nothing but tired, hopeless defeat was in them.