The Island Stallion (23 page)

When they did, they would dock their boats at the narrow wooden pier which was the island’s sole connecting link with the outside world, and set out across the dunes of the windswept reef. They would walk up the spit to a small canyon at the end of which was a sheer wall rising five hundred feet above them. They would stop and look up, knowing this was as far as they could go on Azul Island.

“Solid rock,” they usually said. “The rest of the island is nothing but rock, eight solid miles of it.”

And soon they would leave this desolate, foreboding place, sometimes looking back, once they were at sea, at the bare, yellow rock and the dome-shaped top of Azul Island which gleamed in the sun’s rays.

Never, even by the widest stretch of the imagination, could they suspect that running down the dome was a long, narrow gap which allowed the rays of the sun to find a valley … a lost valley within a lost world; a valley as soft and green and colorful as any tropical island in the Caribbean Sea.
And it was inhabited!

Long and narrow, the valley extended almost the length of the island; a bluish-green gem set deep amidst towering walls that were the yellow of pure gold. High up on the wall at the southern end of the valley an underground stream rushed from blackness to sunlight, plummeting downward in a silken sheet of white and
crashing onto the rocks of a large pool two hundred feet or more below.

From the great opening where the falls began a trail led down the wall. Halfway to the valley floor it leveled off at a wide ledge fronting a cave. A man sat there, writing. He used empty wooden boxes for his seat and desk, and his pen moved quickly over the paper before him. As he finished each page, he dropped it beside him, and with no hesitation went on to the next sheet.

He was a small man, thin but wiry of build. His knobby knees were uncovered, for he wore tropical walking shorts. Earlier in the day he had put on his white pith helmet to shade his eyes from the glare of the hot sun. He was still wearing the helmet, even though the sun had dropped behind the high walls of the valley. But he hadn’t noticed, for he was much too absorbed in his writing. His round tanned face, usually boyish and jovial, was drawn taut from the intensity of his concentration.

He continued writing until two short whistles broke the stillness of the valley. Looking up, he noticed for the first time that it was sunset. The shadows from the walls had reached the valley floor, turning the cropped grass to an almost brilliant blue. His gaze traveled far up the valley where a band of horses was grazing. He tried without success to locate his friend Steve.

The two short whistles came again. Reaching for his high-powered binoculars, the man brought them close to the steel-rimmed glasses he wore. Near the edge of the tall sugar cane which grew wild on the sides of the valley, he located the boy. Apparently Steve had been sitting there watching the mares and foals since his arrival
in Blue Valley a few hours ago. But now he was getting to his feet. The man saw him place his fingers to his lips; again came the two short whistles. Steve was calling Flame, but the stallion was nowhere in sight.

Then from far up the valley came an answering scream. Steve’s whistles were the softest of whispers compared to it. Shrill, loud and clear, it rose to such a high pitch that it seemed it would shatter the towering walls. And when it finally died the valley echoed to the fast, rhythmic beat of pounding hoofs.

The man moved his binoculars to pick up the running stallion. He was coming through the tall cane far up on the opposite side of the valley, the stalks bending and breaking beneath his giant body. When he reached the short, cropped grass, his strides lengthened as he swept toward the boy who awaited him. He was beautiful, swift and strong, and his chestnut coat and mane were the glowing red of fire.

The man put down his binoculars when the stallion came to a stop before the boy.
It’s so good to have Steve back again in Blue Valley
, he thought.
Flame’s glad. I’m glad. Everybody’s happy
. Smiling contentedly, the man turned once more to his writing.

Tall and long limbed, the red stallion stood as motionless as a statue; his small head was raised high, not in defiance but in haughty grandeur. Yet his large eyes never left the boy and there was soft recognition in them. Finally he tossed his head and his heavy mane rose and fell with the high arch of his neck.

“
Flame.
”

Small ears pricked forward at the sound of Steve Duncan’s voice. Long, delicate nostrils quivered. Then,
without further hesitation, the stallion moved toward the boy.

Steve touched the silken neck and ran his fingers through the tousled mane, gently smoothing it. Flame stood quietly, with only his eyes moving as they turned from Steve to the band that had strayed in the direction of the water pool, then back to the boy again. And knowing now that Flame had not forgotten him during the ten months he had been away, Steve was content just to stand there beside him and to look at him.

Never was there a horse so beautiful! No other could match the finely molded body or the giant muscles that moved so smoothly beneath tight, sliding skin. No equal did he have in strength of legs and withers, chest and shoulders. And his head was the most beautiful part of him, for every inch of it disclosed the preponderance of Arabian blood that was in this stallion. It was raised high, yet set at an angle, accentuating the high curve at the crest of his long neck. It was wedge-shaped, broad in the forehead and tapering down to long, delicate nostrils. The ears were small and close together; just now they were pricked, almost touching at the tips. The large eyes, set wide apart, were most expressive, glaring wildly when the stallion’s fury was aroused and becoming soft and warm when there was nothing to fear or fight.

That Flame had fought often and hard was easily seen in the scars that marked his red coat. Some were jagged, made by the cutting, ravaging teeth of fighting stallions. Others were clean and straight, left by pounding, battering hoofs. Some were old, some new. All of them made this giant stallion what he was, King of the
Band. He had won his leadership through fighting; he would lose it the same way.

Steve swept his hands across the muscled withers. He leaned a little on the stallion’s back, and the red coat beneath his hands quivered.

“Oh, Flame,” he said. “It’s good … so good to be back.”

For a moment the boy just stood there. Never had this great stallion known the touch of hands before his, he knew. Never had Flame even seen human beings before Steve and his friend Pitch had found Blue Valley late last summer. It had taken time to convince Flame that he and his band had nothing to fear from Steve’s and Pitch’s presence, nothing to fight. But finally Steve had won the stallion’s love and confidence. He’d been able to play with him, run with him, ride him any time of day or night. And now after so many long months he was back with his horse, to continue this life which was as new to him as it was to Flame.

He placed more of his weight on the stallion’s back. Flame tossed his head as though he knew what was coming and was impatient to get along with it. Steve leaped as high as he could and pulled himself, face downward, across the stallion’s back. Flame whirled while the boy was still hanging on precariously, but Steve’s hand found the thick mane and quickly he pulled himself upright as Flame again came to a stop.

The boy pressed his knees close to the withers and then he touched the stallion low on the neck. With short, springy steps Flame lightly crabstepped down the valley. He snorted repeatedly, and his ears shifted, half
turning to Steve. He wanted to move out of the crab-step, yet he awaited the boy’s command.

Finally Steve moved his leg slightly, his heel rubbing against the stallion. Flame shifted smoothly into a slow, rocking canter. Then his strides lengthened as Steve bent closer to his arched neck. The rhythmic beat of the stallion’s hoofs came faster; he tossed his head and occasionally struck out a foreleg either in play or as an indication that he wanted to run all out. Yet he waited for a further command from Steve, and finally the boy hunched his shoulders far forward and pressed his cheek hard against Flame’s silken neck.

Steve felt the ground give way beneath the ever lengthening strides, and the wind whistled until it shut out the pounding hoofs. His eyes filled with the rush of wind and he sought protection from it by burying his head in the stallion’s whipping mane.

He had ridden all his life, but this was not riding. This was being part of a horse!

Through blurred eyes he saw that they had almost reached the pool beneath the waterfall. The band moved quickly away, scattering at sight of their running leader. Steve touched Flame and the stallion swerved obediently away from the pool, cutting across the valley floor to the far side. Steve began talking to him then, and shifted his weight back off the withers. The stallion slowed down, although he pawed repeatedly with his foreleg, striking out in play.

Steve brought him to a stop, and except for tossing his head Flame stood still. The yellow walls had been the only spectators to the exhibition of Flame’s blazing speed.

Steve turned his attention to the band. The horses were grazing again. The boy counted over a hundred of them, including all the suckling foals who stayed close beside their dams. And there were weanlings who frolicked and played, glorying in their newly acquired independence from their mothers and testing their strength and speed against one another. Yearlings and older colts and fillies kept to themselves, content in their maturity.

Flame was their leader. They looked to him for protection against any danger and for guidance. Yet Steve knew that some day one of the older colts, falsely secure in his strength and youth, would attempt to take Flame’s leadership away from him. They would meet in physical combat, and to live and maintain his supremacy of the band Flame would kill. There could be but one leader of the band. It had been that way for centuries, ever since the Spanish Conquistadores had forsaken the ancestors of these horses in Blue Valley. Forebears who had been left here to die. But who had not died. Instead, they had lived and bred and the band had survived. The horses the Spaniards had forsaken in this valley were of the purest blood and the finest obtainable; they had passed on their speed, stamina and beauty to their offspring. And Blue Valley with its good grass and water and protective walls had fostered these horses until today there was no finer band in all the world.

When their plane crashes in the Caribbean Sea, Alec and the Black are swept apart. The exhausted stallion is carried by the currents to a remote island. There he finds a herd of wild horses ruled by the giant red stallion Flame. But before the Black and Flame can determine which is the dominant male, they must fight a rabid vampire bat intent on destroying the entire herd.