The Island Stallion (4 page)

The following morning they left Antago as the sun rose out of the sea, and soon were well out of sight of land. Pitch sat behind the wheel of the motor launch, his round face tense as the boat pushed its sharp prow into the heavy sea. Occasionally Steve heard him say something about being a greenhorn when it came to navigation, and that he was much better getting around on land. But Steve had little doubt that Pitch would find Azul Island. Pitch’s boat, too, although an old one, was in excellent condition and very seaworthy. She rolled slightly with the waves, making Steve feel a little uncomfortable in the region of his stomach, but he felt that he could stand anything now that he was actually on his way to Azul Island.

It had worked out nicely, he thought. Pitch’s own interest in the island and his desire to go there had made it easy for Steve.

The hours dragged on, and the sun beat mercilessly down upon the open boat. Steve was thankful for
the hat that Pitch had made him bring along. Turning to his friend, he saw that Pitch was facing straight ahead, but with half-closed eyes, as though he were deep in concentration. Steve looked back at their wake and at the small dory they were towing. Pitch had insisted upon taking it along just in case something should go wrong with the launch’s motor. And lying in the back of the launch were the two backpacks that he and Pitch had crammed with tinned food, cooking utensils and a tiny stove. Beside them lay the folded canvas tent, and next to that the pick and shovel.

Steve’s eyes remained upon the last-named objects. He wondered if Pitch would mind very much when he confessed to him that he really wasn’t interested in digging up the earth in search of relics the Spaniards might have left there. Tonight he planned to tell Pitch exactly why he had come, why he wanted to explore every foot of Azul Island. And he wondered what Pitch’s reaction would be to his story.

Steve remembered very clearly his first impression of the barren, mountainous rock of Azul Island. From the ship, it had looked as though no living thing could climb those sheer walls of yellow stone. Yet surely there had to be a way leading to the interior of the island. Still, Steve thought with concern, whenever Pitch had spoken of the island he had mentioned only the rolling, sandy plain. And Tom too had called it “nothing but a spit of ground … a wind-swept sandbar.”

“Pitch,” Steve said, “I was wondering about the rest of Azul Island. I mean, other than the plain and canyon you’ve mentioned. How do you get into the interior of the island?”

“You don’t,” Pitch replied. “It isn’t possible.” Then, looking at Steve in puzzlement, “I hope, Steve, that you didn’t think it was.”

Steve couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice. “I did, Pitch. I didn’t think Azul Island just consisted of the plain you’ve mentioned.” Then he asked quickly, “But what about the rest of the island, Pitch? There’s at least nine miles of it. I know because the ship passed it on the way to Antago.”

“Then you must know what a natural fortress it is,” Pitch replied quietly. “No one could possibly scale those smooth walls of stone, even if he wanted to.” Then he added with an attempt at humor, “Which no one has, of course.”

“But from the canyon? Is there no way up from the canyon?”

The serious tone of Steve’s voice caused Pitch to shake his head sadly as he said, “No, Steve, I’m afraid not. The canyon comes to an end up against the most precipitious wall of rock you’ve ever seen. There’s an overhanging cliff about three hundred feet above the canyon floor, but that too, of course, is inaccessible. You’ll see for yourself in a little while now.”

In a little while now. You’ll see for yourself in a little while now
.

Steve repeated Pitch’s words over and over to himself as the motor launch swept across the sea. He said them when the horizon was nothing but sea and sky. He said them when the yellowish dome of Azul Island appeared, the sun turning it into a glowing spire of copper and gold.

There was no mist and, very shortly, he could see
the waves crashing against the walled barriers, sending their white fingers climbing frantically, eagerly up the mountainous rock as though the waves, too, sought an entrance to Azul Island. And then, their force spent, they would retreat, falling back into the sea.

But toward the southern end of the island, the walls began their gradual descent, finally merging with the sea and becoming a long stretch of sandy beach over which the waves, unstopped, rolled high onto the shore. At one point, a narrow wooden pier extended into the water. Pitch steered the motorboat toward it.

In a little while now. You’ll see for yourself in a little while now
.

Steve helped Pitch moor the boat to the pier. He put on his backpack and carried the folded canvas tent under his arm; then he followed Pitch down the pier and stepped onto the beach. Stretched before him, just over the sand dunes, was the rolling land, and to his left, less than a mile away, where the walls began their ascent again, was the canyon.

They were nearing the canyon when Steve first saw the horses. There were eleven of them, small and lean and shaggy … a stallion, who stopped grazing to look at them, and five brood mares with five spindle-legged fillies standing close beside them.
It was obvious that Tom had left the worst of the horses upon Azul Island
, Steve thought.
Certainly the Conquistadores couldn’t have ridden puny animals like these in their long, arduous campaigns into the New World!
He remembered the pictures of statues he had seen in his schoolbooks of men like Pizarro and Cortés sitting astride horses strong and powerful of limb, capable of standing the rigors of long marches
through strange and hostile lands. Thoughtfully he watched the horses until the stallion led his frightened, straggling band down the canyon.

Pitch said, “It’s truly remarkable, Steve, that this breed of horse has survived at all in this place.”

Steve bent down, picking up a tuft of grass. He tasted the ends.
Not the lush green grass of Antago
, he thought,
but hardy grass that could sustain life because it absorbed every bit of moisture in the ground
.

“Of course,” Pitch was saying, “they must spend most of their time in the canyon, where they’re protected from the weather and sun. The grass, too, is more abundant in the canyon.” Pausing, he looked around, then added, “We’ll make camp there, Steve.”

They were approaching it now. The walls, a few hundred yards on either side of them, were rising, shutting out the sea. A quarter of a mile away, the canyon came to an abrupt end against a sheer wall of stone, the lower part darkened by shadows made by the sides of the canyon, the upper part shining like a golden vision in the sun’s rays.

They walked into the shadows of the canyon walls, and for a few minutes Steve was blinded by the sudden transition from glaring light to soft darkness. Then his eyes became accustomed to the shadows, and he saw the end of the canyon a short distance away. The horses were standing there, grouped together, their frightened eyes upon the two humans. But Steve’s gaze did not linger on the horses. Instead he looked upward, to the cliff that hung three hundred feet or more above.

Pitch said, “Now you can understand, Steve, what I meant when I said that it was impossible to get to the
interior of the island from here. These walls make it impossible even to get up to the cliff.” He was beside Steve, his eyes also fixed on the flat, overhanging rock. “And there’d be nowhere to go from there, either. Just look at that sheer wall of stone behind it!”

Pitch walked away but Steve stood there, still gazing up at the cliff.
Pitch is right
, he thought,
there’s no possible way to reach the cliff from the canyon floor
.

Then Pitch’s voice reached him. He was calling for the tent. He wanted to set up camp. It was getting late, he said. The sun would be going down shortly.

Steve went over to him and threw his pack against the side of the canyon wall where Pitch had decided to make camp. But as he worked alongside Pitch, his eyes would turn very often to the cliff.

The sun sank rapidly behind the mountainous rock of Azul Island, and soon the darkness of night had sped from the canyon floor to the rolling, sandy plain beyond. Steve and Pitch had finished setting up the tent and now sat before the Sterno stove, heating a pot of beans and frankfurters.

“We should have collected some driftwood before it got dark,” Pitch said, moving closer to the small flame emerging from the can of Sterno. “The night air is cool out here. It would have been nice to have a wood fire.” Pausing, he added dismally, “I’m such a greenhorn at this, I’m afraid.” He turned to Steve, who was still looking up at the darkened wall at the end of the canyon and who seemed not to have heard. Pitch pushed a fork into the frankfurters. “They’re ready, I think. Let me have your plate, Steve. Your plate, please,” Pitch repeated, more insistently.

Steve heard him then and handed over his tin plate. “Thanks, Pitch,” he said. He ate in silence for a few minutes, then looked up to find Pitch watching him. Smiling, he moved closer to his friend and the small flame. “Sorry,” he said, “I was thinking about something.” Then he added quickly, as though to make up for his inattention, “We should have gathered some wood from the beach, Pitch. A good fire would have been nice tonight.”

Pitch looked at him, nodding. “Yes,” he said, “it would have been nice.” Steve certainly must have been thinking about something—and very intently too, Pitch mused—not to have heard him mention the same thing just a few moments before. He wondered what it was that occupied Steve’s mind.

They finished eating in silence, each alone with his thoughts. The short neigh of one of the horses echoed throughout the canyon. Pitch turned in the direction of the horses, then to Steve, whose whole attention seemed to be fixed on the small flame before them. Pitch said casually, “We should have a full moon tonight. It’ll be coming up soon.” The boy was still looking at the flame and Pitch couldn’t tell whether he’d heard or not. “A full moon tonight, Steve,” he repeated, louder this time.

Steve roused himself from his reverie. “That’s right,” he said slowly, “it will be full tonight, won’t it?” Then he was silent for a while, and only his eyes betrayed his restlessness. Finally he asked hesitantly, “Pitch, have you ever had something happen to you that you could swear had happened before?” He
paused, groping for the right words. “I mean something you couldn’t have done, actually.”

Pitch was confused. “I don’t quite understand what you mean, Steve,” he replied with concern. “Do you mean something I may have dreamed?”

“Perhaps,” Steve said. “Perhaps you could call it a dream … only something much more real and vivid than a dream.”

Pitch attempted a smile which failed utterly as he saw the intent look in Steve’s eyes. “Sometimes,” he said seriously, “I do something that I have an idea I dreamed about before. I suppose it’s the association of things. It’s never been really vivid, though, and I’m never quite sure I actually dreamed it.”

“This is very different from that,” Steve said slowly. “And it’s all here … now. All this,” and he looked out over the canyon floor.

The expression on Pitch’s face became still more confused. “I don’t understand, Steve,” he said. “Perhaps you’d better start from the beginning.”

“The beginning,” Steve began slowly, “was ten years ago when I had that operation for my abscessed ear. You must remember it.” He paused while Pitch nodded in agreement. “Then you must remember too,” Steve went on, “how badly I wanted a pony at that time. I couldn’t understand why Dad couldn’t buy me one, if he could get me a scooter and a tricycle. I had to have a pony, so I tried getting one by myself. I sold subscriptions to a magazine that offered a pony as a prize to the kid getting the most new subscribers.” Steve paused again, smiling as he added, “Yes, you were one
of my best customers, Pitch. But I still didn’t win the pony. So I continued drawing pictures of ponies and horses, making myself more miserable and Dad and Mother miserable as well, because they couldn’t afford to buy me a pony, much less stand the upkeep of one.”

Steve’s eyes met Pitch’s. “I’m telling you all this, Pitch, because it has an important bearing on what happened during the operation.” Steve gazed back at the fire again. “I remember that the doctor came to the house, and he found me in bed, shrieking for a pony. I saw him nod to Dad, and then Dad was telling me I could have a pony if I would only lie still. So I relaxed and thought how wonderful it was going to be to have my very own pony. It wasn’t long before the doctor’s nurse put something over my nose and mouth. It was the anaesthetic, but I didn’t know that. I breathed in the sweet, sickly odor, and I was still thinking of my pony when the fiery pinwheels started. I followed them round and round as they sped faster and faster. Soon they were going so fast that they no longer made a circle, but were one ball of fire. It came at me hard, bursting in my face.

“It was then that I first saw Flame. I didn’t name him Flame. The name just came with this horse, for his body was the red of fire. He was standing on the cliff—” Steve stopped and glanced behind him. “That cliff,” he added huskily. “Below, too, was the canyon and the rolling land beyond. All this …” His hand pointed to the canyon and then fell to his side. “It was all very vivid, Pitch—so vivid that when the operation was over I found that I had a red horse named Flame. Ponies no longer interested me, and when Dad brought up the
subject of the promised pony, telling me that he hoped I’d understand why he couldn’t keep his word, I told him that it was all right, that I didn’t want a pony anyway. Then for months and months, every time I ran from the house, trotting to the park, I was riding a giant red stallion, the most wonderful horse in the world!

“I grew up,” Steve went on, “and put Flame aside along with my tricycle and scooter. But I never actually forgot him, Pitch,” he insisted. “I never forgot Flame, or the canyon and cliff. Then a few weeks ago your letter came—your letter with the picture of a place I’d thought an imaginary one for so many years!” Steve’s voice had risen and there was eagerness in it now as he turned toward Pitch. “How could I have seen this canyon ten years ago, Pitch? How could I, when I’d never heard of Azul Island until a few weeks ago when your letter came? That’s what brought me here, Pitch,” he confessed.