The Island Stallion's Fury (10 page)

Soon they had left the business section behind and were in the suburbs of Chestertown. Here they passed small, neat houses with yards of colorful tropical shrubs protected by freshly painted white fences.

“The vet's office is just a little farther on,” Pitch said. “We'll soon be there.”

They were out of the heaviest traffic when Steve noticed Pitch's frequent glances in the rear-view mirror. “What is it?” he asked.

“I thought I saw Tom's car behind us. But I must have been mistaken; it's not there now.”

A mile farther on Pitch came to a stop before a two-story frame house. On the picket gate was the sign: DR. F. A. MASON, VETERINARY SURGERY AND MEDICINE.

They carried the foal around the house to a low one-story building in the back. “Now let's just hope he's in,” Pitch said, ringing the office bell.

A moment later, a bald-headed man appeared at the screen door. He had a gray mustache and a short, pointed beard.

“Dr. Mason?” Pitch asked.

“Yes,” said the man, his eyes on the foal. “Bring him in,” he said abruptly, holding the door open. “Follow me, please.”

He ushered them into a large room with a tanbark floor. Another man, younger than Dr. Mason, looked up inquiringly as they approached. “This is Dr. Crane, my assistant.”

“It's his leg,” Steve said, “… his right hind.”

Dr. Mason nodded. “Let Dr. Crane hold him, please. And step back from the table, if you will.”

Pitch drew Steve away, but not before the boy had explained, “He fell, Doctor. He's hurt just below the hock.”

“He can find it, Steve,” Pitch said sympathetically. “We'll help more by leaving them alone.”

Steve didn't say anything, but his eyes never left the doctor as the veterinarian's hands traveled down the right hind leg. In an attempt to relieve his anxiety he listened to the sounds from other animals housed somewhere in the building. He heard the incessant barking of a dog, the bleating of goats.

Pitch said, “He keeps only his small animals here. But he does a lot of work on the plantations for cattle, horses and mules. He's good. He's got so much business he needed someone to help him. Dr. Crane arrived a month ago.”

Much later, Steve heard Dr. Mason tell his assistant, “It's a complete fracture of the proximal end of the tibia. We'll use a modified Thomas splint of light aluminum.” Only the words
complete fracture
meant anything to Steve. He broke away from Pitch's grasp and ran to the table, fixing frightened eyes on Dr. Mason. “How bad is it, Doctor? Will he be all right?”

The doctor turned to him, annoyed at first, then tolerant and understanding. He put his hand on Steve's arm. “Don't you worry about him,” he said. “Within three weeks that leg will be completely healed, and you'll forget he ever injured it. And so will he.” Addressing Pitch, and motioning to him to get Steve out of
the room, he said, “If you two will wait in my office, we'll get him fixed up all the sooner.”

Pitch understood. He took Steve's arm and led him out of the room. Across the corridor was the doctor's office, and they went in there to sit down and wait for their colt.

“What time is it, Pitch?”

“One-thirty. It's only been a half-hour.”

“It seems longer than that.”

Pitch nodded. They sat in silence for another fifteen minutes. The boy rose from the couch, walked around the room, then sat down again, glancing at Pitch's wrist watch.

“We must remember to ask Dr. Mason about feeding the colt,” Pitch said, hoping that conversation would relieve the boy's tension.

Steve nodded but said nothing.

“Unless we have to, let's not mention anything to him about Azul Island,” Pitch went on. “The less people know about our being there the better. The colt's an orphaned foal; that's all we'll say. If I'm not mistaken the vet will just assume that we're keeping him right here on Antago. What else
could
he think?”

Again Steve nodded without saying anything.

The door opened and Dr. Mason appeared, his
hand stroking his light beard. “The foal's ready to go,” he said.

Steve was out of the office before Pitch had risen to his feet. He entered the large room across the corridor ahead of Dr. Mason. The colt was standing, his injured leg held in a fixed position by a crutchlike splint that began at his tiny hoof and ended in a large hoop around his rump. The veterinarian's assistant was with him.

Steve dropped down beside Dr. Crane. “He's all right?”

“Yes. He'll have no trouble. We've set the bone and the healing should be rapid.” Dr. Crane's hands traveled up and down the light metal rods on either side of the foal's leg and then he examined again the heavy bandaging above and below the hock. “We've used plaster of Paris here,” he explained. “There's no chance of his getting out of the splint. He'll be able to walk but not trot or run.” His hand went to the hoop of the splint which encircled the colt's rump. “This is covered with soft leather, as you can see, so I don't think there'll be any chafing of the skin.” Smiling, he turned to Steve. “You needn't worry about him. The bone's been set and now he just has to use a crutch for a while. It's as simple as that.”

Dr. Mason joined them, his hands too checking the heavily bandaged leg. “But keep him away from other horses, and watch his dam to make certain she doesn't push him around either.”

Steve turned to him. “He doesn't have any …”

Pitch interrupted. “He's an orphaned foal,” he told the doctor.

Dr. Mason rose to his feet, and Steve heard him ask Pitch, “You've been giving him cow's milk?”

Pitch nodded, and the doctor said, “He looks as though he's doing all right. How old is he?”

“Four days,” Steve said.

Dr. Mason turned back to Pitch. “There's no reason why a foal, with proper care, can't be raised on cow's milk,” he said. “It contains more fat and less sugar than mare's milk, but it's a good enough substitute.”

“We've been adding sugar,” Steve said.

Dr. Mason cast a searching glance at Steve, and then directed his next question to him. “How much milk have you been giving him?”

“About a quarter of a pint every hour except at night, when I give him a half-pint in three feedings.”

The veterinarian nodded in approval. “There's more danger in overfeeding a young foal than underfeeding,” he said. “A general rule to follow is to have him still hungry when he's had his allotted amount. I'm surprised you knew. A lot of people would have given him all he'd take at a feeding.”

Pitch said, “Steve loves horses.”

Dr. Crane spoke for the first time in a long while. “I can see that,” he said, smiling at Dr. Mason.

“Oh, yes, and we wanted to ask you, Doctor, whether it's necessary to boil the milk and sterilize all the utensils.” Pitch addressed Dr. Mason. “We've been doing that.”

“It's very necessary for a while. You have to take the same precautions you would in the feeding of a human infant. Everything must be scrupulously
clean, otherwise digestive disturbances are certain to follow.”

Pitch glanced at Steve, then turned back to Dr. Mason. “How long before he can be taught to drink from a pail?”

“Within a few days. You can start now by offering him the pail rather than the nipple and bottle. See if you can't get him to take it from the pail. The sooner you train him the easier it'll be for you.”

Pitch saw no reason to tell him they hadn't been using nipples because none had been available on Azul Island. Just as he'd suspected, the doctor assumed they lived on Antago.

Dr. Mason turned to Steve. “It's safe now to increase gradually the amount of milk you give him,” he said, “and lengthen the period between feedings until the foal is being fed only four times a day. I want to see him again in about twenty-one days. The bone should be completely healed by that time.”

“He'll be all right until then?” Steve asked.

“I don't see why not. Just keep him isolated from other horses. I wouldn't want him kicked now. He'll get used to the splint almost immediately. He won't give you any trouble.”

Pitch asked, “Would it be wiser to keep him here with you, Doctor?”

“No, there wouldn't be any point to it as long as you're able to keep your eye on him. And I'm out most of the day with Dr. Crane. I'd have no one here to care for him as you would.”

“I want to take him with us,” Steve said.

Pitch looked at him. “All right, Steve. I just thought it might be best for him under the circumstances.”

Dr. Mason smiled. “Under the circumstances it's best that he go with you. Setting a bone is a simple matter compared to playing mother to a foal.” Sympathetically he placed his hand on Steve's arm. “I want you to get a bottle of lime water at the drug store. Put four tablespoonfuls of it in every pint of milk you give him. He needs more calcium for a few weeks.”

A little later they were back in the car, driving to town. The foal stood on the floor before the back seat, his head stretched toward the closed window. Steve sat on the seat, holding him steady, watching him, while Pitch drove slowly.

They were nearing the center of town when Pitch said, glancing into his rear-view mirror, “I keep thinking I see Tom's car.”

Steve looked out the back window. “What kind of a car does he drive?”

“He's got a Ford, a maroon two-door sedan.”

“There's nothing like that behind us.”

“I know there isn't now,” Pitch said, pulling up in front of Antago's largest drug store. “Just my nerves, I guess. I'm going to get the powdered milk and the nipples.”

“And lime water,” the boy reminded him.

While Steve waited he watched for a maroon Ford sedan. But he saw none and figured that Pitch had been mistaken in thinking he had seen Tom. Within a few minutes they'd be on their way back to Blue Valley where Tom never would find them.

Pitch returned, carrying a box containing the powdered milk, nursing bottles, nipples and several large bottles of lime water. When he had them in the car, Steve said, “The harness shop is just up the street. I want to get a web halter and a brush.”

“Make it snappy, Steve,” Pitch said, getting in the back of the car to hold the colt.

Steve was gone only a few minutes and when he returned with his packages, Pitch moved up front again behind the wheel.

“I don't suppose you'd consider boarding the colt somewhere on Antago,” he said before starting the motor. “It might be wiser than taking him back … for his good, I mean.”

Steve rubbed the foal's muzzle. “But where, Pitch? Do you know anyone we could trust, anyone who would take good care of him?”

“Frankly I don't, Steve. But we might be able to find someone.”

“I wouldn't trust just anyone with him,” Steve said thoughtfully. “If you knew of a good home for him it would be different. But I just won't take a chance. He'll be safe with us. We know that. No harm can come to him where we're going.”

“I suppose you're right, Steve,” Pitch said, starting the motor. “But he's going to keep you busy. You won't have much time for anything else.”

They drove to the wharf. The freighter had finished unloading, but the activity on the wharf had not lessened for now Antago's exports, rum and molasses, were being taken to the waiting ship. Slowly Pitch steered the car through groups of perspiring stevedores, honking
his horn constantly to avoid hitting anyone. They passed the long row of parked cars and trucks on their left without looking at them. They went to the far end of the wharf where they could park easily and leave the car until Pitch's next trip to Antago.

The foal hardly moved in their arms as they carried him from the car to the waiting motor launch.

Pitch said, “He's getting so used to being carried by us that the next thing we know he won't want to walk!”

Steve laughed, all his worry and tension gone. “I don't think so, Pitch. Someday he'll be as big and strong as Flame, then he'll be carrying us.”

There was no longer any pain in the colt's eyes, only wonder and curiosity at everything Steve and Pitch did. As Dr. Mason had said, he was already getting used to the splint. He had no trouble standing, and Steve knew he would start walking the moment they gave him a chance.

“Well, we did everything we wanted to do,” he told Pitch as the launch's motor burst into a roar. “And we needn't have worried about meeting Tom. My guess is that he did go to South America and it'll be a long, long time before you see him again.”

“Yes,” Pitch agreed, “you're probably right. We just caused ourselves needless worry. It wasn't even necessary for me to have given you the whole story on Tom.”

“But I'm glad you did, Pitch. I'm in this as much as you are, you know.”

Pitch headed the launch toward the open sea.

Neither he nor Steve looked back at the wharf, for now their eyes and thoughts were only for Azul Island. But if either
had
turned, he might have seen the Ford
pull out of the line of parked cars on the wharf. It was a sedan, a two-door sedan, and its color was maroon.

Now it sped down the wharf, its motor racing, its horn blaring. The stevedores jumped out of the car's way, yelling; but when they saw the giant figure that dwarfed the wheel, they shut their mouths tight. They knew this man well. They wanted to have no trouble with Tom Pitcher.

He turned right when he came off the wharf, slowing down only because of a car directly ahead of him. He cursed, and his heavy hand never left the horn. He brought his front bumper hard against the car ahead. Startled, the driver looked back, saw Tom's face, and went faster.