The Island Stallion's Fury (20 page)

Steve did not say anything. But he understood. He had seen Tom fall over the cliff. No one could have survived such a fall.

Pitch lifted the boy's head from the ground. “When you're up to it, we'll go back to the valley,” he said. His voice was gentle; his words were simple and distinct as though he were speaking to a child.

Steve's head cleared when he sat up straight. He had fainted. But he felt no shame. He made a move toward the ledge, but Pitch's hands restrained him.

“Don't look over. It's better that you don't see him.”

“But Flame? Where is he?”

“He's safe,” Pitch said. “He went back … right after it happened. He's probably in the valley. We'll go there when you're ready.”

Steve pulled himself to his feet. He stood still until he knew he was all right. Nodding to Pitch, he followed his friend through the crevice.

When they reached the trail, they saw Flame below them. Pitifully slow, the stallion moved up the canyon toward Blue Valley.

Leading the way, Steve quickened his pace; but he didn't break into a run until he reached the bottom of the trail. He spoke his horse's name over and over again in his mind, but the words never left his lips. Closer and closer he neared Flame. He saw the terrible lashes and clotted blood that covered his horse's body. He saw the long bridle rope trailing along the grass; even this seemed much too heavy for Flame to drag.

The red stallion's head came up when he heard the running footsteps behind him. Then he turned, his teeth bared once more.

Steve stopped. “Flame,” he said. “Flame. Flame.” His voice was scarcely audible. He went forward, repeating his horse's name over and over. Yards, then only a few feet separated them. His eyes were blurred. Flame was but a dark mass in front of him. He went forward, his hands outstretched until they found the wet and trembling body. He stood there, trembling too, and the tears that had welled in his eyes broke through and flowed down his cheeks.

When Flame had quieted down a bit, Steve glanced at the horse's head; it was lowered now. He moved toward it, taking the soft muzzle in his hands and loosening the rope from about it; then he pulled off the rope and let it fall to the ground without looking at it.

Steve took a step forward, and Flame moved beside him.

Only when they were in Blue Valley and nearing the pool did Pitch speak. “The first-aid kit is in my pack, Steve,” he said. “There's gauze there and a bottle of antiseptic. Wash him clean and he'll get better. I'll leave him to you.”

“Then you're going?”

“I'm bringing back the police constable this afternoon,” Pitch said. “I want him to see where Tom fell. I don't want to move him.”

“You'll go to the spit, not bring the police to Blue Valley?” Steve asked.

“Only to the spit,” Pitch promised. “It happened there.” Pausing, he added, “Tom's death was accidental, Steve. He fell. You and I know that to be the truth. That's what I'll tell the police. It's all they'll need to know. What Tom was like these past few days, what he did to us and to Flame is of no importance to them now. And Steve,” Pitch paused again before going on, “Tom would never have gotten well. I know that.”

They stopped when they reached the pool. Flame lowered his head still more to drink the cool, soothing water.

“It's over, Steve … 
over
.”

* * *

It was late in the afternoon of the same day when Pitch carefully brought the launch in toward the pier of Azul Island. Standing behind him were two men, both tall and thin and wearing white linen suits, black ties and pith sun helmets.

“Haven't been here in ten years,” said one. “Just once, and that was enough for me. Why anybody would …” He left his sentence unfinished.

The other removed his hat and ran a handkerchief over his hairless dome. He said nothing, for he was watching the submerged rocks that seemingly grazed the prow of the launch as they approached the pier.

“Only Tom Pitcher would go and die in this Godforsaken spot,” the first man spoke again. “As if we didn't have enough trouble with him on Antago. He was …” The man stopped, his eyes on Pitch's back. “I'm sorry, Phil,” he apologized. “My sympathy.”

Pitch said nothing. He had talked little since he had picked up the chief constable and his assistant at the police station. He had answered their questions truthfully and he would continue to do so. But they hadn't been very surprised at Tom's death or the way he had died.

Pitch moored the launch to the pier. Then they walked across the wooden planking and stepped onto the sandy land. Climbing the dunes, they turned toward the mountainous yellow rock.

They walked in silence until the bald-headed man said, gazing up at the darkening sky above them, “We shouldn't spend much time here. No sense making all the trip back in the dark.”

The chief nodded in agreement, then turned to Pitch. “All the way to the end of the canyon, Phil?”

“Yes,” Pitch said. “At the foot of the cliff.”

“You saw him fall?” the chief asked quickly. “I believe I asked you that before, Phil. But just for the record …”

“I saw him fall,” Pitch answered. The constable didn't ask him from where he had seen Tom fall. He hadn't asked him earlier, nor did he now. He took it for granted that one couldn't have been anywhere else but below.

The yellow rock closed in on them, the end wall was just ahead. They saw Tom's body at its base. Pitch's footsteps lagged. The bald-headed man went forward while the chief constable stayed with Pitch, his arm going around him to lend support. “Easy now, Phil,” he said.

The man had reached Tom. The body was heavy, but he was able to turn it over a little. He looked up at his chief and Pitch and nodded. Pitch turned away.

Later they all looked up at the precipitous wall. They saw the two protruding rocks and the rope hanging from them. Only Pitch knew that Tom must have thrown the ropes up when he had first reached Azul Island and had tried unsuccessfully to scale this wall.

The chief looked down at the foot of the wall again. He saw the pick. “Tom tried to reach the ledge, then,” he said. It was not a question. He said it as a matter of fact, for it was so obvious that this was what Tom had attempted to do.

Pitch said, “Yes. He tried to reach the ledge.” He was being truthful. Tom had tried and failed, and gone on to find another entrance to the interior of Azul Island.

“Why was he trying to get up there, Phil?”

Pitch spoke without hesitation. He had expected this question. He was ready for it. “Tom thought there was a habitable interior to this island,” he said. “He expected to find out by reaching the ledge above.” This, too, was the truth.

The man shook his head. “Just like him,” he said. “Always asking for it.” He gazed up at the yellow rock, which gleamed in the sun's last rays. “Well, he got it this time. Everyone knows there's nothing there but rock, solid rock.”

He hadn't asked if there was. He just said there wasn't. A statement of fact, requiring no answer.

“I guess that's all,” the chief said. “I'll help carry the body, Phil. You get the pick, if you will.” He was walking forward when he saw the bull whip lying on the ground a few feet away. “And there's his whip, Phil. Get that, too.”

Pitch got the pick, then waited until the men had started off with Tom's lifeless body before he went over to get the bull whip. He reached down. To touch it was the most difficult thing of all.

“Phil! Let's get going.” The chief had turned back to him. “It's late.”

Pitch picked up the bull whip and followed them. Halfway to the pier he stopped to look back at the high wall; then he went on toward the launch.

It was a month later and the valley was quiet again. The lower bar across the entrance to Bottle Canyon had been removed and now the colt dropped his head a little to get beneath the top bar. He went to the box of feed just within the canyon entrance.

Steve watched him as he played with the rolled oats in the box, blowing through dilated nostrils, then, taking a mouthful, turned back to the gate. The cast and splint had been removed a week before, and there was no evidence of the fracture either in his appearance or movement. He had put on weight, too, during the last month and the size of his bones and recent development showed promise of his becoming a horse as large as Flame. He was broad between the eyes and jaws, his head well set on a strong, arched neck which entered the shoulders into good withers; his body was handsome yet rugged, his legs hard and flinty.

He would continue growing and getting stronger every day, for in addition to the rolled oats and grass, Steve gave him all the milk he would drink. His coat had a polished sheen from constant grooming. And never did a day go by that the colt didn't have his feet and legs handled and cleaned by Steve.

Now he ducked his head beneath the bar and came to Steve. The boy removed the halter, rubbed the colt's head where the straps had been, then put the halter back on. Snapping the lead shank to it, he led the colt across the valley, then back and around in a circle, again and again. He kept leading him until he saw Flame leave his band to join them. He unsnapped the lead shank then and waited for his horse.

The red stallion ignored the colt when he came to a stop before Steve. He stood still for a moment when Steve placed a hand on him, then he went to the barred entrance to the canyon. He snorted at sight of the oats in the box. But he couldn't get to them, for Steve wasn't giving him any grain. Flame's life in the valley was far
different from what the colt's would be like away from the island. The great stallion lived only on grass as Nature had intended all horses to do. Flame's life was wild and free; he grazed where he wished in the valleys and canyons of Azul Island. But the colt would be leaving it all behind him within a few weeks. He would live for a while on a ship that would take him and Steve to the United States. Then they would be home. Not far from Steve's house were a barn and pasture where this colt would live and grow, with Steve watching him, caring for him.

Would it be as lovely, as good as this valley? No, in many ways it wouldn't. The colt would be giving up his life of freedom for domesticity. But in other ways it would be better. For he was a colt, soon to become a stallion. With Steve he was assured a long life, a life in which he could reproduce others perhaps like him. But here in Blue Valley he would be killed by Flame, just as colts before him had been killed. For Flame was a young leader and none would defeat him in battle for a long, long time. So it would be as Steve wanted it to be … the colt would go home with him.

Flame left the barred gate to move back to Steve, and the boy glanced for a fleeting moment at the scarred body where the whiplashes had healed. Then he turned away to look at the towering rock behind him. Somewhere in the tunnels Pitch was continuing his explorations, work that he had said would take him three to four years to finish. Three to four long years before he'd be ready to submit his manuscript to the historical society and let the world know what he and Steve had found here.

And so one might say
, Steve thought,
that all our worries and fears are over. One might suppose that with Tom's death we could go on just as we did before he found us. Pitch has recovered all his relics and has found more. The snubbing post no longer stands by the pool. It's been taken down and burned. And no one on Antago is honestly sorry that Tom is dead, for he hurt too many people. The natives are again working the plantation, and they have nothing to fear any longer. So all in all one would be justified in thinking we could go on here as we did before
.

But it isn't quite that simple … not for me or Pitch or Flame. I've been in the tunnels only a few times since it all happened, and always with Pitch. It's never easy for me because I think I hear Tom somewhere ahead in the blackness. Silly; but that's the way it is. Usually Pitch takes me by the arm. I guess he does it to assure me everything is all right
.

And it's the same with Flame whenever I ride him near the place where the snubbing post used to be or when we go through Bottle Canyon. He's restless, even a little afraid, although we've never again gone up the trail leading to the ledge overlooking the spit. I comfort him then because I understand
.

Walter Farley's love for horses began when he was a small boy living in Syracuse, New York, and continued as he grew up in New York City, where his family moved. Unlike most city children, he was able to fulfill this love through an uncle who was a professional horseman. Young Walter spent much of his time with this uncle, learning about the different kinds of horse training and the people associated with them.

Walter Farley began to write his first book,
The Black Stallion
, while he was a student at Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. He eventually finished it, and it was published in 1941 while he was still an undergraduate at Columbia University.

The appearance of
The Black Stallion
brought such an enthusiastic response from young readers that Mr. Farley went on to create more stories about the Black, and about other horses as well. In his life he wrote a total of thirty-four books, including
Man o' War
, the
story of America's greatest thoroughbred, and two photographic storybooks based on the two Black Stallion movies. His books have been enormously popular in the United States and have been published in twenty-one foreign countries.

Mr. Farley and his wife, Rosemary, had four children, whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and at a beach house in Florida. Horses, dogs and cats were always a part of the household.

In 1989 Mr. Farley was honored by his hometown library in Venice, Florida, which established the Walter Farley Literary Landmark in its children's wing. Mr. Farley died in October 1989, shortly before the publication of
The Young Black Stallion
, the twenty-first book in the Black Stallion series. Mr. Farley co-authored
The Young Black Stallion
with his son, Steven.