The Island Stallion's Fury (3 page)

Pitch began rolling the map. “Well, that's it, Steve.”

“It's a good job. As good a job as any professional could have done.”

“No,” said Pitch with a smile. “But it's the best I can do, and I'm glad it's clear to you.” Putting away the map, he urged, “Let's eat now, Steve. I've spent too much time talking, and you must be hungry and tired. It's been a hard day for you.”

Early the next morning after breakfast, Pitch took his light pick and placed his flashlights in the small leather bag which he carried over his shoulder.

“You're sure I can't help you?” Steve asked.

“No. I've found an interesting tunnel. I can travel it better alone.”

“You're careful?”

“Very careful, Steve. I won't get lost. I mark every tunnel I travel. I'll show you later today, if you'd like to go inside with me.”

“I would,” Steve replied.

“I'll be back by noon.” As Pitch started up the trail, he said over his shoulder, “I'm taking it for granted you want to spend this morning with Flame and the others.”

After Pitch had disappeared within the great opening at the top of the waterfall, Steve looked about for Flame. The giant stallion had left his band several times during the last hour to come down the valley, his head raised in the direction of the ledge, looking for the boy. But Flame was back with the band now, grazing with them.

Steve went down the trail and started up the valley floor. He hadn't gone very far when Flame saw him. Lifting his head, the stallion neighed, then went back to his grazing. But only for a moment. He stopped, then trotted toward the boy.

Steve watched his horse, felt the muscles of his throat tighten at the beauty and grace of this spirited stallion. And he marveled and was humbled that Flame belonged to him. During the months that he had been away from Blue Valley, he had often thought that it all had been a dream, that there was no such place as Azul Island, no such horse as Flame, no lost band living in a lost world.

When Flame stopped before him, Steve touched
the soft nose of the stallion, ran his hand between the large, bright eyes and then down the soft neck. He stood stroking his horse for a long time, straightening the red mane and forelock which hung low over Flame's forehead.

Finally he mounted and, letting the stallion choose his gait, rode toward the band. The mares with suckling foals at their sides moved away at sight of him, but the long-legged weanlings stood their ground, inquisitively watching his approach. They scattered when Flame neighed shrilly, and Steve laughed as they pushed hard against each other in their wild efforts to get out of the path of their running leader.

Flame moved past the band, his strides lengthening. Letting him go, Steve rode low and close to the stallion's neck. For all of a mile Flame went at a full gallop, then Steve spoke to him and sat back. The stallion responded, slowing down to a canter and then a trot.

They were on the left side of the valley, near the marsh. Already gray vapors were beginning to rise from the swampland in the heat of the sun's first rays. The hollow which fostered the marsh was no more than a hundred yards deep and ran for perhaps a quarter of a mile along this side of the valley. But to reach the dry stream gorge which cut the barrier wall here one had to pass through the marsh. Luckily there were green avenues of solid ground that made it possible to avoid the quagmires.

Steve turned Flame away from the desolate marsh and back toward the band. This morning he wanted to go through the canyon which led to the ledge overlooking the spit of land.
Bottle Canyon
, he reminded himself—
that's what Pitch calls it on his map. I'd better call it that, too. And the ledge overlooking the spit is Lookout Ledge. I guess Pitch named it that because from that ledge the Spaniards could have seen any approach from Antago and the south
.

He gave Flame his head, and the stallion went into his long, effortless lope down the valley. A group of yearling colts and fillies broke and ran at Flame's approach. Steve watched them go, then turned to look at the mares and foals grazing near the wild cane. Next to Flame he loved the foals best. It was fun watching them as they stayed so close to their mothers, seeking protection from anything that might frighten or startle them.

But soon the band was left far behind and they had reached the water pool. Flame stretched down to drink. When he had finished Steve took him along the southern wall of the valley toward the wild cane on the opposite side. Just before they reached it, they came to the cleavage in the wall. Steve turned Flame into the long neck of Bottle Canyon.

The ground was soft with good grass and free of rock. Flame went from a walk to a trot, and Steve let him go. For a hundred yards the high walls of the canyon rose close on either side, then they widened, forming the great base of Bottle Canyon.

The grass here too was good and cropped low, so Steve knew that Flame used the canyon for grazing. The high yellow walls rose all around them and Steve didn't see where it was possible to reach Lookout Ledge from the canyon floor. But Flame seemed to know where he was going, so Steve let him alone.

The stallion went toward the far wall, which Steve
knew was the only barrier between them and the spit. As they neared it, Flame veered to the right, and Steve saw the trail running up along the right wall. He thought it too steep and narrow, and sought to check Flame's speed. But the stallion only shook his head, then gathered himself and lurched up the trail. The first few feet were the steepest part of the climb; from there on the ascent was much more gradual than it had appeared from below. Steve noticed the regular cuttings in the rock on either side of the trail; the Spaniards must have widened this path to Lookout Ledge.

Halfway up the wall, Flame entered a high natural cleft in the stone. The light grew dim but the sky could be seen overhead. Farther on the chasm narrowed until Steve could touch the walls on either side of Flame. He looked up. There was no opening overhead. Quickly he checked Flame's walk. Then he saw that the light ahead was as bright as day. Also, the walls had widened. They were in a large shallow cave that opened on Lookout Ledge!

Steve brought Flame to a stop and slid off his back. He moved cautiously toward the ledge, looking back once to make certain that Flame was not following him. There was only one chance in a thousand that anyone from Antago would be visiting the spit of Azul Island, but he mustn't take even that one chance of being seen.

Lookout Ledge was a good deal larger than it appeared from below. It was about fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. Flat on his stomach, Steve crawled across the ledge until he was able to look down three hundred feet below to the floor of Spit Canyon. Beyond
was the sandy, windswept land and the sea. There was no human being in the canyon or on the spit, no boat at sea.

But grazing on the tufts of grass in the canyon was the small band of horses that lived on the spit. There were eight mares with foals by their sides and a stallion—all small, wiry and shaggy. These were the horses that had brought him to Azul Island last year, for Pitch had written him about this band.

They were supposed to be descendants of the horses the Conquistadores rode during the Conquest, according to the story which the Chamber of Commerce on Antago released to newspapers in the United States and South America every few years in one form or another. But no one knew whether the story was true. Steve and Pitch, having found Flame and his band in Blue Valley, knew that the story could be closer to the truth than most people on Antago actually believed. On Antago, the “wise” citizens said that the story was just one that had been promoted by the publicity-minded Chamber of Commerce to get the name of Antago in foreign newspapers and possibly build up the island's tourist trade. These people claimed that actually the horses were from Antago—that many years ago they had been taken to the spit of Azul Island and released to propagate and create the basis for such an interesting and romantic story!

Steve didn't know the correct answer any more than anyone else did, although he and Pitch had discussed the small band very often. The horses had none of the characteristics of Flame and his band. But then, as Pitch had said, the ancestors of these horses may
have been those which hadn't met the high equine standards of the Conquistadores, so the Spaniards had kept them on the spit and away from their favorites which grazed in Blue Valley. Then, too, the spit being what it was, windswept and with scarcely any grass, it was only natural that the horses would be very much unlike those of Blue Valley in size and quality.

Steve heard Flame behind him. He got to his feet to stand beside the stallion. Flame's ears were pitched forward, his nostrils dilated. He neighed to the mares below. The band scattered, the mares whinnying. Only the small stallion stood his ground. He raised his head, whistling. Flame's answering challenge shattered the cry of the rival stallion. Then Flame moved uneasily up and down the ledge, his red body trembling in his eagerness to fight.

Steve went back to the cave, calling Flame and hoping he'd follow him. He kept walking and calling, but only when he was nearing the trail did he hear Flame's hoofbeats behind him. He began his descent to the floor of Bottle Canyon with the stallion following him.

Later, when they walked into Blue Valley, Steve looked toward camp and saw that Pitch had already returned. Flame moved away from Steve, cantering toward his band. The boy watched him until he heard the sudden breaking of the cane stalks on his right. Turning around, he saw a heavy bay mare making her way alone through the tall cane. He watched her until she came to a stop in a small clearing not far from the wall. From her size and actions he knew she'd be giving birth to a foal sometime during the afternoon or night.

Steve turned away. He was going to take a special interest in this foal to come, for never had he seen a newly born foal. He'd watch the mare carefully and, if possible, go to her the moment the foal was born. Would it be a colt or filly? Would it be a red chestnut like Flame or a dark brown bay like the mare?

Feeling like the luckiest and happiest boy in the world, he shouted to Pitch and burst into a run to tell him about the foal to come.

“Finish your beans, Steve,” Pitch said a little sternly, “and stop watching that bay mare. She won't have her foal during the daytime. Mares are just like women; they have their babies at the most unreasonable hours of the night … just to make it hard on you,” he added, smiling.

Steve smiled too. “How do you know, Pitch? You're a bachelor.” Finished with his beans, he put the empty plate in a pail of hot water.

“What was the name of that couple who ran the boarding house on your block?” Pitch asked in reply to Steve's question.

“Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds,” the boy answered. “You ought to remember … you lived there five years.”

Nodding, Pitch said, “Yep. And she had three children while I was there. They all were born between three and five o'clock in the morning. Mr. Reynolds and I often discussed how unreasonable it was of Mrs. Reynolds.”

“But children and foals
can
be born during the daytime,” Steve insisted.

“Perhaps, but I doubt it.”

Steve reached for the can of powdered milk and, removing the lid, put several tablespoonfuls of the powder into a pint jar half-filled with water. He stirred briskly until the powder was thoroughly mixed with the water, then raised the jar to his lips and drank.

“This powdered milk is just like the real thing,” he told Pitch, when he had finished.

“It
is
the real thing. It's whole milk. All you did was add water.”

Steve glanced again at the clearing on the far side of the valley. The bay mare was standing up, grazing. She seemed to be in no hurry to have her foal. Perhaps Pitch was right and she wouldn't have her foal for hours and hours. He washed the dishes while Pitch fingered the cat-o'-nine-tails he had found in the tunnels that morning.

When Steve had finished, he took the short-handled whip which Pitch offered him for examination. He felt the nine knotted leather lines, each about three feet long, which were fastened to the handle.

“The Spaniards used it for flogging?” he asked Pitch.

“I guess so … sometimes,” the man replied quietly.

“Then in many ways Tom is like them,” Steve said. “Tom and his bull whip.”

Pitch went over to the stove to clean it. It was obvious that he didn't want to discuss the stepbrother with whom he'd lived on Antago for the last two years.

“Flame and I went to Lookout Ledge today,” Steve
said after a while. “We saw the band there—eight mares with foals, and the stallion. Tom must have taken all the weanlings and yearlings in his round-up last year.”

“I guess so,” Pitch said, moving away.