The Island Stallion's Fury (9 page)

BOOK: The Island Stallion's Fury
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“We'll have to carry him, Pitch.”

The man nodded, but then he saw Flame and asked, “Can't you ride Flame and carry the foal in front of you? It would be easier on him and us.”

A few minutes later Steve was on Flame, and Pitch was carefully lifting the foal up to him. They got the forelegs on one side of Flame, the hind legs on the other. Finally they started up the gorge, Pitch walking beside Flame and keeping one hand on the foal to help Steve hold him steady.

The going was hard in the gorge, but much easier in the small valley. They traveled faster up the valley and entered the chasm, not stopping until they came to the cave which led to the sea chamber. Only then did they speak again.

“Should we carry the foal from here?” Pitch asked.

“No, he's resting comfortably. It'll be easier if we go on as we are.”

They entered the dimly lit cave and Flame walked carefully as though fully aware of the burden he carried. Never did he crabstep or break from his smooth, easy walk in the cave's white sand.

They came to the sea chamber and stopped beside the motor launch.

“We'll have to be careful getting him down now,” Pitch cautioned. “I'll get his hindquarters and watch the leg. You just take care of him up front.”

Flame never moved as Steve carefully raised the colt's forelegs, while Pitch lowered the hindquarters. Finally Pitch had the foal in his arms and was carrying him aboard the launch. Steve followed, and they placed
the colt on a blanket in the stern. They stepped back to see if he would make any attempt to get to his feet. He didn't. He was weary and his eyes were half closed.

“At least he doesn't seem to be in pain,” Steve said hopefully.

“He's probably too tired to feel anything just now,” Pitch said. “And we were careful not to jostle him. But the sooner we get him to the vet the better. When he wakes up it might be different.”

Steve was with Flame when Pitch started the launch's motor. The roar of it caused the stallion to move quickly away. Steve watched him until he disappeared through the cave on his way back to Blue Valley, then he boarded the moving launch. The foal had raised his head a little at the sudden noise, but now was sleeping again. Steve hurried to the bow of the ship. Pitch kept the launch steady while Steve reached for the handholds in the wooden doors above the low sea hole. The partitions spread apart, sliding easily in their grooves.

“That's wide enough,” Pitch yelled over the motor's roar. The wind swept into the chamber. The open sea was before them.

While Pitch was taking the launch through the exit, Steve ran back to the stern. Once they were outside the wall, Pitch held the boat steady while Steve closed the panels. Then he went to sit beside the foal. Pitch gunned the motor, taking the launch safely through a channel which found its way past the black shadows of submerged rocks.

It would take them about four hours to get to Antago, Steve knew. That meant it would be a little after noon when they arrived. He turned to look back at the
yellow dome of Azul Island when they were well away from the barrier walls; then his gaze swept back to the foal, who still slept. The boat rocked on the swells of the open sea; there were no waves to speak of and the colt wouldn't be jostled in any way. Steve thought of the hours he had spent dreaming of taking this colt away with him from Blue Valley.
But not like this
. Would it be possible for the veterinarian to help him? Would it …

Steve got to his feet and joined Pitch at the wheel. He needed Pitch's assurance that everything would turn out all right.

“Even if it's a break, the vet on Antago could set it, couldn't he?”

“I've heard that he's a very good man, Steve.” Pitch turned to the boy, saw the fear in his eyes, then added emphatically, “I'm certain everything will turn out all right. Bone injuries heal fast in the young. Why, Mrs. Reynolds' baby fell out of her high chair when she was only a year old and broke her collarbone. And new bone started forming within a few days!”

“I hope you're right.”

“I
know
I'm right,” Pitch said. “You'd better stop worrying about what the vet will do and start thinking about having some milk ready for the colt when he wakes up.”

“I hadn't even thought of it, Pitch. Why, I don't have …”

“Yes, we do,” the man said. “Go below to the galley and you'll find everything you need. The powdered milk is in the tin container marked ‘Tea.' There's not much but it's enough for a couple of feedings until we get to Antago.”

Pitch waited until the boy had disappeared down the short steps to the galley, then his face sobered and concern was evident in his eyes. He wasn't worried about the colt. He sincerely believed all he'd told Steve. It was his stepbrother Tom who was worrying him. If Tom had returned to Antago, if he by any wild chance saw the colt, all the strange things that had been happening during the last six months might be brought to a head. And it wouldn't be a happy affair. He had avoided telling Steve very much about Tom whenever the boy had asked. But now … now it would be best if Steve were told. They had to be ready for anything Tom might do if he did see them and the colt.

Later, Steve reappeared. “I found everything,” he said. “I'm waiting for the water to cool.” He turned to the foal, saw he was still sleeping, then asked, “Want me to take the wheel for a while, Pitch?”

“No, Steve … thanks.” Pitch kept his eyes on the sea ahead. “Steve?”

“Yes, Pitch?”

“You've asked me about Tom several times since your return.”

“Yes? What about him, Pitch?”

“I'd felt it best all along not to discuss Tom with you,” Pitch said. “We were safe from him in Blue Valley. But now that you and the colt are going to Antago …” He stopped as though to collect his thoughts, then plunged into what he had to say.

“Tom's been acting very strange the last five or six months. He's always been a domineering person, as you know. But it's more than that now. With no just cause, he's been cruel, even vicious at times, to the native help
we've had at the plantation. Finally it reached the point where no one living on Antago would work for him. He lost our last cane crop. But even this didn't seem to bother him. I made it a point to keep out of his way. That wasn't very difficult for me to do, especially since he started making trips to the islands south of Antago and once even went to South America.

“While he was gone, I was able to get the natives back to work. But when Tom returned they'd leave again the moment they saw him. A week before you arrived, Tom left Antago once more, this time telling me he'd be in South America for a year.”

When Pitch had finished, Steve studied his face a long while before asking, “Do you think he really went to South America, Pitch?”

“I don't know, Steve. He'd been restless and wanted excitement which he couldn't get on Antago. He'd lived there for years, longer than he'd ever settled down in any one place before. He could have gone to South America again but …” Pitch stopped.

“But what, Pitch? What makes you think he didn't?”

“The morning of the day you arrived a friend of mine told me he thought he'd seen the
Sea Queen
in the waters to the north.”

Steve's gaze never left Pitch as they stood at the bow in silence.
Sea Queen
was the name of Tom's motor launch. If Tom had been going to South America he would have traveled west … to one of the western islands, where he could get a plane for South America.

“You think then,” Steve said, “that he'd been to Azul Island? Does he have any idea what we've found there?”

“I don't honestly know, Steve. He may be curious about my trips to the spit to do a little excavation work. He knows of my interest in the island. But he didn't seem to take any active interest in my work until the last few months. In his sarcastic way he asked if my digging had turned up anything. I told him I'd found nothing on the spit … which I hadn't, of course.”

“But why his sudden interest?” Steve asked gravely.

“Perhaps his restlessness was the cause of it. Perhaps it was your letters.”

“You didn't let him see them, Pitch?” Steve's words were clipped.

“No, but I burned them after reading them. Tom saw me burning one. He probably guessed my only reason for doing such a thing was to keep the letter out of his hands. I should have been more careful.”

They said nothing more for a long while, then Steve spoke. “And you're afraid he might have returned to Antago by this time? You're afraid he'll see the …”

“… the colt.” Pitch said it for him. “And if he did he'd know we
had
found something on Azul Island we were keeping to ourselves.”

“But the colt could be from the band on the spit,” Steve said quickly. “We can tell Tom that, if he sees us.”

“But would he believe us?” Pitch asked quietly.

Steve turned to the foal, who was starting to wake up. Again he took note of the fine wedge-shaped head, the delicate lines of neck and body.

Even as he looked at the colt, Pitch reminded him, “Tom's been around horses most of his life. He'll see what you see, Steve … he'll know that that foal could never have been born from the stock on the spit.”

The boy turned to him. “But we don't need to go to the plantation, do we, Pitch?”

“No. I did all I could there before your arrival. I have no reason to go.”

“Then after we've seen the vet we'll go right back to Blue Valley,” Steve said.

“Yes,” Pitch agreed, “that's our best bet. Do what we have to do, then get off Antago fast.” He paused. “I feel much better now that I've told you everything, Steve … much better.”

The foal was fully awake, and Steve hurried below to the galley to get the milk for him.

During the remainder of the trip to Antago, Steve stayed with the colt, keeping him down on the blanket. There was pain in the foal's eyes now and Steve tried to comfort him, soothing him with voice and hands. Occasionally the foal would drop off to sleep again and only then would the boy's thoughts turn to Tom Pitcher and what he had seen this giant of a man do with the long bull whip which he wore wrapped around his bulging waist. He knew the terror Tom would bring to Blue Valley if he ever found the lost band of horses that grazed there.

But never would Tom find them. Never!

It was almost a year since Steve had last seen Tom Pitcher. But it could have been only an hour ago, for it wasn't easy to forget him. Steve saw his dark, low-jowled face with its beady, suspicious eyes always watching, waiting to catch one off guard. And when the opportunity came, Tom attacked viciously by word or action, for it was in him always to demonstrate his superiority over man and animal. Steve wondered now what instinct
fostered Tom's determination to dominate everything before him. Was it fear? Was it pride in his tremendous body and strength? Anyway, it was there for anyone to see.

Steve thought again of the bull whip which Tom could use so skillfully that it might as well be his own arms going out to grasp and tear at will. Steve had seen him use it last summer.

There had been no escape for the small, wiry horse in the plantation's corral. Tom had run him before the whip until the horse could hardly stand. He'd fought him for what seemed to Steve to be a terrible love of fighting. And when the horse had stood before him with swaying and trembling body, Tom had regretted the end of the fight. Then the animal had been broken to saddle by Tom, broken in body by Tom, broken in spirit by Tom.

The colt moved, seeking to get to his feet. Steve quieted him, keeping his hands on the small, hard body, comforting him, protecting him.

Before noon they were within sight of Antago. The island lay green and rolling with no hill more than a hundred feet high. They could see the red-roofed homes which dotted the coastline and, beyond, the waving green fields of sugar cane. A half-hour later they rounded a point and came into Chestertown, the only port and town of any size on Antago.

A freighter was just off shore, transporting its cargo into large, deep rowboats. But Pitch and Steve were more interested in the sailboats and launches moored to the wharf.

“Would the
Sea Queen
be here, if Tom's on Antago?” Steve asked from where he sat with the colt.

“Usually he keeps it here,” Pitch said without turning around. “But he has a pier near the plantation also, and once in a while he uses that.”

The foal raised his head as though he, too, wanted to know what lay ahead. Keeping the tiny body still, Steve said, “Quiet, fellow. Just be patient a little longer, and we'll have you at the doctor's.”

Pitch said, “The
Sea Queen
's not here.”

A few minutes later he brought the launch in to the end of the wharf, where he had left his car when he and Steve had set out for Azul Island a few days earlier. Steve helped him moor the boat, then they carried the foal to the car. There was plenty of activity going on farther down the wharf, near the great warehouse sheds, so scarcely anyone noticed their burden.

“You get in back with him,” Pitch said. “That's it. But watch his legs; they're hitting the door.”

They got the foal inside the car, stretched out on the seat. “It's the best we can do, Pitch,” Steve said. “I'll watch his leg so it won't be jarred.”

The man nodded and got behind the wheel. Leaving the long wharf, they went up the main street of Chestertown. The noise and confusion were startling after the quiet of Blue Valley, and Steve tried to shut his eyes and ears to the sight and sound of the crazy tangle of traffic.

The shops on either side of the street were colorless but neat. The too-narrow sidewalks overflowed with busy people who spilled into the cobblestone road and scurried before cars and bicycles. They were predominantly Negro, and a few made their way through the bustling traffic skillfully balancing huge baskets on their
heads. Native policemen, snappily dressed in khaki uniforms and caps, stood at the street intersections frantically blowing their whistles in an attempt to maintain some semblance of order.

BOOK: The Island Stallion's Fury
6.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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