Alec came to a stop. He stood still until he was certain the Black’s wild eyes were on him, then he walked forward, his bare feet making no sound.
Still pale with rage and terror, the man cried, “Take the whip, Alec! Use it on him if you have to!”
Without taking his eyes off the Black, Alec said, “If I did, he’d kill me, Henry. The same as he would have killed you.” He continued walking forward, talking to the stallion in a soft, low voice, and never raising it or his hand in a gesture of any kind. Only once did he interrupt his murmurings with a soft-spoken command. When he got close to the Black, he put his hand on the lathered halter. The stallion trembled, and for a moment his eyes gleamed brighter than ever. Alec gave the low command again, but the stallion drew back his head in an abrupt gesture of defiance.
Keeping his hand on the halter, Alec moved along with the stallion until he came to a stop. The boy waited patiently, his eyes never leaving those of his horse, his murmurings never ceasing. With a motion of his head, he indicated to Henry that he was to leave.
Alec turned the Black toward the upper end of the paddock, diverting his attention from Satan and Henry. With his free hand he tried to soothe the tossing head, and finally he got the stallion to take a few steps up the paddock. Then the Black stopped again, trying to turn his head.
Alec held him close, and waited for a while before leading him forward once more. Satan and Henry had left the paddock. It was a little easier now. The Black followed Alec for a moment before stopping again, this time to utter his short, piercing blast. Alec stood quietly beside him, the wind billowing his pajamas. He knew that in a little while the Black would calm down, and he would be able to take him into the barn. But right now he must go on as he was doing, talking to him, soothing him, and waiting.
He walked him again, and as he did, he tried to understand the reason for the Black’s sudden, vicious attack on Satan. For many months his horse had been all a well-mannered stallion should be. Why, then, had he reverted to the role of a killer tonight? And what were he and Henry going to do about it?
REVOLT!
2
Alec stood outside the heavy oak door of the Black’s stall. He heard him rustling his straw, and through the iron-barred window watched him move restlessly about. The fierce light had left the stallion’s eyes, and Alec knew that in a few minutes it would seem as if he had never shown rage, as if his fury had never been aroused. Yet within him that savage, natural instinct to kill would live, smoldering and waiting for some spark to set it aflame again. It would never die.
Alec turned from the Black to watch Henry in his never-ending walk up and down the long corridor, his voice still raised in furious tirade against the stallion. As with the Black, it would take a little while for Henry to quiet down, thought Alec. He’d be able to talk to him sensibly then. But not now. Now he could only listen, and wait.
Henry came down the corridor. “He would have killed Satan! In another minute he’d have done it!” He turned on his heel quickly with only a glance at Alec. Again he walked up the corridor, his bare grass-stained feet making no sound. “He would have killed me, too! Just like that!” He snapped his large, rugged fingers.
Henry passed Napoleon’s stall. The old gray had his large head down as though he were assuming all blame for the night attack and thought that Henry’s loud denuciation was meant for him alone. Satan was in a stall at the far end of the barn, and only there did Henry come to a stop, to speak softly. There was no doubt of his love for Satan. It was in his eyes and voice for anyone to see. He had raised Satan from a colt. He had trained him carefully and wisely, making him a perfect racing machine, a great champion.
Alec waited, never moving from the Black’s door while Henry resumed his pacing. The overhead lights were harsh and cruel to his old friend. They emphasized the deep lines in Henry’s face and his dropped jowls. They made his disheveled hair look whiter and thinner.
A few more trips up and down the corridor, and then Henry’s pace slowed. There were longer lapses between his sentences. Alec knew that it wouldn’t be long now before they’d be able to discuss intelligently the Black’s vicious attack on Satan, the reasons for it, and the precautionary measures that must be taken to prevent its happening again. Finally, Henry came to a stop before him.
“You’ve said nothing, Alec, nothing at all! Don’t you realize what he did? What could have happened to Satan?”
“And to you,” Alec added. “Yes, I know, Henry.”
Henry’s jaw came out, his unshaven face bristling with stiff, gray hair. “Then why do you take it so calmly, just as though you didn’t care?”
“I do care, I’m not calm. But shouting’s not going to help us work it out.”
“It helps me!” Henry bellowed. He turned fiercely and went up and down the corridor again. When he came back he said bitterly, “Okay, Alec, let’s have it your way, then. You want to sit down nice-like and talk it all over quietly as if we’re just havin’ a little trouble with an unruly yearling.” His jaw quivered while he paused for breath. When he spoke again, all his anger and fury had returned. “Get smart, Alec! This is no yearling we’re dealin’ with. Get smart before he kills all of us!”
Alec’s mouth tightened, and white showed at his cheekbones. He kept quiet. He had to understand Henry, just as he did the Black. He had to remember never to force an issue with either of them. Trying to push them around, battling their wills, would get him nowhere. Ask them nicely and he had a chance.
Henry had turned to the Black’s window, and was watching the tall stallion. “It’s not as if this fight was something that just flared up in a moment,” the trainer said. “This took time, a lot of time, a lot of planning. It took cunning to break down the fence, and then find a way into Satan’s paddock. His attack was no sudden, natural urge to fight another stallion, but the methodical, vicious, premeditated scheme of a murderer!”
For a moment the barn was quiet and they could hear the wind blowing outside.
Alec said, “Where’d we get the Black, Henry?”
The trainer’s small, boring eyes left the stallion. “You’re being silly. What do you mean where’d we get him?”
“Just that, Henry. We got him in Arabia. He was foaled and raised in the Great Desert, the Rub’ al Khali.”
“I know all that.”
“I thought maybe you’d forgotten,” Alec said.
“Forgotten?” Henry sought an explanation in Alec’s eyes. “Forgotten that he was desert born? What do you take me for, Alec?” He raised his voice a pitch higher. “Do you think that excuses him for this? Wasn’t Satan desert born, too?”
“Satan came to us as a weanling,” Alec said quietly. “He had a chance. The Black was a mature stallion, never fully broken, never handled. And, Henry, he had roamed the desert free for a long while. Have you forgotten that?”
“I tell you I haven’t forgotten anything,” the old man said. Some of the harshness was gone from his voice. “I know further that he’s your horse completely, that no other person in this world can do as much with him. But Alec …”
“Do you remember my telling you what happened the first time I ever saw him,” Alec interrupted, “the day they were loading him on board my ship when it stopped at that Arabian port on the Red Sea?”
Henry shook his head in disgust. “Alec, if you’re going to bother tellin’ me the whole story of the Black again, you’d better just save your breath an’ I’ll save you some time. I know he was stolen from the Arab sheik, Abu Ishak, and put aboard your ship. I knew it went down off the west coast of Spain and you and the Black were the only survivors. An’ if he hadn’t pulled you to that reef of an island somewhere out there you wouldn’t be around now to be talkin’ this way.” Henry paused for breath. “I know, too, that if you hadn’t found food for him on the island, he wouldn’t be any more yours than he’s mine or anyone else’s. A hungry animal is a tame animal. I’ve seen it happen before. Sure, I’ll admit he loves you now, but ne
ver forget that your finding something for him to eat when he was starving made it all possible.”
“I wasn’t going into all that,” Alec said.
“You brought it up,” Henry insisted, his mouth less tight now. “I’ll finish it. I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten anything,” he added sarcastically. “When you came back to the States with him, I met you and him for the first time. I knew what kind of a horse you had better’n you did. We raced him once and there never was or will be another race like it. Then we lost him because his rightful owner, Abu Ishak, came to reclaim him. Later on he sent you Satan as your reward, and then when Abu died he willed you the Black, so we got him back again.”
Henry stopped. “Am I making sense, Alec? Isn’t my memory still good?”
Alec nodded, and tried to interrupt. “All I wanted to say, Henry, was …”
“Let me finish, Alec. So we had the Black and Satan, and we made a world champion of Satan. It enabled us to set up this place.” Henry’s hands went out in a great gesture. “We have one of the country’s finest stock farms and racing stables. Sure, Alec, we’ve arrived in the big time, and we’re more than payin’ our way along. An’ we owe it all to the Black and Satan. Without them you and I would be back in the suburbs of New York City. You ridin’ subways instead of horses, and me sittin’ in a chair tryin’ to remember the old days when I was a lot younger and had a way with horses. Sure and I’d be grievin’ about it being all over.”
Henry paused for a moment, his yellowing teeth biting into his lower lip. Then he went on. “But what has all that got to do with what happened tonight, Alec? How does all this business of remembering what’s happened before, and appreciating what we have now, got to do with the viciousness, the ruthlessness of what he did tonight?”
“It helps us to understand him and the reasons for his attack on Satan.”
“But I do understand,” Henry came back, emphasizing every word, every letter. “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“You do now, but you didn’t. Not a few minutes ago,” Alec said. “You didn’t give yourself a chance.”
“So I blew off steam,” Henry said.
“So you did,” Alec agreed. “And now you’re all quieted down.”
“All quieted down,” Henry repeated. “If we’re goin’ to talk any more let’s go into the office. Let the horses get some quiet, too.”
They left the corridor, turning off the light behind them, and entered the barn’s office. As Henry sat down in the deep cushioned chair behind the desk, Alec straddled a straight chair before it.
“You still haven’t let me say what I wanted to,” Alec said. “About what happened the time I first saw the Black.”
“He was a terror on the pier,” Henry recalled.
“More than that. He killed a man,” Alec returned quietly.
Henry’s face became taut. “Yes, I remember you told me that.”
“I told you why he did it, too, didn’t I?”
Henry nodded. “Someone used a whip on him.”
“That’s right,” Alec said. “And you used one on him tonight. That’s why he turned on you.”
“But what was I going to do, Alec? He was about to kill Satan!”
“I know, but the point is, you forgot. He would have taken anything else from you but a whip. You’ve never had any trouble with him before.”
“All right, I forgot,” Henry said brusquely. “But where do we go from here? What are we going to do about him?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing we can do except always keep his background in mind, and never forget it. I think we’ve both been inclined lately to do just that.”
“He’s given us every reason to forget what he was,” Henry insisted. “He’s been easy to handle, and a good-mannered stallion. At times he’s been just as nice as Satan. He’s taken to stable routine like a park hack.”
“That’s just it,” Alec said. “He’s been good too long. The break had to come sometime, and it came tonight. Unfortunately, neither of us was figuring on such a thing happening. We’re as much to blame.”
Henry left his chair to walk nervously about the room. His eyes swept over the walls, taking in the numerous championship plaques that had been awarded to Satan during his racing career. “Do you think he’s gotten it out of his system for a while, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Henry. Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think there’s any way of telling for sure.”
“Then the only thing we can do is to isolate him until we find out,” the trainer said. “Put him in one of the far pastures or keep him in the barn most of the time.”
“Isolation might make things worse,” Alec said quietly.
“I know, but we can’t take any chances of him gettin’ to Satan again.”
Alec’s gaze left Henry and shifted to the east window. The horizon was turning a dull gray. Soon the day would begin. There was no sense in going back to bed now. In a little while it would be time to feed the broodmares and their colts, to handle the weanlings and yearlings, to do the many other endless tasks that went with the operation of a stock farm. Routine and schedules. Regular hours for feeding, handling, cleaning and training. But in spite of all this his days were never dull. Every colt and filly, every broodmare and stallion was an individual to be treated in his or her own special way to obtain best results. Yet there were only so many hours in a day, with so many jobs to be done. Keep to a schedule and one finished in time for bed.
Hearing the Black neigh jolted Alec’s mind back to the problem at hand. If the stallion were a person, one would say he was tired of routine, tired of the regularity of his daily schedule. All right, Alec thought, say it.… He’s bored! Say it and get it over with! Not so long ago the Black had roamed the Great Desert of Arabia, wild and free. Now he was being treated like the most domesticated of farm animals. Was it any wonder that he had revolted against it all? Wasn’t it, indeed, a wonder that he hadn’t revolted long before tonight? The Black needed freedom, a freedom he couldn’t have here no matter what arrangements were made!
“Henry …”
“Yeah?”
“What do you do when you get pretty fed up with farm routine?” Alec asked.
Henry looked puzzled. He walked around to the front of the desk and then sat down again, hoping to meet Alec’s gaze. But the boy’s eyes were fixed on the desk.
“You can’t say I get fed up,” Henry said. “I like it here. I just need a change every once in a while.”
“So you take one or more of our horses to the track for a season’s campaign.”
“Sure, Alec. That’s part of my job here. Racing helps to pay our bills.” Henry grinned sheepishly. “But what are you driving at?”
“The point I’m trying to make is that you’d be a pretty unruly guy if you couldn’t get back to the track once in a while.”
“Naturally. It’s been an important part of my life for some fifty years. It’s me.”
“It’s the Black, too,” Alec said quietly.
“Racing?” Henry asked incredulously. “Are you out of your mind, Alec? He’s not controllable on a track. You know that as well as I do.”
“I didn’t mean racing,” Alec said quickly. “But just as training and racing are important to you, freedom is necessary to the Black.”
Henry laughed. “Sure,” he said, “but what do you want to do? Turn him loose to roam wherever he pleases?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“You’re kidding.” But the smile left Henry’s lips when he met Alec’s gaze. “Can’t you just see him running around the countryside? Maybe he’ll even head down the Parkway to New York City for a look at the race tracks.”
“Now you’re trying to be funny,” Alec said.
“Okay, I was tryin’,” Henry returned gravely. “But you suggested this, so let’s hear you come up with some kind of an explanation.”
“He needs a change from the routine and daily schedule he’s had here
at the farm. He’s behaved himself for a long, long while but tonight was the turning point. We won’t have a moment’s peace around here from now on. I’m convinced of that, now that I’ve thought it all over. Give him some freedom, a chance to roam and be on his own again, and it’ll get a lot out of his system. He’ll come back a better horse for it.”
“Come back? Come back from where?”
“How about Bill Gallon’s place in southern California?”
“The Desert Ranch? You mean, Alec, you want to send him way out there? Why?”
“Because Bill Gallon has several thousand fenced acres of desert and irrigated pastureland,” Alec said quietly. “The Black would have something like his homeland. He’d have freedom to roam. It’s the closest thing I can think of to what he needs right now. Do you think Bill would let us turn him out there for a month, maybe two months?”
“Of course. He’s one of my best friends, isn’t he? But, Alec …” Henry paused. “You really think that’ll do the trick? You just want him turned loose?”
“That’s all,” Alec said. “It’ll be enough.
“You should go with him. He’s your horse.”
Alec’s gaze dropped to the huge desk in front of him. “I’ll take him out there, anyway.”
“And then come back?” Henry asked.
“Yes, just as soon as I know everything is all right.”
“Why don’t you stay with him?”
“You know why, Henry.”
“Your work here?”
Alec nodded.
Henry was quiet for a few minutes, but his eyes never left Alec’s face. Finally he said, “Maybe you need a change, too.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“But you’ll miss him.”
“Sure.”
“And he’ll miss you.”
“He’ll be too happy, too free to miss anybody,” Alec said.
“Having just you around would make his freedom all the more exciting,” Henry said. “Just the two of you, like it was at first.”
Alec smiled. “You’re getting sentimental, Henry.”