The Black Stallion Mystery

  “He’s old. They were humoring him.”

  “I know, but it took a lot of love to wait that long.”

  “Maybe they should’ve had him wait a little longer since Abd-al-Rahman’s so sure he’s goin’ to catch Ziyadah.”

  Slowly Alec moved across the room. “Good night, Henry.”

  “Pleasant dreams,” Henry said, stifling a yawn.

  Alec undressed where he could look out the open window. Some of the mares had been left out and were grazing. The only sounds came from the Arabs sitting around their open fire. As in the desert they would talk until midnight before pulling their sheep-lined outer coverings about them and going to sleep. They were used to solitude, to extreme heat and cold. It was their ancestors who had first mastered the horse and yet had not looked down upon the animal because of it. Instead, they had been indebted to him for his friendship, knowing that the horse had reached his physical prime some twenty million years before their race had learned to stand on its feet.

  Alec went to bed and closed his eyes to the distant chattering of the Arabs. The moonlight reached out and covered him. From sheer physical exhaustion he fell asleep.

  He did not fall immediately into a heavy sleep as would have been expected from one so young and tired. Instead he dozed in fits and spurts, half awake and half asleep, listening for the Arabs and not hearing them. Then it was past midnight and they had gone to sleep. The moonlight moved from his bed, leaving him in deep shadows. He dozed for longer intervals only to wake and listen. For what? A ghost horse?

  Listen to the dismal neighing from downwind! It was only the roar from the chimney draft. Hear the pawing of a horseshoe on stone! It was the scraping of his bedstead against the stone wall. Listen to the rush of wings outside his window! It was the whir of carriage wheels on gravel.

  Then came deep silence and he fell heavily asleep. Toward morning he heard the thunder of hoofs. He turned over, refusing to believe them or to be awakened. They seemed to be racing round and round, coming closer and closer, louder and louder. Then his very being was pierced by the Black’s shrill scream, followed by the blast of another stallion! Yet when he jumped out of bed there was nothing to be heard but the far-off sound of running hoofs and the high, wavering whinnies of the mares.

  It was the hour before dawn and the waning moon was partly obscured by a thin veil of mist. Alec stood at the window with not a muscle moving. As if in a hypnotic spell his eyes were fixed on a shimmering stream of sparks moving beyond the end wall. Yet only a few moments ago Ziyadah must have been within the fenced fields! Alec had only to listen to the stabled Black and the excited mares to be certain of this.

  He felt a nameless terror grow within him, as on the previous night when he had first seen this fiery spectacle. He watched the trail of sparks rise into the jagged mountain vastnesses where there was nothing but sheer rock. He leaned out the window, wanting to breathe the cold air and rid himself of his terror.

  “It is Ziyadah, a stallion of flesh and blood,” he said aloud. “Moonlight and shadows are playing tricks with my eyes. He’s finding cracks and crevices and roots for a foothold. Listen to the Black screaming in his stall! He knows, too, that it’s no ghost horse. He wants to fight.”

  The sparks became a single red glow which floated rather than moved, descending into the depths either of the night or some abyss then suddenly emerging into flight again. Perspiration broke out over Alec. Where was everybody? Where were the lanterns of the Arab guards? Where was Henry? He waited until the glowing light faded on a distant peak, then he went to a chair and sat down. He must not think of ghost horses and magic and wizards. He must …

  There was a pounding upon his door. “Alec! Alec!” The voice was Abd-al-Rahman’s.

  “I’m coming.” Alec’s steps were slow, his feet leaden. Abd-al-Rahman was already dressed.

  “Come along!” the Sheikh said, his dark eyes bright. “We can still pick up his tracks. Hurry!”

  “But Henry …”

  “He’s sleeping. Let him be. We ride alone!”

  Alec pulled on his clothes quickly. The Sheikh was right. Why drag poor Henry out at this hour?

  A few minutes later Alec was outside and walking with Abd-al-Rahman toward the stables. The night was cold and dark with the moon gone. But it wasn’t still. There were movements in the great house behind the dimly lit windows. The Arabs were up and talking excitedly. Dogs barked incessantly and from the stables came shouts and whistles and neighs.

  Abd-al-Rahman strode silently a little ahead of Alec. He was dressed in the same camel’s hair breeches and short jacket he had worn earlier in the evening. Strapped to his hip was a revolver in a black leather case. Alec checked the question that rose to his lips, but of one thing he was sure: One did not track ghosts with a gun.

  Leaving Abd-al-Rahman at the stables, Alec climbed the knoll to the stallion barn. He heard the Black’s constant pawing behind the closed wooden door and spoke to him as he opened it. Eager to get out, the stallion pushed hard against him while Alec slipped the halter over his ears and whispered, “Maybe you’ll have a chance to show your sire how bright a desert star can be!”

  Alec led the black stallion to the stableyard where Abd-al-Rahman awaited him. The Sheikh stood beside a sleek gray mare wearing a camel’s hair halter and a light saddle pad. There was a ring at the back of the noseband which could be tightened to act as a bit. But where, Alec wondered, were the rich bridles of feathers and ostrich plumes which he remembered from Arabia? And the tassels and saddles of vivid colors?

  Noting the boy’s scrutiny of his horse’s tack, Abd-al-Rahman said, “I dress my mares to please myself. And you? Can I supply you with the same?” He held up the woven shank that was attached to the mare’s noseband.

  “We’re all right,” Alec said, mounting his horse from a block. He pressed his hands and legs upon the black hide and the stallion jumped.

  The stable clock said five o’clock as they rode off into the darkness. Only once did the Black attempt to bolt, and even then Alec had no difficulty in controlling him. For the rest of the way to the main gate Alec kept his horse behind Abd-al-Rahman’s, noting the new authority in the set of the Sheikh’s head and shoulders.

  “Where were your guards when he came?” Alec asked.

  “They were not alert.”

  “They didn’t even see him?”

  “Not close and not until too late. They had been dozing,” the Sheikh said contemptuously. His voice promised that he would deal with them later. Dismounting at the gate, he opened it with a large brass key.

  “Then they didn’t see how he got in and out?”

  “They say they were blinded by the fire from his hoofs but they believe he jumped as he approached this wall. They are, of course, lying to cover their own carelessness. It has withstood the attack of armies. He could not have jumped over it.”

  “If he did, he could jump over the moon,” Alec said.

  “He is no ghost,” Abd-al-Rahman insisted, locking the gate after Alec had ridden through and mounting his sleek mare. “There has to be a way he comes and goes.”

  They left the road to cross the rolling fields that stretched to the base of the mountain. It was here Alec had seen the horse from his window. There must be some mark of his hoofs, some evidence of the path he had taken.

  They rode slowly, awaiting the swift approach of day and saving their horses until they needed them most. There was no separateness of thought in the two riders now. They hunted as one, their hands and legs speaking the same commands to their mounts while their eyes searched the ground before them. The sun rose but it did not reach the chilled slopes of the mountain where they searched. Both were sure that it was here Ziyadah had run.

  Alec eased the Black carefully through a rough sidehill. If Ziyadah had gone before them, why wasn’t there a hoofprint to be seen, or even a scratch on stone? Ziyadah had been running so there should be many such marks from his hoofs.

  A cloud crossed the
sun and the early morning darkened. A chill swept over Alec as the wind came sighing down from the mountain tops. The Black’s nostrils flared but he did not sound forth his challenge. He scented no other stallion.

  Abd-al-Rahman’s sharp eyes read the ground as easily as the pages of a book, yet they found nothing. Ziyadah was gone and so were his tracks, if he’d left any. But of course he had, Alec told himself. They’d find a mark of some kind, somewhere. No horse was able to vanish into thin air!

  The minutes stretched into long hours and their trained eyes found nothing. They rode until they could ride no farther, for the mountain wall rose sheer and impassable above them. They turned their horses, retracing their path and starting over again, spreading out this time in order to make sure of missing no stone or patch of ground where Ziyadah might have left a track. Still they found no sign of his passing.

  They went back to try again and again, taking their horses step by step along the mountain slope until their eyes grew tired from the constant strain and they were forced to stop. They turned homeward in the twilight with Alec doubting he’d even seen a horse the night before. The search for Ziyadah had ended without his even having taken the Black out of a walk.

  BLACK HOURS

  15

  Alec learned that he had not reckoned fully with the set of Abd-al-Rahman’s head and shoulders or the hawk’s glint in his eyes. He found that the search for Ziyadah had only begun. That night, hidden behind the trees, their horses tied and waiting, he and the Sheikh awaited Ziyadah’s return to the mares. Others too watched for the lone stallion’s coming and signals had been arranged that would send the Black and Alec out after him. Nothing happened.

  The next day they rode alone again, for Abd-al-Rahman would not let Henry accompany them.

  “The way is dangerous,” he said. “It is enough that we risk the legs of two fine horses.”

  Henry grunted. “To say nothing of two guys’ necks.” He did not attempt to force the issue, for he, too, saw the look in the Sheikh’s eyes and the gun strapped to his hip.

  Day followed day while Alec rode the Black through the wildest country he’d ever seen, dropping into deep canyons and climbing the sweep of the mountainsides. Nothing moved except the wind. Nothing was heard but the wind. There was no sign of Ziyadah. Not a click or clatter or scratch of his hoofs. Alec grew impatient and on the fourth day he told Abd-al-Rahman, “I’d like to give up the ghost. My horse is stiffening up from this kind of going.”

  The Sheikh led the way down a ragged bluff, his mare almost sitting on her hindquarters to keep her balance. Alec had no choice but to follow. “Easy,” he said to his horse. The Black slid down the embankment by gathering up his hind legs and bending them under his body, then bracing his forelegs as he let himself go down.

  At the base of the bluff Abd-al-Rahman said, “He’s here somewhere, waiting for us to come upon him. Then you shall have your race, you and the Black!” The Sheikh’s eyes searched the changing shapes of the shadows on the broken slopes above them.

  Alec said nothing. What if they saw Ziyadah and couldn’t run him down? After all, he wasn’t going to send the Black at top speed through this kind of country! Not for Abd-al-Rahman or anyone else.

  Alec’s impatience grew with the hours while they searched for ways that would enable them to climb the mountain. He listened to the Black’s breathing and the scuff of his hoofs on stone and wondered when the Sheikh would call a halt to this futile quest. He was tired of looking at Abd-al-Rahman’s clamped jaws, tired of the search and, like his horse, just plain tired. His impatience turned to anger.

  “If Ziyadah means so much to you, why didn’t you keep his colts?” he asked almost defiantly.

  The bearded face did not turn toward Alec, nor did the dark eyes give up their search of the crags and ridges. “None of them had his speed,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “It is my business to know such things. I tried them. No, the mares were not right for Ziyadah.”

  “Why did you send them to the States?”

  “Where else do they pay such high prices for yearlings?”

  “You’re not poor,” Alec said.

  “On the contrary, Alec. Between us, Tabari and I are very rich.” He smiled for the first time. “But we are Bedouins as well. We could not resist such easy plunder.”

  “So you went to all the trouble of—”

  “But it was no trouble at all, Alec,” Abd-al-Rahman interrupted. “It was my old school friend Angel who did all the work. He came with his plane and took the colts to America. He made arrangements with the agent there. I had little to do with it. But Angel was well paid, and it is he who needs money for his bulls and that ridiculous game he plays on horseback.”

  “At least it’s an honest game,” Alec retorted.

  Abd-al-Rahman smiled. “You have grown longer spurs since our last meeting in Arabia, Alec. You are a fighting cock now and crowing. It is as Tabari said months ago … our colts would not pass your eye without your guessing their sire. She said you would track us down, even here. I answered, ‘Let him come, for he will not travel without the Black and with such a horse we may catch Ziyadah!’ And so it is at this moment.”

  “So it is,” Alec repeated quietly.

  “All but my taking Ziyadah,” the Sheikh reminded. “Come, let us see if that too cannot be arranged. There is still a half day before us.”

  They descended into a dark canyon overspread with long shadows and a dry stream bed. Crossing it, they rode beneath the jagged rock formation of an overhanging cliff. They found a break in the rock and climbed again, moving higher and higher onto a humped ridge. All the while their eyes searched the towering mountain, seeking some way to surmount it as Ziyadah must have done. But as on preceding days they finally reached an end to the trail. The path they had chosen stopped before a wall of sheer stone. Hours later, they turned their horses homeward, little knowing that the long, tedious search for Ziyadah temporarily had come to an end.

  As they approached the stables, Abd-al-Rahman kicked his gray mare into a run.

  “What’s up?” Alec asked, the Black running easily beside him.

  “Tabari is back.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The mares. See how they have gathered near the house. They do it only when she is home.”

  “Does she feed them?”

  “Occasionally, but it is much more than that. Often they will spend hours there as if they wanted nothing more than for her to look upon them. It is strange too that they know when she is home even though they cannot see her.”

  Abd-al-Rahman spoke hurriedly and his eyes showed his impatience to be with his wife. He spurred his mare. Alec, not wanting to run the Black all the way to the stables, did not follow. When Abd-al-Rahman arrived at the house, Homsi appeared as if by magic and led the gray mare away. The Sheikh ran up the long flight of steps, taking several at a time.

  It was an hour later when Alec approached the house, having taken care of his horse for the night. He glanced at the mares gathered in the field just beyond the gardens. They were standing still, their small heads turned in the direction of the house, and neighing occasionally. Alec was not surprised that they knew of Tabari’s being home even though they could not see her. Scent was the highest developed faculty of a horse and if she had fed them any tidbits it was only natural for them to connect some scent with her presence. Strangely enough the Black, too, had turned toward the house when they had passed it.

  The front door opened before Alec had a chance to reach for the brass handle. The liveried footman said, “If it is convenient, Madam would like to see you.”

  Tabari was alone. She sat in a high-backed, carved wooden chair looking out the window at the mares. Beside her on a small table were pastries and a pot of tea.

  She spoke without turning her head. “Sometimes I sit here for hours just watching them.”

  “Don’t you ride any more?” Alec wanted to know.
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  “No. It is their movements I enjoy most of all now. It is like watching a fine ballet.”

  “He would not have liked it this way,” Alec said, referring to her father.

  “Perhaps not.”

  “His death was an accident. Don’t you see? It could have happened to anyone.”

  “Would you care for tea?” Her tone was gracious, her manner polite.

  “No, thank you.” Suddenly Alec was conscious of his dusty clothes and dirty hands. “I’d better clean up.”

  “Please stay a few minutes. It is good talking to you again.” She was friendly yet her voice was commanding.

  “If you like.” He was aware of the subtle but heady perfume she wore. It was an easy scent for the mares to catch. “Did you have a good trip?” he asked.

  “Yes, except for strong headwinds coming back.” She rose from the chair, her figure as slim and pliable as a willow reed.

  “Do you keep your plane where we landed with González?”

  “Of course. There is no other level field in these mountains. Did you not notice our hangar against the west wall?”

  “No, we didn’t. It wasn’t much of a morning.”

  She sauntered to the window and for a short while was silent. Then she asked curiously, “How long have you been searching for Ziyadah?”

  “Four days I think it is now … and some nights. I’ve lost track. Your husband would know.”

  She stood quietly in front of the window, her raven-black hair shining brilliantly in the rays cast by the setting sun, her hands remaining deep in the pockets of her blue skirt. “It is ridiculous,” she said at last.

  “Then you don’t think we have a chance of catching him?” Alec saw the sudden scorn in her eyes and was almost glad. Only she could influence Abd-al-Rahman to call off this search. Even if it were only for a short time, a rest would be welcome.

  In answer Tabari went to a large desk and withdrew an envelope. She straightened up, her eyes flashing, and said, “This is my father’s written statement that the skeleton found by the mountaineers was that of Ziyadah.”