Black Stallion and Satan Read online

  Then the photographers took pictures of Alec and Henry together. They were very much alike, these two. They made a good picture, and the photographers knew it. They were the same height. Each carried his weight in his shoulders, chest and arms. Henry was heavier through the waist than Alec and his legs were bowed and not so slender, but they could have been taken for father and son.

  “Move closer to Alec, Henry,” a photographer called.

  Henry grunted, pulling his soggy hat far down over his wrinkled brow. “You oughta get out of here,” he told Alec. “You’ve had more than enough for one day.”

  “Smile as if you were glad to see him,” a photographer yelled to Henry. “And push your hat back so we can get a look at your face.”

  Henry pulled his sober face into a grin, but he didn’t touch his hat. “Take your mother and father and get going. I’ll follow in a few minutes. I’ve got my car here.”

  Alec turned to Satan’s stall, where he saw the colt being fondled by one of the grooms Henry had hired. Satan had his head raised above the door, and the perfectly shaped white diamond in the center of his forehead stood out prominently against his black face. Looking for a carrot, the colt shoved his muzzle into the groom’s shirt pocket; then more people moved in front of the stall, blocking Alec’s view of Satan.

  “Don’t turn your head away from Henry,” someone shouted to him.

  “I’d like to be with Satan a few minutes before I go, Henry,” he said.

  “Hold it!”

  “They’ll follow you in there with him,” Henry replied. “It won’t be no better for you. You’d better go. Satan’s all right. Don’t worry about him.”

  Alec’s face clouded. “It’s not that I’m worried about him. It’s just that …”

  “Grin, Alec, will you?” the photographers called to him.

  Alec grinned and the clicks of shutters followed; then Henry had him by the arm and was taking him up the row to where his father’s car was parked. He saw that his parents were already inside.

  He sat in the back seat and was quiet as his father drove out the barn gate and headed for home.

  It was a little less than an hour later when they arrived in Flushing. The sky to the west was brightened by the glow of New York City lights, and the tall skyscrapers could be seen pushing their fiery towers into the night.

  Mr. Ramsay drove down quiet suburban streets and finally came to a stop before a two-story brown house. “The rain is over,” he said, getting out of the car.

  Mrs. Ramsay followed him up the walk to the house. She had reached the porch when she turned to find Alec crossing the street. She was about to call him when her husband took her by the arm.

  “He probably wants to go to the barn for a few minutes, Belle. I’d leave him alone.”

  “But nothing’s there … just Tony’s old horse.”

  “He knows that,” Mr. Ramsay said, moving her across the porch. “He knows it very well.”

  When they opened the door, a small dog with shaggy brown hair leaped outside and rose, clinging to their legs with his forepaws. Mr. Ramsay reached down to pull gently on the long ears. “You’d better go with Alec, Sebastian,” he said. “I think he’d like to have you around.”

  The dog stood still before the closed door, whimpering and with his head cocked; then he turned and saw Alec. With a short bark he ran down the steps and across the pavement until he came to a sliding stop before the boy.

  Alec bent down to him, holding the soft body in his arms, but after a few minutes he straightened and went to the high, iron-barred fence. Opening the gate, he went inside, followed closely by Sebastian.

  The graveled driveway led to Henry’s house and one of the few open fields left in a fast-growing area; it stretched before him, coming to an end at an old barn a hundred yards away. Alec walked toward it, his eyes leaving the darkened barn only for the wooden fence to the left of the barn and to the field beyond … the field where the Black—and, later, Satan—had grazed.

  Reaching the barn door, he opened it and went inside. Even before he switched on the light there was the soft whinny of a horse. Sebastian’s feet pattered over the wood floor as he made his way toward one of the two box stalls in the small barn.

  Blinking his eyes in the sudden light, a horse pushed his gray, almost white, head over his stall’s half-door. Alec went to him, placing his hand upon the soft muzzle. For a moment he stood there, his eyes running over the well-groomed coat.

  “Tony takes good care of you all right, doesn’t he, Napoleon?” Alec’s gaze turned to the cloth hanging on the peg beside the door. “But I guess it wouldn’t do any harm to go over you once more.” Taking the cloth, Alec went inside and ran it across Napoleon’s swayed back. But the horse turned to him, seeking the boy’s face.

  “Stand still, Napoleon,” he said, taking the old head and pressing it close to him.

  Sebastian entered the stall, running between the horse’s legs and beneath the heavy hanging girth. Napoleon lowered his head, inquisitively watching the dog.

  When Alec had finished grooming Napoleon, he went to the water pail and found it full. But he emptied and refilled it; then he got some clean straw and spread it over the floor.

  It was only when there was nothing else to do that he turned to the other box stall. He looked at it for many minutes before going to the tack room at the far end of the barn, and there he sat down on a low, flat chest and buried his head in his hands.

  “You’ve got to grow up,” he told himself angrily.

  When he raised his head again, it was to look at three pictures hanging on the wall before him. They were of Satan. One had been taken when he was a weanling and stood on long spindled legs; another when he was a yearling and already bigger-boned and more burly than his sire; and the last picture was one of him as a two-year-old, standing in the winner’s circle after he had won the Hopeful last fall. That had been the beginning of his meteoric career on the track and the end, Alec knew, of having Satan for his own.

  There was another picture, larger than the others, on the wall to Alec’s left. Without turning to it, he saw every detail in his mind. It was a photograph of the Black’s head. Alec had taken it one day long ago, and his father had had it enlarged and framed for him. The background was nothing but sky, and the Black stood out against it so vividly that it seemed you could reach out and touch the finely drawn muzzle, to feel it soft and quivering beneath your hand.

  It was a small head, noble and arrogant, with eyes large and lustrous, burning with fiery energy; his silky foretop and heavy black mane were swept back, for there had been a strong breeze that day; his small ears were pricked forward, almost touching at the tips; and his delicate nostrils were dilated, for he had been suspicious and wary of the camera.

  Alec closed his eyes, shutting out the Black’s picture from his mind. But he opened them almost immediately, startled by the sound of his own voice as he said loudly, “Today I rode Satan to the Triple Crown championship. No one could ask for more than that. No one should. I’m the luckiest and happiest kid in the world.”

  He repeated his words to himself, then rose to his feet, knowing well that he was only kidding himself. He wasn’t happy at all.

  THE WAY IT WAS

  3

  Alec was leaving the tack room when the barn door opened and Henry came inside. Sebastian barked and ran to meet him.

  “I saw the light and figured it was you, Alec. Anything wrong?”

  “No. I was just checking up on Napoleon.”

  Walking over to the old gray, Henry said, “I’m glad school is about over. Now you’ll be able to get to the track mornings with me.”

  Alec stood beside Henry, his hand on Napoleon’s muzzle. “It seems so right to be in this barn, where everything started,” he said quietly. “I know we can’t keep Satan here, but I wish we could.”

  Henry turned to him quickly, his face puzzled. But then he smiled and said, “Yeah, it’s different at the track all right. The p
hotographers got me down today, too. But you’ll find it’s not so bad early mornings, Alec. ’Course there are always people around watchin’ every move we make with Satan. But you’ll get used to it, an’ we got no right to expect anything else now.”

  “No, we haven’t,” Alec said slowly. “And it’s what we wanted.”

  Henry looked at Alec for a long while before asking, “And now you don’t want it?”

  “I didn’t say that, Henry.”

  “No, y’didn’t. But I got the idea that’s what you meant.” Henry paused. “Didn’t you?” he asked.

  Alec turned away, and it was several minutes before he said, “I don’t know what I want anymore, Henry. I seem to be all mixed up.”

  “Maybe you oughta talk about it, Alec. We always have. We’ve never kept anything from each other, have we?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then?”

  Alec turned to him. “Sometimes, Henry, I think of myself as a baby who’s had his pet toy taken away from him,” he said angrily. “I guess I’m unhappy because I can’t have Satan to myself any longer. I tell myself to grow up, that I can’t make a pet of a champion. I put all the cards on the table. I say this is exactly what I wanted. I’m glad Satan is everything we thought he’d be. I knew from the very beginning that, if he was to be a champion, I’d have to share him with others. I knew his training would have to go on, even though I couldn’t always get to the track to ride him. I knew other fellows would be up on him when I wasn’t. Everything made sense … everything was just the way I’d figured it was going to be.” Alec paused, his gaze leaving Henry for Napoleon. “Yet I’m finding it hard to take … much harder than I ever thought it would be.”

  “Hasn’t riding Satan in the big classics made up for a lot, Alec?” Henry asked.

  “No … not even that. I feel that I’m just a jockey, and I want to be more than that … much more.” He turned to Henry again, his eyes searching. “It’ll be different this summer, won’t it? I’ll stay with him all the time, and I’ll take care of him, too, Henry. We won’t need any grooms.… There’ll be just the two of us again, and it’ll be the way it was.”

  Henry’s eyes studied Alec’s tense face. “Maybe I oughta tell you it will be the same for you,” he said, finally. “But I’m not goin’ to.” He ignored the startled look that came to the boy’s eyes. “You’ve been straightforward with me, an’ I aim to be the same with you,” he added.

  “What are you driving at, Henry?” Alec’s words came fast.

  “Something I been thinking about for a long time now, Alec. Something I got from just watchin’ you the last six months … that, and what you just said. An’ I want you to listen to what I have to say without flyin’ off the handle. I want you to think this out with me and see if maybe I’m not right about what’s botherin’ you most of all.”

  Alec started to say something, changed his mind and waited for Henry to continue.

  “When you talk about getting it back the way it was,” Henry began, choosing his words carefully, “I don’t really believe it’s Satan you’re thinking about at all. I think it’s the Black.”

  He waited for the outburst from Alec he thought would come. But the boy was silent, so Henry went on, “And Satan or no other horse in the world is goin’ to give you what you had with him, Alec. You might as well accept that now, before you go through life waiting for somethin’ to take you back the way it was … somethin’ that’s never goin’ to happen.”

  Napoleon nuzzled Henry’s coat sleeve, pulling it. But the man’s eyes never left Alec as he continued, his voice softer now: “I’m not meanin’ to beat you down. I’m only tryin’ to make you realize that what happened between you an’ the Black comes only once in a lifetime, if at all. He was no ordinary horse, Alec.… He was wild and never clear broke. Yet, for some reason that’s buried within that untamed heart of his, he took to you.

  “Then let’s take a look at what you had,” Henry added hurriedly. “Here you were, just a kid, with a wild stallion only you could handle. Your love was bein’ returned by an animal who had love for no one else. The Black was yours, Alec … as much yours as anything could possibly be. Anybody in your shoes would have felt the same way you did. It set you on top of the world.”

  “And it spoiled me for anything else. Is that what you mean, Henry?” Alec’s lips were drawn in a tight smile. “Even for Satan?”

  “Maybe I do mean that,” Henry returned. “It pretty much depends on how you’re goin’ to look at things from now on.” He paused, shifting uneasily on his feet. “I think you oughta take stock of what you got right now an’ the future that’s lined up for you an’ Satan. He’s goin’ places an’ you’re goin’ along with him. But he’s no one-man horse, Alec, an’ you got no right to expect him to be. Satan can be handled by ‘most anybody. He’s been trained to do what’s expected of him. It’s the way it should be … the only way. And he’s a better horse for it … better than the Black, I mean. He’s got the Black’s speed yet he’s controllable, an’ that’s what makes him the champion he is.”

  Taking Alec by the arm, he said, “C’mon down to the tack room a minute.” And, as they walked along, Henry added, “Y’got to realize, too, that Satan is giving you somethin’ the Black couldn’t give you. The Black never could be raced.… He was never meant to set foot on a track with other horses. He ran wild with you in that Chicago match race; you know that as well as I do. He’s no campaigner like Satan, for you’d never know what he might do from one race to another. He’s as apt to fight as run.”

  They were at the door of the tack room when Henry stopped and turned to Alec. “And don’t you think for one moment Abu Ishak doesn’t know that, Alec. That’s why he didn’t send the Black over here to race as he said he was goin’ to do when we saw him last fall at the running of the Hopeful. Abu went back to Arabia and thought it over. An’ when he did, he knew darn well it just couldn’t be done. I’ll bet that’s why he hasn’t even answered your letters.”

  Henry walked into the tack room, his hand on the boy’s arm. He came to a halt before the picture of the Black. “What I’d do, if I were you, Alec, would be to put this picture away an’ the Black along with it. I’d say to myself, ‘It was good, but now it’s over. It’s all part of the past.… It’s done, finished.’ ” Henry shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s what I wanted to say. You know better’n me whether I been talkin’ through my hat or not. You got to decide for yourself now.”

  Henry left Alec alone in the room.

  For many minutes Alec looked steadily at the picture without moving; then, finally, he walked forward, lifting it from the wall. He carried it to the old chest and wrapped it carefully in a blanket before putting it inside and closing the lid; then he turned and walked away.

  Henry was waiting for him outside the door.

  “You were right, Henry,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve been thinking of him all along … wishing it could be the same with Satan as it was with him. I’ve put him away. It’s over, as you say.”

  Henry placed his arm across Alec’s shoulders as they walked past the stalls. “We’ll go out to the track early tomorrow,” he said. “We won’t work Satan, but we’ll just hang around with him.”

  “When’s the next race, Henry?”

  “Not for a month, when we take him to Chicago. He’ll be running against older horses at Arlington Park, but I don’t think he’ll have any trouble if he goes as he did today.”

  “He will,” Alec said. “He couldn’t run any other way.”

  They had reached the barn door, and Henry had switched off the lights, when they heard footsteps coming up the driveway. Alec was the first to make out his father’s lanky figure in the darkness. “It’s Dad,” he told Henry, and the man turned on the lights again.

  Seeing Alec, Mr. Ramsay said, “I’ve been waiting, Alec, but you were gone so long I thought I’d better bring …” He stopped as Henry appeared in the doorway behind Alec. “Oh, I didn’t
know Henry was here with you.”

  They stepped back into the barn as Mr. Ramsay entered, and their eyes were on the letter he held in his hand. “It’s from Arabia,” he was saying. “It was in the mailbox when we got home.”

  “From Abu Ishak?” Henry asked quickly as Mr. Ramsay handed the letter to Alec.

  Shaking his head, Mr. Ramsay said, “It seems to be from Tabari Ishak … at least that’s the name on the return address.”

  “His daughter,” Henry said, turning to Alec.

  The boy was holding the envelope without opening it.

  “She could have addressed it for him,” Henry offered. His eyes remained on Alec’s face as the boy opened the envelope and withdrew the letter. Just as he’d told Alec, Henry didn’t think that Abu Ishak would send the Black here to race. But he could be wrong. And, if the Black came, it would change a lot of things … for him and for Alec; maybe even for Satan. So Henry watched with anxious eyes while Alec read.

  He saw the ashen white rise, beating every bit of color from the boy’s face. He saw the flood of tears come swiftly and flow unchecked. He saw Alec’s eyes close and his fingers crush the letter within his hand.

  It was Mr. Ramsay who took the letter from Alec and straightened it out for Henry to read with him.

  Arabia

  June 2nd

  Dear Alec,

  My father died three months ago, and we have been in mourning. It is only now that I can write to tell you that his death was the result of injuries suffered when he was thrown by the stallion you know as the Black.

  Among my father’s possessions was a letter to be opened only in the event of his death. In this letter he has written that the Black is to be given to you.

  It is ironical—is it not?—that my father should bequeath to you the devil responsible for his death. But for that, we would have destroyed him.

  I have made arrangements with Trans-World Airlines for him to be flown to you. He will arrive in Newark, New Jersey, on the night of June the twentieth. All necessary papers, including transfer of ownership, are being sent under separate cover.