The Black Stallion and the Girl Read online

  Alec turned back to the crowded stable area. Was the battle of the sexes different here from any place else? Women at the track expected ridicule and ugly words. Some were plain uncomfortable, yet lived with it. Others were frightened by threats of being roughed up or, in the case of those who worked horses, being ridden into the rail. Yes, Alec admitted to himself, there were great differences here, depending upon the job. Women were the equal of men in everything but brute strength, which sometimes became very necessary at the track.

  Yet these women were so needed, so necessary and qualified for the work. They should not be eliminated as Henry and others would like to see done. There was no such thing as “men only” jobs when it came to the love and care and skill required in the handling of horses. What right had men to think so? Sex prejudice was no less evil than racial or religious bias, Alec decided.

  His gaze returned to Henry. Did he need to agree with him simply because the old man expected him to do so?

  “We’ve hired a girl ourselves,” Alec heard himself say quietly.

  “What?”

  “I said, we’ve hired a girl. She’s at the farm, working the colts. I had to fire the new man; he was drunk.”

  Henry did not reply immediately, and the silence was heavy with tension. Finally, he asked, “But you hired a girl in his place? Why?” It was clear he just couldn’t understand. He really wanted to know. “I’ve explained to you a hundred times …”

  “I know,” Alec said, “a hundred times I’ve heard it.”

  “And still you hired her?”

  “She’s good, and she’s at the farm, not here.”

  “She’ll be here,” Henry said. “It’s what they all want, every single one of ’em. She’s using you as a back door, but she’ll be here.”

  “Not her. Besides she wants the job for only a short while. She said she’ll be moving on soon,” he added persuasively.

  “She’ll be moving on, heh,” Henry said. “One of those rootless kids. I know her kind all right, and they’re the worst. Spoiled daughters of upper- and middle-class America, full of romantic self-pity and vanity.”

  “How can you say that, when you haven’t met her?”

  “I told you I know her kind. I’ve seen hundreds. A good spanking at an early age would have saved everyone the trouble of putting up with her nonsense and kept her home where she belonged. Well, she’s not goin’ to solve her emotional problems at our place. Why’d you ever let her get to you, Alec?”

  “It was no earth-shattering decision I had to make in hiring her. She’s competent. She can do the job.”

  “And pretty?” Henry asked. “I suppose she’s pretty.”

  “Yes, she’s that too,” Alec answered, knowing Henry regarded a girl’s beauty as the essence of her feminine worth.

  Henry chuckled. “So that’s the reason you hired her. Now, I see.” He put an arm around Alec’s shoulders, as if to show his understanding of Alec’s male response to an attractive girl. “But you should keep all that separate from business,” he went on, man to man. “Handling those colts is a responsible job, if they’re to be brought to racing form. An inexperienced rider can wreck their wind and incentive to race. You know it as well as I do, Alec. You’d better just tell that girl to move on now. Tell her tonight. I’ll watch over things here. Nothing much to do for a few days, anyway. Do what you have to do an’ enjoy yourself.” Still smiling, he winked at Alec, one male to another.

  Alec said quietly, “You’ve never seen her ride, yet you don’t want her around.”

  “I don’t want her around our place,” Henry said. “Where she goes is not my business, but running Hopeful Farm is.”

  His voice was the voice of authority and obviously he expected Alec to be aware of it. At Hopeful Farm he ruled over the exercise, training and education of the horses. He determined the age at which they should face their first competition. He trained them, had their faults corrected, and brought their speed to highest pitch. He treated their wounds and sprains. He knew their virtues and their weaknesses. And, finally, he taught Alec to ride each of them so that the union between horse and rider was as near perfect as possible.

  “You mean,” Alec persisted, “she must be turned down flat for no reason other than—”

  “She’s a girl and therefore not acceptable to me,” Henry interrupted. “Tell her that. She’ll understand without your going into it. You won’t have any trouble.”

  “Not acceptable,” Alec repeated. “Do you realize what would happen if you said that to a black man? You’d have the explosion here you’ve always talked about.”

  “That’s exactly what I want to avoid by not having her around,” Henry said.

  “You’re not avoiding it,” Alec said. “You’re asking for it.” He’d never spoken to Henry so harshly before.

  The man’s lined face tightened, his eyes furious. Yet he controlled his anger, saying gently, “We’re not talking about racism, Alec.”

  “Sexism is as bad,” Alec said. “I can’t fire her because she’s a girl.”

  “Then you’ll have to decide between her and me,” Henry said, his voice still under control but not his eyes.

  “You’re kidding,” Alec said.

  “Try me and see.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. You mean because of a girl you’d go? I don’t believe you, Henry.”

  “You’d better believe me, Alec. It’s your choice. Go to the farm and make up your mind.” Henry turned and walked away, leaving Alec alone.

  WILD FLOWERS AND THE BLUES

  6

  It was late, the night cool and very dark, when Alec arrived at Hopeful Farm. He drove directly to the training barn, wanting to see Pam and have the whole thing over as quickly as possible. Then he’d be able to sleep.

  He had decided he must let her go. It wouldn’t be fair to have her stay in the face of Henry’s open opposition and hostility. She’d be blamed outrageously for anything that went wrong whether or not it was her fault, and much could happen in the handling of two-year-olds.

  When Alec had left Aqueduct, he’d been determined to fight Henry’s prejudice by keeping Pam and finding out what the old man would do about it. He really didn’t think Henry would walk out on them, after all their years together, because of a girl. It was all too ridiculous and childish. But how could he be certain?

  “Try me and see,” the trainer had said, sounding as if he meant it.

  Alec had never defied Henry and yet, he told himself, there was a principle involved here that went deeper than his desire to keep a competent person on the payroll. Now that he had made his decision to let Pam go, he wondered if he was not losing more than Pam’s services by giving in to Henry.

  Leaving the car, Alec paused in his tracks, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. There was no wind and Alec breathed deeply the smells of the country. He sniffed the scent of new grass and the warm bodies of horses, different here from the race track. The mares had been turned out with their suckling foals and he could see their dark figures in the field. No sounds reached his ears. The darkness and the silence were familiar to him.

  His gaze followed the miles of white fence. There were hundreds of acres of the finest land that could be bought, dozens of fenced paddocks and sheds and barns, all used for the specific purpose of raising race horses. It was a costly business but no other could compare with it as far as he was concerned. He wouldn’t want to do anything else or live any place else.

  Hopeful Farm needed Henry’s fullest cooperation if it was to win races and breed the best horses. No one could take his place in skill and experience. Alec could not risk it all for the sake of keeping a girl on the place, much as he would like to.

  Pam would understand when he explained everything to her. With her ability, she would have no trouble finding work elsewhere. He must not feel that he was letting her down—or himself.

  Alec walked to the training barn and saw her car parked beside it. The flowers pai
nted on the car would infuriate Henry if he saw them. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t even be here … yet Pam still had to go.

  Entering the barn, Alec walked down the long corridor of box stalls, all occupied by the two-year-olds in training. He stopped before one and, peering through the bars at Black Sand, called softly, “Hello, fellow. Come on over.”

  The colt shook himself and remained where he was. He lowered his long neck to the water bucket, playing rather than drinking, blowing into the water and splattering the spray about the stall and Alec.

  Alec stepped back. “Okay,” he said. “See you in the morning then.”

  He had already heard the faint sound of music coming from the apartment above. He glanced at the ceiling, then with fast strides he headed for the stairs. He’d made his decision, and there was no sense putting off what he had to do. He bounded up the steps, taking two at a time, as if by hurrying he would give himself no time to change his mind.

  The door was already ajar when he knocked on it, pushing it even farther open. “Pam,” he called. “I’d like to see you.”

  There was no answer, only the music, softly played—a blues beat that he knew was popular with young people but not very familiar to him. One had to take time and effort to understand today’s music, and he had neither.

  “Pam!” he called louder and more impatiently. He pushed the door half-open, but remained where he was, not wanting to intrude upon her privacy.

  The lights were on and, looking inside, he found the change in the apartment hard to believe. The furniture had been moved around and the chairs and couch were covered with a bright, new fabric. There were cut flowers everywhere, wild ones from the fields, lilacs and pink-and-white dogwood, buttercups and dandelions, all filling vases and glasses and even paper cups. On the walls were posters of every description—psychedelic art of colorful, intricate design; surfers within the curl of gigantic waves; rock groups, jazz groups, blues groups and music festivals.

  Alec felt his insides tighten as he thought what would have happened had Henry seen them. “Pam!” he shouted. “Are you here? It’s Alec.”

  The music ended, and the portable phonograph automatically turned itself off. He stepped inside. The apartment was a combination living room–bedroom arrangement with a kitchen at the end, concealed by a large screen. Pam had hung a large fish net, complete with cork floats, over the screen, and on it were placed sea shells of every description and shroud-like veils of Spanish moss. He wondered at her carrying so much with her wherever she went—the shells and the posters and everything else in the room.

  Alec went to the soft-cushioned chair beside the phonograph. She’d been reading, for there was a paperback book on the end table and a half-finished glass of milk. He glanced at the book title, Selected Poems (1956–1968) by Leonard Cohen. There were other books in a neat pile beside the chair. He didn’t know what made him sit down and take them, one by one, to look at each—unless it was to know her better in the short time he had left.

  The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. He was surprised he knew only two of the stories, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, when there were so many others and poems as well. He picked up the other books, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; The Stranger by Albert Camus; King Solomon’s Ring by Konrad Lorenz; Bulfinch’s Mythology; and a couple of books featuring the adventures of Dr. Dolittle, which he’d thought were read only by little kids.

  Alec got to his feet, wondering if he should leave and talk to her in the morning. It was very late. Obviously, she was around somewhere; perhaps walking in the fields as she would likely do. Being in this apartment, which she had made her own in so short a period of time, made it all the more difficult for him to tell her she had to go. Tomorrow, he decided, it would be easier for him and for her.

  He left a note, telling her he would see her in the morning, and was about to leave when he saw her stack of record albums. Buddy Guy. He had never heard of him. There were names of other musicians as unfamiliar. John Mayall, Larry Coryell, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joan Baez, Tim Buckley—who were they?

  Pam lived in a world very different from his own, he decided. But she wasn’t rootless, as Henry had claimed. She took her home with her wherever she traveled, including her family.

  On the coffee table was an open picture album of pocket size. He picked it up and looked at the faces. Obviously they were her family, all of them on a Florida beach in bathing suits, as tanned as she—two young brothers, a younger sister with hair golden in the sun like Pam’s, her mother and father, all smiling and looking very happy and content with their lives. There were pictures too of a black Great Dane, a small Australian terrier, two Siamese cats and her Arabian mare, Tena, a glowing chestnut with a broad white blaze running down to a narrow snip at the nostrils. These people and pets all looked far too pleasant to have been left behind. He wondered that she had gone and that her parents had let her.

  “I know her kind,” Henry had said. “Spoiled daughters … I’ve seen hundreds … A good spanking at an early age would have kept her home.”

  Was it another case of Henry stereotyping someone he could not understand? His need to speak in generalities, in great bursts of ignorance and rage?

  Alec did not think it had been easy for Pam to leave home—or for her parents to say good-by. There was much more he would like to know about her.

  Alec left the apartment, not looking forward to what he had to do the next morning.

  BLACK PEPPER

  7

  Alec found it no easier to tell Pam in the morning; if anything, it was worse. He had slept very little, and then only after daybreak, so he arrived at the barn after Pam had begun work and was on the track. He had wanted to see her before she became involved in anything, so she could pack and leave without postponing her departure another day.

  The two stablemen assigned to the barn were cleaning stalls, but the horses were in Pam’s care. The men’s eyes followed him, knowing the importance of his inspection as he went from stall to stall, examining each horse, one by one.

  It took Alec longer than usual, and he wondered if he was unconsciously looking for something with which to find fault, making it easier for him to let her go. But the horses’ eyes and coats shone with good health from proper attention.

  He shouldn’t have expected anything else, he decided. She was the kind of person who took care of horses to make them happy, not to impress anyone else. The only reward she asked was that her charges be stronger and healthier from her pleasure in the task.

  Alec went to the large daybook chart on the wall of the tack room. On it were the names of the ten two-year-olds in training, and beneath each was a daily work schedule which he had given her before leaving for Aqueduct. He had asked her to keep to it as closely as possible, and to make any notes she wanted about the progress of each horse.

  She had already ridden three horses that morning and her penciled comments were there. Black Sand had gone a half-mile easily in 50 seconds, breaking from the starting gate. She noted that he was ready for faster works.

  Alec was inclined to agree with her. Black Sand was the toughest colt they had in the barn and the most precocious. If she could get him in hand, he would be ready to race this season. He was more apt to win at shorter distances than the longer ones that came later in the year. There were other horses that Alec preferred for distance races, such as the two she’d galloped after Black Sand—one for two miles, the other for three. The last one needed his shoes re-set, Pam had noted on the chart.

  She was now riding Black Pepper, the only filly in the barn. A good one, Alec thought, but with a pea-sized brain. Black Pepper had everything else a race horse needed; he had high hopes for her despite her lack of sense. Pam was to break the filly from the gate and go a half-mile in a slow 55 or 56 seconds. He was taking it easy with the filly, for she had the breeding necessary to go the longer, more important races next year. Her problem was understanding what she was supposed
to do; handling her in the starting gate had not been easy.

  Grabbing a saddle and bridle, Alec left the tack room. “Sam,” he called to one of the men, “when did Pam leave with the last one?”

  “Just before you got here. She won’t have reached the track yet.”

  A few minutes later, Alec led a rangy dark bay colt out of the barn. With a hand on the horse’s withers, he vaulted into the saddle without touching the stirrups. And with it, in a single second, he turned into another person, forgetting momentarily the real purpose of his visit. Every part of him fell into balance as he rode off at a canter.

  Black Pepper’s education at the gate had begun as a yearling, he reflected, along with all the others. But unlike the rest, she’d given them nothing but trouble. Each time she continued to act as if it was the first time. Either she was just plain dumb, as he suspected, or she was as obstinate and cantankerous as her dam, Black Minx.

  However, Black Minx had won the Kentucky Derby, so her filly was worth all the time and trouble it might take to bring her along slowly until she broke from the gate properly. Being a filly she could not stand as much abuse as a colt, so Pam’s patience and light hands might be exactly what was needed.

  Alec saw them in the distance and closed his legs about the colt, sending him into a faster gallop. Black Out, the colt he was riding, was rugged and ungainly. He’d been slow in coming along, and Henry had wisely decided to reserve him until next year. But Black Out was intelligent and did everything right, including breaking from the gate. Perhaps he could teach the filly what it was all about. At least it would help Pam to have another horse in the gate. Horses should always be broken from the gate in pairs at least, never singly; and preferably there should be three or four. But that was one of the things they had been unable to do that year.