The Black Stallion and the Girl (14 page)

“Henry,” he said, entering the room. “I want you to meet Pam.”

Henry rose to his feet in deference to Pam’s femininity, but there was nothing courteous in his voice or manner when he said to Alec, “I thought I told you not to bring her around here.”

“I thought you might change your mind when you met her,” Alec answered.

“Wow,” Pam said good-humoredly, “we’re off to a great beginning.”

Henry pushed his body against the back wall of the room, his hands on his vast hips, his lower lip drooped in a grim smile. He looked at Pam in complete silence, examining her, taking his time.

Henry’s first impressions confirmed what he had expected, a very pretty girl. Her long, thick blond hair waved and floated below her shoulders. She wore a yellow blouse and short skirt, her legs bare and slender. She had a very delicate oval face with piercing eyes of a remarkable blue.

“Well, it can’t be helped now,” he said resignedly.
“And since you’re here I’d like to thank you for the good job you’ve done for us, especially with Black Sand.” He paused as if waiting for her to acknowledge his compliment, his gratitude.

Pam obliged. “It was more fun than work,” she said.

“Well, whatever it was,” Henry said, “I’m afraid we must let you go. I’ve found a man who’s exactly right for the job, one we’ve been trying to get for a long time. It’s Mike Costello, Alec,” he explained, turning to the boy. “You know Mike’s always said he’d never retire while he was winning races. Well, he hasn’t been doing that this season as you know. So he’s decided to turn in his silks and work for us. He’ll do a great job at the farm.”

Alec’s face had whitened beneath his tan. “No,” he said. “We need Pam too.”

Henry shook his head. “You know as well as I do that we don’t need
two
people working colts.”

“Then why did you tell me Pam could stay?” Alec asked angrily.

“That was before I knew Mike was available,” Henry answered. “But listen,” he went on kindly. “I know what this girl means to you and I’m willing to go along. Maybe we can find something else for her to do at the farm.”

“No,” Pam said, interrupting them. “It’s time I moved on anyway.”

Alec turned to her. “I’m not letting you go, Pam.”

“It’ll make things easier,” she said, her eyes looking for understanding. “Besides, Henry is right. From the very first, it went with the job.
Temporary
until you found professional help. Remember?”

“That’s all been changed,” Alec said.

Pam put her hand on his. “It’s not
over
,” she said. “Stop thinking that it is. I just don’t want to copy your world, Alec, or anyone else’s. I’ve got my own. So please …”

Henry was surprised that Pam had agreed to leave without an argument. Then he remembered that she was a drifter like so many young people today, hypnotized by loud music and fantastic, unfulfillable dreams. He was afraid of the effect she might already have had on Alec, that Alec might even become like her.

In defense of Alec’s goals as well as his own, Henry said, “The trouble with
your
world, young lady, is that it holds a promise that can’t be fulfilled, that of a paradise here on earth. I feel sorry for you and those like you.”

Alec said angrily, “Cut it out, Henry. That kind of talk has no place here.”

“Maybe it does,” Pam said, turning to the trainer. “Don’t you too dream of such a world?” she asked Henry.

Henry smiled but his eyes belied any friendliness. “If I did, I wouldn’t be very realistic,” he said.

“Who can say where reality begins and ends?” she asked.

“Listen,” Henry said, “everyone is searching for a better way of life, including me. But you’ll learn you can’t change human nature.” His attitude, like his voice, was severe and authoritative.

Pam shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe so,” she said. “But did you ever think, Henry, that maybe it’s
not human nature that won’t change but us? I mean, we all know what’s important in life but most of us won’t live it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Henry said. “You’re walking on clouds. Why don’t you admit that you just don’t want to be fenced in? That you’re one of those ‘freedom’ kids who has no respect for dedication and duty?”

“Dedication and duty,”
she repeated. “To whom, Henry? Or to what?”

“To one’s job. One’s life,” Henry answered. He returned to his chair and picked up the newspaper, apparently ending the meeting.

But Pam wasn’t finished. “We’re not running scared like you think, Henry,” she said, angry for the first time. “We’re only turning off what you believe is so great. Who said we have to make it by your standards? Or have the same goals you do? That doesn’t mean you can’t do your thing too, if it makes you happy.
But leave us alone.
”

Alec said bitterly, “Come on, Pam. I told you it wouldn’t work out.” He opened the door.

Henry stared at the boy’s back, knowing Alec was furious. “Wait a minute,” he said, putting down the paper. “I don’t want to end our visit this way. It’s not going to do any of us any good.” He paused, looking at them steadily.

“Maybe you’ve got something, Pam,” he conceded finally. “Maybe I’m just too old to see it, that’s all. I’d like to be friends. Will you accept me as I am?”

“Sure,” she said quickly, “if you’ll accept me as
I
am. But no more labels. Okay?”

“What does that mean?”

“Pinning labels on kids so you’ll know what we stand for, then filing us away.”

“Okay,” Henry said. “I’ll try.”

Alec stood beside the door, undecided whether to leave or not. He wasn’t certain that Henry wasn’t playing some kind of a game. If Henry wanted to be friends with Pam, he was doing it for his own reasons. Henry had rules but they were those he made up himself.

“Let’s be honest,” the trainer told Pam. “You’re not just another troubled kid or you couldn’t have done such a good job at the farm. You’re a horseman. That’s why I’m talking to you.”

Pam’s face stiffened. “Nobody’s just
another troubled kid
,” she said, her words coming quick and keen.

Alec knew the old man was infuriated by Pam’s outspoken reprimand, even though he didn’t let it show. Henry was used to unquestioned obedience from people as well as horses.

Henry sighed and said patiently, “Okay, I’ll remember not to put it that way again. Don’t get your back up.”

“My back’s not up,” Pam said quietly.

Henry was playing it cool, Alec decided, but so was Pam. For what reason? What did Henry have to gain by it?

“Anyway,” Henry went on, “I didn’t ask you to stay to discuss your generation. I’ve got a problem that’s a bit larger than that. Maybe you can help me with it.”

“I can help
you
?” Pam asked, truly surprised.

Alec too was taken off guard by Henry’s request
for assistance. He turned to Pam, hoping she wouldn’t be caught unprepared by Henry’s solicitude. The bare light bulb above her head cast a severe, searching brightness on her face. It showed the high, sharp cheekbones, the long-lashed eyes, the very tanned skin.

Alec was disturbed that the wariness he had seen earlier in Pam’s face was gone. It had been replaced by trust. “Careful, Pam,” he wanted to warn. But Henry’s next remark was directed at him, and it was he who was caught unprepared, not Pam.

“Alec and I are at dagger points, you might say,” the trainer said. “He’s breaking rules we’ve lived by for years.”

Pam stared at Henry with ever-widening eyes, then she turned to Alec. “Did you hear that?”

“I heard,” Alec said. “I guess it’s true—the dagger points anyway. But I don’t know what rules I’ve been breaking. What are they, Henry?”

“Very funny,” Henry answered. “Maybe Mel Miller said it better a while ago. Remember?
‘… Alec is losing what he had for so long. Good racing calls for good riding.
’ ”

“I didn’t think you heard him,” Alec said. “You weren’t paying much attention to him or the reporters.”

“I heard,”
Henry said.
“And I agree.”

Alec’s shirt was sticking to his body with a damp, clammy feeling. “That’s something,” he said with attempted lightness. “You
agreeing
with Miller.” The whole thing was getting even more ridiculous. Here they were arguing again, and this time in front of Pam.

“Don’t be sarcastic,” Henry said. “I’m only trying to help. You’ve got your mind on too many other things to race properly.”

Pam said, “Alec has every right to be his own kind of person, not what you think he should be.”

Henry snorted and turned to her. “There you go again with your
ideals
,” he said in a great burst of rage. “You kids can make this the kind of world you want after I’m gone. I’m concerned with the world Alec’s facing every time he gets up on a horse and has to contend with men who are as eager to win as he is.

“It’s no pretty-colored world out there. It can kill. I mean dead, not maimed or injured. What happened to Mario Santos today was an example. A few more inches and he would have had it. It could happen tomorrow or the next day to Alec, the way he’s riding. What am I going to do about that?”

Alec left the door to return to Pam’s side. “You’re being over-dramatic, Henry,” he said.

“Oh I am, am I?” The trainer glared at Alec. “What were you thinking of today when Mario and Becky beat you at the start? Was it Pam? Girl riders? Or what?”

“It was neither,” Alec said. “They broke faster than we did, that’s all.” But in fairness to Henry, he recalled another race when he’d been thinking of Pam and got away late.

“It cost you the race,” Henry said. “If you’d come out first, you would have avoided the accident.”

“You can’t blame Alec for a horse stumbling in front of him,” Pam said.

Henry turned to her. “No, I can’t,” he said. “I blame him only for being in a bad position, when he could have avoided it. Even a girl might have done better.”

“Any girl?” she asked.

Henry studied Pam, wondering if she meant what he thought she did. “Even
you
,” he said finally.

“I didn’t mean me,” she said. “I just wondered why you use girls’ riding to mean poor riding. Does good riding mean
men only
?”

“It does in racing,” Henry said. “Girls don’t belong in it.”

“That’s crazy,” Pam said, “if that’s what they want to do. Even I’ve raced some, and against men too.”

“Where?”

“Fairs and ‘brush’ races in Virginia mostly.”

Henry chuckled. “That’s another world, not the one I’m talking about.” He paused, studying her face a long while before turning to Alec.

“How would you like her to find out what it’s all about, Alec?” he challenged. “Maybe that would help settle a lot of things between us. What if I let her start Black Sand? You said the colt goes better for her than he does for you.”

Alec was astounded by Henry’s abrupt challenge. He knew the trainer was daring him as well as Pam to face up to what Henry considered the realities of racing.

“We’d pick an easy race, a cheap one,” Henry continued. “Nothing but a schooling race, really. She’d be doing nothing more than what she’s been doing at the farm except in the company of others. How does that sound to you?”

No race was ever an easy race, Alec knew, and he was concerned for Pam’s safety. Yet she could ride with the best of them and, if she raced, it might mean that
she wouldn’t leave. “It’s up to Pam,” he said, turning to her.

“Well, Pam?” Henry asked. His words meant something more to each of them.
“Put up or shut up about girls having a place in racing,”
he might have said.

Alec had only to look at Pam’s face to know what her answer would be. Regardless of how she felt about big-time racing, the thrill of riding her colt in his first competition and responding to Henry’s dare was overwhelming.

“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

The following Wednesday afternoon, Pam went to the post with Black Sand—the first race on the program, the first race for each of them. Alec watched her with mixed emotions and some misgivings, now that the moment of trial was at hand. But he wanted Pam to remain with him, and the thrill of racing Black Sand might be the incentive she needed.

Henry had wasted no time, once Pam had agreed to ride. The morning following their meeting he’d had Pam work Black Sand, arranging for a track steward to be there. They had watched Pam break the colt from the gate in the company of two other horses and male riders, a six-furlong test of Pam’s competence as a jockey to obtain her apprentice’s license. She had gone the distance in a good 1:14, beating one rival by five lengths and outdistancing the other.

Alec had heard the steward tell Henry, “She’ll have no trouble. She has a fine pair of hands and knows what she’s doing.”

Henry too had been impressed by Pam’s performance. Later, back at the barn, he’d asked Alec, “Where did she learn to ride like that?” And Alec had told him of the professional horsemen in Pam’s life who, she’d said, had taught her everything she knew.

“Not everything,” Henry had replied. “She’s naturally good. Yes, I like the way she rides.”

Alec wondered if Henry was getting to like Pam personally as much as he liked her riding. There was no doubt that Pam was reaching him by her cheerfulness. For instance, she had gone to the farm on Monday to work the colts and had returned with a large bunch of wild flowers which she’d given to Henry. Alec had thought the trainer would explode with derision at her offering. Instead Henry had looked bewildered but not displeased.

“I picked them just for you,” she had told him.

Alec watched the horses through his binoculars. He had found a place on the rail near the finish line, where he wanted to be when the race ended. The horses were in the chute on the far side of the track. It was a large field of two-year-old colts and fillies, all non-winners. Actually, the race was a cheap one—a six-furlong race against cheap horses, the kind Henry had wanted for their colt’s first start. Except for not being race-hardened, Black Sand outclassed them all.