The Black Stallion and the Girl (15 page)

“If Pam only stays clear of the others and rides as I told her,” he thought, “she’ll win easy.” Fortunately, she had the outside post position in the milling field of twelve horses.

Alec moved his binoculars along the line, passing from one jockey to another. The horses would do the running but what about the hands that guided them? Each rider had professional poise and confidence. Becky Moore was there too, riding the first of her three mounts for the afternoon. She looked as confident as any of the men.

Henry couldn’t have known Becky would be in the race, but the unusual coincidence was appreciated by the crowd since it added interest to an otherwise unpredictable race among erratic two-year-olds. Never before had there been two girl jockeys in the same race at Aqueduct.

“Keep clear, Pam, just keep clear,” he thought, wondering if she would remember all he’d told her over and over again these past two days. She had listened intently to him but her eyes had said,
“Talk all you like, but I must do it my way when the times comes.”
And he knew she was right, for experience is the only teacher.

Now, as he watched her in the black-checkered silks of Hopeful Farm, he nervously wiped the back of his hand across his dry lips. There was nothing he could do to help her. “Okay,” he said aloud, as if she could hear him. “Do it your way then. Just don’t get hurt.”

The starting bell rang and the grilled doors slammed open. He saw Pam slacken rein, loosen her knees and hurl the colt forward. Black Sand came out of the gate a half-stride ahead of the others.

For a few fleeting seconds, the other horses raced beside her, running ever faster to make up the lead
Black Sand had on them. But the colt was not to be caught; he was running with tremendous speed and smoothness.

“Go, Pam, go!”
Alec shouted.

Midway down the backstretch, Black Sand was a full length in front of the jam-packed field. Pam kept him on the outside and made no attempt to move over to the rail. She was being very careful to avoid trouble.

They approached the turn and Alec watched her take Black Sand closer to the inside. She guided him with hands and body across the track, slowly, carefully toward the turn. The other horses came on and Black Sand was in closer quarters now. The colt didn’t like it. His pace became rough.

Alec understood Black Sand’s reluctance to move closer to the flaying whips of the oncoming riders. He saw Pam urge him on, not with her body alone but with the weight of her knowledge and understanding of what caused his fears. She was telling him with her hands, “No whip will touch you. No one will hurt you. Just run your race, and soon we’ll be clear again.”

Black Sand lowered his head and dug in again to meet the challenge of the horses on his left. A bay horse wearing a bright-yellow hood tried to steal the lead as they curved into the turn. Beside the bay, on the inside, was another horse racing abreast. Both were trying to knife their way past still a third horse on the rail, who was tiring and bearing out. All three riders were making full use of their whips, Alec saw, using all the strength of their arms and shoulders. The strides of the horses lengthened under the drumming of the whips.

Pam kept Black Sand clear of them, even checking
him a bit to lose more ground. Her reflexes were quick, Alec noted, and she was making split-second decisions. He knew she wanted to win but it was not as important to her as the colt’s coming out of the race unscathed and free of any fear that might create greater problems later on. Black Sand seemed less afraid than he had just seconds ago, more confident in close quarters. That was to the good, Alec decided. Pam would simply keep him in stride and free of the closely crowded trio racing beside her. She would make her move again, when they came off the turn.

The horses bent around the turn, their riders whipping with either hand, scuffing and scrubbing with hands and feet, determined to get out in front for the final run down the homestretch. Becky Moore was just inside Pam, as free with her whip as the men. Too free, Alec decided; she was using it every second, leather striking hide rhythmically, switching from one hand to the other without pause in an attempt to keep her tiring mount on a steady course.

The horse with the yellow hood had surged into the lead, his jockey rocking and pushing to keep a stride ahead of the one beside him. Both horses were digging in, their hides scraping and moving over to the rail directly in front of Becky’s mount.

Alec kept his binoculars on them. Becky was beaten, and must have known it. It was pointless for her to continue whipping her mount. Yet with another terrible blow, she launched her horse again. There was no place for him to go on the rail, for the two leaders left him no room. Lashed by the whip, he bore out toward Black Sand!

Alec watched Pam try to stay clear of him. Black Sand’s strides became ragged as Becky drove her heels into her horse’s sides while lashing him with all her strength.

For the first time during the race, Alec felt the coldness of fear. Becky would stop at nothing in her determination to keep her mount going. She had switched her whip, from left hand to right, in an attempt to straighten out her mount and drive him between horses.

Pam checked Black Sand abruptly as Becky’s whip came hissing down.

Whether or not it touched Black Sand on the legs, Alec couldn’t see. It might have been that the colt was just frightened by it. But, suddenly, Black Sand took two quick jumps to the outside. Pam tried to stop him as he bolted crazily across the track. Alec caught a glimpse of the outer rail and knew that the colt would run full tilt into it.
“No!”
he shouted at the top of his voice.

Black Sand’s hurtling body crashed into the fence and Pam was catapulted high into the air!

Alec had jumped the rail and was on the track, running for the far turn when the field of horses swept by. With the track clear, the ambulance left the infield gate. Alec flagged it down and hopped into the front seat.

A small crowd was already on the scene when they got there. Black Sand was dead, his neck twisted and broken. White-faced, Alec kneeled beside the still, silk-clad figure that was Pam. His forehead was drenched in cold sweat, his body trembling uncontrollably.

Pam’s eyes were open but glazed. She tried to raise
herself to an elbow but he prevented her by saying, “Lie still, Pam. You’ve had a bad fall.” He moved aside for the ambulance attendants. They removed her helmet, and the sun shone on her hair with a violent light. Her face was grimy, with tiny rivulets of blood running through the caked dirt. He felt tenderness and gratitude that she was alive. Her eyes turned in the direction of Black Sand, and Alec knew he had no choice but to tell her. There must be no subterfuge, no phoniness. That was the way she would want it.

“The colt’s dead,” he said, unable to control the quaver in his voice.

She did not answer and her silence alarmed him. He touched her face.

“Please, Pam. He didn’t suffer. He didn’t know what happened.” Alec passed his hand over her forehead. Her whole face was cold.

Then, suddenly, her hands were seeking and clutching his. He lowered his face toward hers and she pushed her head into his chest, as if hollowing out a nest. “I know,” she said, swallowing noisily. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Alec realized that Pam had known the moment the colt had died, for she and Black Sand had been one.

That night, while Pam slept at Physicians’ Hospital in Jackson Heights, close to the track, Alec took Black Sand’s body to Hopeful Farm. There in the early morning, with the help of others, he buried the colt in the lower pasture where Black Sand had spent so many hours with Pam.

Alec tried not to be over-sentimental about the burial. They took chances every day in this business, he reminded himself harshly, both with themselves and with their horses. There was a high mortality rate among breeding stock and foals as well as horses in training and racing. The risks were very great.

Pam had survived the bizarre accident, suffering only facial lacerations. The x-rays had disclosed no bone fractures, no serious injuries; she was being held at the hospital overnight only for observation. He must think of that and nothing else. What might have been for Black Sand was finished. He was a professional horseman. He could look at it no other way.

Yet, when the men had left with their tractor and shovels, Alec remained beside the newly turned earth, remembering the way it was between Black Sand and Pam, and the happiness he too had shared with them. Here he had spent many happy hours with the colt and Pam, aware of each sound, each touch, every passing minute.

Alec turned from the grave to a sky that was rippled with crimson from the rising sun. A horse neighed shrilly from a distant pasture, and on the first breeze of early morning he smelled the sweet, soft scent of wild flowers. He walked to the nearby woods and gathered a few of them, which he placed carefully around the new earth. Then he wept, unashamed.

The sun was flaring over the ridge when he left, and the birds were singing their morning hymn to summer—or, he wondered, was it for Black Sand?

In the late afternoon Alec arrived back at Aqueduct. He didn’t expect to find Pam there, even if she had been discharged from the hospital. Nothing was worth the price she’d paid yesterday. There was no doubt in his mind that Becky had caused the tragic mishap, perhaps not intentionally but by her relentless riding, her determination to beat men at their own game regardless of the consequences. A foul claim could have been lodged against her, Alec knew, but the finish of the race was of no importance to him or Henry. For them the race had ended on the far turn.

When he turned into the milling stable area, the first person he saw was Pam. She was swinging an empty pail on her way to a water faucet, looking like any other kid in blue Levi’s with slender legs and scuffy
brown loafers with run-down heels. She had her back to him, but he couldn’t mistake her blond hair, tied with a red ribbon and pulled to one side so that the back of her neck showed.

He hurried and caught up with her. She was leaning over, running water into the pail. Despite his great joy at finding her there, he said simply, “Hi.”

She raised her eyes to his and straightened; then she moved into his arms and he held her close.

“You okay?” he asked finally.

“Sure. They let me go early this morning.” She paused, then added, “Henry met me and asked that I take over Deb’s job for a few days. That’s why I’m here.”

Alec followed her to the Black’s stall. He wasn’t surprised that Henry had asked Pam to stay. The trainer couldn’t have done otherwise after the accident, knowing the work might help to get her mind off her fall and the loss of Black Sand. But he was surprised and pleased that Pam had accepted.

The black stallion turned in their direction as they entered the stall. Then with a happy neigh of greeting he moved quickly to the pail Pam offered him, playing in the water rather than drinking it.

“I took Black Sand to the farm,” Alec said.

“I know. Henry told me.” She turned away and went to the door.

He followed, knowing how she felt despite the firmness of her voice. And because he realized she would want to know, he told her where he had buried the colt and described the wild flowers he had placed on the new earth.

She turned to him and rested her head on his shoulder. He put his arms around her, saying, “I’m sorry, Pam, so sorry it turned out this way.”

The tiny earrings shone softly in the lobes of her ears. He was aware of her troubled breathing and felt more than ever that he was one with her.

Suddenly, the Black’s warm breath wafted over their heads. The stallion bent his neck to touch Pam’s cheek with his muzzle, his dark mane flowing over her blond hair.

Alec was surprised by the Black’s display of affection, but he was not jealous to find that his horse loved Pam. He could not be selfish and possessive around her. She had won the stallion’s affection in the same manner she had acquired Black Sand’s love. It was her way with animals.

Pam spoke, her voice smothered and barely audible, sounding against his chest as if the words came from inside his own body, and not from hers.

“Oh, Alec, I loved him so.”

His arms tightened around her and he placed his head on hers. Her chest heaved with her troubled breathing, her bronze skin took on a pinkness.

“Henry was right about girls’ racing,” Alec said. “It’s everything he said it was. It’s not for you.”

“But it’s for Becky Moore?” she asked, turning her face up to him. “Is that the kind of riding it takes, Alec? Girls have to be ruthless to race? Is that what you mean?”

“I’m afraid so,” Alec said.

With a movement as unexpected and as quick as a cat’s, Pam took his arms from about her waist and
stood apart from him. “I don’t believe you,” she said angrily. “I want to race again.”

Alec was alarmed at the sudden change in her face, from feminine softness to a firmness he hadn’t seen before. “Are you looking for more trouble?” he asked. “Isn’t it enough that you learned first-hand how it can be out there?”

A queer smile came to her mouth. “And haven’t you learned, as I have, that when you take a bad fall you get up and ride again?”

Alec looked at her a long while, knowing she was right—that she should race again as quickly as possible. It had been the same for him and other jockeys after bad falls. Otherwise, she would carry the memory of the accident with her the rest of her life, and perhaps never ride the same again.

“I want to finish what I began,” she said. “Let me.”

“But how can we do that with no Black Sand?” Alec asked. He hadn’t wanted to mention the colt again, but she gave him no choice.

“By letting me ride
your
horse on Saturday,” she answered.

“
My
horse?
The Black
?” he asked, stunned. “It’s no good, Pam. It wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Lots of reasons.”

“You can be plainer than that,” she said.