The Black Stallion and the Girl (16 page)

“No one but me has ever raced him. You couldn’t handle him.”

“Let me try him and see, Alec,” she pleaded. “I’m not afraid. And if I can’t ride him, I certainly won’t race him.”

Alec said nothing, aware that she was studying his face and finding something he could not keep from her. He did not want to let anyone else ride the Black. There were undefinable degrees to which the stallion could be handled without danger. But it went beyond that, Alec knew;
the Black was his and his alone
.

“Please, Alec,” she said, “give me a chance.”

Alec remained silent, thinking of many things—not only her ability to get along with horses, any horse, even the Black, but of their conversation that last night at the farm when she’d said,
“True love is giving up that which you love most, if need be, when the time comes.”
Her words meant something to him now.

Alec looked at her face in the half-light of the stall. Her mouth was slightly open, even her breathing seemed slower as she awaited his answer. He loved her too much to turn her down.

“If I thought you could get away with it,” he said finally.

“But I think I can,” she said.

Alec made one last assessment before coming to a decision. To handle the Black in a race called for strength, determination, skill and courage. She lacked only the strength but, perhaps, her will and her need to race were strong enough to compensate. If she was ready to take a chance, so was he.

“Wait here,” he said. “I want to talk to Henry.”

“It’s incredible that you would even consider anyone else riding the Black,” Henry told Alec in amazement. “Maybe one of our best jocks could get away with it but not a girl—not even
your
girl.” He softened his voice. “Now I know you think you’re in love with her, Alec, but even so there are limits to one’s love. You can’t do a crazy thing like this.”

Alec shook his head. “I want her to
try
him, Henry, then we’ll decide whether she races him or not.”

“No, we won’t,” the trainer said angrily. “The Black does not belong to you alone, not in registration he doesn’t. He belongs to the farm and the corporation, of which your father is head. And even to me, who has cared for him as well as you. You cannot risk throwing him away on this girl.”

“I’m not worried about hurting
him
,” Alec answered. “It’s Pam who will be taking the risk.” He looked down the shed-row and saw Pam coming toward them, even though he’d asked her to stay out
of the discussion. Her face had a green tinge and her lips were the color of ash.

Henry turned to Pam when she joined them. He was astonished that she wanted to ride the Black although he understood her need to race again. He shared her tragic loss of Black Sand and had hoped to make amends for what he knew was partly his fault. But that did not mean he had to go along with anything as ridiculous as her racing the Black.

“You can’t be serious, Alec,” Henry said, returning to their discussion. “If you want to put another rider up on the Black, get the best. Get Pete Edge or Willy Walsh, but don’t put up a
girl
. In fact, I won’t have it any other way.”

Alec did not reply immediately, and the silence between them became strained.

“I’m letting Pam try him,” he said decisively. “The Black is my horse, regardless of how he’s registered, and I want her to ride him.”

Henry grunted in shock at Alec’s outright defiance, and turned his face away. For a moment he resumed cleaning tack, a job he had begun earlier. Then without stopping his work he said quietly, “The Empire State Handicap is worth over $100,000, you know.”

“I know how much it’s worth,” Alec said. He was also aware that when Henry talked about money, the trainer tended to be elaborately polite and even make concessions to others. “And if Pam can ride the Black,” Alec went on, “isn’t it worth taking a chance on winning it?”

“Maybe it is,” Henry conceded in a muted, silky tone. “
If
she can ride him, that is. But if she can’t, what
then? Will you let Willy Walsh or Pete Edge ride him in her place? Will you?”

Alec made no immediate reply, and Henry waited a long moment before persisting. “Will you?”

Alec knew that Henry had two motives—one, his desire to crush such an amateurish suggestion that Pam ride the Black; and two, the possibility of winning $100,000 with a professional male rider in the saddle. Up to now Henry had thought they were out of the race altogether; he had never considered anyone but Alec riding the Black.

Henry waited impatiently, aware that Alec was in a spot. The old trainer kept his eyes wide and unblinking, a look of exaggerated innocence in them, as if he was content to leave the whole matter to Alec. He doubted that Alec would allow Pam to try the Black. For if she failed to handle him, Alec would be forced to have another professional jockey ride his horse.

“Well, Alec?” he prodded. “Make up your mind.”

“Okay, Henry,” Alec said finally. “We’ll do it your way. We’ll put Pam up on him and see how it goes. If she can handle him, she’ll race Saturday; if not—”

“If not,” Henry interrupted curtly, “I’ll select the
next
rider. You’ve made the decision, but I’ll follow through on the rest. That’s my end of it.” His eyes left Alec to settle on the girl.

“You can try him now,” he told Pam, surprising her as well as Alec. “Better now than waiting until tomorrow morning when there’ll be a crowd around. Tack him up, Alec.”

A short while later, Alec led the Black from his stall. Pam walked alongside, her eyes on the stallion
who would test her ability as it had never been tried before.

The Black walked with a dancing pace, his neck arched high and his head swaying from left to right. He moved his ears and sniffed the air with great force. A faint sweat had already broken out on his flanks.

Alec brought him to a halt a short distance from the gap that led onto the track. There he stroked him and told him to be still. He knew the stallion’s instincts went deeper than any language between them. The Black realized something extraordinary was about to happen because he’d been saddled and taken from his stall late in the afternoon with an empty track and stands before him. His muscles were tense, his breathing quick.

Henry’s eyes remained on Pam, looking for a sign of fear, half-expecting her to change her mind now that the moment had come. “A child weighs more than she does,” he thought. “Where would she get the strength to handle such a horse?” He did not think she would go ahead with her ridiculous plan to ride the Black, not when she finished looking at him and could plainly see what was in store for her.

Alec kept the Black away from Pam; the stallion was moving much too restlessly to be mounted. It was only a game, Alec knew, but very dangerous if one was not alert. He was putting his horse, his pride, his heart on the line, all without knowing if Pam would be safe.

The Black feigned impatience and rebellion against the bridle. On trembling legs he pawed the ground, then half-reared, his mane waving high, his eyes flashing.

“It’s getting late,” Henry said. “We’d better get started if we’re going to do this today.” Yet he made no move toward the horse, knowing it was for Alec to decide when Pam should mount.

Pam approached the stallion. “I’m ready, whenever you are,” she told Alec.

“In a minute,” he answered sharply, surprised to find her beside him.

Pam began whistling the same notes she’d used to attract Black Sand’s attention in the past. Alec was going to order her to stop, and then decided against it.

She will do it her way, anyway
, he thought.
Leave her alone. I’m only upsetting them both by my own uneasiness
.

Pam spoke to the Black in a voice that was no less soft than her whistling. All the while she moved closer to him, well within range of his forelegs and teeth.

Aware of the danger in the stallion’s restlessness, Henry wanted to warn her. Yet he was afraid to speak lest his voice might upset the Black still more. He waited, fearing a furious kick that would break her ribs, stave in her chest, batter her face.

The Black sniffed the air. His eyes quivered. He swung his head toward Pam, undecided, uneasy. He continued pawing the ground and snorting with impatience, but he did not strike out or move away.

Pam stroked his muzzle with one hand while putting the other over his left eye. Her gaze met Alec’s and she nodded to him. He quickly cupped his hands. She was on the stallion’s back in a single flowing movement, every joint and muscle from ankle to neck acting as one.

“Okay, Alec,” Pam said, “turn him loose.”

The Black tossed his head and tried to unseat her. She stayed in the saddle, her hands and seat firm.

Henry expected the Black to erupt with a stranger on his back. If he got away with it now, he would in the race as well. But the Black made no further attempt to unseat Pam. Henry watched her ride off, slim, collected and very proud; he saw no childishness in her face, only strength and resolution. For the moment, he decided, she had made it.

The Black went forward with a long, quick, clean-cut pace. Then, as he went through the gap in the fence, he quickened stride. The stands loomed on the far side of the track, a hovering bulk of steel and concrete and emptiness. Even without the tumult of the crowd or band music, he became excited. He flared his nostrils as he would have done in racing air.

“Easy,” Pam said, when he broke into a run. There was no easiness in her own body as she sought control. She must not be just a passenger on his back, not if she intended to race him on Saturday. Alec and Henry were watching. She must be in charge.

The Black had no equal in strength as well as in speed. He wanted to be free of all restraint. His muscled neck was tense and his ears lay back as though the wind of his speed was already whipping past them.

Pam’s hands did not yield to him as he asked for more rein. She leaned over his neck and told him to wait. Her eyes were almost closed and her skin was drawn tight about her high, jutting cheekbones. She listened to the sound of his teeth against the steel bit.

Going around the far turn, she cautioned herself, “Not too tight a hold. Don’t fight him. Ask him. There, that’s better.”

The Black went into the homestretch under control, as Alec and Henry wanted. Pam’s world had never looked so beautiful as it did just then, riding the champion past tier upon tier of empty stands. It made no difference to her that nobody was there to watch.

She loosened rein and thrust her knees into his sides, going under the finish wire. At the same instant she called, “Go!”

In spite of the strength of the Black’s rush, the shock of his leap, she held on. It was comparable to nothing she’d ever known before, the fury of his run coming with the first stride. Almost before his hoofs struck the packed dirt of the track, he leaped again, throwing her high upon his neck. Her legs saved her from falling and she regained her balance, sitting firm in her seat, and shortening rein.

The Black’s speed could not be checked by her snug hold, and his strides became less a racing run than flight itself. His great body stretched in the air, touching ground only to leave it again in a single strike of his hoofs.

Pam’s blood caught fire. She released her hold on his mouth. Never had she known anything like it, a furious, magnificent soaring flight! She pressed her face hard against his neck, her body light, almost fluid like his. She was one with him, flying with him, and she had no wish but to soar forever, wherever he would take her.

Coming off the first turn, Pam saw Alec and Henry
in the distance and shortened rein. The Black didn’t take kindly to the sudden hold on his mouth but he responded by slowing his strides. She had found that with all his great speed and strength, the Black was no wild-eyed monster grabbing the bit and rushing headlong around the track. He would respond to the reins if his rider was strong enough to handle him.

But Pam’s arms were beginning to ache from his tremendous pull. The Black took an inch more rein from her and lengthened stride. The inner rail became only a blur, her eyes dimmed by the rush of the wind; his black mane whipped her face, stinging her flesh, hurting her.

A growing numbness came to her arms, weakening her hold on him. Yet her voice was strong as she called repeatedly in his leveled ears, “Easy … easy …”

The reins slipped again, and the black stallion thundered on. He had the steel bit hard against the bars of his mouth and his incredible speed mounted as he began digging into the track still more.

The furlong poles sped by. Alec and Henry were only blurred images as Pam swept past. She leaned her body with the stallion’s as he whipped around the turn and entered the homestretch again.

Ignoring the shooting pains in her arms, she guided him away from the rail and more to the center of the track. She could not check his speed but she could direct it where she wanted; it was like aiming a rifle and sending a bullet speeding on its mark.

The Black raced down the homestretch without needing the roar of a crowd to urge him on. The emptiness of the stands echoed to the rapid beat of his hoofs.
He swept past the finish pole, running for the love of running, and Pam rode him for no other reason than to share that love.

Going into the first turn again, the Black slowed of his own accord and Pam threw both arms around his neck and pressed her face against him.

Henry had watched in total silence as the stallion’s speed had increased to an almost impossible level. He had never seen the Black go so fast and he believed it was because of the girl’s weight, the lightness of a quail. But her balance, too, had been precisely, delicately right for the stallion’s greatest freedom and speed. She had been able to check him some, if not rate him as she should, and she’d been able to guide him, direct his tumultuous charge.

“What do you think?” Alec asked, his voice choked with concern, and almost willing to abide by Henry’s decision. He didn’t want Pam hurt.