The Black Stallion and the Girl (19 page)

The Black’s breathing was coming hard, Alec knew; air as well as ground was running out on him. Pam continued to sit very still, never touching him with her hands or legs, and Alec loved her all the more for knowing his horse was giving all he had.

Watching them come down to the finish wire, Alec saw Pam shift her weight on the stallion’s back as if she hoped to carry him forward by her own light body and strength. Incredible as it seemed, the Black responded to her shift in balance, and Alec yelled at the top of his voice. His cry came over the loudspeakers, amplified a thousand times, yet it was lost in the tremendous roar already rising from the stands.

The Black had forged alongside Sun Dancer in one magnificent stride and the leader suddenly gave way, his strides faltering under the Black’s challenge and the flogging whip of his rider.

The fans watched the Black go under the wire, their applause stilled by his flying image. Even in the day’s semi-darkness his brilliance as champion was brighter than ever before. He had proved his greatness again, this time with a stranger on his back.

They left Aqueduct for the farm soon after the race, with Alec driving Pam’s car, resplendent in its painted flowers.

“Henry’s changed,” Alec told Pam. “He wants you to stay very much. He won’t hire Mike Costello or anyone else.”

“I’m glad he’s changed his mind about having girls around,” she said.

“It’s not just that,” Alec explained. “I think Henry’s found that he’s not too old to change his mind about a lot of things. I think he’s going to be more understanding of others even if their standards are different from his own.”

“That’s great,” she said, “really great.” Pam paused, thoughtful, and then added, “But he was right about one thing. I learned what human frailty is today. I was scared out there.”

“But you rode as if you weren’t,” Alec said. “That’s what’s important.” His eyes left the traffic ahead to
glance her way. “No one in this world could have ridden the Black as you did today.”

“No one else would have had the chance,” she said, turning to him. “I know that as well as you do, Alec. I knew it when I asked you to let me ride him. Letting me have the Black was the greatest thing you could have done for anyone.”

“You’re not just anyone,” he said. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” she said. “More now than ever because I know what you gave up for me.”

“But, still, you won’t stay?”

“I want to but I can’t,” she said miserably.

Alec drove in silence, knowing he could do nothing more to change her mind. He must accept the fact that their being together was not going to last. He had tried everything but her decision to leave was unshakable. Moreover, he had his pride. He didn’t want to plead with her like a slavering puppy. The decision had to come from her if it was to be any good between them. Despite his knowing this, he found himself nose-diving into a black pit of depression and fought against it. He wanted no bloody battles with himself or with Pam, loving her as he did. She loved him, he believed, but she loved life more. She was a wanderer, chasing the sun wherever it might lead in search of new experiences and challenges.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Nothing but beautiful thoughts,” he said bitterly.

She twisted her head to look at him. “Hell is more likely from your eyes,” she said. “I don’t mean to be cruel.”

“How do you expect me to feel?” he asked. He
felt the tightness in his stomach, swelling, plunging, and sought to stop it by saying angrily, “There’s no magical power in frustration, Pam, and that’s how I feel about us.”

“Frustration?” she repeated. “I thought we had something else, such as being true to one’s self and to each other—real happiness.”

“All right,” he said quietly. “I’m going to spoil our happiness by saying, ‘I love you too much to let you go.’ ”

“But you
must
,” she said as quietly.

“Why?”

“Because I think we may both get what we want in time,” she said, her voice trembling and very close to tears. “But not now. I’m not ready to settle down any more than you are. I’ve too many things to see and do, and so have you. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. We’d feel trapped, unable to do what we want to do.”

“Will it be any better later on?” Alec asked, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“I think so,” she said softly. “That’s what I meant when I said we’ll both get what we want in time. It shouldn’t be frustrating, this waiting—not with all the things we have to do—and if you love me as I love you.” She paused before going on. “Look at it this way, Alec. If I asked
you
to leave, would you come with
me
?”

Alec kept his gaze on the road but he knew her eyes were questioning him as well as her voice.

“No,” he said finally. “You know I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Racing is where I belong.”

He heard her laugh but knew there was no laughter in her eyes, no more than in his own.

“So there,” she said. “It’s as simple as that. You have important things to do and so have I.”

“But there’s a difference,” he said. “At the farm you’d be close to nature and all that you love.”

“I know,” she answered, “and I want to come back to it and to you. But not
now
,” she added hastily. “It’s too early for both of us.”

“You’ll be hurt, if you go on as you do,” Alec said. “They’re going to knock you down. You’ll find people who are lots worse than Henry, and you won’t be able to change them as you did him.”

“Then, when I come back, we’ll help to outbreed them,” she said gaily. “Don’t worry so.”

“I’m not going to wait until you come back,” Alec said. “I’m coming after you. Every place you go, I’ll be there, if only for a day at a time, until I find you’re ready to come back to stay. I’m
not
giving you up.”

“That will be best of all,” she answered.

Reaching the farm, he waited in the apartment while she packed. And all the time the phonograph played, for she left it until last. The music crashed like thunder in the small room. Somewhere in those clanging chords, somewhere in those ferocious guitars, somewhere in those unintelligible choruses he sensed a clue to her
need
to go. But he couldn’t find it. The music was too loud, too primitive. It rent his stomach and his mind.

Only when she played records sung by the folk singers did he find a message in the music. He listened to the clear beauty of their voices and lyrics as they
sang sweetly of love and joy and morning sunshine; that was the Pam he knew.

“Where are you going?” he asked, finally, knowing he could do no more than to ask the direction her path would take.

She emerged from behind the kitchen screen where she had changed from city clothes. She wore a floppy cowboy hat and her standard uniform of jeans, a faded blue shirt with button-down collar that had belonged to her father, and brown loafers in need of a good saddle-soaping. As clean as she kept the stable tack, she seemed to take great pride in never touching her loafers with the sponge. He wondered at the contradiction. Perhaps it was that she didn’t attach much importance to her own appearance and, if anything, played it down.

“I’m going to visit a friend in Maryland,” she said; then, aware of his suspicions, added, “… a
girl
friend, Alec, an old school friend. I’ll give you her name and address.”

“But must you go tonight?”

“I like driving at night and Nancy’s expecting me.” She paused, looking at him intently. “I’m not changing my mind, Alec, so please don’t change yours.”

She went on with her packing and Alec carried the cardboard boxes down to the car as she filled them. They often touched in the transfer, and the contact was almost like an animal form of communication with no need for words to express their feelings for each other.

When darkness came she didn’t put on the lights. “That’s it,” she said, “all done.” Slinging her black-leather
shoulder bag over her arm, she stood before him.

He could see her face in the light from the doorway; she seemed so young, so open—too open. He felt much older than she, as old as Henry. Was it that they belonged to different ages—hers one of trust while he had been brought up in an age of cynicism? She would continue to lead the life that made sense to her. She was doing her own thing in her own time.

“I wish you’d put off leaving until tomorrow,” he persisted. “You’re tired, and it could be dangerous driving all the way to Maryland. It’ll take you most of the night.”

“I like driving to meet the dawn,” she said.

He knew there would be no changing her mind, that she would go to Maryland and beyond as she and her fate saw fit. It made no difference that her paths, like the night before her, would be dark.

She put her arms around him, and said, “I’ll be expecting you wherever I am, just like you said.”

“You’ll always let me know where you are?”

“Always.”

The taste of her skin against his own, the warmth of her breath and the sound of her voice stirred emotions that went deeper than any he had ever known. How could he let her go?

He kissed her and held her closer still. “I’ll come with you,” he said. “We’ll get married tonight.”

She pushed her head away from his, and something within him collapsed as he looked into her eyes.

“You’d soon hate me for taking you away,” she answered. “Don’t you understand what I mean, Alec?… 
what I’ve tried to say before?
I’m
not ready for marriage even if you think you are. And I think too much of marriage not to be ready for it. It’s the greatest challenge I’ll ever know, and I want to make it work. I want to have more to give you than I can give you now. Please, Alec,” she pleaded, “don’t let me change my mind. Let me grow up a little more.”

His arms dropped from her, and he turned his head away. “It’s no good, Pam,” he said angrily. “Your world is halfway between imagination and reality. Don’t you see? It sets you adrift, seeking what it ought to be, might be, yet can
never
be. It can only become a nightmare for you!”

When he had finished, she swung the leather bag over her shoulder and left the apartment without looking back. He followed, already regretting his outburst, knowing her rejection of him was responsible for it. Yet he meant what he’d said. He was no different from others, young and old, who doubted that anything could be changed from the way it was, and who believed that anyone who tried was not only a fool but could be hurt terribly. He was fearful for Pam’s very life and, loving her as he did, he had needed to speak out.

Below, she went from one stall to the next, saying good-by to the two-year-olds she had trained. He followed in silence, speaking only when she reached Black Sand’s empty stall.

“Would you like to see where I buried him?”

“No,” she answered without taking her eyes from the stall. “I don’t think of him as being there anyway. He’s with me as I am with him. We’ll be together always.”

“We brought up another colt for training,” Alec said, hoping to interest her. “You’d like him, Pam. His name’s Blackjack, and he’s the only colt we have who’s sired by the Black. He’s in the paddock outside. You can see him as you leave. Maybe you’ll like him enough to …”

She laughed as she turned to him, and he was glad that she was no longer angry.

“No maybes,” she replied. “We’ve both said what we’ve had to say.”

“But …”

“No buts either,” she said adamantly, taking his arm and moving him toward the door. “I’m going now.”

“I was going to tell you that the Black’s coming home,” he said. “I was saving it as a surprise if you stayed.”

“Then you’re retiring him? I’m glad, Alec.”

He looked into her eyes, knowing his answer was important to her. She was as concerned for his safety as he was for hers. She really wanted to find out if he and the Black were going on in that steel-shod world she’d known today.

“He’ll get a good rest but I’m not retiring him, Pam,” Alec said. “He’s a race horse, not a loafer. Don’t think for a moment he’d have a great life, standing here. He wouldn’t. He’d miss racing. He’d miss the cheering and all that goes with it. He wouldn’t like it around here, Pam, not for long, anyway. He needs to go.”

“You mean like me,” she said quietly.

In her face he saw a trace of humor and a wrinkle
at the corners of her mouth, a wandering look. “Like you,” he agreed sadly, putting his arms around her.

She got into the old car, her hand on his through the window. “Here’s my friend’s address in Maryland,” she said. “I’ll be there two weeks.”

“Then where?” he asked, wanting to know so he could find her again if anything kept him from seeing her in Maryland.

“I’m going to France,” she said.

“France,”
he repeated. “You’re kidding.”

His astonishment seemed to amuse her and she smiled. “No, I mean it,” she said seriously. “I’m going to work in Paris for a while, until I get enough money saved for a trip somewhere else. Maybe Switzerland. I’ve always wanted to ski. I can water-ski, but that’s a lot different, I guess. Then I’d like to go to Vienna to see the Lipizzan horses at the Spanish Riding School. Maybe I can even get a job there. I want to go to Ireland, too,” she went on eagerly. “I’ve read so much about their hunts and steeplechases. Have you ever jumped, Alec?”

“No,” he said, overwhelmed by her itinerary. He intended to go after her as soon as the Black came home for a rest, but it was not going to be easy for him. France and Switzerland, Austria and Ireland were a long way off.

“Well, when we’re in Ireland we’ll learn to jump together,” she said.

Alec said nothing but he didn’t let go of her hand. He felt her fingers clutch his, and for a moment he thought she might get out of the car and stay. Then
quickly she shifted into first, the gears grinding and making a horrible sound.

“You should get that transmission fixed,” he said. “If you wait, we’ll get to it the first thing in the morning.”

“Don’t worry,” she called, moving away. “Everything will go smoothly.”