The Black Stallion Revolts (11 page)

“I believe you, and if you want your memory back it’ll come.”

“But how? What good is my wanting it back, if the barrier is always there?”

“It’s half the job,” the man said. “The other half is complete physical recovery from your injury.”

The boy smiled bitterly. “Then I should be completely well,” he said. “I feel fine.”

“No, it isn’t that fast. You have to work for it. There are steps you must take.”

“Steps?”

“Yes, steps. Your body, your hands must have been trained to do something. Start using them, and maybe you’ll find out what it was. Something you do should come easier, more natural to you than anything else. Pursue whatever that is, and perhaps the association of this and what comes from it will make something else more familiar. Follow that line and somewhere along it you should get your memory back.”

Gordon left the room. He returned a moment later, carrying a rifle which he handed to the boy. “Let’s see you hold it, feel it,” he said abruptly.

The boy’s hands slid down the long barrel. The rifle was light in his hands but there was nothing familiar about it. Instead he lifted it awkwardly to his shoulder.

Seeing this, Gordon quickly took the rifle away
from him. “You sure never handled a rifle much,” he said. Then he pushed something else into the boy’s hand, his eyes intent, watching every move.

The boy looked down at the small revolver, and was afraid to close his fingers about it. He was afraid because of what he might learn. But finally he made himself grasp it. He felt the polished butt in the palm of his right hand, the trigger beneath his finger. He raised it, sighting it.

“You’ve closed the wrong eye,” Gordon said. “Keep them both open or just close the left one.” Then he took back the revolver, making no effort to conceal his relief at the boy’s being no more familiar with the revolver than with the rifle. He smiled. “Whatever you’ve done hasn’t been in this line,” he said. “That’s good to know.”

The days that followed were easier for McGregor. He had some kind of plan now, and it was far better than just sitting around the house, waiting for the black mental curtain to rise.

He worked with the flowers and plants, cutting them back and planting new ones. He spaded the earth, and rubbed the dirt in his hands, hoping that just the feel of it would awaken some remembrance of similar activity. He brought the dirt close to his nose, smelling it as he did the flowers. But the moist earth, the perfume-scented flowers did nothing for him, awakened nothing.

His nights were spent reading the many books in Gordon’s library, hoping that some page, perhaps just a single sentence would provide him with a key that would open other doors now so securely locked.

One afternoon, thinking the fishing rod he held in his hands felt a little familiar, he went to the meadow steam. Walking along, he found a black pool where fish swarmed in the depths. He found himself shortening his line, and somehow the leader and the fly seemed familiar, too. He must have fished before, and within him rose a keen sense of anticipation, of frenzied hope. Maybe here was his key! He slid down the steep grassy bank, and then stopped. He drew his arm back, his wrist snapped. The reel whirled beneath his thumb. He had cast easily. He had fished before! There was no doubt of it! The fly rested but a second on the surface of the stream, and then came a flash of a white body from the deep blackness. He felt the fish strike, but he was hardly conscious of the fight to land it.

Later he held his catch in his hands, looking at it as if he expected the fish to speak and tell him who he really was. He sat there until the stream became dark in the deep shadows of the setting sun. Finally he got to his feet, and started back for the cottage. He had found something he had done before. He had found a key
but it had opened no other doors
. A feeling of bitterness, of utter defeat and hopelessness walked with him. Nothing would change, ever change, for him.

The next few days he did nothing. Gordon watched him and offered no sympathy. “This is your fight, McGregor,” the man said. “No one can help you but yourself.” The boy remained silent.

Early the following week Gordon said, “I’m going to town for supplies. You can come or stay here just as you like.” He didn’t meet the boy’s eyes.

McGregor knew it was time to go, that Gordon
had had enough of playing host and friend and nursemaid to him. Gordon wanted to be left alone, to live the quiet, secluded life he had chosen for himself six years ago.

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

Surprised, the man looked up. “It’s an all-day trip,” he said, “and you’ll have to walk. Goldie will be carrying some books I’m mailing back to a friend in California.”

McGregor carried his breakfast dishes to the sink. “I’ve walked before,” he said, and then his eyes dropped to the high boots he wore. “I’ll have to keep these,” he added, “and your clothes. But some day …”

“You’re coming back with me. You’re welcome here.”

The boy washed the dishes. “No, you’ve done enough. As you said the other night, it’s my fight. No one can help me but myself.”

“I didn’t mean it the way it must have sounded to you, McGregor.”

“It sounded all right. It still makes sense. I’ll find a way out.”

“There’s not much to do in Leesburg. It’s pretty small.”

“Then I’ll go on until I find work.”

“You got that money to help.…” Gordon stopped abruptly when the boy turned and faced him.

“Keep it,” McGregor said. “I don’t even want to think about it now. Later, when I learn …”

The tall man stood up. “All right, if you want it that way. It’ll be here when you decide what to do with it.”
He went to the sink, and together they finished the dishes in silence.

Goldie stood still, awaiting his pack. Gordon fondled the burro’s head, but his eyes were inquisitively watching the boy. McGregor had gone for the hobbled burro at the far end of the meadow. He had taken the halter and put it on Goldie
before
taking off the burro’s hobbles.

Perhaps
, Gordon thought,
I’m putting too much emphasis on this. But I remember my first time with Goldie. Tenderfoot that I was, I went and freed Goldie of his hobbles, and
then
tried to get the halter on him. I chased him for an hour, and never would have caught him without help
.

He watched McGregor run the currycomb and brush over Goldie, cleaning the burro’s long hair until it shone in the sun. And then the kid took the saddle blankets, placing them carefully upon Goldie’s back, making certain they were smoothly folded so there would be no chafing. Next came the pack saddle. Gordon hung back, helping only a little, his eyes never leaving the boy’s hands. The kid was just as careful with the saddle as he had been with the blankets. McGregor got it in place and then buckled the girth straps, not too tight, not too loose. His hands moved quickly, surely. The kid had saddled before, and often. There could be no doubt of this. Yet McGregor wasn’t even aware of what his hands were telling him. He was too busy at his job.

Only when the pack itself was placed on Goldie’s back did the boy hesitate and fumble. Gordon went to work then, drawing the pack ropes tight and fastening
the boxes firmly so they wouldn’t slip. “Nothing is worse than a loose hitch,” he said. “If the pack slides or comes apart, Goldie will take off, and we’ll be all day trailing him and picking up the books from the mountainside.” His hands moved expertly, and his eyes were bright with his pride in a packer’s art. For a while he forgot the boy who was watching him.

They were well on their way through the pines when Gordon got to thinking again of McGregor’s skill in handling and saddling Goldie. Yet he hesitated to mention it. The kid had learned he had fished before, but it hadn’t helped. In fact, it had made things worse. McGregor expected too much too fast. So Gordon decided to say nothing about it.

More than an hour later, the boy said, “I’ve been thinking about Goldie’s name. I mean his full name,
Black Gold.
”

Gordon didn’t turn back to look at him. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it. You say Black Gold won the Kentucky Derby?”

“Yes, back in 1924.”

The boy remained silent for a long while so Gordon spoke again. “I guess I didn’t tell you that I’m interested in the Thoroughbred. Or at least I was before coming here. Don’t have much chance to follow the breed now.”

“The Thoroughbred?”

“Yes, that’s what I said … the racehorse, the horse that’s been bred to race for centuries, not the quarter horse they have in this state that they’re trying to make into a racehorse. Luckily, I don’t see much of people
around here. The way I feel about the Thoroughbred and they feel about their quarter horse only makes for an argument. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with their horses, if they use them for what they’ve been developed to do, and don’t make unjustified claims as to their racing ability. Sure, they’re fast up to a quarter of a mile, and once in a while a furlong farther. They’re handy and quick and easy to handle. They’re the ideal
working cow horse
. The best of them do have some Thoroughbred or Standardbred or Morgan blood in them, if you trace back their bloodlines. But to hear some of the folks talk in Leesburg, the quarter horse is a
breed
of long standing. He isn’t at all, he’s a
type
of horse that’s been developed to work the range. He’s no racehorse.”

The boy spoke, his voice hesitant as if he was a little unsure of himself. “You can’t blame people for loving any kind of a race, no matter how long or how short, and for loving their horses regardless of type or breed.”

Gordon turned, his eyes studying the boy’s face. He remembered again McGregor’s hands as he had saddled Goldie, and now the kid had spoken of people’s love for racing with an understanding that couldn’t be ignored. No doubt about it, the kid had had something to do with horses at one time or another. And come to think of it, he had the build of a born rider. Gordon turned again to the trail ahead, but his eyes lost none of their thoughtfulness. Sometime, somewhere, he’d seen this kid. Where? Anything to do with horses? Couldn’t be. He’d been here for six years, and the few horses he’d seen were the cow horses in
Leesburg. It wasn’t there. He was certain of that. And there was no sense in thinking back six years to the California tracks, for the kid was too young for that. How about the magazines? How about the issues of
Thoroughbred Record
that Lew Miller had sent him a year ago, and which he’d read and returned? Could he have seen a picture of the kid in one of them?

Finally he said, “I’ll bet you’ll find you like horses, McGregor.”

“I like Goldie, anyway,” the boy replied.

They crossed a meadow, and then the trail descended into a long valley. They were nearing the mountain range.

“Maybe you can get a job near Leesburg,” Gordon said thoughtfully. “There’s a man named Allen you might get along with pretty well. He’s an Easterner and brought some friends along with him to settle down here. Three years ago it was, and he and his pals have been playing cowboy ever since.” He laughed. “But I guess I can’t criticize them too much for that. For six years I’ve been playing prospector. Anyway, this fellow Allen had the money to buy up the best water and grazing land in the Leesburg area. He’s got cattle and quarter horses. Just now he’s more interested in the horses. He’s got the three-year-old champ at three hundred yards … won with him last year. Since then he’s been walking around town like he owned Satan.”

“
Satan?
”

Gordon turned at the sudden intensity of the boy’s voice. He saw the white face, skin drawn tight, and the eyes that reflected conflicting emotions. An awareness of something familiar was there at first, then came a
groping, a groping for identity. Finally the eyes were filled with deep sadness as the boy lost his mental fight.

Gordon spoke softly. “Satan is a racehorse,” he said, “a champion in his day.”

“I know,” the boy said. “Somehow I know.
But why?
” He put a hand to his head.

“You got your headache back?”

“Just a little. It’ll go away.”

“We’ll take a rest before we go through the Cut,” Gordon said. “It’ll make it easier for you.”

He decided to speak no more about horses. But when he got to town he’d drop a line to Lew Miller, asking him to send another batch of the
Thoroughbred Record
for him to read. Maybe he’d find something in them that would give him a clue to the boy’s identity. But what about the bloodstained money back at the cottage? What good would it do to be able to tell the boy who he was, if it meant that he was wanted by the police for the Utah robbery? And what good would it do
him?
He wouldn’t rest very easy, knowing for certain that he had harbored a fugitive, that he had known his whereabouts all along without telling the authorities. Perhaps it would be best to stay out of this altogether from now on. Just try to get the kid a job at the Allen ranch, and then go home and take up where he’d left off before the boy came. It was the easiest way.

So, with McGregor following him, Gordon led his burro down the long valley at the foot of the mountains. He did not know, because he had no radio, of the futile search still going on in northern Wyoming for Alec Ramsay, who had ridden Satan in some of his greatest triumphs. A heartbreaking search that now had
been forsaken by all save a small, private land party organized by Henry Dailey, who refused to give up because “
Alec is not dead. If he was I’d feel it. A part of me would be gone, would have died with him, and I’d know.…
”

And far from Wyoming, too, grazed a tall black stallion, the sire of Satan. He wasn’t the Black of four weeks ago. Now his fine mane and tail were matted and heavy with burrs, brush, and pine needles. His unshod hoofs were worn and hard from running at top speed over rocks, boulders and sagebrush. He had learned to run lightly, making scarcely a sound no matter what the terrain might be. His great body was torn and scarred from the rakings of savage teeth and claws. Yet he had survived his terrible battles, and now, shining in his eyes, was the wild look of an animal who knew desolate country, and feared neither it nor man nor beast. His body was thin yet hard from spending weeks on the short forage of the high mountain country. In spite of his ragged appearance, his wind and endurance were of the best.