The Black Stallion Revolts (7 page)

BOOK: The Black Stallion Revolts
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Throughout the rest of the night he traveled ever upward, and the air became clearer, sharper. Yet his climb was a gradual one, never steep. The pine trees still hemmed him in, affording him no outlook from his mountain threshold. It was almost morning when he came to the small meadow so typical of those he had known in the high country of his desert homeland. His shrill neigh echoed the profound joy that shook his body. He ran for the first time in many hours, and his long limbs carried him beautifully and swiftly across the carpet of short, thick grass.

Finally he stopped running to taste the pure water from rushing streams, to savor the cold air in his nostrils, and then finally to graze upon the wild grasses he loved. The few hours left of the night were spent on a bed of these grasses, fresh and sweet-scented. He rested with eyes closed, but his ears and nostrils remained alert, ready to catch the slightest noise or faintest scent.

With the first hour of grayness he was on his way once more, leaving the mountain valley to its solitude. High above him rose range after range, tier upon tier of cloud-shattering peaks, some snow-clad, and others bare and sheer. But the stallion had no use for the world above the timberline, a world consisting only of rock and snow and sky.

He trotted easily through the great woods, his hoofs making no sound on the springy cushion of pine needles. He no longer was slowed to a walk, for with the light of day he was able to choose his way easily through the aisles of trees. Why he ran when he had nowhere to go didn’t puzzle him. He ran because he loved to run, and some natural instinct kept him traveling ever southward. Flocks of birds rose from the thickets with a clatter. But he paid little attention to them, never slackening his easy strides.

Several hours later he came to an open plateau and stopped to graze upon the bleached mountain grass. Suddenly alert, he raised his head, holding long blades of the grass between his lips. Only his ears had caught the movement of his foe, for it was downwind. He whirled to meet the headlong rush of an enemy from the cover of the woods.

The trumpet roar of the bull moose was low and guttural at first. Quickly it rose to a high-pitched scream, only to descend to the roar again, and end with a grunt. He charged, his heavy antlers cleaving the air in their great spread and length.

The stallion took one look at this strange body that came hurtling toward him, a body taller than his own and made more startling by the thick, bony slabs that were pointed his way. He knew better than to rise and clash in deadlock with that horned head. Instead, he sprang swiftly away, avoiding the low-charging attack. He threw himself on the yellowish gray back in violent assault, hoping by his weight alone to bring it to the ground. But his foe began slipping away from him, so
with raking teeth the stallion bit deeply into the moose’s dark-brown neck, ripping and tearing. As he moved off, his feet slipped, and before he could right himself, the horned head had slashed his belly. He screamed, whirled, and let fly his hind legs, landing so hard a blow that it sent his enemy down and rolling.

With savage speed he attacked again, his pounding forefeet seeking the rolling body. Again he landed crushing, pommeling blows, but his foe came up, and its pointed head found his flesh again. The stallion felt more pain and his fury mounted. His eyes were bloodred as he flung himself full upon his opponent. With crashing forefeet he battered it across the back of its neck, unmindful now of his own pain. Again he lodged his teeth into ravaged flesh.

Yet once more his foe succeeded in heaving up beneath him, forcing him to relinquish his hold and fall backward. He rolled on the ground, feeling the long horns after him, searching to rip open his stomach. Only the uncanny agility he had inherited from his desert forebears saved him them. He avoided the plunging head, and got to his feet. Now he was terrible in his cunning. He circled his foe warily, feinted and attacked from behind and from the side, avoiding altogether those sharp bony prongs that had already ripped open his body. He was watchful every second, waiting for his enemy to stumble, to be caught off guard. Then he would launch his assault.

With the black stallion using all of his cunning and strength, the end came quickly. No animal of the wild country could have met an adversary so worthy, so
ruthless. The great bull moose knew this now that it was too late. He coughed, the choking cough of death. And with the sound of it, the black stallion came in again for a fresh and final assault. He feinted to the front, and the moose’s head went down to fend him off. The stallion swerved and dealt his foe a blow from the side, sending him staggering. Then he reared and his powerful forelegs came down together, splitting the bull moose’s skull.

For a moment the Black stood over the great body beneath him, and his loud, clarion call of conquest was heard for the first time in those regions. He went to the edge of the plateau. Before him was an abrupt, sheer drop of many thousands of feet to lower country. He stood there, his body bleeding from his wounds, his breath coming fast from his combat. He looked below at the canyons, then up and beyond, taking in the range upon range of mountains with their great woods and peaks, all that mysterious, wild country which seemed to have no end. As though in warning to its inhabitants, he screamed his high-pitched battle cry once more, and the great wilderness echoed his call, resounding from the mountainsides until the very air was alive with the ring of it. When finally it was still, he set out again, traveling as before to the south.

Back over the many miles the black stallion had come during the long night and part of a day, and near the clearing where the crippled plane lay, the search for Alec Ramsay and his horse was in progress. Already two local planes were flying low, winging their way over knife-edged ridges whose slopes and peaks
loomed large in the windshields. The pilots had flown searches before above these desolate mountain ranges. They crisscrossed diligently, their eyes leaving the ground below only long enough to enable them to rudder hard and away from the menacing shoulder peaks.

Yet this time the pilots were not looking for the bright winking of metal from a crashed plane, nor for a swath cut among the treetops. No, this time it was even more difficult, for this country could swallow up a boy and a horse without a sign, a trace.

One pilot slanted down into the deep canyons. Only here, away from sheltered trees, did he have a chance of seeing them. Yet even this could not be called open country. There were too many crags and clefts, too many black gullies and canyons. His great hope was that the boy would see him, that he would be given some signal that they were there, and waiting to be found.

He told himself that this was not a futile search, that he or one of the many other pilots who would join the search within a few hours would certainly find the boy and horse. They must be somewhere below, their eyes on the sky, looking for him. If only they would give him some sign to tell him where they were!

He kept to the canyon country, leaving the great wooded mountainside to the other plane. He twisted and turned with the steep walls, kicking his plane hard away from them only to be confronted by the rising, forbidding mountains that hemmed in these canyons. For hours he climbed and dropped, and the afternoon slipped away as an increasing sense of futility mounted within him.

Finally he rose again and held his plane at cruising speed. He began circling, and noticed that the other plane was now doing the same. They had given up baring their wings and lives to the sides of the mountains. Now they would cruise and watch for a sign, a signal from below that would tell them where to go.

Certainly if the boy was alive he must see them searching for him.
And if he wasn’t …
The thought only added to the pilot’s weariness. The pattern then, he knew, would be the familiar one of long searches on foot rather than from the sky. Long days and weeks of searching, perhaps without finding a trail, a clue, anything at all in this vast wilderness. But the ground search, although heartbreaking and futile, would be necessary because of relatives left behind, and the newspapers that demanded it. If this were settled country it would be different. There’d be some hope then. But it wasn’t settled. In every direction it was an unexplored wilderness, feared and avoided by hunters and trappers,
by all
.

The pilot thought of the wild animals who stalked these ranges, the mountain lions and bears, the wolf packs and coyotes. Any of these could have attacked and killed the horse during the night. And if the horse had gone down what chance had the boy?

These thoughts drove him down to the treetops again, and he brushed his wings against them until the sunlight disappeared behind the highest of the western ranges. For a brief period he carried on his relentless search in the golden afterglow of the sun shedding its light from behind the peaks. Finally this light went, and
it became dark. He banked his plane for home. Other planes would join the search tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow, perhaps tomorrow, they would find them … or even tonight.

While the planes had been searching from the sky, two woodsmen followed the Black’s trail from the crippled plane. By sunset they came to the rocky country and there they stopped to kneel on the ground, looking at the large, almost oval hoofprints that were there. Finally one said, “Take a look, Milt, these are the last ones we’re goin’ to see of his.”

The other man said nothing, only raising his head to look ahead at the desolate and tortuous terrain: miles upon miles of bare, gutted rock, spreading into the great woods where no horse, not even a shod one, would leave a track.

“He’s gone to the north, all right,” the first man spoke again, “just like they thought.”

Picking up his rifle, the other turned. “Come on, Luke. We ain’t goin’ on with no tracks to follow. We’ll go back and tell ’em so. Let someone else decide what to do. We gets paid to track.”

“An’ there ain’t no tracks no more,” Luke said, following.

The airliner was hours out of New York City, yet no word had passed between Henry Dailey and Alec’s father. The tragic news, coming early that morning, had drained them spiritually and emotionally. They were two old men and there was nothing left for either without Alec.

Henry put his hand on Mr. Ramsay’s knee. “We’ve got to believe he’s alive,” he said.

“Do
you
believe it, Henry?” Mr. Ramsay’s words could hardly be heard. “The reporters … they said the search has been going on since last night.” His trembling hands went to his face to cover it, and sobs racked his long, thin body.

“We got to believe he’s alive. We got to.” Henry was silent for a long time, but his hand never left his friend’s knee. Finally he said, “Remember, Alec’s got the Black with him. Remember that, Bill.”

Mr. Ramsay’s voice was muffled by his hands, but Henry heard him say, “Thank God for that. Thank God. It’s our only hope.” Then his hands came away, and his glazed eyes found Henry’s. Bitterness crept into his voice. “But why did he take Alec away? Why didn’t Alec stay in the plane? Why?”

Henry couldn’t face those eyes. He turned away. “I don’t know, Bill. The horse was in bad trouble. A colic attack, from what I can make out of what the reporters told us. Maybe Alec was trying to help him after the plane came down. I don’t know.”

Neither said anything more. The sky darkened with the swift coming of night,
another
night. Henry tried to close his ears to the sobs from the seat beside him.
I’ve got to keep believing they’re alive
, he told himself.
If I don’t I’m goin’ to be no good to them or myself. They’re out there tonight, alive, and waiting to be found. They’re out there
together.
Remember that, and I’ll be all right. They’re together
.

But the Black was spending his second night high
on a southern range, many miles away from where they were looking for him. Still farther to the south, and in another state, Alec Ramsay was awakening from his long sleep in the back of the rumbling trailer truck.

T
HE
L
ONG
N
IGHT
6

The truck swerved abruptly, throwing Alec against a corner of one of the wooden boxes. He felt the wheels leave the road, riding crazily on what must have been soft and deep-rutted shoulders, and then the truck began slowing down. He got his feet beneath him, but before standing he touched the swelling on his head again. It was sore and throbbing, but the severe pain was gone. His sleep had helped. How long had he been riding? It wasn’t important.

All that mattered was that he was afraid to ask himself,
Who am I? What has happened to me?

He was afraid because he knew he still did not know the answers. And just now he did not want to disturb this peace, this comfort which came with the relief from his violent pain. So he thought only of the slowing truck, and pulled himself upright.

Opening the back canvas, he looked out into the night, its darkness broken only by the white road that trailed like a ribbon. On either side of it were
mountains. The same mountains, the same night, he believed. The truck came to a stop, and he raised a foot to the boards. He felt the severe pain again as he pulled his body upward. He tore his lips with his teeth, hoping this new torture would distract him from the old. He kept going, kept climbing.

A voice from far away said, “It ain’t flat, Joe. It’ll hold up for a while. Let’s keep goin’ until we hit the next station. Ain’t no sense changin’ it out here.”

Hearing this, he screamed into the night and hung on to the top backboard, afraid to let go, afraid because of his terrible agony. He heard the heavy footsteps that came in answer to his scream. He felt the hands, as heavy as the feet had been, reach up to take him by the belt, and then he was pulled down.

For a moment he lay upon the road, his eyes closed. When he opened them two pairs of eyes were staring at him, and then two pairs of hands pulled him to his feet. It was hard focusing his eyes, harder still to move his swollen lips. And when he succeeded, his words came in gasps and were incoherent. They made no sense to the men who pulled him to the front of the truck to look at him in the glare of headlights.

BOOK: The Black Stallion Revolts
2.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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