The Island Stallion (2 page)

Carefully, Steve folded the newspaper clipping and put it away.

It was four o’clock when the
Horn
dropped anchor a quarter of a mile from Chestertown, the port of Antago. Steve had finished packing his suitcase and was in the captain’s cabin, awaiting the attention of the man from the Antago Immigration Department, who was talking to the captain. Through the porthole, Steve could see the red-roofed buildings on the shore and the green countryside behind the town. He was taking it all in when he heard the man from the Immigration Department asking for his passport. Steve gave it to him. The captain rose to his feet, bade Steve good-bye and said he hoped he’d have a nice vacation on Antago; then he excused himself and left.

After stamping Steve’s passport, the man from the Immigration Department returned it to him, saying, “There’s a Phil Pitcher waiting for you on the wharf. If you’re ready to go in now, you can come along with me.”

A few minutes later, Steve followed the man down
the ladder at the side of the
Horn
. Below, rising and falling with the swells of the bay, was a large, deep rowboat manned by six burly black men. The immigration official stepped into the boat and helpfully took Steve’s suitcase as the boy followed.

The men pushed away from the ship and began rowing toward town. For a few minutes, Steve looked back over the stern. Already the
Horn’s
cargo hoists were lifting heavy boxes from the hold to the barges that had pulled alongside the freighter. In a little while she would be on her way again, and Steve felt a temporary surge of regret that he was not going along.

But quickly he pushed the thought aside and turned his gaze shoreward.
Here
, he thought,
is the beginning. This is what I actually asked for. It wasn’t the
Horn
or a trip through the Caribbean that I wanted. It was Antago. No, rather, it was Azul Island. Well, I’ve seen it, part of it at any rate. No, I’m not discouraged by what I’ve seen. Somehow, I had expected it to be different from the others—forlorn, forsaken by all save the horses. It makes Azul Island all the more interesting. I’ll have to arrange with Pitch to get there some way
.

A fishing boat passed close by, its sails hard on the wind. And ahead, Steve could see other boats moored closely to the sides of a canal.

They went up the canal, finally turning in toward a wharf, alongside which there was a large shed. Steve looked for Pitch. At first he did not recognize him, for his gaze passed over the small, thin man wearing knee-length pants and a long-peaked cap. Then the man regained his attention by calling to Steve and sweeping off his cap, waving it vigorously. Seeing the steel-rimmed
glasses the man wore was all that Steve needed to identify Pitch at that distance. Waving back, he replied to Pitch’s greetings and his frequent questions called across the twenty feet of water. Yes, Steve yelled back, he’d had a good trip. Yes, everything was all right at home. It was good seeing him, too. Antago looked fine, just fine.

And all the while Steve was thinking,
He’s the same Pitch, all right. The short pants threw me off at first. I’ve never seen Pitch’s knees before. Just as knobby as the rest of him. His skin has darkened a lot from the sun, but his face hasn’t changed any. Mom always said that Pitch had the softest, roundest face she’d ever seen. Just take one look at Phil Pitcher, she’d say, and you know right off that he wouldn’t do a bit of harm to anyone
.

The rowboat pulled alongside the wharf and Pitch got hold of Steve’s suitcase, sweeping it out of his hands. “You don’t know how good it is to see you, Steve!” he said. “I’ve looked forward to having you or your father down here for a visit. Tell me about him, Steve. And your mother? How is she?”

As they walked to the shed, Steve told Pitch all the news he could think of. He opened his suitcase for the Customs authorities, then shut it again when they’d finished looking through it. One of the Customs men took out a piece of chalk and scrawled his initials over Steve’s bag.

“Now we can go,” Pitch said, leading the way. “I have the car outside. We’re twelve miles from town.”

As they drove through the crowded streets, Pitch pointed out the local sights of interest—the bank, the market, theater, hotel—and then concluded by saying apologetically, “They’re really not much. Although,” he
added more hopefully, “I do think you’re going to like our house. My brother Tom’s house, that is. It’s located on a high cliff overlooking the sea. A beautiful view, Steve, very beautiful.”

“I’m sure I’ll like it,” Steve assured him. He said it with enthusiasm, knowing very well that Pitch was afraid he’d be disappointed in his visit to Antago. It made him a little uncomfortable. So as they drove through the outskirts of town, he asked Pitch many questions about Antago and his life there.

And Pitch promptly reacted to Steve’s interest in the island. He told him about Antago’s sugar cane, among the finest grown in the world, he said. And his stepbrother, Tom, had the largest plantation on the island. Pitch was Tom’s bookkeeper. Yes, it was a much better job than working in the lumberyard office at home. It was very easy compared to that, he confided to Steve. Really, there wasn’t much to do except at harvest time. And the weather on Antago was always nice. A little hot just now, perhaps. But he could always stand the heat better than the cold. He had disliked the winters at home very much.

Steve pointed to Pitch’s shorts and said, smiling, “And you couldn’t get by with an outfit like that at home.”

“No,” Pitch returned very seriously, “no, you couldn’t at all. And it’s a shame, for they’re so comfortable.”

The countryside through which they were now driving was heavy with green fields of tall cane, but occasionally there would be open pasture land with lush grass upon which cattle, goats and horses were grazing.
Steve had thought it best to wait awhile before mentioning his desire to visit Azul Island, but the sight of the horses caused him to consider bringing up the subject at once.
What’s the sense of putting it off?
he thought.
I like Antago all right, but only as a place from which to get to Azul Island. I’ve only a little over two weeks, and I might as well find out now if Pitch knows how I can get there
.

Pitch had been quiet for a while but now he turned to Steve. “Steve,” he asked, “are you still interested in horses? I remember that as a youngster you sold me about ten subscriptions to a magazine I never wanted just because you were going to win a pony.” Pitch’s tone was hopeful again, as though he was still striving to find something of real interest to Steve.

“Yes,” Steve replied, “very much so. I’ve ridden a lot during the past year.”

“Good,” said Pitch. “I was hoping you would be.” He paused a moment and Steve noticed an intentness in his pale blue eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I’d like to tell you something,” Pitch went on, “that’s been of great interest to me of late.” He paused again, and Steve waited impatiently for him to continue.

“Yes, Pitch,” Steve had to say finally. “What is it?”

“Do you recall the picture I sent your father several weeks ago? The one of our rounding up the horses on Azul Island?”

Did he remember it! “Yes, Pitch, I do. That’s why I …”

But Pitch interrupted with evident eagerness to tell his story. “It was the only time I’ve been to Azul Island,” he began. “Oh, I’d heard about it, of course; Tom
spoke of it occasionally. And before I arrived here he had written me once or twice about wrangling horses on a small island not far from Antago. But,” and Pitch smiled, “you know I’m pretty much of a greenhorn about things like that, and I never really understood any of it. That is, not until I went to Azul Island with Tom and the others.”

Pitch paused and glanced at Steve. Then, as though pleased with the boy’s obvious interest, he went on: “I remember that we all looked upon our visit to Azul Island as very much like a day’s outing. And we spent the time there imagining ourselves as cowboys. I couldn’t help thinking, as we ran after the horses, how strange we’d look to any people from our western states. All of us, of course, were wearing our shorts and had on our sun hats because the day was extremely hot. We had no trouble chasing the horses into the canyon, because the island is very narrow at that point; and twenty of us, walking about thirty yards apart, I would say, easily forced the horses into the canyon. Tom was in charge because he was the only one who knew anything about horses. The rest of us were plantation men, laborers, fishermen and the like with no experience whatsoever in this business of wrangling horses. However, as I’ve said, there was little to it, because Tom told us what to do, and it was he who selected thirty of the most likely looking animals to take back with us to Antago.”

Pitch stopped, thought a moment, then said in an apologetic tone, “I must tell you, Steve, that the horses are small, scrawny beasts and not very much to look at, really. But if you’d seen the desolateness of that small
bit of the island, with the sparse grass and only the few, meager fresh-water holes, you’d wonder that they’d survived at all.”

Pitch paused again before adding with renewed enthusiasm, “But they have, Steve! Their breed has survived for centuries on Azul Island!” His words came faster now. “It was on the way back from the island, with the animals crowded into the barge we towed behind our launch, that I first learned of it. I was sitting next to the photographer of our weekly newspaper, and I mentioned that I had been surprised to find so many horses on Azul Island. He mentioned, very casually, that these horses were believed to be descended from the ones that the Spanish Conquistadores rode centuries ago! I tried to learn more, but that was all he knew. His editor had told him, he said. It was just an assignment to him. He wasn’t really interested. It shocked me, actually, because I’ve always been so very much interested in Spanish colonial history that I suppose I assumed everyone else would be. To think that here was a breed of horse the Conquistadores rode, and which had survived all these hundreds of years, and no one—not even Tom, who knew of my interest—had thought it important enough to tell me!

“I went to Tom immediately and asked him about it,” Pitch continued gravely. “I asked him if what I’d learned from the photographer was actually true. He laughed. I remember his laughing very well. Of course, it was obvious to him that I was tremendously interested and excited. Tom told me to sit down and relax because, he said, there wasn’t a bit of truth to the story.
He’d heard it mentioned every so often for the past fifteen years, but believed none of it. It made a good human-interest story for newspaper readers, he said, and I remember he also intimated that the editor of the local paper, an old friend of his, was capable of making up such a story for the benefit of his readers.”

“Then it’s not true,” Steve interrupted, obviously disappointed, “none of it. But Pitch, how did the horses get there, then? And why does the government of Antago leave them on Azul Island when they could have much better pasture land here?”

“That’s what I wondered, too, Steve,” Pitch returned, “and that’s exactly what I asked Tom. His first answer was, ‘How do animals get anywhere? They were taken there, of course!’ To me, his answers were most confusing. I didn’t know what he was driving at until I asked him why the government of Antago allowed him, as agent in charge, to wrangle the horses only once every five years. And why did they limit the number of horses to be removed? Why did they insist that enough horses be left on Azul Island to maintain the progeny of this breed? Why, indeed! if the story wasn’t true?

“He just laughed at me for a long time. Then he said in his most cynical way, which can be so very aggravating, that he believed it wasn’t so much the Antago government which was interested in these horses as it was the Antago chamber of commerce! And then he repeated that it made a good story, a story that could be placed in many foreign newspapers to publicize Antago, which was what the chamber of commerce wanted! He even intimated that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn
some day that the horses had been taken to Azul Island from Antago for the express purpose of creating such a story!

“But I didn’t believe a word Tom told me,” Pitch went on. “By that time I was very much interested in the subject and was determined to see it through. I decided to learn all I could about the colonial history of Antago, and anything at all that was available on Azul Island. I wasn’t able to learn much here, because the people seem so little interested in the past. It’s only the present and future that hold their attention. They talk all the time about how much more they should get for their sugar and rum, and why Antago should be provided with an air service instead of having to rely upon the few boats that stop here. Problems like these are all they care about.

“So I got hold of some books from the States and learned that at one time Antago was used as a supply base by the Spaniards!” Pitch’s eyes were bright as he went on excitedly, “From here, Steve, those infamous Conquistadores, men like Cortés, Pizarro and Balboa, may have selected their armies, their horses, guns and provisions, and set forth to plunder the Incas and the Aztecs of their gold!”

Pitch paused a moment, then continued in a calmer voice, “I also learned that in the year 1669, British and French pirates succeeded in sacking Antago and driving the Spaniards from the island.”

“And Azul Island?” Steve asked. “Did you learn anything about it?”

“No,” Pitch replied. “Nothing … absolutely nothing about its history. The report mentioned only that
it was an uninhabited island twenty miles north of Antago.”

“Then in spite of what Tom said, you think that the horses now there could be descended from the horses of the Conquistadores?” Steve asked with keen interest.

“I do, Steve. I most certainly do,” Pitch said slowly. “The Spaniards surely knew of Azul Island and it’s very possible that they could have used it for something … or were even forced to go there when Antago was sacked by the British and French pirates. I’m terribly interested,” he added quickly, “because here’s an island that’s been avoided for centuries, except for the few visits by Tom and the others who preceded him to obtain horses. And for all anyone knows, it’s possible that there’s other evidence besides the horses that the Spaniards once inhabited the island. I very much want to look around, because it’s obvious no one else has.”