Son of the Black Stallion (25 page)

“Do you think it’s any use?” Alec asked. “We’ve been over the house at least fifty times.”

“What else is there to do?” Henry asked.

“He might never have brought it home. He might have lost it.”

“We could try the newspapers,” Henry suggested.

“No,” Alec said. “It’s too late to make the morning papers.” He looked at his wrist watch. “We have only six hours to go, Henry.”

Henry was silent for a few minutes. Then he said, “We might ask him about the boys in his office … the ones he showed it to. Maybe they’ve got it, not knowin’ how important it is.”

“He said he’s sure he had it with him when he left the office,” Alec returned.

“I wish he was sure he knew what he did with it,” Henry mumbled, discouragement in his voice.

Alec allowed his head to fall back against the porch post. He shut his eyes for a few seconds, then struggled to open them again. Slowly he turned toward Henry. His friend’s head was resting heavily upon his knees. Alec closed his eyes again. Just a few minutes’ sleep was all he wanted … just a few minutes.… Then they’d have to look for the paper again.… They had to find it before eleven.… That paper … that silly little paper couldn’t keep Satan out of the Hopeful … a paper that had only cost his father a dollar … just one dollar … and ahead of them, two days off, was a twenty-five-thousand-dollar race.… But the money wasn’t important … ahead of them was Boldt’s Comet.… Satan had to pass him, had to beat the gray.

Alec’s head fell, and he was asleep.

Mrs. Ramsay had been in bed for a long time, but she hadn’t slept. She lay there, still and quiet, her eyes open. In the darkness, she could see nothing, but her ears were alert to every sound. She heard the men’s footsteps on the attic floor above, the sound of their voices as they searched the house again and again from attic to cellar. The hours passed … from two, to three, to four … and still they searched. Their footsteps lagged now … and there were fewer of them than earlier.

She ran her hand over her husband’s empty pillow. Poor Bill, she thought. Why did he have to get mixed up in all this? He had no business in it. And now the fault was his; for he alone had been responsible for the safekeeping of the paper which they said was so important. She did not regret that it was lost. She admitted that. And more. She was glad … no, perhaps that wasn’t the right word. Relieved, rather. It was a relief to know that Alec was not to ride Satan in the race that
was to be run the day after tomorrow. There would be no need now to worry about his safety in such a race … for without the paper, Satan could not run. And it was as she had wanted it.

Still staring into the darkness, she thought of Alec. To her, he was still a boy and not the man he claimed to be. Perhaps, she admitted, it was because he was her only child. She had tried hard not to disclose her anxiety, her concern and deep love for Alec. She wanted him to be the man she’d always hoped he’d be. And yet, it was difficult to forget the years that had gone by, and to realize that he needed her guiding hand no longer. She was clutching desperately at something that was slowly going beyond her reach. It had to come, she realized that. And at times she had thought herself reconciled to it.

But tonight she was clutching Alec’s hand once more … and she was very much aware of it as she lay there. Only half-heartedly had she helped search for the paper. She hadn’t wanted to find it. She didn’t want to spend next Saturday afternoon waiting at home, thinking of her son riding Satan in that big race. It would be dangerous, and she was afraid for him.

The sound of footsteps ceased, and the house was quiet. Her head turned toward the window, and she saw the gray lightening of the sky. Soon it would be morning, and the night had passed without their finding the paper.

She lay still for many minutes; then, without knowing why, she got out of bed and left the room. The lights were still on in the hall below, and she walked slowly down the stairs. Entering the living room, she
saw her husband and Tony sitting on the couch, sleeping. She stood looking at them, puzzled. Tony, with his mouth wide open, was snoring. He had had a hard day, she knew, and in another few hours would be on his way again … yet he had spent most of the night looking for the paper. And her husband … his thin, gaunt face propped hard against his hand was more haggard than she had ever seen it. He was taking the loss of the paper very hard. And she thought again that he had had no right to get mixed up with this horse. Yet how could he have helped it? Wasn’t she herself now a part of it? And hadn’t she been ever since the day the young colt arrived?

She walked slowly over to the door and slipped outside. She saw Henry first, his large head dropped low upon his chest. And she wondered how he could sleep in such an awkward position. Then she saw her son, sitting against the post. She was startled at first glance. There was nothing boyish about his face as it lay there pressed hard against the wooden post. It was the face of a man in the making … hard, strong, yet heavy now with anguish and disappointment.

Had she been foolish enough to believe that if Satan did not run next Saturday because they had not found the paper, there would not be another race? She realized now that next Saturday would not be the end. For Alec knew what he wanted, and that was to race his horse. Time after time he had told her that. And she had always thought it would only be a short while before he would change. But looking at her son, she knew better now.

Quietly she turned and went back into the house.
She stopped by the banister in the hall, and for a moment stood still, thinking. Her gaze turned to the clock as it began striking five. She knew what she had to do, and there was still time … six hours.

She moved softly from room to room, not overlooking a single place in her search for the paper. When she reached the attic door she stopped. Her husband never went up there, so it would be a waste of time to look in the attic. According to him, the paper had been on his person the day after the running of the race. That had been on a Tuesday, and she had been doing her laundry. She had been in the cellar, she remembered, when he came home from the office. Suddenly there was a flicker of light in her eyes.
Cellar. Laundry
. She had heard him come into the house. She had called to him to help her with the heavy laundry basket. He had come down to the cellar and carried the basket upstairs for her. She remembered that he had stumbled on the stairs while carrying it, and almost fallen. The paper might have slipped from his pocket and fallen underneath the cellar stairs!

Moving quickly, she went down to the first floor and then into the cellar. She went beneath the stairs and searched the floor for a long time. Then, disappointedly, she moved away from the stairs and looked around the cellar. The cement floor had been swept clean, and there was no other place where the paper could have fallen.

She was starting upstairs when she saw the large wicker laundry basket in the corner. She went up another step, then stopped, her gaze returning to the basket. It couldn’t be there, she told herself. She had
used it twice since the day her husband had helped her, and there had been no paper in with the clothes. Or, if it had been there, it must have blown away when she hung the wet wash up in the yard to dry.

Yet without knowing why, she went back down the stairs and walked over to the basket. It was empty, as she had known it would be, and there was no paper to be seen. Still, she pulled it down from the bench and placed it under the cellar light to make sure nothing was stuck between the wicker staves. She looked at it for a long time, as though unwilling to call an end to the search which she had started.

The clock in the hall was striking six. An hour had passed since her search had begun, and time was growing short. Reluctantly she placed the basket back upon the bench. And as her hand left the edge, she felt something softer than wood beneath her fingers. Quickly she turned the basket on its side, and there, wedged deep beneath the handle on the inside of the wicker staves, was the corner of a paper.

She forced herself to wait a moment, not wanting to tear the paper in her anxiety to get it out. In her heart she prayed that it would prove to be what she sought. Ever so slowly, and with trembling fingers, she moved it from side to side, slowly prying it loose. It could be it, she told herself. It could have slipped from her husband’s pocket and fallen into the basket, to be wedged in later by the wash.

It came out easier now; and finally she held the folded piece of paper in her hands. Her heart pumped heavily, for she knew it must be Alec’s paper. She unfolded it, and his writing leapt up at her.…
“
I, Alexander William Ramsay, upon this date do sell my black colt, Satan, to William Augustus Ramsay, my father, for the sum of one dollar.…
”

She read no more. Turning quickly, she ran up the cellar stairs with the quick, light steps of a woman many years younger.

Three-quarters of an hour before the running of the Hopeful, Alec walked about the jockeys’ locker room. It was noisy, and crowded with tough, wiry men; the air was heavy with the pungent smell of liniment mixed with the stench of wet silks belonging to riders whose races were over for the day. And above all the voices rose the hissing clatter of the showers.

Wrinkled, hardened faces turned curiously toward Alec as he made his way to an empty locker. The jockeys riding in the Hopeful pulled on their clean silks, and close beside them stood their valets ready to help them with their boots and tack. Hastily Alec glanced around the room. He recognized many of the jockeys from photographs which he had seen in the newspapers, but he knew none of them. He was hoping to find Lenny Sansone, who he knew was riding the Chief in the Hopeful, but the black-haired jockey wasn’t around. Alec sat down on the bench and began taking off his clothes.

The hissing of the showers suddenly stopped as the last of the jockeys who were finished for the day came out of the shower room, their wooden clogs ringing loudly on the floor as they walked to the lockers. The faces of some were as young and pudgy as a child’s. Many of them stopped to talk in eager voices to the men who were riding in the big race.

Alec pulled on his black silks. Not much longer to go now, he thought. His body was tense and his throat dry. He was nervous, and he knew it. Relax, he told himself. You’re not doing yourself or Satan any good. If he was tense, his horse would feel it. They both had to be calm today. This was it. The big race was here! Nothing could go wrong today. Henry expected the best from both of them. He was with Satan now, watching him, making sure everything was all right. Henry was afraid Boldt still might try something underhanded. They had made a fool of Boldt the day before at the stewards’ meeting when they had produced the notarized bill of sale proving that Alec had sold Satan to his father. And after the meeting they had left Henry at the outside door, awaiting Boldt. Later in the afternoon Henry had shown up again, and when they had seen the bandages over his knuckles they had asked no questions.

As Alec pulled on his boots, Lenny Sansone entered the room and hurried toward the lockers. Seeing Alec, he took the locker next to his.

Sansone’s valet came up behind him, carrying his tack. As the stocky, broad-shouldered jockey pulled off his shirt, he turned to Alec and looked at him quizzically. “You feel all right?”

“Sure. A little nervous,” Alec confessed.

“Yeah. I know. I was that way all my first year. But now,” he went on, “it don’t hit me until I get out there on the strip.”

Alec said nothing.

“Guess all of us feel jittery one time or another in every race, no matter how long we ride,” Lenny continued. “Even those guys.” He nodded his head toward the other jockeys.

“You wouldn’t know it to look at them,” Alec said quietly.

Sansone sat down on the bench after pulling on his maroon silks. His valet helped him draw on his boots.

“They’ve all got their problems, just like me. We all know it and feel it. Might not show it, though.” Lenny paused, jerking his head toward an old-faced, small-chinned man who was standing near them. “Take Ward there. He’s up on Boldt’s Comet,” Lenny explained. “He knows he’s got the favorite, an’ that if he doesn’t win old man Boldt will have his hide. I wouldn’t want to be working for Peter Boldt … nope, not me. He pays well if you bring his horses home, but he’s hard on you if you don’t. Ward knows that. He’s been riding for him for years. Ward’s smart as they come … knows every trick of the game. You keep your eye on him, Alec. I’ve never seen him do anything dirty, but he has a way of coming mighty close to it, an’ all within the rules. He’s sorta like Boldt, y’know,” Lenny said, as though that explained everything.

Alec’s eyes were on Ward’s wrinkled face when
Boldt’s jockey turned toward him. Their gazes met momentarily, and Alec didn’t like what he saw there. Ward’s eyes were sly, treacherous.

“But he’s got guts,” Lenny continued. “No doubt about that, and I’ve never seen him afraid of anything. No room for fear out there on that racing strip, especially in the thick of chargin’ for the wire.”

“He’s got heavy shoulders and long arms,” Alec said, almost to himself.

“Yeah. Needs ’em with Boldt’s gray,” Lenny said. “The Comet is heavy-headed, wants to run wild all the time, I hear.” Lenny stood up, knocking a wart of mud off the sole of his boot with his stick. Then he said, “Wish the Chief had a bit of that wildness to run in him. My horse is a strange one, Alec,” he added confidingly. “It’s no secret; everyone who’s been around here knows it. The Chief lets the others come right up to him before he starts to run. He’s lonesome when running alone, an’ that’s why I have to fan the stick at him plenty. There’s no tellin’ how fast he can go when he wants to, though. Maybe this is the day,” he concluded hopefully.

Alec remembered Lenny’s bay as Satan had borne down upon him during the workout; how the black-haired jockey had gone for his stick, and Satan, upon seeing it, had swerved into the fence. He was certain that it would be a different story today.