The Black Stallion and Flame (17 page)

“There’s the old boy now,” Henry said.

Old boy nothing
, Alec thought. The Black acted as young and fractious as any colt. If one didn’t know this
horse, he’d have to be mighty careful how he approached him. The Black inspected friends and visitors alike as if he were a bird of prey, ready to swoop down on them from great heights. The tall stallion whinnied and shook his head in greeting, the muscles rippling beneath his black sable coat.

There was an unmistakable glow of health about him which prompted Alec to say again, “You won’t find anything wrong with his foot, Henry. Even if we were going in a horse show, he’d be the winner.”

Henry went into the stall without answering and Alec followed quietly, cautioning himself to hold his tongue, to play it wise. He should know by now how best to handle Henry. Slipping on the Black’s halter, he held the stallion in readiness for Henry.

“Give me the tongs,” Henry said.

The trainer raised the Black’s left foreleg. It was cold to the touch, as it should have been. He went over the raised foot with the small tongs, closing the jaws of the instrument at different parts. The horse never flinched. There was no sign of sensitivity from the old injury, yet Henry said, “Never can tell. There might be a nerve pressing somewhere.”

“He’d have come back lame this morning if there was,” Alec answered. “I think he’s as fit as he’ll ever be.” He hadn’t meant to say anything. It had come out before he could stop himself. When Henry glanced up at him, Alec squared his shoulders and made a gallant attempt to look unconcerned, as if it didn’t matter to him whether or not the Black ever raced at Hialeah Park. He held the old man’s gaze without flinching.

Henry said critically, “You got any idea how many horses stay sound during their racing careers, Alec?”

Alec shook his head.

“Just one-tenth of them,” Henry answered. “Only one-tenth of all the thousands racing. Remember that figure. And I aim to keep the Black sound.”

“You have,” Alec said.

“I think he has an excellent chance of being ready to race, Alec, if that’s what you’re driving at,” Henry went on. “I guess I’d be as disappointed as you if he’s not ready sometime this month. But there are things you can’t control, so we have to be on our guard every minute. When you have a horse like the Black, you don’t want to take any chances racing him when he’s not perfectly fit.”

Alec nodded, his eyes turning again to the Black, who had stopped stalking his stall to munch hay from the corner rack. Henry was right, of course. Only a few months ago it was rumored throughout the racing world that the great champion had broken down. Now he was on his way back and he looked superb, as fit as a horse could be. But was he? Would the injured foot hold up under the pounding it must take when he raced? For a moment Alec stood beside his horse in troubled silence.

Henry said, “We’ll just keep giving him long, slow works for the time being. If he continues to go well, as we hope he will, and his condition is as good as it should be, he’ll race. Otherwise, he’ll stay in the barn and we’ll have spent a nice quiet winter in sunny Florida. As you said before, that’s not too bad.”

The old man put his arm around Alec’s shoulders. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, hoping to cheer up his young friend. “You’ll get your race yet. I know how you feel.”

Alec turned away, trying to conceal his disappointment.

Watching him, Henry wondered if he really
did
understand Alec’s mounting impatience to race the Black. Alec lived in a different world, one that he himself had not known in a long time and one he would have completely forgotten had it not been for their close friendship.

“Alec,” he said, peering at the youth from beneath his heavy brows, “maybe we can race the Black sooner than I thought. And why don’t you read the rest of that letter you got? What else does that young fellow have to say, anyway?”

Alec said nothing for a moment. He just watched as his old friend stood there, fretting and massaging his cheeks with one hand. Then, “You mean you really want to know?” he asked.

“Sure,” Henry said, a slight, patient smile crossing his face. “Maybe we, I mean
you
, can give him a hand at that. Maybe it’ll even do you some good to have a young fellow around … one with a problem, I mean.”

When Alec’s hand went to his pocket for the letter, the Black Stallion bent his long, graceful neck, his nostrils quivering and sniffing.

Alec told him, “I have no carrots, not now.”

The Black remained still, his long tail swishing contentedly but not a muscle moving beneath his velvet-soft coat. His gaze had turned to the open doorway and, with his ears cocked, he was listening to low-pitched sounds from the stable area.

Alec’s eyes remained on him. Never was there a more magnificent horse than his own. He was a perfect
specimen, perfectly balanced, perfectly muscled. And he was as intelligent as he was well made.

Alec returned to the letter and read to Henry,
“.…I must convince you that this letter is different from the others. The only way I know how is to tell you what I’ve never told anyone else, not my mother or father or closest friends. Even if I did I don’t think they’d believe me. Neither will you, perhaps—yet I hope it will surprise you enough to see me.”

Henry said, “Pretty dramatic, isn’t he?”

Alec glanced up. “He sounds pretty serious to me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Henry said. “Go on.”

“I have a horse …”

“That’s a relief,” Henry interrupted again. “At least he doesn’t need our help in getting a horse. That’s different from most of the others for sure.”

Alec’s eyes didn’t leave the letter.

“His name is Flame,”
he read.
“I think he is the fastest runner in the world!”

“That’s good,” Henry said. “Everybody’s horse should be the fastest in the world.”

“Faster than the Black.”

“That’s new,” Henry said. “Your fans usually don’t go so far as to say that.”

“Not long ago I clocked him a mile in 1:34.”

“He almost broke the world’s record,” Henry said, smiling. “He must have been carrying an alarm clock.”

“Over a turf course,”
Alec went on.

“That makes it real wild,” Henry said, grinning broadly now. “What an imagination this fellow’s got!” He started for the stall door. “You’ve got an imagination to match his, Alec. You better finish reading it yourself. My mind’s too lazy to keep up with stories like that.”

“I want to race my horse at Hialeah,”
Alec read quickly before Henry could leave.
“Will you help me?”

Henry had reached the doorway, but now he turned around. He said nothing. He just laughed, and his laughter could be heard long after he’d left the stall and was on his way down the shed row.

Alone, Alec reread the letter. A fellow by the name of Steve Duncan owned a horse named Flame, a horse he claimed could run a mile in world-record time. He wanted help in getting him to Hialeah to race.

It sounded pretty fantastic, except that Alec well recalled his own beginning with the Black. That, too, had been hard to believe. Such a story as Steve Duncan’s demanded an imaginative effort which Henry did not care to extend. It was different with Alec. His mind was not lazy. He looked forward to meeting Steve Duncan and his horse, Flame.