The Young Black Stallion (12 page)

Two muffled gunshots popped nearby as fire spit from the assassins’ hidden rifles. The guards were caught unaware and hit. The one sitting beside Rashid dropped his weapon and slumped to the ground. The lookout struggled to raise a cry and shoulder his rifle until another shot rang out. He fell from his perch, bounced off the rocks and tumbled to the ground. When the snipers’ guns were leveled at Rashid, he said a quick prayer to Allah and braced himself for death. He waited, but no ball of lead pierced his chest to send him to the hereafter. His time to leave this world had not yet come.

A turbaned head popped up from where the shots had been fired. The face was familiar. It was Mansoor, the Cat, the same man Rashid had seen in Khaldun’s tent, the one who wanted to buy racehorses for the English.

The Cat kept his gun trained on Rashid and ordered him not to move. His two bodyguards cautiously emerged from their hiding places and ran over to the fallen guards like hungry jackals. The guards were still
alive. The bodyguards unsheathed their daggers. “Shall we finish them off?” they asked Mansoor.

“Easy, boys, no need for that,” he replied. “Tie them up and leave them.” The bodyguards did as they were told.

The Cat stepped out from behind a rock. As when Rashid had seen him before, Mansoor was dressed in a white jacket, matching leg coverings and shiny boots.

Rashid wondered how the Cat had found his way to this spot. Could it be that Mansoor and the crafty Khaldun were behind this raid, not Abd-al-Rahman as the messenger had said? The fighting might be just a diversion to draw attention away from Shêtân

The Cat turned to face the young black stallion. Shêtân backed up and pawed the ground. The hair on his neck seemed to bristle at the sight of Mansoor, who leered at him.

“What about this dog?” one of the bodyguards asked, nodding toward Rashid.

“We’ll take care of him later,” Mansoor replied. “Now we have to stick to our schedule. Timing is crucial in an operation like this. Just keep him out of the way.” Waving his gun, he gestured for Rashid to move up against the wall.

Rashid could not understand it. How long did Mansoor think he had before Abu Ishak returned? How did they expect to steal this stallion that knew no master and escape from under Abu Ishak’s nose?

Mansoor did not appear to be concerned about these things. He ignored Rashid, Shêtân and his men, seeming intent on checking his watch, compass and map. He took a fat-barreled pistol from one of the
bodyguards and shot it into the sky. The signal flare burst into a ball of yellow flame. White smoke trailed behind it as it slowly floated back to earth.

Out of the setting sun Rashid saw something approaching from beyond the small dunes that bordered the vast Rub‘ al Khali. At first he thought it might be camels, but the thing was moving too fast for even the swiftest camel herd. It could not be horses, as it was coming from out of the heart of the desert, a place so desolate that no horses could travel there. The thing came closer, and he saw that it was a truck like the ones the army used in their desert patrols, but painted yellow to match the color of the sand instead of military green. These army trucks rarely ventured beyond the rim of the Empty Quarter. What were they doing out here now?

Like a huge caterpillar, the truck rumbled across the desert, mounted on wide, knobby tires in front and crawler tracks in back. A rack of lamps and headlights ran across the top of the cab along with two pairs of trumpet-shaped horns. Smokestacks ran up the back of the cab and belched clouds of black smoke into the darkening twilight sky. There was something printed on the side of the truck, but it wasn’t written in Arabic script and Rashid could not understand what it said. Otherwise, there seemed to be no indication of whom the vehicle belonged to or where it was coming from. There was something sinister about this big metal insect, Rashid thought. The closer it came, the more he began to doubt that it was a military truck at all.

Mansoor called and waved to the driver as the truck chugged to a stop before them. The driver
jumped down from the cab. He was not dressed as a soldier in a uniform but wore blue jeans and a T-shirt instead. A pair of green sun goggles hung loosely around his neck. He shook hands and exchanged a few quick words with Mansoor. Then he ran to the back of the truck, unlatched one of the two rear doors and swung it open. The bodyguards helped him lower a loading ramp while Mansoor turned his attention upon Shêtân

The stallion had been watching all these actions warily. He gathered his legs beneath him, keeping his head low but his ears pricked up and alert. As the Cat came closer, Shêtân unwound from his crouched position. The stallion took a few quick steps and sprang up, throwing his full weight against the rope that held him. It snapped and he struck out furiously with both fore and hind legs, kicking and thrashing the air wildly. The only things standing between him and Mansoor were the two bodyguards who fired their rifles into the air repeatedly in an effort to terrorize the stallion and keep him back.

Rearing up on his hind legs, Shêtân towered before them like a giant black statue. The stallion’s small head rocked and he tossed his mane and forelock viciously. His bared teeth and threatening actions showed him for what he was—cunning, ruthless and savage.

Gunshots and the stallion’s shrill cries filled the air. Mansoor’s laughter rang out in the midst of it all. “Sorry, you black devil, I don’t have time to wrestle today,” he said. Turning to the driver he barked out an
order: “Bring the sleep gun!” The driver ran back to the truck and returned holding a long, skinny air pistol with a red-feathered dart attached to the tip of it. He handed it to Mansoor. Mansoor sighted down the barrel and took aim. The pistol clenched in his hands made a whooshing sound as the red-winged dart flew through the air and pricked the stallion’s neck.

Shêtân raged on. All the while the bodyguards kept firing their guns into the air to keep him back. Within seconds the tranquilizing drug took effect. The great stallion began to stagger like a punch-drunk boxer. He turned in circles, around and around like a top. And like a top, he soon began to wobble and turn more and more slowly. Finally he came to a stop, his eyes rolling, his legs unsteady.

Mansoor stepped forward and took a firm hold on Shêtân’s ear. Twisting it, he forced Shêtân’s head down. The legs of the dazed and dizzy stallion began to buckle and he dropped to the ground, breathing heavily.

“Let’s go, men!” Mansoor barked. “This is lightweight stuff, not elephant tranquilizer. It will wear off fast. Move!”

Within seconds the stallion struggled to his feet again and seemed to be recovering. Mansoor whipped a hemp rope around Shêtân’s neck. As the stallion reached for Mansoor with bared teeth, the Cat pulled the rope through his gaping mouth and wound it behind his ears. Once more he put the rope around the stallion’s head and tightened it. The coarse rope cut into Shêtân’s lips while it applied pressure to a horse’s most vulnerable spot, a point behind the ears. Rashid
had seen such a bridle only once before, when Khaldun had corralled a renegade bull camel that he did not want to kill. Khaldun had called it a war bridle.

Shêtân struck out, fighting the overwhelming pain of the rope in his mouth, but no animal could resist the cruel pressure of the war bridle for long. His legs began to tremble. Mansoor gave the rope another twist to remind the stallion that
he
was in charge now. Then he turned to his men and shouted, “Get ready, I’m going to bring him in!” The men cautiously began to move forward.

While Mansoor and his men were preoccupied with Shêtân, Rashid slipped away and scrambled out of sight behind an embankment. His first instinct was to make a break for the dunes, but then he thought better of it. For the moment he was safe—they hadn’t even noticed he was missing yet. He concealed himself in the rocks and watched Mansoor’s fight with the stallion.

The Cat yanked on the war bridle and dragged Shêtân forward. Standing on either side of the horse, his men held a taut rope behind the stallion’s rump to force him up the loading ramp. When Shêtân balked and refused to move, the driver savagely whipped his hindquarters.

Rashid could not bear to watch such brutality and turned his head away in disgust. Finally he heard the stallion’s hooves ring out on the metal floor of the ramp as Shêtân lunged forward. The rear door slammed shut behind him but could barely muffle the ravings of the wild horse trapped inside. He could not go on that way without harming himself, Rashid thought. Surely such an animal could not live for long in captivity.

The men scurried around to the sides of the truck. Still no one seemed to have noticed that Rashid had disappeared. If they did notice, no one seemed to care. Nor did Abu Ishak’s certain return seem to trouble them. Perhaps they didn’t fear Abu Ishak at all, with their big-wheeled metal monster and their guns that shot tiny arrows bringing sleep instead of death.

Rashid drew a deep breath. He had to think. With his strange machines and weapons, this Mansoor was a formidable enemy. But Rashid was not afraid of the marvels of the modern world. He wanted to learn. One day he too would buy a compass, a sleep gun … one day.

He watched the burly truck driver check the crawler tracks and tires to make final preparations for the return trip into the desert. Mansoor and his bodyguards climbed aboard, and then the driver swung himself up into the cab of the truck after them. The driver gunned the engine and a cloud of black smoke puffed into the air. In a few moments they would be on their way, leaving only their tire tracks to tell the tale of where they had come from and where they were going. In the distance, beyond the line of small dunes, were the great dunes of the Uruq al Shaiba. How could any truck cross them? Rashid wondered.

But the only thing that really mattered was, What was he going to do right now? He was alone again; Shêtân was gone. To try to cross the desert on foot was suicide. He could return to the mountains where he had lived a life in hiding, but then what? If he escaped to the village by the lake that he had seen earlier, it would be the first place Abu Ishak and his men looked on returning from battle and finding Shêtân gone. It
would only be a matter of time before they caught up to him. When that happened, a quick and painless death would be all he could hope for.

Rashid had to make a decision and make it fast. He raced back down behind the rocks to where the truck was beginning to plod along, bumping over the sand and grinding its gears. Rashid ran after it. The spinning wheels threw up a spray of fine sand until the crawler tracks bit into the ground. The truck began to gain speed. Rashid ran faster, catching up to the truck at last. He jumped up onto the tailgate, slipped the latch that bolted the second rear door and opened it. Crawling inside, he pulled the door closed behind him. The truck picked up more speed.

Inside, Rashid smelled the rich aroma of hay and feed. Out of habit he moved quietly around the compartment, though there was hardly any reason to do so. No one could hear him. On the other side of the stall divider the enraged Shêtân hammered away with his hooves. He was making so much noise that Rashid could have screamed at the top of his lungs and the men in the cab of the truck would not have heard him.

He found a sack full of grain, ripped it open and ate a few handfuls. The meal tasted sweet and delicious. As he savored the taste of the grain, he looked around at his surroundings. There was straw and a layer of wood shavings spread on the floor. Hay was stacked in bales behind him. Hay nets and crossties hung from the ceiling. Blankets were folded and neatly stowed away. Rashid propped himself up on a bundle of these and made himself comfortable. There was nothing he could do now but wait. He pulled out a blanket to cover himself.
Inscribed on a tag in Arabic he read the words
PROPERTY OF MARLEY STABLES, SUSSEX, ENGLAND.
That must be the English stable Mansoor worked for, Rashid thought. He felt the texture of the blanket. It was of good quality, far superior to his own.

The stallion continued to stomp and pummel the floor with his hooves and batter the reinforced metal walls of the stall. The truck rocked back and forth, rolling farther and farther into the desert. Rashid was safe for the moment, but he must plan ahead and keep his wits about him. He could not give up hope.

The bodyguards in the cab of the truck were laughing and talking together so loudly that Rashid could hear them through the compartment wall. They mocked the likes of Ibn al Khaldun. “… and did you see the way he slept with his dogs as if he were one of them?” one said. “Ha! His greyhounds smelled better than he did.”

“Yes, it is too much like living in a barn every time we visit the outer tribes,” replied the other, his voice tinged with disgust. “By Allah, it will be good to return to the settled places and get away from those backward herders.”

“You have to give that Khaldun credit, though. His spies had old Abu Ishak figured out pretty well,” his friend reminded him. “The black beast was practically delivered into our hands. What I can’t understand is how Abu Ishak knew exactly where the horse would leave the mountains and reach the plain.”

“It’s that falcon of his,” Mansoor said. “Khaldun’s spies report that Ishak’s falcon can track anything. By following the bird he could guess when and where
Shêtân would leave the mountains. Say what you will about the likes of Ishak and Khaldun, but never doubt they have an uncanny way with animals.”

“It’s hard to find fault with anyone when your pockets are stuffed with English pounds, eh?”

“Let’s see, what will be the first thing I do when I get home, go to the baths or have a massage? Perhaps I’ll do both. Then I might have a nice lamb dinner at Ali’s and …”

Rashid stopped listening to them through the compartment wall. So that was how Abu Ishak caught up with him. The bird
had
been shadowing him. It wasn’t his imagination after all.

He sighed and leaned back against his cushion of blankets. A bath, a massage and dinner, he thought. Wasn’t he as worthy of such luxuries as any man? Why should these men profit from his bravery? They did not fight the leopard with only a knife. They had not lived in those Allah-forsaken mountains as he had. All
this
he had done for nothing? No, the game was not over yet. Perhaps, after he had put enough distance between himself and Abu Ishak, both he and Shêtân could jump free of the truck and escape together.