The Young Black Stallion (7 page)

Rashid watched the flames of his campfire grow lower and lower as he chewed on the last remnants of the hare he’d caught for supper. It was the first time in days he had dared to start a campfire, for fear of giving himself away. Soon it would be dark again and he would have to put the fire out. It would be time to move on. The shadows of the flames were already beginning to flicker and dance across the wall of the gully he sat in.

His almond-shaped eyes narrowed to slits as he stared into the red coals and remembered his home far away. He could almost hear the laughter coming from his family tent. He remembered the soft steepness of the windswept dunes, the smell of dust, the hot breath of the desert.

After wandering through the mountains for two full moons and more, the scout had come to wonder if he would ever be able to leave this rooftop of the world and reach his home in the dunes. For the first time in his life he had come to doubt his tracking ability. But that was
nonsense. Wasn’t he a renowned tracker in the desert? He could recognize the tracks of every camel he’d ever seen and from their droppings tell where they had been grazed and watered. But here things were different. Here he had to learn the language of the land all over again. Traveling by night had made things even more difficult. The moon was his guide, and he followed its lonesome trail, using it as a torch to light his way.

Aside from the lizards and an occasional hare caught and eaten for dinner, the only animals he’d seen were a few wild ibex grazing in the highlands above. Sometimes he heard a bat fly by at night, the hoot of an owl or a chorus of hyenas singing in the distance, but that was all. His poetry, Allah and the stars were his only companions.

He avoided the occasional campfire he saw on the mountainside. Here in the Kharj district he was among hostile tribes. A few nights ago he’d been turned back by the sight of a mounted hunting party. He covered his tracks as best he could and was still searching for a route onward.

The barren land had become more and more forbidding the farther he went. One after the other, the paths he took led to dead ends and detours to nowhere. Many times he traveled all through the night and ended up at dawn right back where he’d started. He was still sure that he was headed in the right direction, but an easy path over the mountains had eluded him. He had wandered through a maze of sky-scraping peaks and bottomless gorges to this spot. And it had been cold, very cold.

He thought of the bird that had shadowed him for
days after he left the valley of Abu Ishak. By its speckled breast and shrill cry he could tell that it was a hunter falcon. The sight of the bird had chilled the breath in his lungs, gripped his heart with dread. Surely such a bird must belong to the tribe of a desert sheikh. It must be Abu Ishak’s.

To look over your shoulder and see such a thing was unnerving, so he had traveled for days higher up into the mountains where no rider could ever come. He might not know where he was, but at least he felt safe.

Rashid wondered what had happened to Ibn Khaldun. He must have returned to the desert by now. Unless, of course, Abu Ishak’s men had caught up with him and killed him. Rashid hoped so. Let him die a thousand deaths for abandoning me here, he thought. The heat rose off the fire, and Rashid imagined that it was a mirage wavering over the desert sands. He could almost hear the chorus of jackals howling in the moonlight, feel the desert wind on his face, feel the hot breeze as it blew in from beyond the great dunes of the Uruq al Shaiba.

The night fell and cast a leaden blue color on the land. The trail was beginning to lose its shape and melt into the shadows. Only the tips of the high peaks were painted red by the sun. Soon they too were lost.

Onward the scout went, one step following the other, carefully, quietly, lest someone hear. The night was dark, the shadows eerie. The voices of the night began to sing.

Listen to the groaning from downwind, he said to himself. It is only the roar of wind through the rocks. Hear the rustle of footsteps above. It is only a startled
hare. Listen to someone calling your name. It is only an owl hooting in the distance, its call wavering with the wind.
He must stay downwind. He must cover his tracks
.

Upward he climbed, higher and higher. His eyes had adjusted well to the nocturnal wanderings, but tonight his legs were weary and beginning to drag. It was no wonder. He surely had already traversed hundreds of miles of trail, slipped through the shadows of what seemed a thousand nights and more.

The moon rose above a ridge. Its light shone on a ruined structure built into the side of the cliff in the distance. Or was it just the moonlight and the shadows playing tricks on him? Arched doorways were etched in the cliff, as perfectly curved as the breech of his lost rifle. He froze in his tracks and squeezed his eyes to get a better look. The night was far from over, but he sorely needed a place to rest for a while. Perhaps he could find some refuge in the ruins.

As he came closer, he discovered that the ruins covered a much larger area than had appeared from below. A complex of adjoining buildings had been set on stilts. Some were standing, but most had long since collapsed. The place must have been a fortress built by those who clung to beliefs from before the time of Mohammed. It was tucked into the mountain itself, which was why so little of it was visible from the trail. Rashid knew that some of the mountain people still believed in the old gods. They worshiped nature, drank wine and made sacrifices to the sun. Could this be one of their abandoned cities?

He entered the most intact building he could find through a shadowy doorway framed with towering
racks of twisted wild goat horns. Their skulls were piled one upon the other to form macabre pillars on either side of the doorway. Horns and empty sockets whispered in the wind.

Once inside, he saw that the floor was covered with dung. It seemed only the mountain goats resided here now. Broken wooden furniture was strewn about on every side. He took a few steps and found a small, fairly well preserved room beyond the first and lay down to rest. He closed his eyes, trying to dream of the desert, but even with his blanket he was too cold to sleep. He pulled out a cloth he found under a pile of sticks on the floor and wrapped it around himself as a second blanket.

When he woke, the gray luster of dawn had already filled the room. Images from his dreams lingered there like ghosts. He saw the falcon circling on the ceiling overhead, the one who pursued him like a vulture. The haunted face of the old herdsman accused him. Rashid’s cries rose up in the cold, gusting wind as he began screaming: “But it wasn’t my fault! You fell on my knife! It wasn’t my fault!”

He sat up and gazed across the room. His focus settled on a human skull. It rested on a shelf and was encased in an elaborately carved black cabinet. For a moment he stared into the vacant sockets of the long-dead eyes. He seemed to be drawn into those dark tunnels, pulled by some overwhelming force.

A low moaning sound filled the room as a blast of wind swept over him. The scout jumped up and rubbed his eyes. Could he believe what he was seeing? Was he really awake?

Only then did he remember last night’s journey that had led him to take refuge in these ruins.

“Rashid … Rashid,” called the wind. The scout’s heart raced. He stumbled on something and looked down to see the floor strewn with bones … human bones. This was not a ruined fortress. It was a house of the dead! What he had mistaken for dilapidated tables and benches were really coffins left out in the open.

The chalklike smell of crumbling bones was thick in the air. His body started to twitch, his fingers to shake. He suddenly felt the extra blanket with which he had slept and which was still draped over his shoulder. It seemed to cling to him. He threw it to the ground.

In horror he gazed upon the crumpled purple cloth. Chills ran down his spine and sweat began to form on his forehead. He had spent the night in a crypt covered by a death shroud! It belonged to some long-dead sheikh. The sticks on the floor were all that was left of his bones.

He ran outside and down the path, slipping on the shale, tripping over stones, unaware of anything except putting as much distance between himself and the crypt as he possibly could. When he finally stopped to catch his breath, he wiped his hands on the brittle leaves of a thorny bush to try to rid himself of the smell. The scent of the dead lingered. But for that, it all might have been a terrible dream.

Unseen terrors would haunt him for the rest of the day. He imagined the falcon waiting for him at every turn, unfurling her wings above him. The face of the old herder was encrusted in the rocks. At dusk he stopped to rest at the bottom of a ravine. He felt the
weight of the shroud upon him as he lay trying to sleep and smelled the smell of death.

He didn’t know how long he’d slept when he was awakened by what sounded like the neigh of a horse. Thinking that it might be a warning of Abu Já Kub ben Ishak’s return, he cringed. But the sound slipped by with only a single echo resounding through the deep ravine. No other sound followed, and he could see nothing in the grayness. There was little difference in the light from the time he had closed his eyes. How long had it been—an hour, a day, a week? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t stay where he was. Crawling stiffly out from under his blanket and drawing his cloak about him, he vanished into the grayness.

As he left the ravine, he found the sun was rising and the air already becoming heated. He welcomed the warmth and stillness and solitude. He was high in the mountains, where no riders could follow. It meant no Ibn al Khaldun. No Abu Já Kub ben Ishak. It meant freedom. He forgot his enemies in his eagerness to find his way home. Perhaps the hunters he’d seen had lost one of their horses. The neigh he had heard might mean a loose mount that would help him get there!

He moved carefully over the rugged trail ahead of him. The land was stripped bare of everything but dry brush and rock, but he needed to see only a scratch on the weathered stone to know that a loose horse was nearby—one he might catch and ride home. But what kind of horse could live in these highlands?

Only once did he slip on the loose shale. He drew himself back and wiped his blurred eyes, which hadn’t adjusted yet to the light. Then in the powdered shale he
saw the hoofprints. Kneeling on the ground, he found that most of them had been made by mountain goats, but there, too, was the oval-shaped hoofprint of a horse! By the shape and size of the print he judged it had been made by a young horse, but perhaps one old enough to carry him. He took heart and went on.

For several hundred yards there were no more hoofprints on the bare, worn rock. But just ahead, where large patches of grass grew, he found prints again of grazing goats and a lone horse.

His eyes searched the mountain walls. He saw a thin ribbon of water coming down from the upper peaks to form a stream that meandered down a ravine. He moved forward, following the hoofprints and being careful to remain in the shadows. He didn’t want to scare the horse away by his presence.

Suddenly, his body froze. From deep shadow into light stepped the black colt he had left for dead in the valley so many weeks ago!

The colt’s ragged body was scarred with long running wounds, crisscrossed and pitiful to see. His long tail, like his mane, was matted with blood. Yet he wore his wounds proudly, like the wild thing he had become. He held his head high, his eyes alert and never shifting as he moved slowly away from the stream. He had grown considerably over the past couple of months. There was little of the young colt about him any longer. His muscles were tense and ready for escape, as were his wits.

But Rashid knew the colt would go nowhere. An ugly wound had been gouged into his right foreleg. He was lame, dead lame. How the colt had managed to
escape the valley and find his way here was unimaginable. But he had survived only to die in the upper mountains, for he would not travel far, crippled as he was.

The injured colt was of no use to him. The scout turned and walked away.

Shêtân wheeled on rigid hind legs, his small ears pricked and alert for the slightest sound. He could scent nothing in his refined nostrils. They quivered and curled as he sensed the intruder rather than smelled him.

The purple-walled ravine to which he had come led down to a stream and patches of tall green grass. Other creatures had been here before, he could tell, but he was not afraid. He had become accustomed to facing danger. His muscles were tense and bulging beneath his ragged coat, and after being slashed by the ibex ram, his right foreleg was so painful that he could not put his full weight on it. Yet he was ready to run, if necessary.

After a moment of patient watchfulness, he made out the human figure moving within the shadows, a hooded cloak hiding face and body. Trusting no one, he turned away and ran as best he could. He moved along the bank of the stream, slower than he would have liked, seeking escape from still another who would cause him pain.

Hearing the sound of running hooves, Rashid turned and watched the black colt. Shêtân, the old herder had called him. Rashid thought how much he would like to wrap his legs around the girth of a healthy horse, any horse, to save his strength. What a pity the black colt was crippled. What a shame the colt that Ibn al Khaldun had wanted so desperately, a colt he had said was destined for greatness, was being left to die in these Allah-forsaken mountains.

Suddenly the thought came to him that if this Shêtân was so valuable, why should he not capture him and sell him at home? And what if he wasn’t lame? Rashid could live forever with the money he would get. What had he to lose? He had no other way of making a prosperous living when he reached home, no one who truly cared what happened to him except his family and perhaps his camel, which he had trained for himself.

He knew people in his tribe who were saving for a horse. It would not be difficult to sell the black colt. But why should he think only of selling the colt to one of his tribesmen when there were others in the Rub‘ al Khali who would pay much more? There were wealthy sheikhs other than Ibn al Khaldun who wanted a black stallion for their very own.