The Black Stallion and the Girl (7 page)

They flashed by the first furlong pole with three more furlongs to go. Instinctively, Alec began counting off the seconds, down to fifths of seconds, keeping time
in his mind. Every jockey needed to know the pace of his mount, whether running at full speed or not. The triple throbbing beat of the colt’s hoofs over the track was irregular, but in the months to come he would find his balance and true stride. Alec gave him no more rein than he had from the start, keeping him between a gallop and a run, in what they called a “breeze.”

He heard the beat of the filly’s hoofs before Black Pepper drew alongside. He felt a sudden competitive urge to give his colt more rein but fought it down. He glanced at Pam and knew that, like him, she was enjoying the taste of the racing wind, their two horses running stride for stride.

The filly pushed out her small head in front of the colt, as if determined to beat him, her sweated neck glittering like black satin in the rays of the sun. Her desire to compete was a good sign. She might even make a great race horse in time, Alec decided—perhaps the equal of her dam, Black Minx.

The seconds ticked away in Alec’s mind as the two horses remained locked together, moving as a team around the first sharp turn, both of them inexperienced and running wide. His colt lost a little ground to the filly and he let out a notch in the reins to catch up. They were very evenly matched at this stage of their training.

Racing down the backstretch, Alec called to Pam as they passed the quarter-mile pole, “Thirty and a tick. Let her out a notch.”

She nodded her head without turning to him, her blond hair whipping in the wind alongside the black mane. The filly raced a half-length ahead. Alec moved
his horse faster, but still kept a little behind, knowing it would give the filly heart and confidence to think she was winning. His own colt was running well within himself and showed no interest in going faster. That would come in time, Alec decided. For now, Black Out was content doing only that which was asked of him.

The filly was something else. For all her antics and stubbornness at the gate, she was running for the sheer love and excitement of it. Pam was having a difficult time holding her back. She was fighting, trying to get her head down and be allowed to run as she pleased.

He saw Pam give in a little, letting her have more rein and drawing a full length in front of the colt. He wondered if she carried a stopwatch in her closed hand, and had any idea what she was ticking off in seconds as they passed the third furlong pole with an eighth of a mile to go.

Coming off the final turn, Pam moved the filly still farther ahead, and Alec decided she must be carrying a watch. He, too, moved his mount faster, lengthening strides until he was alongside her. The pace was just right to finish the half-mile in a shade under 55 seconds.

The track was deep and rough going down the homestretch, making it all the more difficult for Alec’s colt to keep his lumbering balance. Alec steadied him, helping him find a path over ground that would not give way beneath his flying hoofs.

They passed the finish pole and, slowing their horses, galloped out another furlong before coming to a stop and turning back.

“Just about right,” Alec said. “What’d we do?… Fifty-five on the nose?”

She pressed her head against the filly’s neck, breathing in the smell of horse, the odor of wet hair and hide. “I think so,” she said finally. “It seemed about that to me.”

“You mean you don’t have a watch?”

“It’s in the barn. I forgot it,” she said, straightening in her saddle. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“If you can keep time in your head as good as that, you don’t need it,” Alec said quietly.

She rode off the track ahead of him, slim, collected and, Alec decided, very proud. She had a right to be, for she’d not only taken the filly from the gate well but had worked in the required time without a watch, and he had been there to see it done. He rode after her, admiring the free and easy way she sat her horse, a horsewoman whose ride had no goal but the joy of riding. He had never seen a rider and mount more perfectly matched. For all her natural ability, she’d had professional guidance. He was certain of it.

“How about your father?” he called to her. “Does he ride?”

“He sure does,” she answered, without turning her head.

“Is he a professional horseman by any chance?”

“Dad? Oh, no,” she said, laughing. “He’d be the first to admit he’s no professional. But some of his best friends are,” she added. “That’s where I’ve been lucky because they taught me all I know. Captain Bill Heyer was one of them and Stanley White another. Do you know them?”

“No,” Alec replied, “but there are many good horsemen I don’t know.”

Alec continued riding behind her, regretting that he had to tell her she must leave after all she had accomplished. He felt worse as her happiness with the beauty of the morning reached him.

He listened as she exclaimed at the splendor of the great sweep of rolling fields. She pointed out the winged clouds sailing above the wooded ridge in the morning sky. She commented on tree tops and bushes bursting into fiery lights of reds and greens and yellows as the sun reached them and they emerged from morning shadows into bright day. So many things he knew were there but had not really looked at in a long time.

At the barn, they untacked their horses and washed them down, hosing and sponging and swiping them clean. Together they walked them dry before putting them back in their clean box stalls. They talked of horses and the joy of sharing them, but said nothing about the serious business of training and racing. Neither did Alec mention that she must leave by the end of the day.

It was becoming more and more difficult for him. He had allowed her time to become involved in her day’s work, and now he was involved in it as well, sharing it with her. Perhaps, he thought, when the work was done it would be easier.

“Five more colts to go,” she said, walking through the barn. “Will you ride with me?”

“Why not?” he asked, laughing. “I enjoy it as much as you do.” He did not say it to please her but because he meant it with all his heart. Standing with her in the midst of the smells, sounds, lights and shadows that filled the barn, he felt more at peace than he had
in a long time. It was the completeness of enjoying the horses for the companions they were rather than thinking of them as racing machines whose value depended on how much money they would make for Hopeful Farm. How long had he been thinking of them almost exclusively in those terms, he wondered.

She was looking at him as if she knew what was going on in his mind. He felt guilty and self-conscious. She couldn’t have guessed, he thought. She was keen but certainly not clairvoyant.

“Don’t you believe me?” he asked finally. “I mean about enjoying myself.”

“Oh, I believe you all right,” she answered. “You just look as if you’re a little surprised to have said it—almost as if you didn’t quite believe it yourself. Perhaps it’s been a long time since you’ve thought of horses as …”—she turned to the horses and back again—“… well,
friends
.”

He didn’t answer. Suddenly he was angered by her words, her accusation. It was easy for her to say such things, he thought. She had no farm to run, no payroll to meet. She had freedom of movement without any commitments or responsibilities to others.

His face became tense and hard, and he knew this was the opportune time to tell her she had to go, to explain that with Henry feeling the way he did it just wouldn’t work out for her to stay.

With Henry feeling the way he did
. But why place all the blame on Henry? Alec realized that he had just been using Henry’s arguments in justifying his own actions to himself. Was Pam so wrong in what she’d said? Did he have such a need for success, for security, that
he had forgotten the most important thing in his life? Was he angered at her or at
himself
?

She had walked over to Black Sand’s stall and he followed her, still undecided as to what he should say and hating himself for his indecision. Always before he had been positive in his decisions and he had no use for those who wavered in making up their minds. Was this too part of his training—black was black and white was white, with no shading, no time for doubt or understanding or compassion?

Pam had entered the stall and was braiding a flower in Black Sand’s mane. Alec watched but said nothing. It made no difference to him if all the horses in the barn wore flowers, but how would Henry have taken it? There was no point in this girl’s ever having a luxurious home when she so obviously preferred a horse barn, he decided. Her whole life was united with manes and shining coats and whinnies. They were only horses and yet without them what would life be like for Pam? Or for that matter for himself.

She turned toward him while taking her hands from Black Sand. He caught the colt’s gleaming eyes and said, “Watch out, Pam.”

He was too late with his warning. The colt had caught her outstretched hand with his teeth, holding it between his great soft lips. Though it was done as a playful gesture, it could have deadly serious consequences.

Both Pam and Alec remained very quiet. They knew she could not remove her hand from the colt’s mouth unless he opened it of his own accord. She dare not make a wrong, hasty move. Any mistake might
cause him to sever all her fingers in one chomping bite of his razor-edged teeth.

Alec took a step closer. If he could get his own hand to the colt’s mouth and insert his fingers at the bars, Black Sand might open up. He looked at her, standing quietly, at the complete mercy of the horse she dominated while riding.

“Come, come,” she scolded Black Sand. “Let go. This is no time to play.” The colt sniffed deeply, then snorted through blown-out nostrils.

Alec moved still closer. The colt’s eyes followed him and he saw a wantonness in them that he didn’t like. Black Sand might take off Pam’s fingers just for the fun of it without actually meaning her any harm.

“Who will look after you better than I?” she asked the colt. “Who loves you more?”

Alec listened to her, hoping the colt would succumb to her charm. But he doubted it very much.

Alec raised his hand slowly, hoping to reach the colt’s mouth without angering him. The colt’s eyes gleamed brighter and Alec quickly dropped his hand. He could not do it. One wrong move from him, and the colt would sever Pam’s fingers from her hand. Better to do it her way.

“Leave him be,” she said, her voice maintaining its friendly, singing quality, for her words were meant for the colt as well as Alec. “It is only a game.”

Yet, despite the cheerful rhythm of her words, Alec heard her swallow noisily. His heart went out to her. He wanted to leap forward to wrest her hand from the colt’s mouth, but it was the last thing he should do. He could do nothing but watch and listen, wait and hope.

“I will not be able to take care of you,” she told the colt. “Neither will I be able to play my flute for you. It will not be as you like it at all.”

Small and fragile, she pressed herself against Black Sand, her slim neck against his, her body close to his, as if she was bound to him by a kind of inward spell. And all the while she continued to talk to him.

Alec was completely absorbed by this game she was playing with Black Sand—all the time acting as if it were not serious or critical. She seemed filled with love and trust that her horse would do her no harm. Alec was watching her face and listening to her so intently that he did not know her hand was free until she raised it to rub the colt’s head.

She stroked him softly, still talking to him, while Alec waited in silence. Finally, she moved away saying, “Let’s get back to work. You said you’d ride with me.”

“Sure,” Alec said. He wanted to ride with her, now or anytime at all.

That evening Alec returned to the training barn, confused and filled with conflicting emotions. He had finished the day’s work with Pam, feeling better than he had in a long time, more carefree and happy. Then he’d spent an hour in his father’s office, telling him of Henry’s reaction to his hiring Pam and asking for advice.

The advice had not been what he’d expected. His father agreed with Henry that Pam should go, if not for the same reasons or with the same degree of hostility.

Pam was doing her job well, his father had said. There was no fault to be found with her work, but it wasn’t right to have an attractive girl working around men even there at the farm. She was one of those girls who seemed to come around so frequently in the spring, though none had ever been hired until now. She wore flamboyant clothes and flowers in her hair, even went barefoot at times; not what one would consider proper attire at a
working
horse farm. And the
music coming from her apartment was enough to set his nerves on edge, electrically amplified and horrible. He’d read a lot about kids today being swept up by music, looking for ecstasy and almost going out of their heads. Now he believed it.

Another thing, his father said, Pam talked too much. The men told him she never kept still. When she wasn’t talking, she was singing. No, they hadn’t complained about it, he admitted to Alec. In fact, one had jokingly told him that everything she said was either funny or beautiful. But it wasn’t right for her to be carrying on so while working.

“Why not?” Alec had asked.

Work, his father had replied, should be taken more seriously. It was just not normal to be so carefree. It was as if Pam put all problems in the bottom of a tack trunk, and sat on the lid laughing.

Their conversation had continued during dinner and Alec learned that his mother’s reactions to Pam were, like his father’s, motivated by emotion rather than logic. Girls should not compete with men in the racing world, she said. It was too rough. Horse shows were much better for them. There they were treated like ladies. Girls should be more reserved and feminine. Otherwise, who would take care of the home and children?

Alec had heard these remarks made by other women, those who did not want to face the conflicts involved in challenging male supremacy and who were anxious to avoid the anti-man stigma. Now, he realized his mother was one of them, and it came as a shock to him.