Black Stallion and Satan (19 page)

“But what do you want me to do, Henry?” Alec asked curiously.

“Things haven’t been goin’ too well for Jimmy the last few years. He’s been sick off an’ on and hasn’t been able to race much. He’s just about broke. But in his letter to me he said that he’d held on to his best mare an’ that he was going to spend all the money he had left breedin’ her to as good a stallion as he could get this winter.” Henry turned to Alec. “I was thinkin’ that maybe we could do him the favor of breeding his mare to the Black. I’d sure like to do it for him. But it’s up to you,” he added.

“I’d like to do it for him, too,” Alec said quickly. “Write him and tell him so, Henry.”

Mr. Ramsay’s car turned off the road, coming to a stop. Tony got out of the car and opened the wide gate. Before them stretched the entrance to Hopeful Farm, with all its great expectations of things to come.

They drove down the tree-lined lane toward the small stone house at the end. But the eyes of Alec and Henry were fastened on the long red barn set far to the left of the house.

The Black neighed shrilly and Alec turned to him while Henry said, “No more racing days for him. From now on it’s his colts who will do the running. And may they all take after him.”

The stallion shoved his muzzle through the small window, and Alec pressed his cheek hard against him.

Walter Farley’s love for horses began when he was a small boy living in Syracuse, New York, and continued as he grew up in New York City, where his family moved. Unlike most city children, he was able to fulfill this love through an uncle who was a professional horseman. Young Walter spent much of his time with this uncle, learning about the different kinds of horse training and the people associated with them.

Walter Farley began to write his first book,
The Black Stallion
, while he was a student at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York, and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. It was published in 1941 while he was still an undergraduate at Columbia University.

The appearance of
The Black Stallion
brought such an enthusiastic response from young readers that Mr. Farley went on to create more stories about the Black, and about other horses as well. In his life he wrote a total of thirty-four books, including
Man o’ War
, the story of America’s greatest thoroughbred, and two
photographic storybooks based on the Black Stallion movies. His books have been enormously popular in the United States and have been published in twenty-one foreign countries.

Mr. Farley and his wife, Rosemary, had four children, whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and at a beach house in Florida. Horses, dogs and cats were always a part of the household.

In 1989, Mr. Farley was honored by his hometown library in Venice, Florida, which established the Walter Farley Literary Landmark in its children’s wing. Mr. Farley died in October 1989, shortly before publication of
The Young Black Stallion
, the twenty-first book in the Black Stallion series. Mr. Farley co-authored
The Young Black Stallion
with his son, Steven.

The stallion tossed his head, sniffing the spring air with dilated nostrils. He was a coal-black silhouette against the golden light of early morning. Within his great body was a fierce, insistent, almost intolerable longing for a mate. He became more excited than ever when the wind brought the sharp odor of mares to him from a distant pasture.

He gave a sudden shrill neigh which was clearly meant for the mares he could not see but knew were there. He gathered himself, rocked back on his hindquarters, and plunged forward. The morning echoed to the wild pounding of his hoofs as he raced down the field, his black mane and long, thick tail gleaming brilliantly in the sun.

He kept close to the arrow-straight fence which separated him from other paddocks and fields like his own, all green with lush grass. When he came to the end he stretched his head high, peering over the top board.

Now he could see the mares and he shrilled again the high, clear note of the stallion—challenging and passionate and urgent with life. His calls shattered the morning stillness and some of the mares raised their heads and turned his way. A few began to gallop in wide circles but the majority continued grazing as if they had not heard his love call. He repeated his clear, happy neigh of desire, hoping to attract the running mares—but soon they, too, turned away from him and continued grazing.

In ever-mounting fury and frustration he raced back and forth along the high fence, displaying all his speed and strength and fire. When he stopped it was only to paw the ground and send clods of earth flying. His neigh changed with his stomping; it became more metallic and threatening, more demanding than loving.

The mares raised their heads again and listened. They saw the stallion in all his maturity and masterfulness. They listened to his calls, which rang so defiantly across the field. Then, as one, they took flight, streaming away from him in a tangle of bodies and plunging hoofs.

He watched them go, his eyes sparkling with a savage fire. He continued snorting and the veins beneath his silken coat swelled. He rushed madly in a wild gallop that sent the earth flying from his hoofs.

Later, when his anger was spent, he sought the shade of a towering oak tree. There he carefully lowered his body to the ground. He rolled over, his legs hanging limply in the air, and rubbed his back and hindquarters against the cool turf.

Alec Ramsay had watched his horse from a
perch on the top board of the fence. “Is that the way to behave?” he called to the Black. “You should know better.”

The stallion continued rolling, paying no attention to him. It didn’t matter; Alec had learned long ago to speak to the Black whether or not the stallion listened.

Alec smelled the pungent odor of steaming cane juice in the air and looked beyond the green carpet of fenced pastures to the tall chimneys of a distant sugar mill. Long columns of gray smoke floated and wavered above the stacks, scenting the land with an almost overpowering sweetness. Sugarfoot Ranch was an appropriate name for this place, he decided.

After having spent the previous two months in the teeming coastal city of Miami, Alec had not expected south-central Florida to be as enjoyable as it was. Most winter visitors, like himself, were lured to the coastal areas and never saw the vast, sparsely populated region on the edge of the Everglades.

He turned his face to the tropical sun, enjoying it and the peaceful quiet. His hard body beneath T-shirt and jeans was as brown as his face. He was thoroughly happy with his well-earned vacation after the grueling races at Hialeah Park in Miami. There was no one around to tell him what to do. The Black was his sole responsibility. It was almost as it had been in the beginning, so long ago.

He watched a great heron in long-legged flight against the blue sky and listened to its raucous cry. He followed it as it flew low over a grove of tall coconut palms, the fronds moving languidly in the soft breeze.

His gaze returned to his horse and he found the
Black still lying on his back, his hind legs drawn up and forelegs spread outward. Alec smiled; it was a most unusual position for a horse who led such an active life. Perhaps the Black, too, was succumbing to the languor of this land.

Alec shifted his body in order to get into a more comfortable position on the fence. He wondered if this might not be an ideal place to raise horses. Henry Dailey had suggested as much before leaving to oversee the training of several two-year-olds in New York. Henry, his old friend and trainer, had suggested they might even purchase a small farm in this area as an annex to Hopeful Farm up north. They would move their young stock here and, perhaps, some of the older horses that needed a long rest in the sun.

It was not a new idea, Alec had reminded Henry, for the Ocala area in upper-central Florida had become very popular with horse breeders as a year-round operation.

“Too popular,” Henry had answered. “Land is more costly there, and we don’t need to be with the others. This area is worth considering. Think about it while I’m gone.”

There were advantages and disadvantages to it, Alec thought. The area was more suitable for the growing of sugar cane and vegetables than pasture grass. It was reclaimed swampland, the soil a black carpet of peat muck. Beneath it, of course, was the solid bedrock of coral limestone that shaped and held the Florida peninsula.

The rich farmland had been reclaimed by a flood control basin which the United States Army Engineers
had constructed to contain the waters of Lake Okeechobee to the north. They had diverted the waters which normally had flowed over this area and drifted south to nourish the Everglades. It had meant thousands of square miles of new agricultural land and communities. But it also meant, Alec reflected bitterly, the ultimate death of the great swamp. More and more canals were being built, not only by the Army engineers but by private developers promising “residential neighborhoods where wild animals once lived.”

Alec turned and faced south, where he could see an endless tawny blaze of light that seemed to merge and mingle with the rays of the rising sun. He was at the doorstep of the wild Everglades, and after what he had read and heard of the immensity of the swamp, he wondered if bulldozers and draglines would ever be able to transform it completely into the realtors’ promised Garden of Eden. He stared in that direction a long time.

Finally, he roused himself, shaking his head and wondering why on this morning he should be drawn to the swamp, as if by a magnet, when he never had thought much about it before.

Perhaps, he decided, the peace, the languor, or whatever one wished to call it was changing his metabolism as it seemed to be doing to the Black this very moment.

He jumped down from the fence, determined to disturb the quiet of the morning. He rode the Black daily, and today must be no exception. The spring racing season would open soon in New York and they were scheduled to be there. Henry had given them a
few weeks to freshen up from their hard winter campaign but no more than that.

He walked over to his horse, wondering if he’d be able to acquire another paddock for him. It was the first time he’d seen mares turned out in the adjacent field, and he did not want the Black distracted. It was difficult enough in the spring of the year without having a band of broodmares in the next field! He knew that mares generally coped with the breeding season better than stallions; they possessed patience, whereas stallions, once started on a breeding program, felt only the persistent drive to mate.

He was glad Henry had not been around to see the mares in the adjacent pasture. He’d have raised the devil. It was an oversight, Alec knew, and he’d be able to straighten it out with Joe Early, the ranch manager, later in the day.

The Black had rolled over on his side and was the picture of a horse completely at ease. His eyes were open, and when he saw Alec coming toward him with the lead shank, he scrambled to his feet. He did not run away but stood still—as quiet as the morning—proud and long-limbed, waiting.

Alec snapped the shank on the halter ring. He never got tired of looking at his horse. He would always stand in awe of the Black, no matter how long he had him.

Few ever saw the true greatness in the Black without standing close to him. No picture could convey it. Nor could it be seen from fence rail or grandstand, as electric as his presence and speed might be. One had to stand beside him to appreciate the arrogance and
nobility that were stamped on his small fine head. One had to rub him with soft cloths and brushes to see how well every part of his seventeen-hand body fitted together to make him the greatest runner of all time.

Alec watched the stallion’s ears, for his horse talked with his ears. Now they flicked south in the direction of the Everglades.

Alec answered with his hands, running them down the arched neck. Then he said aloud, “You too? Okay, we’ll go that way this morning if only for a change of scenery.”

His fingers rubbed the ridge of the stallion’s neck. “We’re on vacation, you and I,” he said. “We can do pretty much as we please with Henry gone.”

There was a long sun-filled day ahead of them. Early up and early to bed, that alone was the rule on vacation and an easy one to keep.

“You’re a good fellow,” Alec said softly. The Black turned his head toward him, as if listening attentively. Alec knew that his horse understood the warmth of his words if not the precise meaning, and that was all that mattered. He felt the stallion’s breath against his face. There was a gentleness, too, about his horse which few people ever saw. The large eyes gazed calmly and trustfully into his own.

“We’d probably get pretty lazy staying here all the time,” he said. “You and I need a change of seasons. I don’t think this place would be good for us at all.”