Black Stallion and Satan (20 page)

The Black snorted.

“Not that we can’t have fun here,” Alec continued, rubbing the soft muzzle. “And there’s no reason why we can’t see some of the swamp today. No reason at all.”

He paused before mounting, aware of an odd feeling coming over him. It was vague but there, an awareness that this morning somehow was not like other mornings. He shrugged his shoulders. Today was like any other day, he told himself, except that he would ride south for a change and do some exploring.

He passed a hand along the stallion’s backbone, waiting for the headiness, almost a feeling of momentary intoxication, to leave him. He decided that the feeling might be one of pure joy at having his horse to himself for a change.

It had taken three days of Henry’s absence for him to realize how glad he was to be free of the trainer’s yoke. He longed for complete abandon and freedom of movement, if only for a short while. Ahead of him was a long summer of racing, unremitting in its toil and preparation. And, when he wasn’t racing, there was work to be done at Hopeful Farm. Good help was hard to get and even more difficult to keep. Every free day would be used to help repair fences and barns, to harrow paddocks, to care for the new foals and to cut, bale and store hay for the winter. One never caught up. Time taken out—even for racing—was never regained.

Alec thought longingly of the days when his every move did not have to be obedient and useful, when he could be off on the Black, to go where he liked and as he pleased.

“Why not ride bareback this morning?” he asked himself. “Why not leave the saddle and bridle behind? Why not ride him the way I used to?”

Alec reached up and grasped the stallion’s mane with both hands. He spoke to the Black as he backed
up beside the horse’s head. Then he took two short, springy steps forward and swung his legs up while pulling on the mane at the same time. His body rolled and twisted in the air, reaching for seventeen hands of horse!

He landed astride the Black, his hands and legs communicating immediately to his horse in a language of their own. He could control the Black’s direction and pace by the pressure of a knee or calf, by the touch of a heel on his flank or a hand on his neck. Sometimes all that was necessary was a sound from his lips.

There would be no bridle or saddle today—no restrictions upon him or his horse. This
was
going to be a different kind of a day!

He squeezed his horse into a canter and cued him into a left lead. He made a large circle, hastening and smoothing the stallion’s strides until he had him almost in a full gallop.

“Too fast, too cocky,” he warned himself, slowing down the Black as they approached the closed gate of the paddock.

When they were outside, Alec turned the Black south and did not check his horse’s speed. He was happier than he’d been in a long time. He was not merely at home on the Black; he belonged entirely to him. It was as if he had no other existence. There was no room for anything else.

The stallion’s strides came swift and easy, between a gallop and a run, what racetrack people call a “breeze.” Alec settled down to enjoy the ride. In a short while he’d slow down the Black, but for the moment he let the wind water his eyes. He listened to the beat
of the Black’s hoofs over the dirt road. The secret of his horse’s success lay not only in his great strength and speed but also in his perfect rhythm and unwasted motion.

Alec moved closer to the stallion’s neck and adjusted himself to the rhythm of the stallion’s strides. He felt a sudden urge to let him go into a headlong run, for the sound of the Black’s running hoofs had always broken the world apart for him! The taste of the wind, when the Black was in full flight, brought him greater joy than anything else in the world!

Alec spoke softly, a sound rather than a word, and the Black broke swiftly into full run. The triple, throbbing beat of his racing hoofs over the dirt road came faster and louder. He thrust out his small head as if ready to extend himself to the fullest; his haunches glittered in the early morning sun like black satin.

Alec’s eyes were as bright as his mount’s. The Black was reveling in his freedom from bit and saddle! Still, Alec knew he must keep him under control. He pushed away the stallion’s mane that streamed back at him, clearing his blurred eyes so he could see objects along the road. Instinctively he began estimating furlongs and 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, and Alec never stopped practicing because he knew it was not a question of talent but of hard work. Also, he didn’t want the Black to run himself into the ground.

After a mile, he slowed the Black to a walk. He let go of the mane and wiped the sweat from his face. They
were close enough to the Everglades for him to be able to smell the rank odor that blew from the swamp.

Suddenly the air took on a warning bite. Alec had the same feeling he’d had earlier, an awareness that this morning was not like other mornings. But now another element had been added. He stopped the Black in his tracks. He didn’t know if the
danger
he felt was real or something he sensed in the air around him. But he knew it was there, somewhere in the Everglades.

Alec’s gaze swept over the saw-grass empire, colored like ripe wheat nearby but shading to emerald green in the distance. It was a wild bright plain, neither land nor water, with no visible limits. It was a land mostly untouched by human hands. It was motionless—and yet Alec sensed in it a throbbing heartbeat of its own.

He shrugged off the feeling of apprehension that had come to him. There was no reason to fear this watery wilderness that was being drained by the canals. He realized that the huge swamp was resisting, fighting for its life. This was evident in the sun-bitten vastness spreading before him as if in challenge to all those who sought to destroy it.

The dirt road went to a remote and isolated Seminole Indian village a couple of miles away. The people there were hunters, he had been told, and lived on one of the high islands in the swamp known as hammocks.

His gaze turned to the nearest hammock, a round clump of land with tall palms silhouetted against the
brazen sky. There were some birds flying above it and he watched them vanish behind the palm fronds. There were other hammocks to the west, some larger, others smaller, all emerging from the green-and-yellow-speared sea.

Alec moved his horse on. He had come this far, and there was no reason to turn back now. He did not mind the quiet of the swamp after the months of pandemonium at Hialeah racetrack.

Just ahead, a score of buzzards rose from a mud flat at the sound of the Black’s hoofs. Alec watched them move awkwardly in swift, waddling flight. They didn’t go far but stayed directly above, planing in lazy circles, waiting for him to pass.

When he rode by he saw a dead alligator, its body furnishing forage for the hideous carrion birds. The buzzards had ripped flesh and entrails into a shredded horror; he turned away.

For the first time Alec thought of the devastation to wildlife that the drainage canals must even now be bringing to the Everglades. Yet as he looked at the immensity of the land that stretched as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, he doubted that the swamp ever would be conquered completely by man. It was not meant for human habitation. It belonged to wildlife alone.

Later he came to an unexpected fork in the road and brought the Black to a halt. One way led to the Seminole Indian village, while the other road wound its way through the vast wilderness of swamp to the southwest. Far in the distance Alec saw a large hammock and decided the road went there. Perhaps it was one used as a base by hunters.

He would go in that direction rather than to the Indian village. The road had been built high, creating a dike that held surface water within the area. The saw-grass spears were tall and green beyond, and he would have a chance to see part of the true swamp before draglines and bulldozers destroyed it.

Alec kept the Black at a slow canter, knowing he could go to the distant hammock and back without ever tiring his horse. The stallion’s ears were alert; he would miss nothing and appeared as eager as Alec to go on.

For several miles he rode in a silence that seemed to become part of his bloodstream. The hot sun beat down mercilessly on his bare head and he felt as if he were crossing a desert and looking forward to reaching an oasis in the distant hammock. A dusty brown snake crossed the road just ahead and disappeared into the saw grass. It might be a water moccasin, he thought, and cautioned himself that he must not let the heat and silence dull his senses.

For a long while he rode on until, finally, he approached the hammock. It was even larger than he’d thought and the trees created a towering wall of cypress before him, making it difficult to tell where land left off and the dark water of the swamp began. The water rose high around the cypress knees, and the hammock appeared all the more ghostly with Spanish moss hanging from the trees in heavy shrouds. There was a graveyard hush to the stillness, and for the first time, Alec thought seriously of turning back.

The road seemed to ring the hammock and he saw a colorful array of air plants and orchids within the green gloom. Despite the ominous hush, the natural
beauty of the hammock attracted him. He decided to go a little farther.

The road finally turned onto the hammock, disappearing into a stand of tall yuccas. Alec followed it, glad to leave the merciless glare of the sun behind, if only for a short while.

The road narrowed to barely more than a white shell path curling around the western end of the hammock. It skirted the silent stand of cypress trees and the dark water in which they grew, then turned away from the moist bank to wind its way through the hammock.

He never had seen a more beautiful natural park, made all the more impressive by the saw-grass wasteland behind him. It was indeed a startling contrast, and his eyes swept to the magnificent stands of coconut palms and live oaks, the beautiful magnolias and oleanders.

He heard the first sound of life in the dense foliage, a slight whirring noise. The Black heard it too; his ears were pitched in the direction of a patch of wild grapevine. A moment later Alec saw a hummingbird foraging among the vines, its wings shirring like a helicopter propeller as it hovered about a flower.

He continued riding down the shell path, his imagination beginning to run wild. Where did the path lead and what would he find? He knew he would be warned of any danger by the Black’s animal instinct. As it was, his horse was moving easily, almost as if he too wanted to find out where the path led.

Through a screen of moss-laden oak trees they emerged into a small clearing. It had been hacked from the jungle growth, probably by Indians many years
ago, and kept clear by the occasional hunter who used the hammock.

There was a rough hollow in the center of the clearing, and the Black moved toward it of his own accord. He lowered his head, his nostrils sniffing the ground. When he straightened, he gave vent to a clear, happy neigh of desire!

Shocked by the Black’s soft call, Alec slipped off his back and studied the impressions in the dirt. What he found brought him quickly back to time and place. A horse had rolled in the hollow not long before, and judging from the Black’s neigh, it had been a mare!

The shell path led into the jungle on the opposite side of the clearing, and Alec knew he had to follow it. He could not turn back without knowing why another horse and rider were there. For certainly the mare was not alone.

“You be quiet and we’ll see what goes,” he said.

Alec had led the Black only a short distance when he came to an abrupt stop, startled by a peculiar kind of whistle. It was a piping note, constantly repeated. It came from one place, then another, with low, sly pauses in between.

There was a crackling noise from a nearby hedge and Alec’s eyes swept toward it. He saw nothing.

For a moment the notes ended and the profound silence was almost as unnerving as the sounds had been. Alec felt the heavy, oppressive heat of the day. Not a leaf stirred in the creeping jungle growth. He heard no whisper of life. The very stillness of the air held him as if by some strange magic, while sweet and heavy odors filled his nostrils.

The peculiar notes had come from some kind of bird he did not know, he decided. This land and its inhabitants were completely foreign to him.

He moved down the path again, although there was barely room to lead the Black. The ferns grew thick and green on either side and the trees shut out the sun, leaving them more in dusk than day.

The silence was broken by the bird once more. At least, Alec
believed
it was a bird. There was no other explanation for the sound. It seemed to be following him. He mustn’t think of it as anything else. The piping notes were making him more and more uncomfortable. Now he wasn’t at all certain they came from a bird. They were too high, too piercing, too demanding.
Where were they coming from, and why?

He brought the Black to a stop. All he had to do was turn back. Yet he was reluctant to do so. He wanted to find out where the path led and what another horse and rider were doing there.

The notes ended and there was nothing but the great silence again. Alec couldn’t analyze the way he felt. He would have liked to believe it was all nonsense, but it wasn’t. There was something about the notes, something he didn’t understand but that might be made clear if he went on. He moved the Black forward.

Once he thought he saw something gliding overhead, high in the trees and obscured by the heavy Spanish moss. It appeared to be white—perhaps a broad-winged wood ibis nesting in the trees—but he couldn’t be sure in the misty, shimmering heat. At any rate, he heard no more notes and was glad of it.

The path ended at a narrow channel of dark water.
The opposite side of the stream had been cleared of wild reeds and in the muck Alec saw the footprints of a man and a horse!