The Black Stallion Revolts (6 page)

He screamed at the top of his voice, and this great effort caused him to drop to his knees and clutch his head. He didn’t watch the car disappear down the road. His only thought was to get back to the stream, to let the cold, cold water ease his pain.

In time the pain lessened again, and while lying in the water he thought of the lights and the road below. He must reach it. Where one car had gone another could go. He needed help, needed it desperately. Not only to relieve him of his pain. No, not only that. There was something else, something he felt rather than knew. He felt that there was a barrier in his brain … a barrier that was shutting out the past. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew nothing at all of who he was, or where he was, or what had happened.
He couldn’t remember
.

After a long while, he raised his head from the water, and sat up. The pain returned, but he took hope from the fact that he could stand it better than before. He would be able to reach the road below. But before getting to his feet, he searched his clothes seeking some clue to his identity, and what had happened to him. He found a large amount of money in his pants pocket but no wallet, no papers, nothing that was of any help to him. Yet he had all this money, wet and soaked with blood.

He fingered the great tears in his shirt and pants. No, not really tears, but shreds of clothing scarcely covering his ravaged body. He must have been running, fighting his way through these woods for a long, long time. Crawling, too, by the sight of his raw hands and knees. But why?
Why?

He sat there for some time, trying to think, trying to remember. But the insurmountable barrier in his brain kept its hold, and his mental searching was futile.

He was wearing only one shoe, and, leaning forward, he removed it to look inside for the name of a store, a city. There was nothing. He tore the collar from his shirt, looking for a label. He found one, and the name “McGregor.” Was it just the brand name of the shirt or was it his name? He repeated the name over and over again, hoping it would break down the terrible mental barrier. But nothing came of it, only greater despair, and more pain.

Once again he put his head in the cold water, seeking relief. Eventually he got to his feet and, stumbling, moved down the mountainside. He must reach the road below. Get help.
Someone
would know who he was, and what had happened to him.

He followed the rushing stream for a long while, turning when it turned, afraid to leave the solace it afforded him. Finally he had to abandon it in order to reach the road below. Heavier woods were before him, solid and alive, and he plunged into their vastness, alternately staggering and crawling. Brush wrapped its arms about him, pulling him down only to let him go again as he rolled with the steep grade, refusing to stop, knowing the road beyond was his only salvation.

How long it had been since he had left the stream he didn’t know. It seemed an eternity. His pain was intense, and there was no stream now to comfort him. He had to go on. His squinting eyes looked for the lights that would tell him he was near his goal. But none came for a long while. Then he saw them far away, winding their way with the contour of the mountain. He screamed, and tried to run. A black bulk rose in front of him, and he went down hard, his hands finding the base of a tree. He pulled himself to his knees and, still screaming, began to crawl. Now the lights were close to him. A hundred yards away? He got to his feet, screaming again at the top of his voice. But with the lights came a roar, the thunderous roar of a heavy truck that made his cries seem pitifully soft in comparison. Forgetful of his pain he ran again, faster than before, and when he crashed into another tree he stayed down for a long while.

When he opened his eyes again he knew that the truck has passed. He crawled toward the road. Soon he would reach it. He would lie there, waiting for other headlights to find him, to stop, to give him peace. He reached the road on will alone, and stretched the full length of his agonized body upon it. There was nothing more to do but wait. If only he could sleep while he waited!

He had his head turned sideways, his eyes closed. He didn’t know what made him try to open them again, but he was aware that when he did they formed two narrow slits in his cut and swollen face. He looked up the road, and a convulsion racked his body. Ahead were the red taillights of the truck! And beside the right
front wheel a flashlight moved. He heard the sound of tools being thrown into a metal kit.

He tried to scream but had no strength left for the effort. Once more he started crawling. He saw the flashlight go off, and then came the slam of the cab’s door.

The tire had been fixed. The truck was going!

He staggered to his feet simultaneously with the sudden roar of the engine. He managed to run, weaving from one side of the road to the other, his eyes on the truck, his hands stretched out to it. He brought forth a pitiful scream from his constricted throat.

He was so close to it! A few yards now, a few more feet. But the truck was already moving, and its backboards were eluding his groping fingers. The heavy canvas which covered the back of the truck flapped in the wind as though waving good-bye to him.

With a last, desperate effort he let all his weight fall forward, his hands stretched out. If they grasped nothing he would stay on the road forever.…

The boards were beneath his hands! He closed his fingers and held on to them, his legs no longer carrying him. After a moment his dragging, burning feet forced him to exert himself again. Slowly he raised them until he got one on the lowest board. He waited, his breath coming in terrible gasps, then he brought up his other foot and stood on the back of the truck, his body pressed hard against the boards. Finally his hand went to a corner of the canvas flap. He pulled it aside, his eyes trying to penetrate the blackness of the interior. He’d get in there. He would walk forward until he
reached the back of the cab. He would tell the driver that he was there, that he needed him.

Every movement brought horrible pain, but he got his body over the boards and let it fall under the canvas siding. He struck a large box, and now he realized that the truck was fully loaded, that there was no chance of his reaching the cab. Well, there was a place for him to lie down, anyway. He would stay there until the truck stopped again. He was safe. He had found help. He closed his eyes, and sleep came to him.

Miles upon miles rolled beneath the wheels of the long trailer truck. While one man drove, the other slept, and they alternated without stopping for even a moment. One would move from behind the big steering wheel while the other took it over, sliding into the seat from a bunk in the back of the cab. One man’s foot would leave the accelerator to be replaced promptly by the other’s. They were hardened drivers, with many thousands of miles and many years on the road behind them. Their world was this cab in which they had spent the greater part of their adult lives. Seldom did their eyes turn to the flats or canyons or mountains through which they passed. Only the road held their attention, the never-ending road that was their sole interest and life.

They traveled through the rest of the night, conscious only of each other’s snores, the road itself and the steady beat of the powerful engine. Ever southward they traveled, their experienced eyes aware of every twist and turn, every downgrade and climb, but never noticing the natural wonders about them, never seeing
the moonlight, baring the beautiful tints of the mountain ranges through which they passed. They were too busy, and their eyes too deadened by the road to see mountain ranges as anything but obstacles in their way, to be climbed and left behind.

With the coming of dawn, they had left Wyoming and were in Utah. They stopped early for breakfast, but within a very few minutes were on their way again. They were anxious to reach Nevada and get rid of their cargo. Yet they knew that no sooner would the huge trailer be emptied than it would be filled again, and their long trip back to Chicago would begin.

All day long they pushed the truck hard, and only when night fell did they stop again to eat. Almost grudgingly they left the cab to go into a roadside diner and sit down at the counter. Glancing at the menu, one said, “I guess it’s the beef stew for me.”

The other looked up at the counterman. “Beef stew for two,” he said. “An’ make it fast. We’re in a hurry.”

Impatiently they awaited their orders. When their overloaded plates were put before them they began eating, paying no attention to anyone else in the diner or to the conversation that was taking place.

The counterman said to the customer a few stools away from them, “They haven’t found any trace of that kid and his horse yet.”

“Yeah, so I heard on the radio,” the customer replied. “But they’ll find them, all right. They got all kinds of planes looking, even helicopters.”

“I ain’t so sure they will,” the counterman said.
“That’s rough country, that part of Wyoming is. Some say it’s the worst in the States.”

The customer nodded his head gravely. “I heard the kid and his horse started for the north. How’d they know that?”

“The pilots said so. After they got the plane down in the clearing they went back an’ found the door open. They saw the horse taking off in a northerly direction.”

“An’ the kid?”

“He was riding him. It was pretty dark, but they could see the kid on him.”

“Sure funny they’d take off like that.”

“Yeah, but that’s the way it happened,” the counterman said. “It’s lucky the pilots themselves got help by this morning.”

“Well, they had their radio. No reason why they shouldn’t have.”

“I guess so.”

The counterman got some coffee for the truck drivers who had shouted at him, and then returned. “You know all about that horse, don’t you?” he asked his customer.

“Only what I heard. He’s called the Black … a racehorse or something. Pretty well known, isn’t he?”

“I should say so,” the counterman replied quickly. “He’s a great—or at least he was at one time—a great racehorse. Now he’s a famous sire.”

“A what?”

“A sire, I said. Say, don’t you ever follow the races?”

“No.”

“Well, anyway, the Black fathered Satan … and Satan’s a champion.”

“Oh,” said the customer. “Well, all I hope is that they find the kid.”

“Sure,” agreed the counterman. “That’s all I care about, too.”

The customer left his stool. “I don’t think we need to worry much about him. That part of Wyoming may be desolate, but at least he’s got a horse under him. A good horse can find his way out of a lot of jams that people couldn’t.”

The counterman used his cleaning rag. “Yeah,” he said, “and what a horse, the best there is!”

“
Hey, you!
”

The counterman turned quickly to the two truck drivers. “Coming, gentlemen,” he said.

“Give us a check,” one said.

“Yes,
sir.
” He wanted no trouble with these men.

The truck drivers left the diner and, climbing into their cab, drove off into the night. In the back of the trailer, Alec Ramsay still slept. Many more miles piled up behind him, taking him ever farther away from Wyoming and the great search that had begun for him and the Black.

An hour after the plane had come down in its forced landing, the black stallion moved slowly through the woods. Crazed by his colic cramps, he had entered the woods in full gallop, seeking relief by speed and violent action. But the darkness and the density of the trees had slowed him to a walk. He’d sweated and pawed in his frustration. He had wanted to run and, failing that, to lie down and roll and kick. He’d found he could do neither, for the woods were solid and alive with thickly grown trees, giving him room only to wind his way among them. Thus, he had been forced to stay on his feet, to walk … and this light exercise, more than anything else, had brought his cramps to an end.

He forgot his pains quickly. Now his small, fine head was raised high, sniffing the air, his nostrils quivering. He continued walking in a northerly direction, his ears pointed and alert to new and strange sounds … monotonous and low scraping notes, sharp staccato calls, and, in the distance, a forlorn and dismal
howl. The howl came again, wailing in the wind. He was interested, but unafraid. He had known the great solitude of the wild in another land. Now he was entering a new and strange and beautiful country, but it held no terrors for him. He was alone and free. He remembered nothing of his domestic life, of barns or farms, or a boy who loved him. Before him was a world as thrilling, exciting and as wild as he.

Presently he came out of the woods to more open country. Yet he did not break from his walk, for the land before him was rocky and crisscrossed with gorges and canyons. For a long while he carefully made his way about the splintered rock that was merciless to his unshod feet. He came to a stop in a low-walled canyon, and his gaze traveled to the long black line of trees above the bared rims and crags of stone. He turned his head back in the direction from which he’d come.

He stood as still as the stone about him. For some time he kept sniffing the air; then he began walking again. No longer did he travel to the north, but back to the south. He entered a cleft in another canyon that took him through rotting cliffs. It cut down deep into the earth, and his path was strewn with gravel and rocks. Yet he never faltered, for his wild instinct told him this new trail would take him to the softer country beyond.

An hour later he came to the woods again, but at a point much farther away than where he had entered the gutted terrain. His great body trembled in his excitement at being able to choose any trail that beckoned him. He listened to the wind as it roared and
lulled through the trees. He began climbing, his unerring instinct telling him of the pure running water and succulent grasses of the wilder ranges above. He was aware of the gray shadows that trailed him during his ascent. He was wary, but unafraid. He had the utmost confidence in his speed and endurance and cunning.