Boy on a Black Horse (4 page)

He looked straight at me for the first time, and in a strange, intense way he said, “We are of the ancient tribe of Romany. Home is where our heads lie. We do not run away from anything. We wander in search of our king.”

“Tell her, Chav!” Baval said eagerly. “Tell her about us.”

“Tell
us
, Chav!” That was Chavali. She hung on to his leg. Baval grabbed him around the waist.

“Tell Gray!” Baval begged.

“Supper first,” Chav said.

He made a fire in front of the “castle,” and I took off Diddle's bridle and saddle and let her graze with Rom. Then we sat around the fire to be warm and eat. Supper turned out to be the lunch I had given them—some Fritos, a few carrot sticks, and two peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for four people. Make that three people, because I didn't take any. My stomach was growling like a chained-up dog, but I said I had to wait, my aunt would be expecting me to eat with her. Chav didn't eat either, until little Chavali said she was done. Then he finished the corner of a sandwich she had left.

“Tell Gray,” Baval insisted. He looked like he was about ten years old, maybe even twelve, but he acted younger. When Chavali went over to Chav and sat on his lap, Baval had to cuddle up against him too.

“Okay.” With the little kids piled on top of him, Chav leaned back against the wall of the silo. He looked at me but past me, into the distance. Softly, as if starting a conversation, he said, “Our mother was a princess of Romany, a daughter of a king of Romany. Our father was a prince of the Rom. He was tall. He had real Andalusian horses and they would not let a stranger touch them, but they would come when he called them. He had black hair and true blue eyes and he wore a headband made out of gold coins and he loved to dance.”

“And play guitar,” Baval put in.

“Right.”

“And he had gentle hands,” said Chavali anxiously.

“Yes. Gentle hands.”

Something strange was going on. I knew their mother wasn't a princess or their father a prince, any more than I was a rock star. It just didn't feel true. I knew this story of Chav's was all a whooping lie, and he knew I knew—the slantwise way he looked at me told me that. But he didn't care what I thought, because he was giving the story to Baval and Chavali. And they seemed to need it. They believed every word he told them.

“Our father loved our mother because she was very beautiful,” he said, kind of singsong. “But a bad gadjo man kidnapped us and our mother.” Gadjo? What kind of bad guy was that? “He took us away from our Romany tribe and kept us prisoner.” Chav was not looking at me or at the little kids but off into the darkening meadow where the black horse was grazing. “He called himself our father, but we know our real father is a prince of the Rom, because our mother told us so. When she was dying, when she was lying in a white lace bed with her long hair streaming down and her face very pale like an angel's, she hugged me and whispered in my ear and told me we must go find our real father.”

“She gave you a kiss,” Chavali said.

“Yes.” Chav swallowed. “She gave me a kiss and she gave me this.” He pulled something out of his jeans pocket and held it in the cup of his hand—Baval and Chavali both touched it, and their soft young faces in the firelight looked like the faces of people in church. “Our father will have more like it, and that's how we will know him.” Chav put it away again. “For years the king of Romany and the prince of Romany have been wandering and searching for us. Now we are searching for them. Someday we will meet at a crossroad.”

“And our real father will be glad to see us?” Baval asked.

“He will be so glad he will order a truckload of pizza and have a feast and let us ride his horses and give us his headband to wear.”

“And he will keep us?” Chavali asked anxiously. “And he will not let the gadjo man take us away anymore?”

“Yes.” Chav looked tired. He lifted her off his lap. “Bedtime.”

Because of the fire and the story I hadn't realized how dark it was getting. The sky was gray, almost black, only streaked with orange a little bit toward one edge. “Holy crud,” I yipped, and I jumped up and ran to catch Paradiddle, get the saddle and bridle back on her, and start home while there was still a little light left.

Chav left the little kids at the silo and followed me without saying anything. He helped me tack up, and I noticed he knew what he was doing.

“What does gadjo mean?” I asked while we got Diddle ready.

“You are a gadjo.” I could not see his face, but I could hear the hardness in his voice like a challenge. “You are not Rom.”

I didn't have time to hang around and talk about it, or tell him what I was sure he already knew, that the thing his mother was supposed to have given him was nothing but a fake plastic gold dollar from some kid's set of play money.

His voice still hard, he asked, “Are you going to tell people about us?”

I shot back, “Why should I?” And I got on Paradiddle and got moving. As I rode out, the black stallion was a darker place in the darkness of the night with his head up, watching.

Paradiddle was an angel horse as usual and got me back to the stable okay, even in the dark. We didn't have to go over the railroad trestle again, or back to the school. All we had to do was follow the tracks the other way awhile, then cut cross country to the stable.

Topher had all the floodlights on and was waiting for me. He didn't say anything until I got off Paradiddle, and then all he said was, “Your aunt's been calling. She's worried.”

“I went on the other side of the tracks, and then there was a train, and it stopped, and I had to wait for it to get out of the way.” This was partly true. Chav's camp was on the other side of the tracks. There had been a train while we were eating.

Topher said, “So was I. Worried.”

That surprised me. I didn't know what to say.

“Go call your aunt,” he told me. “I'll take care of Diddle.”

So I did what he said, I went to the barn phone and called Liana, and it was okay. I told her the same thing I told Topher, and she was cool. One reason she lets me go horseback riding is that people told her the accident would make her overprotective of me, and she doesn't want to be that way. So sometimes she goes pretty far in the other direction. I think she would let me try out for football if I wanted to.

While I was waiting for her to come pick me up I helped Topher give the horses their grain. “Sorry I worried you,” I said.

“That's okay.”

“Do you know what Romany is?” I asked him. “Or Rom?”

He gave me a blank look. “Come again?”

“Romany. Do you know what the people of Romany are?”

“Beats me. Where'd you hear about them?”

I spilled feed so I wouldn't have to answer.

C
HAPTER

4

“They're Gypsies,” Peck the blacksmith was saying to Topher. I had just walked into the stable, but somehow I knew right away he was talking about Chav and Baval and Chavali. “Thieving Gypsies. They can call themselves what they like, I know a Gypsy when I see one.” He sounded angry. His big arms bulged with muscle as he banged a shoe onto a quarter horse named Termite because it chewed on wood. “Them dark faces and sly eyes. They can't fool me. You better lock everything up, Worthwine.” That was Topher's last name. Peck's last name was Fischel, and besides being the horseshoer he was the farmer next door. “You better tie down what you can't hide. They'll steal the weathercock off the barn if you ain't careful.”

“I ain't missing anything,” Topher said quietly.

“Who?” Minda demanded. “Who steals?” She had just walked in. It was Saturday, and we were going to go for our Saturday ride.

“Them Gypsies,” Peck said without even looking up. “Camping in the old Altland place. You can see their fire if you walk out along the tracks.”

“Coolness!”

I didn't agree with Minda. To me it felt more like hot water-ness. It was a good thing Mr. Fischel was bent over a horse's foot and not looking at me, because I'm sure my face looked scared, and I was leaning against a wall and sort of hanging on, hoping Minda wouldn't guess we were talking about Chav. I hadn't told her anything about the black stallion or the kids living in the silo or anything. I hadn't told anyone.

“I just seen a few of the kids so far,” Peck said, “but where there's a few there's always a passel of them. No-goods.” He growled, “Somebody ought to call young Altland and tell him to get his butt out there and run them off.”

Topher had his back to me, holding the horse while Peck shoed it, so I couldn't see his face. But his voice sounded careful-quiet as he said, “It always seemed to me if Gypsies stole everything people blame them for, they'd need moving vans to haul it around.”

Mr. Fischel straightened up and looked at him. “They thieve,” he said kind of hard. “Take my word for it.”

Minda's no rocket scientist in school, but she's smart about people. She knew it was time for us to slide on out of there or get caught in the cross fire. “Come on, Gray,” she sang, and we went to catch Dude and Diddle and get them ready.

We didn't talk about Gypsies or anything while we groomed and tacked up. Mr. Fischel was still shoeing horses and we didn't want him to overhear. But once we were riding out across the fields Minda said, “You want to ride up the tracks and look at the Gypsies?”

“
No
.” It came out louder than I had meant it to. Minda looked over at me as Dude and Diddle walked along side by side. Then she said real gently, “It's Chav, isn't it?”

Like I said, she isn't stupid. And she is a good friend. “Maybe,” I admitted. “I'm not sure.” I knew there was no passel of Gypsies around Chav's camp. “Don't believe everything Peck said,” I burst out. “He's ignorant.”

She teased, “I'll tell him you said so.”

“Right. Sure. You do that.”

We couldn't really say anything to make Peck Fischel mad at us, because whenever we rode we crossed his land. Right now we were on his property, following his tractor path up his hill past the fenced-in Fischel cemetery that was supposed to be the oldest family burial plot in the county. Peck Fischel's people had been here for centuries, and he owned most of the land this side of the railroad.

From Chav's point of view he was a real gadjo, I guess.

And I guessed gadjo was a Gypsy word … but something felt wrong. Thinking about what Peck had said felt like listening to Chav's story about his mother's being a princess of Romany. There was some truth in it somewhere, but it would take a lot of getting to.

I said, “Why would a Gypsy kid go to school?”

“Yeah, anyway.” Minda thought a minute. “But he hasn't been doing the work, Gray. It's like he's not expecting to stay.”

That was the feeling I got too, yet I argued with her. “Lots of boys don't do their work.”

“But he hasn't joined anything. He doesn't even say hi to anybody.”

“It's too soon. Maybe he's shy.”

Minda looked at me and didn't say anything. We rode awhile longer, past the cemetery. Then she asked, “Do you think Chav is a thief?”

Damn, she was good. Like a mind reader. How did she know what was bothering me, when she didn't even know about the black stallion? My mind kept backing up and backing up—I was telling myself there might have been a lot of reasons why Chav hid the horse down in the hollow during the day and nobody was supposed to know. Like probably horses weren't allowed on school property. Or he didn't want kids messing with Rom. He just wanted to keep the stallion to himself.

Or maybe Rom didn't belong to him at all.

What if he had stolen Rom? Wasn't that what Gypsies were supposed to do, steal horses? What if he stole horses from Topher? What if he stole Diddle?

If anything bad happened, it would be all my fault for not saying something.

Yet I didn't answer Minda's question. “Just ride,” I told her.

“Want to gallop?”

Of course I did. “Noooooo. Who, me? Gallop?”

Minda just rose in her stirrups and leaned forward a little, and Dude ran. I had to kick Paradiddle. She galloped like a pig. Not that pigs can't go pretty fast. As we thundered along I yelled with happiness—yet I thought, I bet Rom gallops like the wind before a storm.

Chav awoke from a dream of a giant fist hitting him, smashing him in the head, blood running down. He lay shaking and could not go back to sleep. The night was too cold. But maybe it was not just coldness keeping him awake. He ached as if he had really been beaten, and he had the strange feeling in his chest again, the one that would not let him lie still. Giving in to it, he tossed half of his blankets over Baval and the other half over Chavali, pulled on his shoes, and crawled out of the silo.

The night was as dark as his dream. He couldn't see a thing, but it felt good to stand up. He stretched, then shivered and hugged himself. Cold.

Partly it was the damn gadjo girl bothering him, he decided, the girl named, of all things, Gray. The minute she came here he should have packed up Baval and Chavali and moved on. He like her for the way she loved horses, but that was no excuse for him to take risks. What if she told somebody, what if authorities came and put him in jail? Or put him and Baval and Chavali in one of their horrible homes, just as bad as a jail? Or, worst of all, sent them back to their father? The gadjo girl had found out too much. He should have gotten out of there.

“I am of the ancient tribe of Romany,” he told the night in jeering tones, mocking himself. “I do not run from anything.”

What a joke. His mother was no princess—more like a slave. Dad practically wiped his feet on her. Whenever he said
do
, she did, and he had taken everything Gypsy away from her, even her language; she was not allowed to speak Romany or teach it to her children. Chav knew only a few words. That gadjo girl Gray could tell he was a big fake—he could see it in her eyes. She knew he would be running all his miserable life until he ended it. Her steady gaze saw through him. She knew too much.