Son of the Black Stallion (8 page)

When his father turned to him, Alec saw the bewilderment in his eyes. Then the look disappeared to be replaced by a forced smile. “You’re kidding, Alec,” he said. “You don’t need any help with that colt, and if you do, what help could I, a cost accountant, possibly give you?” He paused. “Or is it money you need?”

Alec’s words were slow in coming. “I want to sell my colt to you.”

“For one hundred thousand or so?” Then Mr. Ramsay saw the white, drawn look on his son’s face and stopped smiling.

“No … for a dollar,” Alec replied. “Just to make it an official sale.”

His father walked across the room and sat down beside him.

“I have to,” Alec said quietly. “I can’t own him and ride him.”

“You can’t do both, you mean? Why?”

“It’s in the rules of racing. Henry told me.”

“Then you want me to own him, so you can ride him. Is that it?”

Nodding, Alec turned eagerly to his father. “Then he’ll be running in
our
name, Dad. Running in
our
silks. I want them to be black, all black, except for a white diamond on the shirt, the same diamond the colt has in the center of his forehead. You won’t have to do anything, Dad. Just sign the registration papers, which I’m getting tomorrow … just register the colt in your name. Will you do it?”

His father was silent a long time, his lined face strained and his eyes somber again. Finally he stood up, walked to the window, and looked out. Then he
turned and Alec knew his reply before he uttered a word.

“I’m sorry, Alec, but I can’t do it. You say that I’d only have to register the colt in my name and that’s all there would be to it. You know better, and I do, too. One thing will lead to another … it always has.”

Alec watched him without saying anything. He was talking like a father again, and the intimacy and mutual interest Alec had thought they shared for a little while had gone.

“There will be complications all along the way,” his father was saying. “There couldn’t help but be. The training and racing of a horse is no different from any other business. And I have too much on my mind now, Alec. Too much work at the office.” He paused again before going on. “Then there’s your mother. It’ll be enough that you’re mixed up in this without my being in it, too. No, Alec,” he concluded, “I can’t possibly do it. I’m certain that you and Henry can figure out some other way.”

Alec said nothing when his father had finished. He only raised his eyes when the older man sat down beside him again, as though reluctant to leave.

“You’ll try to understand, won’t you, Alec?”

“Yes, Dad. I understand,” Alec replied slowly and with effort.

“You’re the horseman of the family.” His father grinned sheepishly. “I’m surely not. Wouldn’t know how to act as the owner of a race horse.”

“But you wouldn’t …” Alec began, only to be interrupted again by his father.

“I know I truly wouldn’t own the horse, Alec. He’d
always be yours. Still, it would worry me,” he said, rising to his feet.

Alec watched his father walk toward the door. He didn’t want to argue with him or attempt to talk him into it. No, he didn’t want it that way. His dad would have to go into it of his own volition or not at all. He saw his father stop as he came abreast of the textbooks on top of Alec’s desk.

“Everything set for school?” his father asked. “Only about ten days left now before you go back.” His brow furrowed. “What about the colt?” And then, without waiting for Alec’s reply, he said, “Oh, yes, you told me Henry would be back by that time. He’ll take care of him, I suppose.”

It might as well be now as later, Alec decided. His voice faltered a bit at the beginning, then steadied. “I—I don’t want to go back, Dad,” he said. “I want to stay here and help Henry.”

His father didn’t speak for a long time, and when Alec raised his eyes he found him looking out the window again.

“For the past few years your mother and I have allowed you to make your own decisions, Alec,” he said quietly, and his voice, although strained, was without anger. “We did it knowing you had good judgment and figuring, I suppose, you’d be a better man for it. Our confidence in your ability to do the right thing has never been shaken. In fact, we’re both mighty proud of you, even though your experiences have caused us great concern and worry at times.”

He stopped, and Alec thought he’d finished—until his father turned around and looked at him. “But, Alec,
you’re going off on the wrong road this time. I know it, and you know it,” he added quietly. “You love horses, and I thoroughly understand,” he continued. “You want to be a trainer, learning all there is to know about horses. You want to be able to take care of their ailments and a lot of other things. And the courses you’re taking in college will enable you to do just that,” he concluded.

“Henry never went to college,” Alec managed to say defensively.

“Ask him some time if, despite his practical experience, he might not have been able to do a better job if he had gone,” his father returned.

Alec’s gaze fell. Henry had already answered that question when he’d put it to him earlier in the day. “But it’s only right that I be here to help Henry, Dad. Don’t you understand?”

“Yes, I understand, Alec. But even
I
know you and Henry can’t do much with that colt until he grows up some.”

After a few minutes Alec looked up from the floor. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, meeting his father’s eyes, “I could transfer to a college here in New York; then I could live at home and be around the colt.”

“Yes, you could do that, Alec,
if
I had the money to pay your tuition. But I don’t at this time. You’re forgetting, aren’t you, that you’ve a two-year scholarship up at school? And that I’ll only have enough money to pay your tuition for the last couple of years?”

“Yes, Dad. I’d forgotten.”

His father walked slowly across the room, speaking
at the same time. “But it’s your scholarship, and your decision to make, Alec.” He stood there at the door for a long time, and the room was quiet again. Finally he turned and walked back to the bed.

“I’d like you to go back to school, Alec,” he said. His eyes narrowed, and the tiny specks of light in them were cold and gray. “I’ll make an agreement with you,” he continued. “A few minutes ago you wanted me to register the colt in my name … to own him, while you rode him.” He lowered his voice. “I’ll do it, Alec, provided you go back to school this year. Next year, if you and Henry feel the colt is ready for the track and it would be more advantageous to his training to have you around, you can transfer to a New York college and I’ll pay the tuition. You’ll be living at home and that will save dormitory expenses. What do you say to that, Alec?”

There it was, right in his lap, Alec thought. And his father was standing there, awaiting his reply. Any way you looked at it, the proposition was a fair one. Everything was as he had wanted it … except that he would have to leave his colt. And he knew that his father and Henry were right about his going back to school. For in the end he’d probably be a better trainer. And, he reminded himself, it wouldn’t be a full year away from Satan. There would be Christmas vacation coming up within a couple of months, and a short time later June would have arrived, and he’d have the whole summer to spend with his colt. And the following fall Satan would be nearly a two-year-old and ready for real training; then he’d transfer to a New York school and
be around all the time. “Okay, Dad,” he said. “It’s a deal.”

His father held out his hand and Alec grasped it, saying, “Guess we’re in business, Dad.”

“Yes,” his father replied gravely, “I guess we are.” He had started to leave the room after mumbling something about seeing Alec’s mother, when Alec stopped him.

“There’s just one other thing, Dad.” Alec walked quickly over to his desk, sat down, and began writing. Moving over behind him, his father read what Alec wrote:

Mr. Ramsay saw his son hesitate as he neared the end of the note, look out the window toward the barn, then turn back to the paper. Quickly Alec signed and dated it before blotting the wet ink.

“I’m dating it tomorrow,” Alec said slowly, “… we can go downtown tomorrow and have it notarized.”

“Pretty official, isn’t it?” his father asked, smiling. Then he saw Alec’s drawn face and added seriously, “You’re sure you want to handle it this way, Alec? He’ll always be your horse, you know.”

Nodding, Alec answered, “It’s the only way, Dad.” And handing the note over to his father, he said, “You keep it.”

His father read the note again and then placed his hand in his pocket, withdrawing a dollar bill, which he gave to Alec. Then he left the room.

And after his father had gone Alec stood looking out the window toward the barn, the dollar bill clenched in his fist.

A week had passed since the colt’s arrival, and the days had sped by quickly for Alec, too quickly … for on the following morning he was to leave for school. He had just finished building the wooden fence extending across the lower end of the hollow to keep Satan from the heavy underbrush and thistles, and now he sat down in the grass and wondered if Henry would arrive before nightfall.

Sebastian, who had been sitting in the shade of the tall oak tree on the rim of the hollow, pulled himself lazily to his feet and trotted slowly down the embankment. When he reached Alec, the dog slumped down in the grass beside him.

Alec stroked the puppy’s wet coat. At least Sebastian was as good as ever, he thought, and that was something to be thankful for. His thoughts turned again to Henry. The old man hadn’t written, but perhaps it was better that way. If anything had gone wrong, Alec felt certain that he would have heard from Henry. But
what if he didn’t show up? What if Boldt made him fulfill his contract, and kept him out there for two more months? What about the colt?

The days Alec had spent around Satan had convinced him that the colt couldn’t be left alone, not even with Tony around. For the black-haired huckster disliked Satan because the colt, in turn, hated him and old Napoleon. “In fact,” Alec muttered, “Satan seems to hate everyone from the way he acts … even me.”

He gazed once more at the fence on which he’d spent most of his time during the past week. Everything was ready for Satan to graze in the field now, and maybe that would help matters. Alec knew the colt disliked the lead rope to which he had been held while grazing. Several times during the week he had attempted to break away, and once had even tried to savage him as he had Napoleon that first night. But Alec could handle him now. It was the months to come, when Satan gained in weight and strength, that bothered Alec.

And if Henry didn’t get back, couldn’t get back for two months, what was he to do? Alec had made an agreement with his father and would be held to it. Neither his father nor his mother would understand why he couldn’t leave the colt in Tony’s care. Nor did he want to tell them.

His father had gone through with his end of the bargain, just as he’d said he would. The registration papers had been sent to the Jockey Club after Doctor Hancock had examined the colt and found him sound. Luckily, Satan had kept still under Alec’s firm hand that day, and the doctor, who was a good friend of his
father, had been impressed. “You’ve got a good piece of horseflesh there, Alec,” he had said as they left the barn. “A mighty good piece.”

It was well that it had turned out that way, Alec thought, for he was sure Hancock had mentioned the same thing to his dad.

The application blanks for an owner’s license, which Alec had also picked up at the Jockey Club, had been filled out by his father and mailed. And the bill of sale had been notarized the following day. Yes, Alec admitted, his dad had gone through with it all in his punctual, methodical way. He’d even done a good job, obviously, of breaking the news to Alec’s mother, for although her face had borne a strained, gaunt look during the days immediately following the talk between Alec and his father, she had only cautioned Alec to be careful.

Alec rose to his feet and Sebastian looked up, waiting. He had to keep his side of the agreement, too, Alec told himself, for he was more than grateful for everything his father had done. There was no backing out now, even if it meant Tony’s taking care of the colt until Henry arrived. But would Tony do it? Alec realized how terribly afraid Tony was of Satan.

Knowing that the huckster would be returning soon from his rounds, Alec picked up his hammer and tool box and made his way from the hollow, Sebastian barking at his heels.

He was still a good distance away from the barn when he saw Napoleon turn into the driveway. Tony was sitting on top of the wagon, holding the long reins.
Alec whistled, and Napoleon raised his large gray head and whinnied.

Tony had Napoleon unharnessed and was leading him toward the barn door when Alec reached them.

“I’ma glad you are here, Aleec,” Tony said with great relief. “I no like to go in alone with
heem
there.”

“He’s in his stall, Tony,” Alec reminded him.

“
Sì
, I know,” Tony replied, shaking his head. “But he mak’a such a fuss. He no like Napoleon or Tony. We just walka by and he shows da teeth. An’ beeg ones he has, Aleec, for such a leetle fella. Heesa no good, Aleec.” Then as he saw Alec’s gaze fall, he added quickly in a more patronizing tone, “But he will be, Aleec. Heesa not used to Nappy and Tony yet, but soon everything will be what you call hunkey dokey.”

Tony’s gaze followed Sebastian as the dog elusively ran between Napoleon’s legs. “
Sì!
Looka da Sebastian. Already he forget to be afraid.”

“I’d like him to be a little more careful, though,” Alec said. “I have to tie him up whenever I take Satan out or he’d be under the colt’s legs again. Here, Seb,” he called, grabbing the puppy. “I’d better take care of you now.”