The Black Stallion and the Lost City (2 page)

Someone called his name, and Alec turned to see Jeff, the assistant to Freddy Roth. The skinny, young Australian wore aviator sunglasses and a New York Yankees baseball cap turned backwards. A jumble of
laminated ID cards hung like medallions around his neck.

“There’s been some rethinking about the schedule and the next scene,” Jeff told Alec. “We just got the latest weather report, and they’re calling for a chance of rain tomorrow. Stiv wants to stage the race in front of the assembled troops before the big battle scene now, when the weather is good, rather than risking a washout tomorrow. The course is all marked out down by the river. You know where I’m talking about?”

Alec nodded. “I walked it with Karst yesterday.”

“Great,” Jeff said as he started to hurry off. “See you there.”

The last-minute change in plans was a pleasant surprise for Alec. He’d been looking forward to the race scene. Alec and the Black were to play the parts of Alexander and Bucephalus for the riding sequence and were to win the race. It would be a natural for the Black, Alec thought, and probably their biggest scene in the entire film. They wouldn’t even have to act. If nothing else, it would be more exciting than the beauty-pageant posing he had been doing up to now.

A few minutes later, the horses picked for the race were grouped down by the river. Karst and the other trainers had done a good job in selecting the runners, and it was plain to see that these were some of the best-looking horses of the hundreds assembled there for the
battle scene. Some were long-limbed and lean. Others were compact and solid. All looked fit, capable and ready to race.

Just off the riverbank in an idling speedboat, Stiv Bateman and a camera crew waited to film the race. The director, a burly man with a heavy beard, military boots and camouflage pants, sat in a raised chair near the bow of the boat. Two other camera boats were floating farther upstream. Radio static from walkie-talkies crackled in the air.

The horses lined up for the start at a spot marked by a strip of white tape on the ground. A short distance from where the tape ended, a heavy-duty pickup truck idled, ready to track the race from onshore. Mounted on the back of the truck was a small cherry picker. From his roost in a basket atop the crane’s arm, a camera operator fiddled with his equipment, then leaned forward to frame up the shot in his viewfinder. Another team of photographers stood behind a camera on a tripod positioned in the grass. Next to them, the assistant director paced back and forth like a football coach on the sidelines of a big game. A guy holding a clapboard slate stood ready to identify the scene and take number.

Alec sat up and tested the spring in his stirrups. It didn’t matter now that he was dressed in some silly costume of an ancient Greek king. This was a race,
even if it was just a staged one, and Alec and the Black were in their element. Alec rested his face against the Black’s neck, his eyes focused ahead, his knees pressed against the stallion’s shoulders.

Once the horses were more or less in position, Bateman called out, “Okay, people. Get into character now, but wait for my signal to go. Ready. Speed!”

“Speed!” echoed the soundman from his position offscreen. The assistant with the clapboard stepped in front of the camera. “
Young Alexander,
scene seventeen-B, take—”

Suddenly there was a squeal from one of the horses. The assistant standing in front of the camera jumped back to get out of the way as two runners broke from their positions in line and charged ahead in a false start.

“I said to wait for my signal!” Bateman cried out impatiently.

Outriders caught up to the horses before they could get too far and helped steer them back to the starting line. Meanwhile, Alec and the other riders did their best steadying their mounts and keeping the line intact.

Finally the two runaways were back in place, and the sound and cameras started to roll once again.

“Action!” Bateman called from his perch on the bow.

There was an instant of relative stability and then they were off. The camera-laden speedboats in the river wound up their engines and moved out in pursuit.

Voices filled the air as the riders urged on their horses. A colt on the outside bounced out and half reared before his rider could set him on his way. The rest bolted off in a mad panic. In a split second, Alec had the Black after them.

The Black gathered himself and settled into stride. Alec coaxed the stallion along and guided him closer to the river’s edge on his right. The Black felt good and was anxious to run after so much standing around over the past few days. The horses swerved and started to bunch up as they approached a bend in the river.

Alec did his best to hold the Black back. Bateman’s instructions were for a come-from-behind win to the race, with a close finish. But, as always, once he got going, the stallion wanted to run all out. This was just another race to the Black, and he would do whatever he could to get out in front. Alec could feel the pull in the reins all the way to his shoulders.

As the horses swung into the right-hand turn, Alec switched modes and went from restraining the Black to encouraging him. The Black responded and they galloped into the middle of the pack, slowly gaining ground on the others.

Alec moved with the stallion as they came out of the turn. Edging farther to the inside, he pulled the Black just to the left of a big gray colt running hard a length off the water’s edge. The Black paced the horse a moment, then started to pull away. Alec saw a lead runner directly in front of the Black was losing steam and coming back fast. He guided the Black to the right and started to drop in, just in front of the gray, moving to the inside slot along the river where there was a clear path to the lead.

Suddenly the gray’s rider shouted a warning. There was someone running up the inside that Alec couldn’t see! Even worse, with the gray blocking the view, the oncoming rider hadn’t seen Alec make his move for the inside path either.

On a professional racetrack it might have been different. There the gray’s rider would have known that it was his responsibility to give a heads-up to the other riders in such a situation, especially when two horses running hard on either side of him were making for the same spot and couldn’t see each other. But this wasn’t a racetrack and these riders weren’t jockeys. By the time Alec heard the gray’s rider call out, it was too late. The Black was already on a collision course with the inside runner, a big bay who was sprinting ahead like a mad demon and trying to squeeze his way between the gray and the riverbank.

Once he realized what was happening, Alec had no choice but to check the Black with a hard pull on the reins. It kept him from dropping in on the bay, but it was too late for the bay and the gray running next to him. Blocked to the left by the fading leader, and in front by the Black, the gray was trapped. He spooked and broke hard to the right, careening off course and taking the approaching bay with him. Instantly the two horses went flying over the riverbank, hitting the water six feet below with a mighty splash.

Over the clamor of grunting horses and shouting riders, Alec could hear Bateman calling out orders from one of the camera-laden speedboats that had been tracking the runners from the river.

“Keep the camera on them!” Bateman squawked over his bullhorn from his position on the bow.

Alec pulled the Black up and circled around to see if he could help the riders who had gone into the river. Down in the water the horses were shrilling. A minute later, they and their riders scrambled up a low spot in the embankment. Alec recognized one of them as Karst’s daughter Xeena and suddenly realized she was the rider who had been caught on the inside when the gray spooked and charged the river. Thankfully no one seemed to have been injured in the spill beyond a few scratches and getting wet. Xeena and the gray’s rider were already laughing it off. What a relief, Alec
thought. He knew there was no way he could have prevented the accident, though he and the Black certainly had been a factor in causing it. In the end, there was no one to blame.

“That was terrific,” Alec could hear Bateman call out to the riders from the water as they turned their horses back to the staging area. “Bonuses all around for you people. Now let’s go back and do it again. Just try to stay out of the drink this time.”

The Rhodope Lodge,
where Alec was staying, housed a cavernous dining room, and that night it was packed with cast and crew. Everyone was eating at different tables, more or less self-segregated according to job description—actors with actors, carpenters with carpenters, camera people with camera people. Alec took a plate of food from the buffet and found a place with some of the horse folk, Karst Balastritis, Xeena and Matt. It was easy to see that the three were related. All had the same curly black hair, broad shoulders, sharp eyes and high cheekbones. And there was something else, too, Alec thought, something in their bearing that set them apart from the rest of the people here.

The Balastritises were speaking in Greek, but when Alec joined them, they switched to English, a language they all spoke quite well, especially Xeena and Matt. Alec appreciated the courtesy, as he knew only a few words of Greek. Karst watched him with
warm, friendly eyes and a smile that made people feel good every time he turned it on.

Matt was talking excitedly about how he had landed the job of wrangler for a scene Bateman was shooting the next day. It would mean an extra bonus for him. Karst was saying it was a lot of money for someone his age and that he shouldn’t let the bonus go to his head. Karst’s voice was stern, but Alec could see pride in the trainer’s face as well.

“Go to his head?” Xeena teased. “Not Matt. He already thinks this film is really about him.”

Her brother gave her a smile and laughed. “Please, little sister,” he said. “I am just doing my job here. You should do yours and try to keep from riding your horses into the river.”

Xeena’s eyes flashed. “You know that wasn’t my fault,” she said. “You saw it, Alec. Could I have helped what happened during the race? What choice did I have? It was either go into the river or get run over.”

Alec nodded his head in agreement. “It looked that way to me.”

“Let’s just say I’m not surprised that if somebody had to go off course, it would be you,” Matt teased.

Karst held up his hands. “Enough, you two,” he said in his thick Greek accent. “Everyone doing fine and no one blaming anyone for anything. Now quit fighting and eat your dinner.”

Halfway through the meal, Jeff, the producer Roth’s assistant, came over to their table. Jeff congratulated Alec on his ride that day. He said the scene looked great, and the footage of the accident was a real bonus. Bateman was saying that the horses flying off the riverbank and splashing into the river had turned out to look spectacular.

“And tomorrow?” Karst asked Jeff. “I hear there is big schedule change.”

Jeff laughed. “Yes, well, big changes at the last minute seem to be par for the course with Stiv.”

“Hokay,” Karst said. “You the boss.”

Jeff smiled and shook his head. “I’m just a link in the chain on this job, like you. Anyhow, the word is that now the weatherman says it’s not going to rain tomorrow after all. That means the crew will be splitting up into three different units—red, blue and black. Matt, you are staying here to work on the battle scene with the red and blue units, like we talked about earlier.”

Matt nodded eagerly.

“Alec, you and the Black are with the black unit and will be heading up into the mountains. The trip will probably take most of the day, depending on the road conditions. Once you reach the location site, you’ll spend the night there. The following day, after the scene is set up, Stiv will helicopter in and supervise the shot.”

Jeff asked Karst and Matt to go over to Bateman’s table and meet with some of the camera and lighting guys. They wanted to talk over some particulars about the different shots they were planning for tomorrow.

“So, what is the place we’re going to?” Alec asked Jeff after Karst and Matt left to meet with Bateman.

Jeff sat down at the table with Alec and Xeena. He took a roll from the bread basket. “Some monastic refuge in a place called Acracia,” he said between bites. “It’s supposed to be beautiful there. Lots of wildlife, some small forest reserve up in the mountains, no roads, no houses or towns the cameras would have to work around. Just unobstructed views, trees and wide mountain vistas, much like what the area might have looked like back in Alexander’s day.”

“Sounds great,” Alec said. “Where is it?”

“Up on Mt. Atnos,” Jeff said. “It’s in an area that is usually closed to the public. It took months to get the okay to film there, and we had to pay a hefty fee. The permission just came through, which is another reason for the last-minute change in plans. The monks don’t allow cars on the premises, so we have to stay at a compound outside the monastery. There is no electricity either. We’ll manage with our generators, though.”

A moment later, Karst and Matt came back to their table.