The Black Stallion's Blood Bay Colt (31 page)

Tom said nothing, and Jimmy turned to George.

“Why did you do this to me, George? Why did you do this?”

The fury had left his face and voice. He was bewildered, confused. Jimmy Creech couldn't understand why his friends, his best friends, had despoiled his colt by allowing him to race at Roosevelt Raceway.

“Why did you do this to me?”
he asked again, his eyes searching their very souls as he turned from one to the other.

Tom waited for George to answer Jimmy, but George said nothing. The minutes passed and just as Tom thought he couldn't stand the silence any longer, George moved away from the door and came to a stop before Jimmy. His voice was low and calm when he said, “We needed the money, Jimmy. It's a simple as that.”

“But I told you never …”

“I know what you told us,” George replied in the same low voice. “But it was different this time. I decided it. Tom had nothing to do about it.”

“You
, my best friend.”

“And that's exactly why I did it,” George said without pause. “Do you have any idea, Jimmy, what it cost to get that Boston surgeon … to get you the very best we wanted you to have? Not the two hundred bucks you saw on his bill. No, Jimmy, his fee was one thousand dollars!”

“I'd rather have died than for you to get the money
that
way,” Jimmy said, and his voice rose a little.

“But you didn't die,” George said quietly. “You're
here
 … and that's the way we wanted it to be. And I wanted you to see this colt race, Jimmy. You've never in your life
seen
a colt like this one … let alone owned one. He's a world's champion, Jimmy. He beat the best there is. He did one fifty-nine, Jimmy. Are you thinkin' of that at all? Or are your mind and body filled with so much hatred for the raceways that you can't even see a colt like this any more? He's yours, Jimmy. You bred him. You own him. All your life you hoped this would happen to you … never dreamin' it would come. But it has, Jimmy … 
and you're not even looking at him
.”

George turned to Bonfire when he had finished. But Jimmy didn't turn. For a while Tom didn't think he was going to look at his colt at all. And he knew full well that this was the critical moment. Either Jimmy would turn to his colt, or leave the shed and never bother any of them again.

Jimmy took a step forward, and Tom thought it was all over. But Jimmy stepped in the direction of the colt. And he looked at Bonfire a long while before saying, “Take that blanket off him, Tom,
so I can really see him.
”

George didn't say anything all the while Jimmy's eyes traveled over every inch of the blood bay colt. He didn't say anything until he felt Jimmy's hand on his arm; then, without taking his own eyes off Bonfire, George said in a voice that trembled just slightly, “I want the same as you do, Jimmy. Remember that.” He stopped then to put a hand on the colt's nose.

“I want to get people to the fairs, the same as you do,” George repeated. “I want them to see
our sport
in
the daytime and at fairs, where it belongs. I want them to love it as we do … and once they come to the fairs they'll truly feel and love our sport. And they'll come now, Jimmy … they'll come to the fairs, if only to see our colt. He's a world champion … an' there are more records for him to break. They'll come to see him, all right.”

For the first time, George took his eyes off Bonfire to look at Jimmy. “
We're
going to do that, Jimmy. You and the colt and Tom an' me are going to help get it back the way it was.”

Bonfire pushed his head hard against Tom's chest, and the boy stroked him softly, knowing that everything was going to be all right, very much all right, from now on.

Walter Farley's love for horses began when he was a small boy living in Syracuse, New York, and continued as he grew up in New York City, where his family moved. Unlike most city children, he was able to fulfill this love through an uncle who was a professional horseman. Young Walter spent much of his time with this uncle, learning about the different kinds of horse training and the people associated with them.

Walter Farley began to write his first book,
The Black Stallion
, while he was a student at Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. He eventually finished it, and it was published in 1941 while he was still an undergraduate at Columbia University.

The appearance of
The Black Stallion
brought such an enthusiastic response from young readers that Mr. Farley went on to create more stories about the Black, and about other horses as well. In his life he wrote a total of thirty-four books, including
Man o' War
, the
story of America's greatest thoroughbred, and two photographic storybooks based on the two Black Stallion movies. His books have been enormously popular in the United States and have been published in twenty-one foreign countries.

Mr. Farley and his wife, Rosemary, had four children, whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and at a beach house in Florida. Horses, dogs and cats were always a part of the household.

In 1989 Mr. Farley was honored by his hometown library in Venice, Florida, which established the Walter Farley Literary Landmark in its children's wing. Mr. Farley died in October 1989, shortly before the publication of
The Young Black Stallion
, the twenty-first book in the Black Stallion series. Mr. Farley co-authored
The Young Black Stallion
with his son, Steven.

DON'T MISS WALTER FARLEY'S OTHER
EXCITING TALE ABOUT BONFIRE!

After a terrible accident on the track, Bonfire refuses to race. Jimmy Creech and Tom Messenger are unable to get the horse back on the track. But Alec Ramsay, who witnessed the accident, has a few ideas of his own. Alec has had a lot of experience with strong-willed horses, namely Bonfire's sire, the Black Stallion. But Alec has no experience sitting
behind
a horse. Can Alec and Bonfire work together to win the Hambletonian, the Kentucky Derby of harness racing?