The Island Stallion's Fury (13 page)

Bending low, Steve pressed his hands and arms about Flame's neck. He had ceased trying to see ahead through his wind-blurred eyes, so now he closed them, conscious only of the terrifying speed at which the stallion was covering ground.

He rode and rode, and there was no slackening of stride. Beneath his hands he felt the rushing, heated blood of the great stallion. Was any horse in the world so fast as Flame? He opened his eyes, but still he could not see. He could only wait, wait for the stallion to run himself out as he wanted to do today. Perhaps he could have stopped him. Perhaps not. But he wasn't going to try. Flame would know when he'd had enough.

A long while later, the stallion's strides slowed. Steve sat back slightly then and with one hand wiped the wetness from his eyes. Apparently Flame had taken him to the far end of the valley and then turned, coming back. For now they were opposite the marsh and sweeping down again upon the band. Flame swerved to the left, then came to an abrupt stop before the band.

Steve saw no sign of restlessness among the band, so he slipped off Flame's back. He stood beside the stallion until Flame left him to join the band. Then Steve started down the valley. His heart was beating rapidly from the stimulation of the stallion's long run and the beauty and joy of being a part of this lost world.

When Steve reached the ledge, Pitch glanced up at him, said something that was garbled in his deep concentration, then turned back to the papers before him and continued writing. Steve went to the case of provisions, took out a can of pork and beans, and lit the kerosene stove.

“We'll have to get more food from the chamber,” he said. “There are only a few cans left in this case.”

Pitch never looked up, and Steve doubted that he'd even heard him. He got some biscuits and put those, too, on the stove to be toasted. Only when the meal was ready and he had put Pitch's plate before him did his friend stop working.

“Everything all right down there, Steve?”

“Very much all right,” the boy said.

“How often are you feeding him now?”

“Five times a day.”

“Good! And the vet said you could get him down to four.”

Steve nodded.

“Are you offering him milk from the pail?” Pitch asked.

“Yes, but he prefers the nipple. I guess it'll take time to get him to drink from the pail.”

“But keep trying. It'll make it easier for you. Does the milk still clog the nipple?”

“Once in a while. But I open it with the needle, as you suggested.”

“Well, that's what Mrs. Reynolds did when milk clogged the nipples on her nursing bottles. I know. I watched her many a time.” Pitch paused. Then, “But that's why I say getting the foal to drink out of a pail will make it easier for you. No fuss about that.”

“I know, Pitch. I'll keep trying at every feeding.”

“And his leg isn't giving him any trouble?”

“No. It's just as though he'd been born with that splint. He doesn't seem to pay any attention to it.”

“Veterinary medicine has come a long way,” Pitch said. “I remember the day when we couldn't do anything for a horse with a fractured leg but destroy him to relieve his suffering.”

“And Dr. Mason said the leg would be completely healed in a short time,” Steve said. “Just eighteen more days, Pitch,” he added eagerly.

“Sure. He's young and bones heal quickly at his age. But it's different when it happens to old boys like me.” Pitch laughed and rose to wash his plate in a bucket of hot water. “Not that I aim to let it happen,” he added. “I'm a careful old codger.”

Finished with his food, Steve stood up. “I guess we need another case of provisions from the chamber, Pitch. What we have here is pretty nearly gone.”

“You said that before.”

“I didn't think you heard me,” Steve said.

“Sure I did. I hear everything. Even when you think I don't.” Pitch glanced at the almost empty case. “We have enough to last another day or so. But maybe I'll go to the chamber later in the afternoon. I'm going inside anyway. There's another tunnel I'm following, Steve. I'm writing a description of it now, and I want to explore it a little more today, if I have the time.”

A little later Pitch was once more back at his work, and Steve left to release the colt from Bottle Canyon. He didn't like leaving the colt alone or penned up except when necessary. After all, the colt had only him
and Flame, and now the stallion was far up the valley, grazing with his band.

Pitch looked up from his writing when Steve reached the valley floor. He saw him going toward the barred entrance to Bottle Canyon and knew Steve would be spending the rest of the afternoon with the foal. He turned back to his work.

More than an hour later he had finished his writing for the day. He pressed his fingers softly but firmly against his eyeballs, seeking to rest them. Then he replaced his glasses and looked down at the valley. For a few minutes he watched Steve leading the colt on the rope shank, then shifted his gaze to the almost empty case of provisions. Well, he might as well get more food now. First he'd travel the new tunnel again, and on the return trip he'd stop at the chamber.

Taking his shoulder bag, he walked up the trail to the top of the waterfall where he stopped to take a long drink of the running water. He wasn't taking his canteen and this drink would have to last him until his return an hour from now, maybe two.

He entered the tunnel and followed the stream for only a short distance before turning into another passageway. He walked swiftly, his flashlight picking up the chalked figures and letters he had marked on the walls.

An hour later he arrived at the new tunnel. He went slowly now, discovering new chambers which he searched carefully for anything left behind by the Spaniards. He found another tarnished silver goblet, a sextant and a heavy spur with a sharp rowel. Finding these relics stimulated him in his search and exploration of the new tunnel. When finally he decided to go back
he knew he must have spent much more time there than he'd planned and that outside it would be almost dark. Steve would be worried. He started back, going almost at a run, his light bobbing with the short, mincing strides he had to take in the low-ceilinged passageways.

He had almost reached the stream again when he thought of the food he was to have brought back. It would take only a short while longer to get it, and perhaps he wouldn't get a chance to go for the food tomorrow. He came to another fork and took a tunnel that he knew would lead him to the chamber.

He was almost there when he came to an abrupt, startled stop. The flashlight shook in his hand as its beam picked out the heavy body lying face downward on the cold stone.
Tom!

Unable to move, Pitch stood there trembling. He didn't know how long it was before he was able to make his legs move; then he went forward, slowly and as if stunned.

He found himself bending over the prone body. He turned it over, flashing the light on the bearded, scowling face. He looked upon it a long while before his numbed mind became active once more. He noticed the slight movement of the thin, dry lips. He felt the pulse and found it strong. He knew then there was nothing wrong with Tom that food and water wouldn't cure.

Still dazed, Pitch stumbled to his feet and left the giant behind. Blue Valley was but a short distance away. Food and water were there to save Tom's life. And
if
he brought them back, Tom would live to destroy Blue Valley.

The boy neither moved nor said a word while Pitch told him of Tom's presence in the tunnels. It was as though he had lost all feeling, all sense of everything, even fear. He seemed to be conscious only of Pitch's face, so taut, so ghastly in the yellowish glare of the lantern.

“If I'd found him dead,” Pitch concluded, “it would have been better. I have no sympathy, no feeling for him any more, and he has none for me. I know he hates me for my shyness, my weakness … for being everything that he isn't.” He paused to turn down the flame in the lamp. “Steve, are you all right?” He reached over toward the boy and shook him gently.

“I'm all right,” Steve said finally. “It's just the shock, the …” He left his sentence unfinished.

Turning toward the stove, Pitch lifted from it a pot of heated soup and poured it into his canteen. “I've got to feed him, Steve,” he said. “I've no choice. We can't let him die.”

“No, we can't let him die,” the boy repeated in a
voice that was barely above a whisper. He rose to his feet.

“You don't have to go with me,” Pitch said. “He's unconscious.”

“I want to go.”

Pitch looked at Steve a long while before saying, “All right. Come along.”

Steve kept close behind Pitch as they walked quickly through the tunnels. Gradually he recovered from the shock that had numbed his body and mind. Perhaps the fast walking did it. Perhaps it was Pitch's knowledge of this underground world, a knowledge that should be more than a match for Tom's brute strength. Whatever it was, Steve found a little warmth, a little hope in the darkness.

Because Tom had found the tunnels didn't mean that he had found Blue Valley,
that he ever would find Blue Valley!
Somehow, some way, they would keep him away from it!

But when Steve saw Tom's figure lying in the beam of Pitch's flashlight, he was again filled with fear of the man. He looked down at the giant, his terrified eyes widening at sight of the bull whip wrapped about the bulging waist. He wanted to tear it off, to hide or destroy it so it never could be used again.

“Help me with him,” Pitch said. “Lift his head a little so I can get this soup in him.”

Steve cupped the black, bushy head in the crook of his arm, while Pitch placed the canteen to Tom's mouth. The liquid wet the thin, cracked lips, and as it went down there was a quick, convulsive movement of the giant's jaw and throat muscles. Pitch poured a little
more soup into Tom's mouth, then took away the canteen. “He's had enough for now, Steve.”

They rested Tom's head back on the stone, and Pitch turned the light away from him. “We have no choice but to leave him here,” he said grimly. “We can't carry him. If we could, I'd get him back to the spit before he regained consciousness. Sometime tonight we must decide what to do next.” He flashed the beam on Steve's drawn face. “Let's go back. There's nothing more we can do
here
.”

They had traveled a good distance when Steve remembered that he hadn't removed the bull whip from about Tom's waist. They were too far away to go back now; he'd do it tomorrow. But as he continued following Pitch he had a strange premonition that it was the one thing he should not have forgotten to do …

They reached their camp without having said a word to each other. The band had come down the valley, some of the horses grazing directly below while others drank from the pool. The colt stood not far away. But between him and the band was Flame, protective and ever watchful.

“You'd better put the foal in the canyon,” Pitch said. “It's late for him to be out there.”

Nodding in agreement, Steve fetched a bottle of milk and a nipple, both of which he had ready for the last feeding of the night. He warmed the milk while Pitch opened a can of hash for them to eat. Yet each was thinking only of Tom and what their next step should be.

After a few minutes Steve removed the bottle from the pan of hot water and shook a little of the milk from the nipple onto his wrist. It was still too cool for the colt. As he
placed the bottle in the water again, he said, “Tom must have found the Chimney Entrance, the way we first got in.”

“Yes, it's the only way he could have gotten into the tunnels.”

Steve looked out over the valley. Flame was still there; the colt was safe from the band. His gaze swept to the cloudless night sky, and for a moment he seemed to be concentrating on the patterns the stars made. Then he said, “Pitch, when Tom regains consciousness he won't be
certain
we're the ones who fed him.”

“Who else could it have been, Steve?”

The boy shrugged his shoulders. “But he'll be guessing. He can't be sure.”

“He probably followed us. He knows we're here.”

“If he had followed us, he'd know of the sea entrance,” Steve protested. “And there was no one behind us when we came in. We both looked.”

“I don't mean that he stayed close enough for us to see him,” Pitch explained. “And since he didn't find our launch at the spit, he knew we were
inside
.” He paused, then went on. “But let's assume you're right, Steve. What if he doesn't know for certain it's us? How would that help?”

“If we could blindfold him,” the boy suggested quickly. “If we could just get him back to the spit without his knowing that it's us and how we got him out.”

Pitch smiled grimly, shaking his head at the same time. “You don't honestly think for a moment we could do all that without letting him get his hands on us, do you? No, I'm afraid it would never work, Steve.”

“Then what
can
we do, Pitch?” Steve asked desperately. “We've got to do something …”

“I know. I know, Steve. Maybe something will come to me. Go feed the colt.”

Steve started for the trail, stopped and turned to Pitch to say something. But he changed his mind when he saw Pitch's hands covering his face, and continued on down to the floor of the valley.

Flame came to him, neighing for attention. He straightened the stallion's mane and then walked toward the foal, Flame staying close to his side.

The colt had his forelegs bent, his small head lowered and just reaching the grass. He straightened at sight of Steve, stood quietly for a moment chewing the blades he held in his mouth, then spat them out and moved toward Steve.