The Island Stallion's Fury (17 page)

Their eyes swept down the trail to the ledge. Tom sat on a wooden box, the map spread before him. Then they still had time! But for what? How could they prevent Tom from reaching the launch? Jump him? Fight him?
No! No!
What chance did they have to stop him? They could only watch and wait and hope.

Tom got to his feet and stood looking toward the marsh. The way to the launch would be easy for him; he had only to follow the map Pitch had drawn so well
in detail. But he wasn't going yet; instead he opened the can of whole milk and, mixing powder with water, swallowed it in long gulps.

They watched him, aware that the milk appeased his enormous appetite but did not by any means satisfy it. Soon Tom would go to the launch in the hope of finding food there. When he found none he would go on to Antago. He would return with provisions immediately or he would wait for them to die of starvation before he returned. They had enough food in the chamber to last them a week, perhaps a little longer.

Steve heard a short, shrill neigh from the colt in Bottle Canyon. It was time for his feeding; he was becoming impatient. Was this then the end for him, too?

Pitch whispered, “Our only chance is that Tom doesn't go to the launch today, that we can get past him during the night.”

The band had come down the valley. The mares with suckling foals were closest; some of them went to the pool while others grazed near the cane. Yearlings and weanlings were scattered, grazing and playing in small, separate groups. Flame had come down with them but had gone directly to the barred gate of Bottle Canyon. He stood there, listening to the incessant neighing of the colt on the other side.

Steve watched Flame and so did Tom. Finally the giant turned, looked in the direction of the marsh again, then at the map. He studied it for a little longer before rolling it up.

Pitch and Steve could tell that Tom was trying to make up his mind whether to go to Antago that day. It was past mid-afternoon. If he left then it would be dark
before he reached Antago. It would mean a night voyage. Tom was no navigator, no seaman. He wouldn't like being on the open sea at night. But his hunger might compel him.…

They saw the bird rise from the cane, startling a few of the foals and causing them to move hurriedly back to their dams. Tom had seen the bird, too, for now he put down the map and his hands moved to the bull whip about his waist. When he started down the trail Steve and Pitch knew he was going after the bird.

They waited until he had reached the valley floor, then they hurried down the trail to the ledge. Pitch looked at the relics strewn about, but he picked up only the rolled map.

Then he and Steve fell flat on their stomachs again. They didn't want to be seen by Tom or by Flame. The stallion would betray their presence on the ledge if he saw them. He had moved away from Bottle Canyon, then had come to a stop, watching Tom. But his eyes, his movements disclosed only curiosity and interest in the man who was walking slowly toward the pool. He had no reason not to accept Tom.

It Tom had seen the stallion, he paid no attention to him. He walked past Pitch's snubbing post, intent only on the place in the cane field where the bird had come to rest. The mares moved quickly away at Tom's approach. The bronze shoe stirrup lay gleaming on the ground where it had been cast from the ledge; near it were the silver goblet and horseshoe; a little beyond were the long lance, the helmet, and the sextant.

Tom went around the pool to the edge of the cane.
His bull whip was ready. His wrist was bent back, the long leather whip trailing behind, straight and still now. But any second it would strike, its movement so fast it would be lost to the eye.

Steve and Pitch could only wait and watch. Tom was still between them and the marsh. They remained his prisoners. A mare whinnied, breaking the ominous stillness. It was the bay mare, but the twin filly was not beside her. The mare had turned toward the cane, her eyes startled, worried. She whinnied again.

Deep within the cane, Steve saw the little filly's head. She answered her mother's call, then the cane stalks bent as she started for the mare. Her movements were frantic for she was small and the cane high. She neighed repeatedly and sought to keep her head above the stalks as she neared the cropped grass of the valley floor and Tom.

The nesting bird was flushed by the filly's movements and neighs. With its rise in the air came the crack of Tom's whip. There followed the flutter of flying feathers. But the bird escaped! Tom's head moved simultaneously with its flight, and Steve and Pitch could sense the anger and fury that burned within him at his near miss. Another second, another foot closer and his hunt for food would have been successful.

The filly had come to an abrupt stop at the crack of the whip. She stood still for a moment, trembling and uncertain. The mare neighed shrilly, and the filly turned to go to her.

But she moved too late. The crack of the whip came again and with it Tom's enraged bellow. The
leather bit into the filly's slender haunches. Squealing and terrified, she bolted. Tom ran crazily after her, chasing her around the pool and almost back to the mare.

Every horse in the band was moving now, scattering, neighing, running. But their hoofbeats were deadened beneath Flame's whistle. Tom turned toward him, as did Steve and Pitch. They saw Flame galloping across the valley to attack Tom. Steve's fingers found Pitch; he pressed hard, realizing that what he had feared most of all was about to happen.

Tom did not run. He even turned his face away from the stallion, the better to gauge the distance to the trail. It was less than thirty feet. He could reach the trail easily if he ran. But he didn't run. He had never run from a horse, from any animal, in his life. He was not afraid. Instead he was more elated, more excited than he'd been in a long, long time.

Close to the trail he stopped and turned to meet the oncoming stallion. The long leather of the bull whip was behind him; his wrist was drawn back and ready. He saw the fire in the large, lustrous eyes of the horse. And his own eyes gleamed with a light equally bright. He moved his feet wider apart and his eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. He saw the red stallion gather himself for the quick, sudden stop and attack to come. His wrist tightened and his fingers pressed hard into the leather of the whip's handle.

With bared teeth the stallion came to an abrupt stop fifteen feet away from him, just as Tom had known he would do. Tom watched as the stallion snorted and rose on hind legs to his full height. Then Tom stepped back quickly; his whip cracked, its biting end tearing
into the stallion's belly. Screaming in pain, the horse came down. Again Tom struck and the bull whip tore into Flame's neck and withers.

Tom's face was distorted in evil rapture. Here was a horse who would give him a fight worthy of his great strength and skill! He was pulling back the long leather he so foolishly had let encircle the stallion's neck when the horse suddenly jerked his head, tearing the whip from his hands. He started forward to retrieve it but was too late.

Terrible in his rage, the red stallion rose above him. And for the first time in his life Tom knew what it was to fear an animal. Certain death was coming down upon him. He hurled himself away from the thrashing forelegs, feeling one graze his shoulder as he fell to the ground. Quickly he rolled again and again, and then he felt the stone of the trail beneath his frantic hands. His face white and terrified, he scrambled upward, expecting to feel the terrible hoofs crushing his back. Only when he was well up the trail did he realize that the path was too narrow and steep for the stallion to follow and that he was safe. Turning around, he saw Flame pounding the long leather of the bull whip.

Slowly Tom regained his composure. “I'll break you yet, you stud horse!” he shouted hysterically, repeating the words over and over as he sat watching the stallion in all his terrible but, to him, beautiful fury. His hunger for the time being was completely forgotten as he made his plans to beat this horse that knew no master.

Steve and Pitch left the ledge as soon as Tom started up the trail. He hadn't seen them for he was too frantic then to have noticed anything. Now they stood just within the great opening of the falls again, breathing heavily from their fast climb.

“Flame almost killed him, Pitch.
It would have been all over
.”

Pitch looked at the boy's white face a long while before saying, “We can't think that way, Steve. He's sick. We must think only of getting help.”

“But he'd kill us, Pitch. I know he would.”

Pitch had nothing more to say.

Once more they got down flat on their stomachs and crawled toward the sunlight. They had to watch Tom, to make certain he wasn't coming up the trail. Pitch made Steve stay behind him; it was only necessary for one of them to act as lookout.

Now Pitch could peek down. Tom was standing on the ledge, watching every move made by the red stallion.
From time to time he shouted at Flame. Finally, when Flame moved away to return to his band, Tom searched the ledge for the rolled map. When he could not find it, he looked up in the direction of the trail.

Pitch flattened himself still more against the stone. He didn't think Tom could see him, but he couldn't be sure. There was no need to raise his eyes; his ears would tell him of Tom's approach. And at the slightest sound of a step on the trail, he and Steve would start running.

But no footsteps came, only Tom's voice. And his words were all the more startling because of the softness with which they were uttered.

“I know you're up there, Phil,” he said. “But I'm not running after you any more. I don't need to. You're going to come to me.”

Pitch felt Steve's clawing hands on his legs, attempting to pull him back.

Run! He'll be coming. He knows we're here!

But still there were no footsteps on the trail. Instead Tom's voice came again.

“We'll talk this over, you and me, Phil. You're there. I know you're there.”

Steve pulled Pitch back within the opening. “Don't believe him, Pitch. He won't talk it over. He'll …”

Tom's voice came once more, still calm, but now the softness was mingled with his hatred for them.

“I don't need the map any more to find your launch,” he said.

They hardly heard his words; they were listening only for his footsteps on the trail.

“You'd better come down, Phil. You'll have to, anyway. You can't reach your launch without coming
down here. I know that, otherwise you'd be gone by now. Phil, are you listening? Do you realize what's going to happen? What I can do? You know very well, don't you, Phil?”

His laughter reached them now, low at first, almost a cackle, then rising until it was hideous in all its madness. Then, “I'm not going to ask you again, Phil, so you'd better come down.”

For a long while, there was only the drone of the waterfall. No words, no footsteps. Their bodies sweated and ached with their tenseness; their legs were ready to carry them back into the blackness where Tom never would follow them.

Then his voice came again. “You've had your chance, Phil. You should have known better than not to come to me. I'm going to let you rot here. I'm taking your launch tomorrow morning. I'm going home. And do you know what, Phil? I'm not coming back for a long, long time, not until you're dead. Not until you starve
as you were going to let me starve.…

“It's too late now, Phil, but you should have thought of the kid. He's pretty young to die. And it'll be your fault, Phil. You should have thought of him.”

Pitch made no move but his face was ghastly white.

“Don't listen to him,” Steve said desperately. “We know he wouldn't give us a chance. Tonight, Pitch … tonight we'll get past him.”

Pitch said nothing, and there were no further words from Tom.

They stayed there, knowing Tom couldn't be certain that they were here, for he hadn't seen them. They would not go back to the chamber; it was best that they
remain here, watching, waiting for the slightest chance to get past Tom before morning.

From time to time during the late afternoon, they crawled out of the great opening to look down upon the ledge. They saw Tom descend the trail to the valley floor to retrieve his bull whip. The remainder of the day he spent watching Flame's movements with the band. He saw the great stallion come down the valley often in answer to the incessant neighing of the colt in Bottle Canyon. Tom must have recognized the colt, for he looked at him for a long time after Flame had returned to his band. Once he started down the trail as though to go to the canyon gate, but he stopped when Flame came down the valley again. Back at the ledge once more, Tom sat down, his thoughtful gaze leaving the stallion only for the snubbing post below.

Shadows fell quickly and heavily over the valley with the sinking of the sun behind the walls. Night would soon follow, and with it would come Steve's and Pitch's only chance of escape.

Pitch spoke to Steve, still keeping the side of his face pressed hard against the stone.

“He'll have to sleep sometime,” he whispered. “I'll keep the first watch and call you when I feel I'm getting drowsy, then you take over.”

“I'm not sleepy,” Steve said. “I don't think I will be.”

“In a few hours you will.”

Somber blackness came to the valley. Even the stars seemed fewer and farther away that night as though they too would do all they could to conceal Steve and Pitch from Tom. But the yellow light of the
lantern gleamed below, exposing the ledge as bright as day.

They watched Tom pick up all the empty cans and scrape them clean into a pot of water he had on the stove. Finally he lifted it to his lips, drank from it in great gulps, then hurled the pot against the stone. He strode about the ledge, every stride giving evidence of his fury and hunger. He looked up in the direction of the trail, but there was no chance of his seeing Pitch and Steve in the darkness.