A police sergeant stood in front of the judge’s bench, calling off the names of traffic violators; one at a time they went forward, pleading guilty or not guilty to the court’s charge. If they admitted their guilt, they went to the cashier and paid their fine. If they believed themselves innocent, they pleaded not guilty and retired to one side of the courtroom, where later the judge would hear their defense.
While Alec waited for his name to be called, he looked around the crowded courtroom and wondered if among these people were any reporters from the newspapers. He knew that most editors assigned reporters to cover the city courts, hoping to pick up stories. One could be here now, but whether or not a court reporter would recognize his name was up to chance. Alec sat on a chair near the aisle; he was prepared to go to the bench promptly to avoid having his name called more than once by the sergeant.
He waited fifteen more minutes, listening to people plead guilty to speeding, overtime parking and going through red lights; then, suddenly, the police sergeant called, “Alexander Ramsay!”
It seemed to Alec that the sergeant’s voice had risen to its highest pitch and that the room was much quieter than it had been since his arrival. He jumped up from his chair, tripped on a leg, caught himself, then hurried down the aisle. Reaching the sergeant, he looked up at him, his face white. Behind and above the sergeant he saw the judge.
“… charged with galloping a horse in a public park. Guilty or not guilty?” the sergeant asked.
“Guilty,” Alec said, but his voice was little more than a whisper.
“Guilty or not guilty?” the sergeant repeated.
“Guilty!” Alec shouted, and his voice thundered throughout the room.
The judge and sergeant were smiling as Alec walked to the cashier’s desk.
He stood in line, very conscious of the many eyes upon him.
“You sure made no bones about it,” the man in front of him said.
“About what?” Alec asked, moistening his lips.
“About your being guilty,” the man replied, grinning. “You rocked the room like you meant it.”
“I did?”
“You sure did.” The man moved forward to pay his fine.
His hands trembling, Alec reached for his wallet. If only he could get out of here now. If he could just pay his fine and run. It seemed an hour before the man in front paid his fine and was gone. Now the cashier, too, was smiling as Alec faced him.
“That’ll be fifteen dollars,” the cashier said.
Alec gave the money to the man and turned away hurriedly. With downcast eyes he moved toward the door. He slipped outside into the corridor, walking faster. He had reached the stairway and his hand was on the rail when a voice behind said, “Just a second, son.”
He didn’t stop or look around until he felt a hand grasp his arm. A slight man in a gray suit stood there.
“I’m from the News,” he said. “You’re Alec Ramsay, the jockey, aren’t you?”
Alec jerked his arm from the man’s grasp and continued down the stairs. But the man was beside him.
“Take it easy, Alec,” he said. “All I want to know is why you’ve given up the track for riding hacks in a public park.”
Alec reached the bottom of the stairs with the reporter still beside him. “Why weren’t you up on Satan in Chicago? Henry Dailey told the press you weren’t feeling well. How does that account for your galloping a horse in a public park at dawn?”
When Alec reached the door he burst into a run, and as he went outside and down the front steps of the building he heard the man shout, “I’ll be seeing you, Alec.”
Still running, Alec went down Flushing’s Main Street. He weaved in and out among the people on the crowded sidewalk, unaware of their startled calls as he swept by, narrowly missing them.
He knew what the reporter would do. He’d call his city desk and acquaint his editor with what had happened in the Flushing courthouse. His editor would in all probability send his sports reporter to follow up on the story. And, somehow, editors of other newspapers and press services would hear of it. They’d all come to Flushing … to the barn. They’d pin him down, and he’d have to answer their questions. He wouldn’t be able to run away as he’d done from the police reporter.
He’d tell them he’d given up the track … that he wouldn’t be riding Satan anymore. That was the story they’d be after. But he wouldn’t tell them it was the Black he had ridden in the park. They had no idea as to the identity of the horse he had ridden, and he wasn’t going to help them find out!
Twenty minutes later Alec turned down his block, and his running strides lengthened as the barn came into view. He passed his house, going directly to the iron gate. As he pulled it open, he knew what he was going to do, and he didn’t have any time to lose. The reporters would be here within an hour, maybe less.
The Black neighed shrilly as he opened the barn door, but for once Alec passed him by. He ran to the end of the barn, stopping before the bales of straw piled high against the wall. Taking one bale, he carried it to the door of the tack room and set it down on the floor. He went inside the room, removing the old chest and the chairs. When he had the room clear, he carried the bale of straw inside and with a pitchfork spread it about the floor. He went back for another bale and spread this, too, until the bedding was high. Then he got a bale of hay and placed it in a far corner of the room.
It was only then that he went to the Black’s stall. The stallion came to him. “I’m going to move you for a while,” Alec said, “… just for a little while.”
Taking the Black by the halter, he led him from the stall. They went down the barn toward the tack room, the stallion’s eyes shifting curiously. The Black stopped before the door, refusing to go inside. Patiently Alec waited, talking to him all the while.
“I know you’d like to go out in the field,” Alec said anxiously. “But you’ll have to wait until later … maybe tonight.”
The stallion snorted, his eyes large and wondering.
Alec moved in front of him and stood inside the room. “Come on, fellow,” he said. “You’ll like it in here … there’s plenty of room, much more than in your old stall.”
Abruptly the stallion moved, following Alec inside the tack room. The boy let go of his halter and stood in the doorway while the Black moved curiously about the room, the heavy straw silencing the sound of his restless hoofs.
Alec remained there until the Black found the hay in the corner and began to eat; then he left the room, closing the door behind him. There was still much to be done. Alec ran the length of the barn and went outside. He returned almost immediately, pushing a wheelbarrow to the Black’s empty stall. Working hurriedly, he piled it high with the straw the stallion had used for bedding and wheeled it out to the manure pile in back of the barn. It took two more trips before the stall was clean of straw; then Alec removed the water pail from the corner of the stall and set it outside.
There was no evidence now that the stall had been occupied only a few minutes ago. From all appearances, there was only one stall being used in the barn and that, he would tell the reporters, was used by Napoleon.
Alec listened for any sound of the Black in the tack room. But the barn was still, and he knew that only a nicker or snort from the Black would give his presence away. Alec’s plan was to keep the reporters away from the barn, except for a quick look, if they insisted, to see that only one stall was being used. The reporters, he figured, would be more interested in questioning him about his retirement from the track, and he would be able to keep them outside.
Alec glanced at his wristwatch. It was four o’clock. He could expect them anytime now. But he was about ready for them; there were just a couple more things to do.
Filling the water pail, Alec took it to the tack room and hung it on a peg near where the Black was eating; then he got some feed, just to make sure the stallion would have enough to eat to keep him occupied for the next hour or so.
As he stood besid
e the Black, he heard the creaking of the iron gate. Quickly he turned away from the stallion and left the tack room, this time snapping the padlock on the door and placing the key in his pocket.
He was hurrying to the barn door when he heard the sound of hoofs on the gravel driveway … hoofs and the turning wheels of Tony’s cart. The tenseness left his body as he realized it wasn’t the reporters after all.
“Allo, Aleec,” Tony called when he saw the boy standing in the doorway. “Why you no put your Black in the field today?”
Alec waited until Tony had laboriously descended from the cart seat before going to him. “I need your help, Tony,” he said anxiously. “I’m in a jam.”
Tony’s bright eyes turned quickly to him. “You need my help? I give it to you. But what for you in this-a jam?”
“I took the Black to the park yesterday morning,” Alec explained. “A cop saw us and I was given a ticket for galloping in a public park. This afternoon I went to court and a reporter there recognized me. I got away from him, but I’m sure others will be here very soon. I don’t want them to know it was the Black I rode.”
Tony’s gaze turned from Alec to the barn. “But if these men come like you say, how you hide such a big horse, Aleec?”
“I have him in the tack room,” Alec said. “I don’t think they’ll look around the barn much. They’ll be more interested in questioning me.”
“But what you want for me to do, Aleec?”
Alec went to Napoleon. “I’d like to put Napoleon in the field and have you stay with me until they come. When they ask me what horse I was riding in the park, I’ll tell them it was Napoleon. You can back me up.”
Tony shook his head. “You think they believe you?”
“Why not?” Alec asked. “All they know is that I was given a summons for galloping. It could have been Napoleon as well as any other horse.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Tony helped Alec unharness the gray. “Maybe it will work, Aleec. Maybe.”
They had put Napoleon in the field and were closing the gate when they saw a car come to a stop before the iron fence.
“Here they are,” Alec said, his gaze quickly returning to Tony.
“What we do now, Aleec?”
“Nothing. Just stay here. Let them come to us. We’ll try to keep them away from the barn.”
Tony turned again to the road. “There’s-a two more cars stopping behind the first,” he said.
Their eyes remained on Napoleon as the gate creaked open and the sound of many footsteps came toward them. They didn’t turn to the newcomers until one said, “Hi, Alec.”
There were six of them, and Alec recognized every one of them from interviews he’d had at the track. They were sports reporters sent by their editors to follow up the lead that the police reporter had uncovered. And now they leaned casually upon the fence, watching Napoleon as though it were their custom to drop in daily on Alec Ramsay.
But finally one of them asked, “Who’s the horse, Alec?”
“That’s Napoleon. Tony’s horse,” Alec said quietly. His eyes remained on the old gray as Napoleon plodded heavily across the field to better pasture. He waited for the reporters to ask him about his appearance in court, but the minutes went by without any one of them showing the slightest interest. The sound of footsteps on the driveway came again, and they all turned simultaneously.
A tall, heavy-bodied man came toward them, and Alec recognized Jim Neville, the foremost racing columnist in the country. Jim Neville had been Alec’s friend for a long while. It was he who had been responsible for getting the Black into his first and only race in America.
Jim waved to Alec, then leaned on the fence with the others. “How’ve you been, Alec?” he asked.
“All right,” the boy said quietly.
The reporter next to him said, “We figured you were sick. Out in Chicago, Henry Dailey said you weren’t feeling well. That’s why Lenny Sansone was up on Satan.”
“I—I haven’t been feeling too good,” Alec said quickly.
“He’s-a been taking it very easy,” Tony added helpfully.
“But you’ve been doing some riding in the park to keep in trim. Is that it, Alec?” another reporter asked.
“That’s it,” Alec said.
“It makes a good story … you being top jockey, I mean, and then being picked up for racing in a public park,” the reporter added.
“We weren’t racing,” Alec corrected him. “Just galloping a little.”
“Who were you up on?” another asked.
Without hesitation, Alec said, “Napoleon there.”
They all looked at the old gray for several minutes before one of them broke the silence by asking, “He gallops?”
“Sure,” Alec said with feigned lightness.
“He’s-a one fast horse,” Tony added angrily. “Maybe he no look it, but Nappy he’s-a fast all right.”
“Sure, I believe you,” the reporter said. “You can’t go by looks. I know that for sure.”
Jim Neville left the fence, walking a little to the rear of the reporters. “I haven’t been around here in a long while, Alec,” he remarked casually.
The others turned away from Napoleon to look about them; as one, their heads turned in the direction of the barn.
“How much room do you have in there, Alec?” one asked.
“Two stalls,” Alec said. “But Napoleon has the place to himself.”
“Mind if we take a look inside?”
“No … not at all.”
The group walked toward the barn with Alec leading the way.
“It’s funny the way cops can get mixed up,” someone said. “We got hold of the cop who gave you the summons and he said you were up on a black horse … a big black, he said.”
Alec’s lips tightened, and it was Tony who said, “He’s-a color blinded all right. Nappy is no black.”
“He certainly isn’t,” the reporter agreed.
“But the cop said,” another added casually, “that he’d never seen a horse run as fast as this one had gone.”
“Nappy he’s-a fast horse like I tell you,” Tony said, laughing. “Maybe I race him one of these days. Maybe I do.”
Alec said nothing. Now he realized that he had forgotten completely that the reporters could have interviewed the cop before coming here. They were looking for a bigger story than his retirement from racing. And that’s why they wanted to go into the barn. From what the cop had told them they knew it couldn’t have been Napoleon he had ridden in the park. Even now, they might suspect it was the Black! For what other horse could have kept him from riding Satan in Chicago? They knew he hadn’t been sick at all. He had been silly to think he could keep the Black’s identity from them. He had made the critical mistake of taking the Black to the park. Now he had to pay for it.
Alec stepped inside the barn, followed by the reporters. Jim Neville stayed at his side, but the others went directly to the stall the Black had occupied. They took one look at the clean-swept floor and then went on to Napoleon’s stall. After that their gazes swept about the barn.
No sound came from the tack room, but any second the stallion could utter a snort that would betray his presence. Alec felt Jim Neville’s hand upon his arm, but he didn’t turn to him. The reporters had filed their way to the tack room, and already one of them was fingering the lock. Tony was with them, and Alec heard him say, “There’s nothing in there; only harness for Nappy. We go outside now, yes?”
But the reporters weren’t leaving. They had found what they sought; their gazes turned to Alec as one of them jiggled the lock. It was then that the stallion neighed.
“It’s the Black, isn’t it, Alec?” Jim Neville asked quietly.
Wearily Alec nodded.
“We all guessed it was, for the cop described him pretty well. Besides, we figured no other horse could have kept you off Satan in Chicago.”
Now the reporters were asking for the key to the room. They wanted to see the Black to make s
ure it was he before writing their stories.
Alec walked toward the door, the key in his hand. It mattered little what happened now, for within a few hours the world would know that the Black was once again in the United States. The reporters were asking him many questions and he replied quickly and in as few words as possible. He told them that the Black belonged to him, that Abu Ishak was dead and had bequeathed the stallion to him. He wasn’t going to race the Black. He and Henry had bought a farm. They were taking the Black there within two weeks.
And when he had answered all their questions, he inserted the key in the lock, knowing that they would go as soon as they had seen the stallion. He wanted them to go, to leave him alone with his horse.
The reporters stepped back when he opened the door. The Black was standing there, his eyes large and shifting. Alec held him by the halter while the reporters took one look at the giant stallion and then hurriedly left the barn.
Only Jim Neville remained when Alec led the stallion from the tack room. Tony walked beside the boy but said nothing.
“I’m going to put him in the field, Tony.”
Outside, the huckster ran ahead to open the gate. Napoleon looked up from his grazing and neighed at sight of the Black.
Alec released the stallion, and the Black burst into full gallop, passing Napoleon, who turned and trotted ponderously after him.
“I’m sorry, Aleec,” Tony said.
“I was crazy to think I could keep it from them,” Alec returned bitterly. “It’s all my fault, Tony … no one else’s.”
“What happens now, Aleec?”
“I don’t know, Tony. I really don’t.”
ABU ISHAK’S PROMISE
8
Tony shifted uneasily, for he didn’t know whether or not Alec wanted him to stay around. The boy looked intently at the stallion, following his every move; yet Tony noticed that his eyes were sad. Finally the huckster glanced at Jim Neville, who now sat on the bench outside the barn.
“Why he not go like the others?” Tony asked angrily. “What more he want?”
Without turning from the field, Alec said bitterly, “He’s a columnist, Tony. He’s after the human-interest angle. The others take care of the straight news story, but Jim wants more than that. He wants to know how I feel and why.
Black Stallion and Satan Page 6