Finally night fell upon them once more and the stars began to show in the sky. A breeze rustled through the brush of a nearby clearing, and Alec smelled water and damp grass.
The Black made his way to a pool of clear water ebbing from the rocks, and there Alec drank with his horse, long and without hurry. They had found their place for another night.
Moments later Alec ate the last of his corn while the Black fed on whatever grass he could find near the water, pulling and munching hungrily, moving faintly in the darkness but never far away.
Alec stretched out on the ground, listening to the muffled sound of his horse’s teeth and wondering what they would find beyond.
“Sleep good, Black,” he called. Then he fell asleep, hungry.
Sometime during the night Alec felt a prickle-footed thing crawling across his face. He jerked up, slapped it off and jumped to his feet to see a centipede squirming in the earth. He raised his foot to mash it with the heel of his boot. But he could not bring his foot down to stomp it into pulp in the dirt. It was the first sign that life remained in his world.
WORLD WITHOUT END
23
An hour after daybreak Alec was on his way again. He had forgotten how long it had been since he’d left the sacred pueblo. Two days? Or was it three?
Suddenly Alec checked the Black’s strides; then he bent over to study the trail and, finally, slid from his horse to read the hoofprints deep in the earth.
Shod hoofs! The Black’s! They marked the ground in a regular order of strides. Alec studied the soil grains edging the tracks and knew he and his horse had traveled this way when they had first come to this land. He mounted again and rode on eagerly, hopefully.
It was more than an hour later when Alec pulled up the Black again, stopping sharp and squinting into the sun with his hands shading his eyes. He was able to make out the corners of adobe huts and fence posts hidden in the haze beyond. He rode toward the lonely village, thinking of the people he might find there and the food he might get while he was with them … meat and tortillas and corn for his horse.
Not a leaf, not a stem, stirred in the sweating hush of the day as Alec neared the settlement. Suddenly the Black stopped of his own accord and stood riveted to the ground. Then he screamed and the sound of his shrill whistle rang through the still air.
Alec saw what lay ahead. There was nothing left of the village. There were no homes, no people. The walls and roofs of adobe shacks were scattered about. Tawny stone, pale mud brick and bodies lay everywhere. He saw the black humps of rubble where the homes had been, the scorched trees, roofless walls, window holes, all in gaping ruins.
The Black was in sudden veering panic, but Alec got him moving forward, sweeping wide of the ruins. As Alec rode away he talked to his horse, more to console himself and to make sense of what he had seen, as much as he was able to do.
“I hope I can tell someone what happened here. I wish I could help everybody who lived here, but I can’t. It’s over, and I don’t know what’s ahead.”
The wetness of the stallion’s neck and the swing and push of his haunches kept Alec conscious, if not alert. He knew he was going to be sick. At every pound of the Black’s hoofs he felt his backbone ram into his skull, like a hammer pounding his head. He leaned over and vomited beside the stallion.
“Keep going or you are done,” he warned himself. “You have to find your way to whatever is ahead.” He felt the drive of the Black’s legs beneath him. He didn’t look back.
Two hours passed and Alec held on to his horse with desperate hands and great effort of will. The sun was hot, the going rough. Rocking in the twist of inner as well as outer pain, he tried to throw off the fevered weakness that was slowly overpowering him.
Alec rode across the vast immensity of the desert with its dunes and far horizons. At the top of a sandy rise, he recognized the area as the one in which he had left his truck and trailer so long ago! He squinted in the glare of the sun, trying to find some sign of the vehicles.
Darn his eyes, he couldn’t see!
There was a familiar shallow dish in the land to his right. It could be where he’d parked the truck, he decided. It could be, but where was it? He narrowed his eyes still more, trying to see. There, there … he thought he saw the outline of something in the sand.
The Black was moving toward the shallow dish of ground, his strides lengthening, his ears pitched forward.
“That’s fast enough,” Alec cautioned his horse. “Don’t use all you got left. You don’t need to use it all.”
The light from the sun had moved down, reddening the way before them, when Alec reached his truck and trailer buried deep in sand and ash. He rode up to what remained of the hulking body of the engine, then alongside the flattened horse trailer, its body splintered into pieces strewn about the area.
Alec knew he could follow the road that led ever southward, the way they had come so long ago. Eventually he would reach the highway. But had he the strength to go on? Had his horse? And what would they find there? Only death and destruction as well?
Alec’s gaze swept over the waste of lifeless desolation all around him. He felt his own smallness under the immensity of it all.
His eyes returned to the shattered body of the horse trailer, then suddenly he slipped off the Black and went to it. Dropping to his knees in the sand and ash, he uncovered one of the pieces that stuck in the earth like a signpost. He read the lettering on it while holding it in the air, high in the sun.
HOPE
It was all that was left of “HOPEFUL FARM” but enough for Alec to know he had to go on, to find his way back to whatever life still held for him.
Alec rose to his feet. The road beyond led down a steep slope to a plateau below. He’d better get going. Before long it would be dark and impossible for him to find his way.
He mounted the Black and rode on, no longer feeling total despair but a glimmer of hope, hope for himself and all mankind. Life without his beloved Pam would always be a kind of doom, he knew. But he had learned that one lives with his loss until it can be accepted, and something that was not his alone but that he shared with Pam would always live within him. He had come to this land seeking peace for his troubled mind. From the Indians, those who had lived and died, he had learned the power of their faith and courage. In many ways, they were showing him the way back home.
AFTERMATH
24
“This is your emergency radio station in Flagstaff, Arizona.
“Scores of desert and mountain residents are arriving daily, having miraculously survived a mighty earthquake that scientists report to be one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s history. The series of huge tremors, which had seismographs quivering at the top of the scale, laid waste to upland areas for hundreds of miles.
“Scientists have calculated that the quake was the longest surface rupture ever recorded from a single fault movement. Further tremors are expected today.
“Scientists have no explanation for the phenomenal blue light that appeared in the sky prior to the tremendous quake and which was seen over a radius of several hundred miles. It has been suggested by many observers that the blue light had something to do with the quake. Scientists have offered no comment on this view.
“Among those arriving safely in Flagstaff was the world-renowned jockey Alec Ramsay and his equally famous horse, the Black. It is not known at this time what they were doing in the desolate desert area.
“Further reports just received state that a series of severe tremors are being experienced elsewhere throughout the United States. The U.S. Geological Survey Office has also reported eight damaging earthquakes around the world …”
Alec Ramsay was one of five hundred persons seeking safety in a school gymnasium that was being used as a refugee center by the state Department of Emergency Services. All were homeless and frightened and sat huddled in large groups around cafeteria tables and army cots.
Alec knew the scene was being repea
ted elsewhere in the city—in gyms, schools and National Guard armories, all filled with refugees forced from their homes and anxiously awaiting word on whether loved ones left behind had lived or died.
Alec had seen the complete devastation of the upland areas with his own eyes and knew how slim the chances of survival were for anyone caught in the holocaust and how quickly death could come. Others would never really know such things. They could only wait and hope.
What can I tell them? he thought. Only that there’s a chance. All they can do is keep praying.
It was the third day that Alec had been in the shelter and nothing had changed. The sky was dark and ominous and the earth tremors continued hourly as if there were no end to them.
A large tent had been set up just outside the school building for penned and stabled animals. It was there the Black stood in his makeshift stall, listening to the sound of the other animals. There were eight horses and ponies beside the Black and, Alec counted, fifteen dogs, six cats, three goats, two calves and any number of caged birds.
Alec opened the stall door and the Black came forward quickly, his eyes alert and impatient.
“Not yet, not yet,” Alec told him. “There’s no place to go.”
Alec watched his horse move in the straw, noting how much he favored his left forefoot. He’d suffered several stone bruises but otherwise seemed to be all right. That was the miracle of it all, that they had survived.
Or had they? Alec asked himself. Was it over?
More refugees were arriving every hour from stricken areas. Red-jacketed volunteers continued to unload trucks of clothing and food. All were wearing surgical-type dust masks over their faces as protection from the winds, which were still heavy with ash that could clog their lungs.
Top priority, the only priority anyone had, was saving human lives. But in need of solace and comfort, Alec turned to his horse. He bent down in the straw and carefully picked up the stallion’s injured foot. It would take time to heal but the injury was nothing, nothing at all. He looked up at the Black’s head with its small ears pricked in the direction of the other animals. His only interest was watching them in their pens and cages. There were no signs of restlessness. Even the incessant barking of the dogs didn’t seem to bother him. He snorted at them and for a moment their barking stopped, only to begin again, louder than ever.
So the other animals were more of a comfort to the Black than a trial, Alec decided. The wonder of it all. To go on with life regardless of how bad it had been for them or what dangers lay ahead. He rubbed the stallion’s neck. He had learned a lot from his horse as well as the Indians.
A small group of reporters came toward Alec, their faces grim, eyes darting nervously at the tortured faces of people who wanted more information than they could provide.
“Nothing is left upland,” Alec heard one tell a woman. “It’s like a huge vacuum that’s sucked everything up. There’s nothing left, yet there doesn’t seem to be an end to it.”
Alec didn’t want to face the media but there was a chance the reporters had gotten through to the outside world and he desperately needed to know if his parents and Henry were all right.
Serious communications problems had developed from the onset of the quakes. Rescue agencies as well as reporters had tried to use the phones, only to find the lines jammed or down, and there had been little radio communication for the last two days.
“Were you able to get through?” Alec asked. “Do you know what’s happening, anything at all?”
“Only snatches on the radio,” the reporter answered. “Atmospheric conditions have gone crazy.”
“There are reports of quakes being felt from San Diego to Portland,” he went on. “They’ve had two powerful quakes and dozens of aftershocks, just like we’re having.”
“We’re worse off here,” another reporter said. “Three hundred square miles of upland homes have been leveled as if they were matchsticks. And that’s nothing compared to what the ash and mud are doing to the highways. Everything has ground to a halt. People who aren’t already here aren’t going to make it at all.”
A man in the rear of the group said, “Some people on the radio are talking in terms of biblical wrath or a nuclear Armageddon. They say what’s happening is an act of God.”
“That’s crazy,” another said. “It’s none of that. It’s no different than what we’ve had in past years, quakes and aftershocks, quakes and aftershocks.”
“But never anything like this,” the first reporter said vehemently. “It’s never been as bad as this. It’s not just one area. It’s all over, country-wide, even world-wide.”
“Yeah,” another agreed. “The Associated Press reported that Japan had one of the worst quakes in its history, measuring 8.7 on the scale … killed thousands. They don’t know how many, and the aftershocks are continuing.”
“Russia got it too,” someone said. “The World Meteorological Organization reported a major quake that forced the evacuation of all buildings in Moscow and caused fissures in all main highways leading out of the city. There was more but that’s all I could get.”
“What about our East Coast?” Alec asked. “Have you heard anything?”
“Only snatches like the other reports,” the first reporter answered. “They’ve had one brief quake but it was powerful enough to be felt in a vast stretch from Georgia all the way up to Canada. Police said no deaths have been reported but the aftershocks are continuing about one every hour. So I don’t think the East Coast has seen the end of it yet.”
Alec thought of his parents and Henry, of Hopeful Farm and the horses. What had happened to them? Would he ever know—or was this truly the end of everything, as the Indians believed?
“Is there no way to get through by phone?” he asked.
“None. What lines aren’t down are jammed. Maybe tomorrow … or the next day … or the one after that.” The reporter shrugged his shoulders and moved away. “That’s if any of us are around to put in a call …”
The newsmen walked away from Alec and the Black. A championship racehorse and his rider held little interest for them at the moment. As it was with all others in the shelter, their only interest was survival.
Two days later the aftershocks ceased and with it the sky cleared for the first time. It was late in the afternoon when Alec’s turn finally came to use the one phone that had been allotted to the refugees. His hands trembled as he dialed the long-distance number. He listened to the electronic sounds that were taking him ever closer to home.
“Keep ringing,” he found himself saying. “Keep going all the way. Don’t stop now.”
At last he heard the final long rings and his heart pounded harder. At least he knew there was still phone service to Hopeful Farm. Some normalcy was returning to his life!
“Hello.”
His father had answered. “Dad! It’s me, Alec!” There was silence at the other end. “Dad, can you hear me? It’s Alec!”
Finally Alec heard his father’s voice again, this time weak and far away, as if service was being disrupted.
“Alec, Alec, we thought …”
“Don’t try to talk, Dad, just listen. I’m okay. I’m in Flagstaff, Arizona. It’s been bad, but I think the worst is over. The roads are being cleared and the airport is supposed to open tomorrow …”
There was a long pause, then another voice came on the line, garbled yet familiar.
“Alec, this is Henry. Your father is too overcome to talk. He’s been sick. He thought you were dead. He’s telling your mother now. Stay where you are and I’ll come and get you as soon as I can get out of here. Is the Black with you? Is he alive?”
“Yes, Henry, he’s here. He’s alive … very much alive.”
“Speak up. I can’t hear you, Alec. There’s trouble … aftershocks or something, somewhere along the line.”
“I said the Black’s alive and with me!” Alec shouted.
“I heard you. Good. I’ll try to get a cargo plane then. Can you h
ear me, Alec?”
“Just about. Your voice is getting weaker.”
“You stay put, Alec. You hear that? I’ll get to you somehow. Don’t go running off.”
“I won’t. I promise. I’m through running. Is it bad there, Henry?”
“Awful. We’re starting to clean up. Lots of work but it’s not hopeless. Most of the barns are down but fortunately the horses were outside. The house is okay and no one’s been hurt. There’s a deep fissure where the training track used to be. It’s awful but at the same time it’s a miracle that we’re alive.”
Alec could barely make out the old trainer’s words when Henry added, “It looks like we’re goin’ to have to start all over again, Alec. An’ we’re lucky to be having a chance to do it.”
Alec hoped the old trainer could hear him, for what he had to say was important to both of them and to the future of Hopeful Farm.
“I want us to go on, Henry!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “But I want to ride for the joy of riding as I once did, as Pam did, not for the dollars in it.”
Henry’s voice was very faint but Alec could make out his words.
“Sure, Alec. I understand. I realize now what’s important and what isn’t. Anyone going through this nightmare would know that. If we survive all this, it might even be good for us, for everybody. We’ll all come to our senses as to what it really means to be alive.”
“That’s the way Pam felt.”
“I know, Alec. I know that now.”
The floor beneath Alec’s feet tilted as a sharp tremor came from deep within the earth.
Alec held on to the phone, knowing this too would pass.
“Henry, can you hear me?”
There was no answer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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.