Back at the ranch, McGregor stayed with his horse, moving with him about the corral, finding solace in his very nearness. Often he just watched the stallion standing so still in the sun, his black coat shining as though afire. His stallion was no wild horse, no mustang who had spent years roaming endless ranges. Every inch of him denoted his fine blood and breeding … the small head, the great eyes and body. His every move disclosed it.
He rubbed the stallion’s neck. Riding him today had been like riding the wind! The black stallion had passed Hot Feet as though the bay horse had been standing still. He had been called upon to run, and he had flown, snorting, wanting to fight as he had drawn close to Hot Feet. McGregor had called in his ear and the stallion had responded, leaving Hot Feet alone, and running the way the boy had wanted him to run. McGregor knew he could handle this stallion, his stallion. He knew this much but no more. He couldn’t remember when or where it had all started. But soon he would know. Every day he came a little closer to knowing, to remembering.
He ran his hands down one of the stallion’s long legs, and lifted a hoof. He began cleaning it. Every small job was familiar, and brought him that much closer to remembering. He would put shoes on his stallion for the race. He wouldn’t have any trouble. He’d done it before.
There were moments when he found himself looking forward to racing this horse. He couldn’t understand why. But he didn’t attempt to fight it. He accepted his mounting excitement, the compelling urge to race. He knew that he had not felt this way when Allen had asked him to ride Hot Feet. Why was racing his black horse so different? Why did just the thought of it sometimes send his blood rushing, driving the very dangers of the race away from him?
Yet there were other moments when he felt fear and panic take over his body, when he thought of running away. But he realized he couldn’t leave his horse now. Finally he came to a decision. He would tell Allen that he and the stallion should be kept away from all the horses and people at Preston until the race was called. Otherwise he wouldn’t be responsible for what the stallion might do. Allen would understand and agree. His stake in the match race was too high for him not to go along with anything McGregor might propose in the best interests of the stallion.
Actually, it was only what might happen after the race that McGregor feared. He tried to convince himself that there was a good chance nobody would be able to identify him in Allen’s racing silks. And he’d leave the track right after the race. He’d get the stallion to act up and no one would come very close to them. They’d return to the ranch, and someday soon, if Allen had meant what he’d said, the stallion would be his!
He finished cleaning the perfect hoofs. He started toward the corral fence and found the black horse following him. He stopped, and then walked on again. He heard the stallion behind him. Once more he stopped, this time to turn and go back to him, pressing his head against the black neck.
LIGHTENING SHADOW
17
The following days were unlike any that had gone before. There wasn’t a man on the ranch who didn’t know of Saturday’s match race and the conditions under which it would be run. They gave any excuse to get near the black stallion’s corral. In large groups they watched him, accepting him for what he was, a wild stallion, a beautiful stallion, but never broken, not ready to carry Allen’s racing colors at Preston.
But Allen never asked their opinions, and his grim face deterred them from offering voluntary advice. He realized he had not been successful in keeping anything from anybody. He supposed that Elsie had given him away, and regretted that he hadn’t been mindful of her listening to his conversation with Herbert at the time. However, it made no great difference. It was only an annoyance. He didn’t like the looks of skepticism on the faces of his men.
Now that he had committed himself to the match race, he watched over the boy and the black stallion more than ever, worrying about them. These last few days were serious business. Nothing must happen to either of them. The kid had his own peculiar ideas about Saturday’s race, and Allen had agreed to them readily. There was too much at stake to do otherwise. At McGregor’s suggestion, they would van the stallion to Preston the night before the race rather than a day early, as he’d intended to do. They would park the van in the outlying district of the track and keep the stallion there until the race was called. All this was to prevent him from becoming overexcited by the presence of other horses and the crowd.
Perhaps McGregor’s ideas weren’t so peculiar at that, for they were racing a stallion who only a short time ago had been running wild. Yet it was hard for Allen to think of this horse as being wild and unbroken, as his men did. He had spent too many hours watching the boy handle him with an ease that made every horse on the place, including Hot Feet, seem much more wild. But he mustn’t forget that the black stallion accepted only the boy, that no one else could get near him, much less ride him. If anything happened to McGregor, handling the stallion would be a far different story.
Early Friday morning they rode to the north of the ranch where there was no grass, only hard-packed sand. Here they had laid out a mile course, and the black stallion had been trained before the eyes of just two spectators, Allen and Larom.
For this last gallop at the ranch, McGregor took the great stallion far beyond the starting mark. He kept him at a lope, waiting for him to get warm. His own blood became heated at the feel of the reins and the creaking of saddle leather. He rose in his stirrups and the irons felt worn and familiar on the balls of his feet. With a loose rein, he held the stallion down to a lope by his voice alone. He never worried him. He looked between the small, pricked ears at the hills in the distance. He felt a strong urge to let the stallion go on, never to turn back. No one would catch them! They would go to the hills, and then turn to the western range. They would climb, and then descend into that vast, unknown country of the great canyons. No one would find them there.
He spoke to his horse, and turned him in a wide circle, still loping. He saw Allen and Larom two miles away, waiting for them to come down. He guided the stallion toward them. What would he gain by taking his horse into the desolate canyon country? Freedom for a while, but certain death in the end. For just as it was true that no one would find them, he would not be able to find his way out. It was far better to stay here, to take a chance that the race would come and go without his being caught by the police. Only Gordon was aware of the crime he had committed, and Gordon was keeping quiet.
He moved forward a little more, and the stallion responded with longer strides. He thought of the race to come against Night Wind. Why did that name seem so familiar? Had he known Night Wind? Had he ridden Night Wind just as he was now riding the black stallion? Had he once been a jockey? He must have been, for there was nothing strange about this racing bridle and saddle. How long ago and where? And why had he been in Salt Lake City? Why had he regained consciousness in the back of a trailer truck? He remembered the money Gordon was keeping for him, and it was easy to figure out the answers. He had been a jockey. He had run out of money. He had helped some men rob a diner. He had been in a fight. He had succeeded in getting away by hopping a truck.
He clucked to the stallion and sat down to ride. He felt the slight twinge of head pain, the first in more than a week. He had thought himself completely well except for not being able to remember. But he wasn’t. The pain had returned.
The stallion snorted, and showed fight, but there was no slackening of stride. The boy looked ahead and saw Larom already on the course with Hot Feet. For the past few days Hot Feet had acted as the stallion’s prompter. Hot Feet was taken to the last three hundred yards of the mile course, and never asked to run all out. It had been Allen’s idea. He wanted to use Hot Feet but didn’t care to have him race the black stallion even at three hundred yards. He didn’t want to be convinced of the black stallion’s superior speed at so short a distance.
Larom allowed Allen this indulgence by never admitting Hot Feet was going all out when the black stall
ion passed them. But Larom knew, as did McGregor, that Hot Feet could not stay within the stallion’s shadow at any distance.
Today was no exception. The boy gave the stallion his head at the start of the mile course. He felt the sudden release of powerful muscles. He heard the stallion’s furious snorts at just the sight of Hot Feet running far ahead of him. McGregor bent low against the straining neck and called repeatedly, knowing that only the sound of his voice would remind the stallion of the boy who was riding him.
The black horse was in full stride now, and he closed the distance to Hot Feet in electrifying seconds. Reaching Hot Feet’s hindquarters, his strides shortened. The boy spoke to him, and he went on, leaving Hot Feet behind as if the small bay horse had come to a sudden, full stop.
McGregor rode him out for another mile, and then trotted him back to where Larom was standing. The ranch foreman watched every movement of the stallion, and finally he said, “Nothing could have beaten him today.”
“If he runs that way tomorrow,” McGregor began, “we’ll …”
“When he runs that way tomorrow, y’mean,” Larom interrupted. “It ain’t goin’ to be any other way ever, not as long as you’re up on him. He wants to run for you. Ain’t no doubt about that. He’s a killer, an outlaw.… Everything he does shows that. But he’ll do what you want, because you ask him to do it. Jus’ look how you got him under saddle the other day. Never a fight, nothin’. He jus’ took it ’cause you asked him. I’ve seen horses take a likin’ to certain people before, but nothin’ ever like this.”
McGregor touched his horse, and the stallion moved in quick, springy strides to the front of Hot Feet. How could he tell Larom that this was no outlaw horse he rode? How could he explain to him that this stallion had worn saddle and bridle before, and that he had ridden him before?
From behind him came the man’s voice again. “I wouldn’t miss tomorrow’s race for the whole state of Arizona. Ain’t goin’ to be nothin’ like it again, not once they see what you and him do to that track. I guess I’d give up anything, if I had to, jus’ to see it.”
McGregor said nothing. He felt the same way. He knew it was more than Allen’s orders that were taking him to Preston to ride. He wanted to race the stallion. He was excited about it. He was a fool. He might be giving up everything, including his freedom.
Late that same afternoon, Allen drove the van to the corral where the boy and stallion awaited him. It was a large van with room for six horses. Allen had bought it when he had purchased his broodmares a year ago. Now it was to carry the black stallion to Preston.
Only a few riders had been able to come off the range to watch the loading. The others would start for Preston later that night. Larom waved the riders back from the barred gate. He waited until Allen had the van’s side door opposite the gate, and then took down the bars.
In the center of the corral, McGregor held his horse. He waited for them to lower the van’s ramp, to adjust the heavy fiber matting, and then he led his horse toward it. He knew he wasn’t going to have any trouble loading him. He knew Allen and Larom would shake their heads at the wonder of it all, just as they had done when he’d thrown Allen’s maroon racing blanket over the stallion without any trouble, without a restless movement from the horse. They should have known then that there was no magic about it, that he’d done all this many times before to the same horse … somewhere, long ago.
Larom was standing on one side of the ramp, and Allen on the other. Neither wanted to allow the stallion to get through the openings there. They expected trouble. Seeing them, the stallion shied, moving with marvelous ease and swiftness.
“Move away from the ramp,” McGregor told them.
Reluctantly, and afraid of what might happen, they moved to the sides of the corral. The boy went forward then, the stallion following on a slack lead rope. McGregor walked up the ramp without turning around, but he knew his horse was right behind him. He heard the light hoofs come down on the matting calmly and deliberately, as he had expected. Yet the sound of them, and the closeness of the stallion’s blanketed body once they were inside the van, caused his head to pound. He raised a hand to his forehead. Where had this all happened before? He was so close to remembering!
As he turned his horse around and backed him into the straight stall at the front of the van, his head pounded even more. A narrow, straight stall. A stallion cross-tied. A great roar, a drone of engines. All these he could remember. Not so long ago. He closed his eyes. He waited. He prayed for it all to come back to him.
“Set, Mac?”
He opened his eyes. Larom was standing in the doorway. The starter ground. The engine caught, steadied, idled.
Larom said, “I’d better ride up with the boss. He’s so jittery I ain’t trustin’ his drivin’ over the mountains.”
The door closed. He was alone again. He could wait. He had time. It would be five hours before they reached Preston. So much could happen to him in five hours. He might be able to remember everything in five hours. He turned to the stallion, wanting his help more than ever before.
The van moved down the dirt road toward Leesburg and the mountain range beyond.
That evening Gordon sat down and reached again for the stack of Thoroughbred Records on the table beside him. He wasn’t looking for a picture of McGregor. He was trying to forget McGregor and was being more successful than he’d hoped. He’d found the contents of the magazine more interesting than he’d remembered. He made a mental note to subscribe to the Thoroughbred Record. It wouldn’t disrupt his quiet life to keep up with what was going on in the racing world.
He hadn’t riffled the pages of all the issues looking for a picture of McGregor. He had convinced himself that it wouldn’t matter much if he did find McGregor’s picture in the magazine. So the kid had been a jockey. A jockey turned thief and murder accomplice. Finding his picture would mean only that he would know McGregor’s real name. So he had decided to proceed in his usual, orderly way, and begin at the beginning. He had spent the first night reading every word of the January 1st issue, and the second night the following week’s issue. Tonight the issue of January 15th lay on his lap.
This procedure, he thought, would give him a complete picture of what had happened in racing this year. He would go along with the Thoroughbreds from week to week, coming to the big races in their proper sequence. It would be almost as good as though he had attended them. He would never cheat by skipping issues to learn who had won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont and other classics.
This way, too, he told himself, would help him to forget McGregor and what he’d done to the kid. But tomorrow, he realized, would be the worst time of all for him. Tomorrow the kid would race, and his running from the police would come to an end.
He picked up the magazine from his lap. He studied the cover, driving his disciplined mind to note every muscle of the Thoroughbred horse pictured there. It was a dark stallion, wearing racing bridle but no saddle. He was solid, good-looking. He seemed to be a big horse, standing perhaps over sixteen hands. The bridle reins hung loosely over his thick neck and crest. He had good eyes and a wide, intelligent head. A white stripe ran from forehead to muzzle, and there was white on all four legs, adding emphasis to his dark body. He had sloping shoulders, powerful hind muscles and low-set hocks. He was a very racy type. He was all Thoroughbred.
It was not until Gordon read the print at the bottom of the cover that he realized he was looking at a picture of Night Wind. The caption read, “Night Wind—He’ll Be Back.”
Gordon’s long, thin fingers pressed deeply into the magazine until the whites of his nails showed. Finally he turned over the cover. It was no time to be reminded of Night Wind. Yet when he came to the story inside regarding The Cover Horse he read it quickly as though to get it over with and then forget about it.
Night Wind, voted Horse-of-the-Year, is recovering satisfactorily from an injury suffered at Santa Anita. He is at the High Crest Ranch in Texas, and his owner
, Ralph Herbert, expects to have him back at the ranch track by spring. If he trains well he’ll be sent to California sometime during the summer months for another campaign.
Night Wind is a five-year-old son of Count Fleet–Lovely Lady by Sir Galahad III. He was bred by his owner, Ralph Herbert. He is trained by …
Gordon turned the page. He had had enough of Night Wind for tonight, tonight of all nights! A large advertisement caught his attention, and his sun-bleached, heavy eyebrows came up quickly as he read the headline: “His Daughter Won the Kentucky Derby BUT His Fee Still Remains at $500!” Beneath it was a picture of a black horse, the black horse he had seen at Allen’s ranch!
Still holding the magazine, Gordon got to his feet, trying to control the trembling of his hands. He told himself that the resemblance between the two stallions was remarkable, but it didn’t necessarily mean they were one and the same horse! This picture was of the Black, one of the foremost sires in the country—sire of Black Minx, the filly who had won the Kentucky Derby, and sire of Satan, a world’s champion before his retirement!
He looked again at the picture, his bright eyes missing nothing. He remembered the black horse at Allen’s, and compared the two stallions. The heads were surely the same … small, noble and arrogant. Yes, and the eyes, too … very large and set wide apart. Ears were the very same. And their bodies were alike in every detail.
He couldn’t sit down. He tried to remember clearly the black stallion he had seen McGregor riding. He saw him again, coming toward him, his body low, and head held high.… That long and slender neck arched even at full gallop.… The long mane so heavy yet windblown in his great speed.