He had his head turned sideways, his eyes closed. He didn’t know what made him try to open them again, but he was aware that when he did they formed two narrow slits in his cut and swollen face. He looked up the road, and a convulsion racked his body. Ahead were the red taillights of the truck! And beside the right front wheel a flashlight moved. He heard the sound of tools being thrown into a metal kit.
He tried to scream but had no strength left for the effort. Once more he started crawling. He saw the flashlight go off, and then came the slam of the cab’s door.
The tire had been fixed. The truck was going!
He staggered to his feet simultaneously with the sudden roar of the engine. He managed to run, weaving from one side of the road to the other, his eyes on the truck, his hands stretched out to it. He brought forth a pitiful scream from his constricted throat.
He was so close to it! A few yards now, a few more feet. But the truck was already moving, and its backboards were eluding his groping fingers. The heavy canvas which covered the back of the truck flapped in the wind as though waving good-bye to him.
With a last, desperate effort he let all his weight fall forward, his hands stretched out. If they grasped nothing he would stay on the road forever.…
The boards were beneath his hands! He closed his fingers and held on to them, his legs no longer carrying him. After a moment his dragging, burning feet forced him to exert himself again. Slowly he raised them until he got one on the lowest board. He waited, his breath coming in terrible gasps, then he brought up his other foot and stood on the back of the truck, his body pressed hard against the boards. Finally his hand went to a corner of the canvas flap. He pulled it aside, his eyes trying to penetrate the blackness of the interior. He’d get in there. He would walk forward until he reached the back of the cab. He would tell the driver that he was there, that he needed him.
Every movement brought horrible pain, but he got his body over the boards and let it fall under the canvas siding. He struck a large box, and now he realized that the truck was fully loaded, that there was no chance of his reaching the cab. Well, there was a place for him to lie down, anyway. He would stay there until the truck stopped again. He was safe. He had found help. He closed his eyes, and sleep came to him.
Miles upon miles rolled beneath the wheels of the long trailer truck. While one man drove, the other slept, and they alternated without stopping for even a moment. One would move from behind the big steering wheel while the other took it over, sliding into the seat from a bunk in the back of the cab. One man’s foot would leave the accelerator to be replaced promptly by the other’s. They were hardened drivers, with many thousands of miles and many years on the road behind them. Their world was this cab in which they had spent the greater part of their adult lives. Seldom did their eyes turn to the flats or canyons or mountains through which they passed. Only the road held their attention, the never-ending road that was their sole interest and life.
They traveled through the rest of the night, conscious only of each other’s snores, the road itself and the steady beat of the powerful engine. Ever southward they traveled, their experienced eyes aware of every twist and turn, every downgrade and climb, but never noticing the natural wonders about them, never seeing the moonlight, baring the beautiful tints of the mountain ranges through which they passed. They were too busy, and their eyes too deadened by the road to see mountain ranges as anything but obstacles in their way, to be climbed and left behind.
With the coming of dawn, they had left Wyoming and were in Utah. They stopped early for breakfast, but within a very few minutes were on their way again. They were anxious to reach Nevada and get rid of their cargo. Yet they knew that no sooner would the huge trailer be emptied than it would be filled again, and their long trip back to Chicago would begin.
All day long they pushed the truck hard, and only when night fell did they stop again to eat. Almost grudgingly they left the cab to go into a roadside diner and sit down at the counter. Glancing at the menu, one said, “I guess it’s the beef stew for me.”
The other looked up at the counterman. “Beef stew for two,” he said. “An’ make it fast. We’re in a hurry.”
Impatiently they awaited their orders. When their overloaded plates were put before them they began eating, paying no attention to anyone else in the diner or to the conversation that was taking place.
The counterman said to the customer a few stools away from them, “They haven’t found any trace of that kid and his horse yet.”
“Yeah, so I heard on the radio,” the customer replied. “But they’ll find them, all right. They got all kinds of planes looking, even helicopters.”
“I ain’t so sure they will,” the counterman said. “That’s rough country, that part of Wyoming is. Some say it’s the worst in the States.”
The customer nodded his head gravely. “I heard the kid and his horse started for the north. How’d they know that?”
“The pilots said so. After they got the plane down in the clearing they went back an’ found the door open. They saw the horse taking off in a northerly direction.”
“An’ the kid?”
“He was riding him. It was pretty dark, but they could see the kid on him.”
“Sure funny they’d take off like that.”
“Yeah, but that’s the way it happened,” the counterman said. “It’s lucky the pilots themselves got help by this morning.”
“Well, they had their radio. No reason why they shouldn’t have.”
“I guess so.”
The counterman got some coffee for the truck drivers who had shouted at him, and then returned. “You know all about that horse, don’t you?” he asked his customer.
“Only what I heard. He’s called the Black … a racehorse or something. Pretty well known, isn’t he?”
“I should say so,” the counterman replied quickly. “He’s a great—or at least he was at one time—a great racehorse. Now he’s a famous sire.”
“A what?”
“A sire, I said. Say, don’t you ever follow the races?”
“No.”
“Well, anyway, the Black fathered Satan … and Satan’s a champion.”
“Oh,” said the customer. “Well, all I hope is that they find the kid.”
“Sure,” agreed the counterman. “That’s all I care about, too.”
The customer left his stool. “I don’t think we need to worry much about him. That part of Wyoming may be desolate, but at least he’s got a horse under him. A good horse can find his way out of a lot of jams that people couldn’t.”
The counterman used his cleaning rag. “Yeah,” he said, “and what a horse, the best there is!”
“Hey, you!”
The counterman turned quickly to the two truck drivers. “Coming, gentlemen,” he said.
“Give us a check,” one said.
“Yes, sir.” He wanted no trouble with these men.
The truck drivers left the diner and, climbing into their cab, drove off into the night. In the back of the trailer, Alec Ramsay still slept. Many more miles piled up behind him, taking him ever farther away from Wyoming and the great search that had begun for him and the Black.
THE SEARCH
5
An hour after the plane had come down in its forced landing, the black stallion moved slowly through the woods. Crazed by his colic cramps, he had entered the woods in full gallop, seeking relief by speed and violent action. But the darkness and the density of the trees had slowed him to a walk. He’d sweated and pawed in his frustration. He had wanted to run and, failing that, to lie down and roll and kick. He’d found he could do neither, for the woods were solid and alive with thickly grown trees, giving him room only to wind his way among them. Thus, he had been forced to stay on his feet, to walk … and this light exercise, more than anything else, had brought his cramps to an end.
He forgot his pains quickly. Now his small, fine head was raised high, sniffing the air, his nostrils qu
ivering. He continued walking in a northerly direction, his ears pointed and alert to new and strange sounds … monotonous and low scraping notes, sharp staccato calls, and, in the distance, a forlorn and dismal howl. The howl came again, wailing in the wind. He was interested, but unafraid. He had known the great solitude of the wild in another land. Now he was entering a new and strange and beautiful country, but it held no terrors for him. He was alone and free. He remembered nothing of his domestic life, of barns or farms, or a boy who loved him. Before him was a world as thrilling, exciting and as wild as he.
Presently he came out of the woods to more open country. Yet he did not break from his walk, for the land before him was rocky and crisscrossed with gorges and canyons. For a long while he carefully made his way about the splintered rock that was merciless to his unshod feet. He came to a stop in a low-walled canyon, and his gaze traveled to the long black line of trees above the bared rims and crags of stone. He turned his head back in the direction from which he’d come.
He stood as still as the stone about him. For some time he kept sniffing the air; then he began walking again. No longer did he travel to the north, but back to the south. He entered a cleft in another canyon that took him through rotting cliffs. It cut down deep into the earth, and his path was strewn with gravel and rocks. Yet he never faltered, for his wild instinct told him this new trail would take him to the softer country beyond.
An hour later he came to the woods again, but at a point much farther away than where he had entered the gutted terrain. His great body trembled in his excitement at being able to choose any trail that beckoned him. He listened to the wind as it roared and lulled through the trees. He began climbing, his unerring instinct telling him of the pure running water and succulent grasses of the wilder ranges above. He was aware of the gray shadows that trailed him during his ascent. He was wary, but unafraid. He had the utmost confidence in his speed and endurance and cunning.
Throughout the rest of the night he traveled ever upward, and the air became clearer, sharper. Yet his climb was a gradual one, never steep. The pine trees still hemmed him in, affording him no outlook from his mountain threshold. It was almost morning when he came to the small meadow so typical of those he had known in the high country of his desert homeland. His shrill neigh echoed the profound joy that shook his body. He ran for the first time in many hours, and his long limbs carried him beautifully and swiftly across the carpet of short, thick grass.
Finally he stopped running to taste the pure water from rushing streams, to savor the cold air in his nostrils, and then finally to graze upon the wild grasses he loved. The few hours left of the night were spent on a bed of these grasses, fresh and sweet-scented. He rested with eyes closed, but his ears and nostrils remained alert, ready to catch the slightest noise or faintest scent.
With the first hour of grayness he was on his way once more, leaving the mountain valley to its solitude. High above him rose range after range, tier upon tier of cloud-shattering peaks, some snow-clad, and others bare and sheer. But the stallion had no use for the world above the timberline, a world consisting only of rock and snow and sky.
He trotted easily through the great woods, his hoofs making no sound on the springy cushion of pine needles. He no longer was slowed to a walk, for with the light of day he was able to choose his way easily through the aisles of trees. Why he ran when he had nowhere to go didn’t puzzle him. He ran because he loved to run, and some natural instinct kept him traveling ever southward. Flocks of birds rose from the thickets with a clatter. But he paid little attention to them, never slackening his easy strides.
Several hours later he came to an open plateau and stopped to graze upon the bleached mountain grass. Suddenly alert, he raised his head, holding long blades of the grass between his lips. Only his ears had caught the movement of his foe, for it was downwind. He whirled to meet the headlong rush of an enemy from the cover of the woods.
The trumpet roar of the bull moose was low and guttural at first. Quickly it rose to a high-pitched scream, only to descend to the roar again, and end with a grunt. He charged, his heavy antlers cleaving the air in their great spread and length.
The stallion took one look at this strange body that came hurtling toward him, a body taller than his own and made more startling by the thick, bony slabs that were pointed his way. He knew better than to rise and clash in deadlock with that horned head. Instead, he sprang swiftly away, avoiding the low-charging attack. He threw himself on the yellowish gray back in violent assault, hoping by his weight alone to bring it to the ground. But his foe began slipping away from him, so with raking teeth the stallion bit deeply into the moose’s dark-brown neck, ripping and tearing. As he moved off, his feet slipped, and before he could right himself, the horned head had slashed his belly. He screamed, whirled, and let fly his hind legs, landing so hard a blow that it sent his enemy down and rolling.
With savage speed he attacked again, his pounding forefeet seeking the rolling body. Again he landed crushing, pommeling blows, but his foe came up, and its pointed head found his flesh again. The stallion felt more pain and his fury mounted. His eyes were bloodred as he flung himself full upon his opponent. With crashing forefeet he battered it across the back of its neck, unmindful now of his own pain. Again he lodged his teeth into ravaged flesh.
Yet once more his foe succeeded in heaving up beneath him, forcing him to relinquish his hold and fall backward. He rolled on the ground, feeling the long horns after him, searching to rip open his stomach. Only the uncanny agility he had inherited from his desert forebears saved him them. He avoided the plunging head, and got to his feet. Now he was terrible in his cunning. He circled his foe warily, feinted and attacked from behind and from the side, avoiding altogether those sharp bony prongs that had already ripped open his body. He was watchful every second, waiting for his enemy to stumble, to be caught off guard. Then he would launch his assault.
With the black stallion using all of his cunning and strength, the end came quickly. No animal of the wild country could have met an adversary so worthy, so ruthless. The great bull moose knew this now that it was too late. He coughed, the choking cough of death. And with the sound of it, the black stallion came in again for a fresh and final assault. He feinted to the front, and the moose’s head went down to fend him off. The stallion swerved and dealt his foe a blow from the side, sending him staggering. Then he reared and his powerful forelegs came down together, splitting the bull moose’s skull.
For a moment the Black stood over the great body beneath him, and his loud, clarion call of conquest was heard for the first time in those regions. He went to the edge of the plateau. Before him was an abrupt, sheer drop of many thousands of feet to lower country. He stood there, his body bleeding from his wounds, his breath coming fast from his combat. He looked below at the canyons, then up and beyond, taking in the range upon range of mountains with their great woods and peaks, all that mysterious, wild country which seemed to have no end. As though in warning to its inhabitants, he screamed his high-pitched battle cry once more, and the great wilderness echoed his call, resounding from the mountainsides until the very air was alive with the ring of it. When finally it was still, he set out again, traveling as before to the south.
Back over the many miles the black stallion had come during the long night and part of a day, and near the clearing where the crippled plane lay, the search for Alec Ramsay and his horse was in progress. Already two local planes were flying low, winging their way over knife-edged ridges whose slopes and peaks loomed large in the windshields. The pilots had flown searches before above these desolate mountain ranges. They crisscrossed diligently, their eyes leaving the ground below only long enough to enable them to rudder hard and away from the menacing shoulder peaks.
Yet this time the pilots were not looking for the bright winking of metal from a crashed plane, nor for a swath cut among the treetops. No, this time it was even more difficult, for this country could swallow up a boy and a hors
e without a sign, a trace.
One pilot slanted down into the deep canyons. Only here, away from sheltered trees, did he have a chance of seeing them. Yet even this could not be called open country. There were too many crags and clefts, too many black gullies and canyons. His great hope was that the boy would see him, that he would be given some signal that they were there, and waiting to be found.
He told himself that this was not a futile search, that he or one of the many other pilots who would join the search within a few hours would certainly find the boy and horse. They must be somewhere below, their eyes on the sky, looking for him. If only they would give him some sign to tell him where they were!
He kept to the canyon country, leaving the great wooded mountainside to the other plane. He twisted and turned with the steep walls, kicking his plane hard away from them only to be confronted by the rising, forbidding mountains that hemmed in these canyons. For hours he climbed and dropped, and the afternoon slipped away as an increasing sense of futility mounted within him.
Finally he rose again and held his plane at cruising speed. He began circling, and noticed that the other plane was now doing the same. They had given up baring their wings and lives to the sides of the mountains. Now they would cruise and watch for a sign, a signal from below that would tell them where to go.
Certainly if the boy was alive he must see them searching for him. And if he wasn’t … The thought only added to the pilot’s weariness. The pattern then, he knew, would be the familiar one of long searches on foot rather than from the sky. Long days and weeks of searching, perhaps without finding a trail, a clue, anything at all in this vast wilderness. But the ground search, although heartbreaking and futile, would be necessary because of relatives left behind, and the newspapers that demanded it. If this were settled country it would be different. There’d be some hope then. But it wasn’t settled. In every direction it was an unexplored wilderness, feared and avoided by hunters and trappers, by all.