Alec caught up to Pam just as she reached the training track. She glanced back and said, “I expected you a long time ago. You missed Black Sand, the best part.”
“I’ll see him tomorrow.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m glad you’re staying.”
Her voice had the gay, friendly, singing quality he remembered. He looked at her, suddenly aware of what he’d said about tomorrow, as if he’d had no intention of telling her that she must leave today.
She wore no ponytail that morning, he noticed. Her long, thick, wild blond hair waved and floated below her shoulders. Her clothes were jeans, a white blouse and brown, worn loafers. No boots; no masculinity. And in the filly’s mane were braided flowers of yellow, pink and blue.
She swung her shoulders and turned Black Pepper around. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go! It’s a beautiful day.” Her wonderful gaiety blossomed under the morning sun, and Alec was glad he had decided to ride with her.
They came to a stop behind the four-horse starting gate. Max, the man who operated it, was there waiting for them.
“Have you had any trouble with her?” Alec asked, nodding to the filly.
“Lots,” she said, “but she’ll come around. It takes time.” She ran her hand down the filly’s right foreleg as far as she could reach. “She’s a little sore here,” Pam said.
“The trouble’s not down there,” Alec said, “but in her head.”
Surprisingly, because he knew she loved all horses despite their faults, she agreed emphatically with him. “I sure know that,” Pam said. “She has a mental block of some kind. Maybe it’s something like claustrophobia in a person. She can’t take that narrow stall with the doors closed.”
“Let’s try it,” Alec said. “If she can’t stand still, she’ll never start.”
He watched Pam ride toward the gate, her hand stroking the filly with astonishing delicacy, trying to reassure Black Pepper that there was nothing to fear from the contraption ahead. The filly whinnied with high spirits but Alec wondered how long it would last. Perhaps forever with such a girl in the saddle—if he could only have given her time.
His big-boned colt moved forward in powerful but ungainly strides, so different from those of the slender filly ahead of him. Black Pepper moved with deerlike grace, her eyes very feminine, gentle and timid. Yet she would be rough to handle, Alec decided, if she went into one of her uncalled-for tantrums. Somehow, they must channel all the fire burning inside her—the hustling, bustling blood of her dam—into competing against other horses. She shouldn’t expend all her energy in the starting gate.
Walking up to Black Pepper, Max took hold of the filly’s bridle and sought to lead her into the gate. She swung around in a tight circle, dragging him with her.
Pam didn’t seem to be disturbed by her mount’s antics. She was patting the filly, taking her time and speaking softly. Her figure concealed the small saddle on which she sat, so that it looked as if she and the filly shared the same skin.
Black Pepper suddenly twisted and yanked Max off his feet, whirling him around. Pam needed all her skill to keep from being thrown. The filly reared, twisting in the air, and Max had to let go of the bridle.
In the most primitive of instincts, Pam flung her arms around the filly’s neck and clung with her hands to the warm, moist flesh. For a moment she and Black Pepper were a single, astonishing creature, their heads side by side, mane and hair entwined, streaming and winging, black and gold.
Alec moved his colt forward and was at her side when the filly came down. “Wow!” Pam said. “I thought she was going to get rid of me that time.” Alec noticed that she hid her face from him as long as possible.
“I probably would have been dumped if I’d been on her,” he said reassuringly.
She raised her head, and her face was cold and wet. “I’m glad you’re here to help,” she said. “Every day it’s been like this, and it’s doing her schooling no good.”
“I’ll go with you this time,” Alec said, moving his big colt closer to the filly and taking hold of her bridle. His mount might be young and clumsy, but he was quiet enough to handle the duties of a stable pony.
They neared the starting stall and the filly fought to break free of Alec’s hold on her bridle. Both he and Pam sought control as Black Pepper lunged directly at the gate, instead of away from it. They managed to stop her before she reached it and backed her up, only to have her fight for her head and plunge forward again.
“Crazy, that’s what she is,” Alec said when they’d brought her to a stop. “First, she won’t go near it and now she wants to tear it down.”
“Afraid is more like it,” Pam answered. “Horses can have a psychosis same as people, and she’s got a big one. Let me try it another way.”
She began whistling softly to the filly, her notes barely audible and without any shrillness. Then she spoke to Black Pepper, her words as tender and enchanting as her whistling had been.
“The time for fear or play or whatever it is that’s bothering you is over,” she said. “Wait until I tell you to go. There is no hurry, nothing to be afraid of.”
Alec waited in silence, knowing that while the filly did not understand Pam’s words, the sound of the girl’s voice meant something to Black Pepper. What Pam would achieve by this kind of communication, if anything, was unpredictable. It worked with some horses and not with others, depending upon the depth of feeling and the rider’s ability to communicate.
He could do nothing but wait. The filly was now in Pam’s charge, to handle as she thought best. His job for the present was to stay out of it, while she tried to achieve what had to be done. If she needed help, he would know, and was there to give it. There must be no accident, nothing that would further complicate the education of Black Pepper. He had known other young horses as difficult to school but none any worse. It would take time and patience, but the rewards would be great if and when Black Pepper raced.
With her voice, her legs and her hands, Pam continued speaking to the filly for a long while, without attempting to move her forward. Black Pepper raised her head, turning it back slightly, as if listening to what Pam had to say. Alec, still holding the filly, felt the hot air coming from her wide-open nostrils.
Pam talked, hummed and whistled, never pausing; all with such a rich harmony of happiness and youth, of friendship and joy that Alec found himself responding to her gaiety.
Finally, Pam moved Black Pepper forward. But the filly came to an abrupt stop directly before the open stall, her fear of it evident in the sweating of her flanks. Again, Pam talked to her and the moments passed.
Alec moved his own mount inside the stall, hoping the filly would follow. He could see her out of the corner of his eyes, moving forward foot by foot. Finally, Pam had Black Pepper inside, but with the front and back doors wide open. At least the filly was in the stall, even if she wouldn’t stay there for long.
Alec heard Max close the doors behind them and expected Black Pepper to bolt forward at the clank of the metal frames. Surprisingly, she remained still, if not altogether straight and balanced.
Max was on the track before them, ready to close the front doors. He looked at Alec questioningly.
“Close mine first,” Alec said.
The grilled flaps closed in front of his big colt, who made no attempt to bolt through them. “Good boy,” Alec said, patting him. The stall quarters were confining but his mount was neither nervous nor curious. He was simply waiting to be turned free. Here was one to be reckoned with next year, Alec decided.
He looked away from the grilled screen to watch Black Pepper as Max carefully closed her stall door, making no sound except for a slight click, which was drowned out by Pam’s constant murmurings to the filly.
“Okay, Max,” he called softly. “If she stays still, open right away. Don’t wait for her to get straightened out.” He didn’t want to give the filly a chance to fly to pieces inside. If she could just get away while she was quiet, she migh
t learn there was nothing to fear from the gate.
“Come out slowly with her, Pam,” he called. “Don’t push her.”
Pam didn’t pause in her murmurings. Black Pepper banged her hoofs against the sides of the stall, then was quiet. The filly wasn’t as straight as she should be, but she could come out without hurting herself. For the time being that was all Alec asked.
“Now, Max,” he called. “Open up.”
THE BITING EDGE
8
The starting bell clanged and the doors flew open. Instinctively, without wanting to do it or any need for it, Alec shouted, “Yah! Yah!” as he loosened rein and prodded the big colt forward. Black Out charged from the gate sluggishly but in a straight line.
Alec turned his head quickly to look for the filly. She had left the stall almost at a walk but was now coming on. However, she made for the outside of the track before Pam could get her aimed down the stretch. He saw her slip dangerously but recover.
Alec sat very still, waiting for his big, ungainly colt to find his balance and settle in stride. He inched up the reins, restraining him in case Black Out had any notion to go faster. All Alec wanted from him was an easy, slow half-mile in 55 or 56 seconds, and the same for the filly.
They flashed by the first furlong pole with three more furlongs to go. Instinctively, Alec began counting off the seconds, down to fifths of seconds, keeping time in his mind. Every jockey needed to know the pace of his mount, whether running at full speed or not. The triple throbbing beat of the colt’s hoofs over the track was irregular, but in the months to come he would find his balance and true stride. Alec gave him no more rein than he had from the start, keeping him between a gallop and a run, in what they called a “breeze.”
He heard the beat of the filly’s hoofs before Black Pepper drew alongside. He felt a sudden competitive urge to give his colt more rein but fought it down. He glanced at Pam and knew that, like him, she was enjoying the taste of the racing wind, their two horses running stride for stride.
The filly pushed out her small head in front of the colt, as if determined to beat him, her sweated neck glittering like black satin in the rays of the sun. Her desire to compete was a good sign. She might even make a great race horse in time, Alec decided—perhaps the equal of her dam, Black Minx.
The seconds ticked away in Alec’s mind as the two horses remained locked together, moving as a team around the first sharp turn, both of them inexperienced and running wide. His colt lost a little ground to the filly and he let out a notch in the reins to catch up. They were very evenly matched at this stage of their training.
Racing down the backstretch, Alec called to Pam as they passed the quarter-mile pole, “Thirty and a tick. Let her out a notch.”
She nodded her head without turning to him, her blond hair whipping in the wind alongside the black mane. The filly raced a half-length ahead. Alec moved his horse faster, but still kept a little behind, knowing it would give the filly heart and confidence to think she was winning. His own colt was running well within himself and showed no interest in going faster. That would come in time, Alec decided. For now, Black Out was content doing only that which was asked of him.
The filly was something else. For all her antics and stubbornness at the gate, she was running for the sheer love and excitement of it. Pam was having a difficult time holding her back. She was fighting, trying to get her head down and be allowed to run as she pleased.
He saw Pam give in a little, letting her have more rein and drawing a full length in front of the colt. He wondered if she carried a stopwatch in her closed hand, and had any idea what she was ticking off in seconds as they passed the third furlong pole with an eighth of a mile to go.
Coming off the final turn, Pam moved the filly still farther ahead, and Alec decided she must be carrying a watch. He, too, moved his mount faster, lengthening strides until he was alongside her. The pace was just right to finish the half-mile in a shade under 55 seconds.
The track was deep and rough going down the homestretch, making it all the more difficult for Alec’s colt to keep his lumbering balance. Alec steadied him, helping him find a path over ground that would not give way beneath his flying hoofs.
They passed the finish pole and, slowing their horses, galloped out another furlong before coming to a stop and turning back.
“Just about right,” Alec said. “What’d we do?… Fifty-five on the nose?”
She pressed her head against the filly’s neck, breathing in the smell of horse, the odor of wet hair and hide. “I think so,” she said finally. “It seemed about that to me.”
“You mean you don’t have a watch?”
“It’s in the barn. I forgot it,” she said, straightening in her saddle. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“If you can keep time in your head as good as that, you don’t need it,” Alec said quietly.
She rode off the track ahead of him, slim, collected and, Alec decided, very proud. She had a right to be, for she’d not only taken the filly from the gate well but had worked in the required time without a watch, and he had been there to see it done. He rode after her, admiring the free and easy way she sat her horse, a horsewoman whose ride had no goal but the joy of riding. He had never seen a rider and mount more perfectly matched. For all her natural ability, she’d had professional guidance. He was certain of it.
“How about your father?” he called to her. “Does he ride?”
“He sure does,” she answered, without turning her head.
“Is he a professional horseman by any chance?”
“Dad? Oh, no,” she said, laughing. “He’d be the first to admit he’s no professional. But some of his best friends are,” she added. “That’s where I’ve been lucky because they taught me all I know. Captain Bill Heyer was one of them and Stanley White another. Do you know them?”
“No,” Alec replied, “but there are many good horsemen I don’t know.”
Alec continued riding behind her, regretting that he had to tell her she must leave after all she had accomplished. He felt worse as her happiness with the beauty of the morning reached him.
He listened as she exclaimed at the splendor of the great sweep of rolling fields. She pointed out the winged clouds sailing above the wooded ridge in the morning sky. She commented on tree tops and bushes bursting into fiery lights of reds and greens and yellows as the sun reached them and they emerged from morning shadows into bright day. So many things he knew were there but had not really looked at in a long time.
At the barn, they untacked their horses and washed them down, hosing and sponging and swiping them clean. Together they walked them dry before putting them back in their clean box stalls. They talked of horses and the joy of sharing them, but said nothing about the serious business of training and racing. Neither did Alec mention that she must leave by the end of the day.
It was becoming more and more difficult for him. He had allowed her time to become involved in her day’s work, and now he was involved in it as well, sharing it with her. Perhaps, he thought, when the work was done it would be easier.
“Five more colts to go,” she said, walking through the barn. “Will you ride with me?”
“Why not?” he asked, laughing. “I enjoy it as much as you do.” He did not say it to please her but because he meant it with all his heart. Standing with her in the midst of the smells, sounds, lights and shadows that filled the barn, he felt more at peace than he had in a long time. It was the completeness of enjoying the horses for the companions they were rather than thinking of them as racing machines whose value depended on how much money they would make for Hopeful Farm. How long had he been thinking of them almost exclusively in those terms, he wondered.
She was looking at him as if she knew what was going on in his mind. He felt guilty and self-conscious. She couldn’t have guessed, he thought. She was keen but certainly not clairvoyant.
“Don’t you believe me?” he asked finally. “I mean about enjoying mys
elf.”
“Oh, I believe you all right,” she answered. “You just look as if you’re a little surprised to have said it—almost as if you didn’t quite believe it yourself. Perhaps it’s been a long time since you’ve thought of horses as …”—she turned to the horses and back again—“… well, friends.”
He didn’t answer. Suddenly he was angered by her words, her accusation. It was easy for her to say such things, he thought. She had no farm to run, no payroll to meet. She had freedom of movement without any commitments or responsibilities to others.
His face became tense and hard, and he knew this was the opportune time to tell her she had to go, to explain that with Henry feeling the way he did it just wouldn’t work out for her to stay.
With Henry feeling the way he did. But why place all the blame on Henry? Alec realized that he had just been using Henry’s arguments in justifying his own actions to himself. Was Pam so wrong in what she’d said? Did he have such a need for success, for security, that he had forgotten the most important thing in his life? Was he angered at her or at himself?
She had walked over to Black Sand’s stall and he followed her, still undecided as to what he should say and hating himself for his indecision. Always before he had been positive in his decisions and he had no use for those who wavered in making up their minds. Was this too part of his training—black was black and white was white, with no shading, no time for doubt or understanding or compassion?
Pam had entered the stall and was braiding a flower in Black Sand’s mane. Alec watched but said nothing. It made no difference to him if all the horses in the barn wore flowers, but how would Henry have taken it? There was no point in this girl’s ever having a luxurious home when she so obviously preferred a horse barn, he decided. Her whole life was united with manes and shining coats and whinnies. They were only horses and yet without them what would life be like for Pam? Or for that matter for himself.
She turned toward him while taking her hands from Black Sand. He caught the colt’s gleaming eyes and said, “Watch out, Pam.”