He glanced up at the sun as he entered the gorge. From its height he decided that it was early afternoon. But was it the same day? Had it been only this morning that he had set out looking for Flame? Surely it was much longer ago than that!
Steve followed the twisting, turning dry stream bed and passed the yellow overhanging cliffs. Gradually his eyes began to lose their glazed look.
“Yes,” he finally admitted aloud, “it has to be the same day. Just as it was only two days ago that I first set foot on Azul Island.”
Only two days ago—then this was his third day here. It was incomprehensible to Steve. Surely hours and days were no way of measuring time! Time should be reckoned by events that happen to a person, and not by the lapse of hours! It seemed months ago—almost years—since he and Pitch had headed for the sandy spit of land that was known as the only habitable part of Azul Island.
When Steve came to the marsh, he saw that the vapors were rising only from the low end of the hollow, near the cane. He made his way down the long stretches of soft green ground which still bore Flame’s hoofprints. Now for the top of the rise leading from the hollow. From there he would be able to see the floor of the valley—and he would be looking for the Piebald. It would be the black-and-white-streaked stallion who would dictate the direction he would take in his journey back to camp.
He was eager to reach Pitch. He would tell him how he had found Flame and helped him, just as he’d said he was going to do. He’d tell Pitch he needed his help now; it would mean going back to the cavern this very same day and probably spending the night there. Surely Pitch would understand that Flame had to be swung clear of the pit today.
“I’ll help Flame return to his band,” Steve told himself. “I’ll take care of his wounds.”
It had been only a short time ago that Steve had recoiled in fear at the viciousness of the stallion, yet now there was no fear within him as he thought of aiding Flame. Along with many details of the scene in the cave, his fear also was forgotten.
Reaching the flat top of the hollow, he stood looking at the grassy plain stretching before him. A little to his left was the cane, and beyond that the green velvet floor of the valley. Far off, a silken sheet of water fell from the high tunnel to the pool below.
It was a few minutes before Steve saw the Piebald and his newly acquired band, for they had moved away from the pool and were grazing far across the valley. The boy quickened his pace when he realized that it would be safe for him to stay on his side of the valley.
When he came to the cane he bent low beneath it to keep out of sight. The Piebald was upwind from him, so Steve knew his scent would not betray his presence. All he had to do was to keep from being seen. The Piebald was too far away to give him any trouble.
As Steve drew parallel with the band, he stopped for a moment to look over the cane at the black-and-white stallion.
Heavy-bodied, the Piebald grazed alone, only occasionally turning his heavy head to the band. His white tail whisked the flies away from his streaked body and he stomped the earth with his hind legs to rid himself of the flies that avoided his long tail. His short, thick neck bulged with muscle as he stretched his head to the ground. Suddenly he stopped grazing, bringing his head up with a start. He stood motionless for a while, grass protruding from his mouth, his jaws locked. Finally he turned his head to Steve’s side of the valley and watched intently; then he turned his head still farther, looking down the valley. Again he stood still, and only his small, beady eyes moved. After a long while he began chewing on the grass in his mouth, and when that was swallowed forgot his inquisitiveness and began grazing again.
Steve had bent low beneath the cane, and proceeded up the valley only when the Piebald went back to his grazing.
“It’ll be different next time,” Steve muttered to himself. Already he was thinking of the coming fight between Flame and the Piebald. “You won’t have his band much longer,” he went on, as though talking to the Piebald. “He’ll come back as fresh as you were in the first fight. He belongs with his band. He was meant to be their leader.”
And as he approached the waterfall, Steve’s spirits rose. Soon he would be with Pitch and together they would help Flame return to his band. With Flame as its leader again, this perfect breed of horse would go on. Just now, it was what Steve wanted more than anything else in the world.
When he was almost opposite the pool he straightened, running through the cane toward the trail that would take him to the cliff above and to Pitch.
“Pitch! Pitch!” Steve began calling at the bottom of the rocky trail, his face turned upward to the looming black hole that was their camp. His tired legs carried him up the trail with a speed that was generated by his eagerness to reach Pitch. But there was no reply to his frequent shouts, no sight of his friend’s thin, frail body.
But he’s got to be here, Steve thought desperately. At least, he can’t be far away.
When Steve reached the cave he came to a stop. On the floor were Pitch’s pack and rope. Beside them stood the stove and several empty cans, evidence that Pitch had recently eaten. Steve turned to the blackness of the cave’s interior. Surely Pitch wasn’t in there or there would be a light. Then where was he?
Steve had walked out upon the wide ledge in front of the cave when he heard a shout from above. Pitch! Whirling, Steve peered up at the yellow walls rising above him.
“Yo!” Pitch called again. “Over here!”
Steve shifted his gaze to the right, from where the stream flowed out of the walls above the tunnel. And there stood Pitch, flat against what seemed to Steve to be a sheer, bare sheet of stone! He wanted to yell, but was afraid that anything he did might upset Pitch’s balance. So he remained still and silent while he watched Pitch move slowly across the wall like a human fly.
A few minutes later Pitch had reached the tunnel and was coming down the trail to the cave.
“Steve!” Pitch shouted when he was still fifty yards away. “What I’ve found! What treasures! And it’s only the beginning!”
And then Pitch had reached the ledge, the pockets of his jacket bulging, and his eyes met Steve’s. Pitch saw the concern on his friend’s taut face, and his own became puzzled before breaking into a wry smile.
“You thought I was a goner up there, didn’t you?” he asked. “Well, it’s safer than it looks from here, Steve. There’s a wide ledge—the side of it must have been built up by the Spaniards—so it’s as easy as walking down a flight of stairs. There are some small caves up there, Steve, and you should see—”
Pitch, whose hands had gone to his pockets, broke off abruptly, puzzled again by the expression on Steve’s face.
“You didn’t run into any trouble, did you?” he asked with concern. “I saw that Piebald devil moving around when you first set out this morning. I was worried until you got clear across the valley and he went back to his grazing.”
Suddenly a swift look of guilt swept over Pitch’s face as he studied Steve’s unwavering gaze. Here he was shooting off his mouth about himself, and the boy was hungry and looking very worn.
“You’d better eat,” he said quickly. “And you must be dead tired. Where have you been, anyway? What have you been up to?” Pitch sheepishly withdrew empty hands from his pockets and walked toward the stove. “I’ll get the fire going,” he said, then added with his back turned to Steve, “I don’t suppose you found that red stallion. Didn’t see him, did you?” Without waiting for Steve’s reply, he asked, “Do you want just beans or shall I open a can of soup, too?”
“I’m not hungry,” Steve said quietly. Somehow all his enthusiasm to tell Pitch everything that had happened was gone. He felt let down. Maybe he was tired—but he couldn’t afford to be tired now. He had to get back to Flame. Desperately Steve tried to regain his lost enthusiasm. “Pitch—” he began.
“But you have to be hungry,” Pitch interrupted. “You haven’t eaten, and it’s way past noon.”
“I know, Pitch. I know I should be hu
ngry, but I’m not. Pitch—”
“You tell me while I’m getting something to eat for you, all right?”
“All right.” But Steve didn’t go on.
After a few moments of silence, Pitch spoke while he was opening a can of soup. “You found him, didn’t you.” It was put not as a question but stated as a fact, as though Pitch already knew what Steve’s reply would be.
“Yes, I found him.” For reasons Steve could not explain he now wanted Pitch to wait, to ask him about his search for Flame, rather than to tell it all as he had so eagerly planned. His eyes were drawn to Pitch’s pockets again.
Was that it? he asked himself. Was it the “treasures” that Pitch valued so highly? Were they responsible for his own reluctance to tell Pitch all? Was it because he felt that Pitch thought more of the things he was carrying in his pockets than he did of the horses which were truly treasures in their own right? But even if Pitch did feel that way, Steve argued with himself, was there anything wrong in it? Pitch was a scholar, and if he preferred relics to horses, that was his business. There were plenty of people in the world who didn’t love horses, or who loved other things more. Still …
“Did you just see him? Or get close to him? Or what?” Pitch asked with genuine interest in his voice. He placed the soup on the stove and turned around, facing Steve.
“I got close to him, Pitch. Real close. So close I guess I must have touched him. I’m not quite sure, though.” Now it came easier as Steve saw the interest mounting in Pitch’s eyes and the incredulous look upon his face. He felt his own enthusiasm mounting once more and he wanted to confide in Pitch. “I first saw him in the valley,” he continued quickly. “He was drinking from the stream and—oh Pitch!—if only you could have seen him!”
“It’s funny I didn’t see him,” Pitch said. “Wait a minute—there isn’t any stream running through this valley. There’s no outlet to that pool below.”
“It wasn’t this valley, Pitch. It’s another one—a smaller one on the other side of the marsh.”
“Marsh? What marsh? Where’s a marsh and where’s a smaller valley?”
Quickly Steve pointed far down to the left side of the valley. “You can just make out the hollow from here, Pitch,” he said. “See the slight gray mist rising from the ground?”
“Yes, I see it all right. This morning there was more of it. I was wondering about the land there. And the valley?”
“It’s after you go through the gorge to the left of the hollow. You can’t see the gorge from here, but it goes right into the walls.”
“What kind of gorge?”
Steve was impatient to get to his story of Flame, and managed to tell it only by replying brusquely to Pitch’s frequent questions. Pitch gave him his soup and made him eat it while the beans were being heated. Then, as Steve told Pitch of his chase through the chasm and tunnel into the cavern, Pitch’s queries stopped altogether.
Steve’s soup cooled as he told Pitch about coming upon Flame in the smaller chamber. He had to omit details he himself couldn’t remember, and Pitch did not question him, for he knew the boy would have told him had he been able to do so. It was enough, Pitch thought, that Steve hadn’t been killed!
“But Flame’s safe now,” Steve concluded, his eyes bright and steady. “He won’t sink any deeper until we get there. And we can get him out, Pitch.”
“What good would it do, Steve?” Pitch asked quietly after a long silence. “Why should you take any more chances? I don’t think we should go any further with this business.”
“Pitch! You don’t mean what you’re saying, do you? You can’t mean it!” Steve’s eyes mirrored the intensity he was feeling.
Pitch bent over the fire. He didn’t like what he saw in Steve’s eyes, but he felt that he was responsible for it. He was the one who had suggested they come to this island! He was the one who had kindled the boy’s enthusiasm with tales of Spanish conquest. Yes, and they had found more than they had bargained for—much more! For here was a lost world untouched by man for centuries! A lost world with treasures for which many men would give their lives. And he and Steve had found it. But what price must they pay for their discovery? Already they had lived a lifetime in their few hours of groping about the death-black tunnels. They had survived to find this valley, but now Steve had undergone another terrible experience. How much could the boy take? He was no longer the same Steve who had set out for this island. He was no longer a boy but a man—very much a man. Without turning around, Pitch listened to part of what Steve was saying.
“Can’t you understand, Pitch?” Steve asked. “We can’t leave him there to die! It’s worse than if I’d done nothing and he’d been pulled down by the quicksand, because he’d be gone by now. You can’t let him die a living death over that pit, Pitch! I can’t! I’ll have to go back alone if you won’t come. And if I can’t get him up by myself, I’ll drop the chain.”
He stopped, but Pitch still hadn’t turned around to face him. Striding over to Pitch, he knelt down beside him. “Pitch, you remember what we both thought of the Conquistadores when we saw those chains around the bones of the skeletons in the dungeon.” Steve’s voice was husky but no longer pleading. “It’s the same thing, Pitch. If I don’t go back, I’ll be no better than they were. He’s just as much alive as any human being. I’ve got to go back. You see that, don’t you, Pitch? I’ve either got to get him out or let him down all the way. You understand that, don’t you?”
Steve said no more, and there was a long silence between the two.
Then Pitch said slowly and in a voice that shook with emotion, “I realize. I understand, Steve.” Removing the beans from the stove, he dumped them with trembling hands into the tin plate before Steve. “Eat this, then, and we’ll be going.”
The tautness of Steve’s muscles was released with the speed of a spring as he cried, “You mean it, Pitch! You’ll go with me!”
Pitch was busy extinguishing the fire, and there was a pause before he replied, “Yes, I’m going, Steve. What else can I do?”
Steve’s face sobered, then lighted up again as he began making plans for their return trip. “I want to be sure to take along the first-aid kit,” he said quickly.
“Eat your food while it’s hot,” Pitch ordered. Between mouthfuls Steve said, “He’s been badly cut, Pitch, but I can help him. We should get back soon, though. He’s probably still fighting, trying to get clear of the pit. Each hour he’s there means a day longer in his recovery.”
Pitch waited until Steve had finished eating before he said, “Steve, if we do succeed in getting him out of the pit, you’ve got to promise me that you’ll have nothing more to do with him. By that I mean I want you to forget about helping him, forget about that red stallion.”
“You mean—” Steve began.
“Exactly that, Steve,” Pitch interrupted, and his voice was harsh. “You will have nothing more to do with him. It has to be that way. I know he’s everything you ever hoped to see in a horse—and I know now, if I never quite knew before, how much you love horses. But Steve, he’s as vicious and wild as—why, that Piebald! There’s no difference in their natures. They’re both from the same mold. They were born wild, Steve, and meant to stay wild. You’ve got to realize that before you’re killed.”
“But, Pitch, Flame is different. He’s not at all like the Piebald. He knows me now, Pitch. He knows that I don’t mean any harm to him, that I’m only trying to help him.”
“You’ve got to stay away from him, Steve,” Pitch said with finality. “Whether he goes back to his band or not will be no concern of yours or mine. If we get him out of this, you’ll have to let him go where he pleases without having anything more to do with it. Only on that understanding will I go along with you.” Pitch paused before adding, “We’ll have enough to do trying to find our way out of here. I have some torches that’ll help us in getting around the tunnels.” Then, changing the subject abruptly, “Picked up another spur and a pistol today,” and he tapped h
is pockets.
But Steve wasn’t listening. After several minutes he said quietly, “Do you mean what you said, Pitch? That if we get him out, I have to let him go where he pleases?”
“Exactly,” Pitch replied. “Without chasing him any more. Without trying to help that wild stallion, who doesn’t want any help.”
“Okay, Pitch,” Steve said thoughtfully. “I agree. I’ll let him go where he pleases.” But there was a brightness in his eyes that Pitch didn’t understand.
“You take a rest now, while I clean the pots,” Pitch said. “You need a rest.”
Steve stretched out upon the ground, his head on his pack. “We’d better take our packs,” he said, closing his eyes, “just in case we have to spend the night there.”
“Sure,” Pitch replied.
“And Pitch, wait’ll you see him close! You’ll forget all those things in your pockets. You’ve never in your life …” Steve’s voice dropped to a mumble, then died altogether as he dozed off.
Pitch’s gaze left Steve for the pot he held in his hand. “I can hardly wait,” he muttered. “Hardly.”
LOWERED HEAD
13
The western walls of the valley were casting lengthening shadows over the cane as Steve and Pitch, crouched low, cautiously moved along beside it.
“You shouldn’t have let me fall asleep,” Steve said.
“You needed it,” Pitch replied bluntly. “And we have hours of daylight ahead of us.” He pulled his pack higher on his back, but his eyes never left the bent-over figure ahead of him. After a while he asked with concern, “You don’t think that Piebald has moved, do you, Steve? Maybe we’d better look again.”
“We just got through looking,” Steve replied. “It’s better for us to keep going until we get downwind from him.”
“Maybe he’s coming across for water,” Pitch insisted gravely. “I don’t like this business, you know. That Piebald is capable of doing almost anything.”