Mansoor hurried back to the landing and joined his bodyguards, who were waiting there with Shêtân Rashid followed, concealing himself among the boys who gathered around trying to get a closer look at the stallion. He asked one of the boys standing beside him what was going on. No one seemed to know, but before long rumors began to circulate. One of the boys who worked as a messenger in the dispatch office had been there when Mansoor came in. Rashid overheard the boy telling his friends what had happened.
“… but the captain of the Drake refused, and the rich guy tripled his offer. ‘Three thousand pounds,’ he says, just like that. Then he pulls a wad of bills out of his pocket as thick as my fist and starts waving it around in the air. You should have seen the look on old Aswad’s face when he saw all that cash. He almost had a heart attack. Anyway, he got on the radio again and persuaded the captain to make an unscheduled stop. The freighter is diverting its course and should be here within the hour.”
THE DRAKE
15
Upon hearing of the approaching ship, Rashid drew back further into the crowd. Now he could truly understand why Mansoor was called “the Cat.” Mansoor was cunning, resourceful and also very lucky. To outsmart someone like Abu Ishak he had to be.
Rashid pulled at the wisp of a beard covering his chin. It just wasn’t fair. Hadn’t Allah made him a gift of the stallion up in the mountains? First Abu Ishak and now Mansoor wanted to cheat him of his prize. Anger turned to resolve. His features hardened.
So the Cat thought he had everything figured out. Well, perhaps … and perhaps not. Rashid had to think fast. He might make a break for it. He and Shêtân had led Abu Ishak on quite a chase the day before—Rashid’s cut and bruised hide could attest to that. If they had done it once, they could do it again. But, he admitted to himself, how serious could he really be about trying to get back up on Shêtân? If the opportunity arose, though, he knew that he must take it. It seemed to be his only hope, unless he wanted to abandon the young black stallion forever and lose the most valuable thing he’d ever come close to possessing.
Soon the Drake blew its whistle and came steaming into port. A white collar of foam fringed the blunt prow as the steamer pushed its way into the harbor. Smoke poured from the one stack and darkened the cloudless sky. The steady chant of the ship’s throbbing engines filled the air. Bare-chested dockhands rushed back and forth across the oil-stained planks of the wooden landing. Rashid watched them uncoil thick ropes from worn pilings and make preparations for the Drake’s arrival.
The steamer was huge, like nothing the desert-bred Bedouin had ever seen, and that gave the ever-scheming Rashid an idea. If he could only slip aboard the Drake, it should be easy to find a hiding place and stow away, as he had done in the truck. After they came to some other port and things had calmed down a bit, then he would make his move to free Shêtân and escape.
The stallion’s cry, pathetically muted by the war bridle, answered the call of the ship’s whistle. Rashid had to feel sorry for the stallion. It was truly a shame Allah had willed that such a creature of the wild should be so relentlessly hunted and trapped, he thought. But it would be a pity all the more if he, Rashid, were not the one to benefit from his capture.
The pack of boys crowded around the big, raven-colored horse like a flock of noisy sea gulls. Mansoor cracked his whip in the air to quiet them. He ordered his men to move Shêtân across the wharf. The stallion’s thin-skinned nostrils quivered. Streaks of white lather crisscrossed his slanting shoulders and deep, broad chest. A tangle of ropes circled his arched neck and bridled his head. Shêtân bared his teeth, bloody and hideous to see.
“Hold him steady,” ordered Mansoor. One of the bodyguards had lost his turban, and the Cat picked it up and unwrapped it. Taking this, he sprang to the stallion’s side and in a moment had tied it around Shêtân’s head and over his eyes.
“That should settle him down a bit,” Mansoor said, but the blindfold seemed to have the opposite effect. The black stallion whirled around and flung his great body this way and that over the landing. Mansoor hadn’t noticed that the war bridle was beginning to loosen and slip from the stallion’s head. The two bodyguards leaned back hard against their ropes—still the stallion fought them. They called for help, but the dockhands refused to come any nearer to the stallion’s hooves.
The Cat turned to the crowd gathered there and held up a handful of notes. “Five pounds to any man who will help load this devil onto the Drake,” he announced. This was his big chance, Rashid thought, and he’d better take it. He wrapped his kufiyya tightly around his face to conceal his identity and stepped forward from the crowd.
“Sir, I am a good man with horse or camel. Let me try!” Rashid called out. Mansoor motioned him and another volunteer who came forward to join the bodyguards on the ropes. Rashid could see the spirit of something wild and instinctive rising up inside Shêtân It consumed the stallion like a raging fire as he tossed the black spikes of his mane and stamped his hooves.
Perhaps Shêtân knew he was there, Rashid thought. Even though the blindfold covered his eyes, the stallion must sense his presence, must remember his smell. New hope lifted his spirits.
The Drake pulled up to the dock and dropped its gangplank. Mansoor boldly stepped up to Shêtân and took hold of the war bridle to tighten it another notch. He gave it a twist, but this time the cruel, bloody thing broke off in his hand. Shêtân had managed to chew through the rope! Only the two guide ropes looped around his head and neck held him now.
This was the moment Shêtân had been waiting for. Freed from the bridle, the stallion reared up into the air. His hot, black body glistened in the bright sunlight. Blood streamed from his muzzle, and he blindly struck out against everything around him. He threw himself into the crowd, shaking his head and trying to rid himself of the blindfold. The handlers struggled with the ropes, barely managing to keep the stallion off balance and under control.
Aboard the Drake, young Alec Ramsay, on his way home to the States from India, was leaning over the deck railing. He watched the men fighting with the mighty stallion on the landing below. What he saw was destined to change his life forever.
White lather ran from the horse’s body. His mouth was open, his teeth bared. He was a giant of a horse, glistening black—too big to be pure Arabian. His mane was like a crest, mounting, then falling low. His neck was long and slender, and arched to the small, savagely beautiful head. The head was that of the wildest of all wild creatures—a stallion born wild—and it was beautiful, savage, splendid. A stallion with a wonderful physical perfection that matched his savage, ruthless spirit.
Once again the Black screamed and rose on his hind legs. Alec could hardly believe his eyes and ears—a stallion, a wild stallion—unbroken, such as he had read and dreamed about!
Two ropes led from the halter on the horse’s head, and four men were attempting to pull the stallion toward the gangplank. They were going to put him on the ship! Alec saw a dark-skinned man, wearing European dress and a high, white turban, giving directions. In his hand he held a whip. He gave his orders tersely in a language unknown to Alec. Suddenly he walked to the rear of the horse and let the hard whip fall on the Black’s hindquarters. The stallion bolted so fast that he struck one of the Arabs holding the rope; down the man went and lay still. The Black snorted and plunged; if ever Alec saw hate expressed by a horse, he saw it then. They had him halfway up the plank. Alec wondered where they would put him if they ever did succeed in getting him on the boat.
Then he was on! Alec saw Captain Watson waving his arms frantically, motioning and shouting for the men to pull the stallion toward the stern. The boy followed at a safe distance. Now he saw the makeshift stall into which they were attempting to get the Black—it had once been a good-sized cabin. The Drake had little accommodation for transporting animals; its hold was already heavily laden with cargo.
Finally they had the horse in front of the stall. One of the men clambered to the top of the cabin, reac
hed down and pulled the scarf away from the stallion’s eyes. At the same time, the dark-skinned man again hit the horse on the hindquarters and he bolted inside. Alec thought the stall would never be strong enough to hold him. The stallion tore into the wood and sent it flying; thunder rolled from under his hooves; his powerful legs crashed into the sides of the cabin; his wild, shrill, high-pitched whistle sent shivers up and down Alec’s spine. He felt a deep pity steal over him, for here was a wild stallion used to the open range imprisoned in a stall in which he was hardly able to turn.
Captain Watson was conversing angrily with the dark-skinned man; the captain had probably never expected to ship a cargo such as this! Then the man pulled a thick wallet from inside his coat. He counted the bills off and handed them to the captain. Captain Watson looked at the bills and then at the stall. He took the money, shrugged his shoulders and walked away. The dark-skinned man gathered the Arabs around who had helped bring the stallion aboard, gave them bills from his wallet, and they departed down the gangplank.
Soon the Drake was again under way. Alec gazed back at the port, watching the group gathered around the inert form of the Arab who had gone down under the Black’s mighty hooves; then he turned to the stall. The dark-skinned man had gone to his cabin, and only the excited passengers were standing around outside the stall. The black horse was still fighting madly inside.
Back on the landing, Rashid lay unconscious on the dock. When he came to his senses again, he found himself on his back looking up at a crowd of people standing over him. He had been caught by surprise when Shêtân bolted up the gangplank. Unable to get out of the way in time, he had been knocked to the ground by the stallion. As Rashid crawled to his feet, he felt a painful bump swelling on the side of his head. Not far offshore the Drake was steaming out to sea. He half ran, half stumbled to the end of the dock.
“That’s my ship! Wait! Come back, come back! Take me with you!” he cried.
“Ha, yeah, me too. Me too,” mocked some idle boys gathered nearby. They jeered at him, and the rest of the crowd laughed. The other boy who had volunteered to help load Shêtân stepped over to Rashid and pulled him aside.
“Here,” he said. “The rich guy left this for you,” and he passed him a handful of coins. Rashid was certain Mansoor had said five pounds, not a few riyals. The Bedouin was in no condition to argue, however, and numbly accepted the payment.
Slowly, the crowd began to break up. There was nothing to see any longer. Rashid was left alone. He felt the cold metallic weight of the riyals in his hand and thought of the young black stallion. Shêtân, the pride of the desert, was on his way to England, and with him went all Rashid’s hopes and dreams. Rashid sat on the dock and glumly watched the ship grow smaller as it pulled away from the shore. The black smoke that trailed behind the Drake drifted off into the tropical sky.
He didn’t notice the bearded man leaning against a container box nearby until the old fisherman grumbled something under his breath and giggled. Rashid turned on the stranger and demanded, “Are you laughing at me, old man?”
“Me, old Amair? No, I’m not laughing at you, though you look laughable enough. No, you young fool, I watch, I listen, but mostly I see … and what I see right now is trouble for all those aboard that ship, Allah protect them.”
“And why is that, pray tell?” asked Rashid, trying to get a better look at the shrouded face of the speaker.
“A horse such as that on a ship can mean nothing but trouble. It’s a bad sign.”
“You talk nonsense, old man. Go back to your fishing. I know that horse better than anyone. He was going to get me aboard the Drake. He was my way out of here.”
“Perhaps, but if you hoped to stow away on that ship, it was the gift of life your horse gave you when he struck you on the head. Did you not see how the gulls refused to follow the ship when it left? It is an omen, mark my words. That ship will never reach its home port.”
Rashid had heard enough of this crazy man’s nonsense and turned and walked off the landing. He went to the market, where he used Mansoor’s riyals to buy a new headcloth and a shirt. Then he stopped at a food stall and had a meal. For the rest of the afternoon Rashid wandered around the suq. By the end of the day he had only a few coins left. No matter, he decided. At least he was alive and out of the mountains. Tomorrow he would begin the journey home to the desert and his family tribe.
That night he returned to the wharf to find a place to sleep. He tried to make himself comfortable behind a pile of lumber. His thoughts turned to Abu Ishak. Somewhere out there in the night, he knew the desert lord was searching for Shêtân and the one he blamed for the old herder’s death. Would Abu Ishak find the truck and follow their trail here? What if the locust storm hadn’t covered the truck’s tracks? What if …?
Rashid looked up into the sky. The stars were big, liquid and brilliant. Slowly his eyes began to close and he drifted off into the whirlpool of sleep. Just before he did, there came to his ears a sound, strange yet horribly familiar—the cry of a bird. It was not a night bird or a sleepless gull. It was the distant call of a hunter falcon. She was calling for him. She would haunt him for the rest of his days.
EPILOGUE
Years later and thousands of miles away, Alec Ramsay heard that same falcon cry. He lay on the ground beneath a canopy of stars. A cool breath of wind slapped his face. He felt his spine stiffen and tense. A chill jolted him like an electric shock. He sat straight up. His eyes were wide open, staring out into the desert sky. Glistening threads of starlight unraveled there, in the absolute heart of blackest night.
The Black, where was the Black? He jumped to his feet and called to his horse. The stallion’s neigh answered him from somewhere in the darkness. Alec could tell by the sound that his horse was safe. But what had happened? He was sure they had bedded down in the trailer, not out here. Something in this starry night had drawn them both outside. He felt strange, almost lightheaded. A song came to his lips:
Jâ maljâna
Sallamha-llâh
min ğîlânah!
Hypnotically he found himself repeating these strange words over and over again. Where had he heard them before? Like a dam, the floodgates of memory burst open. It was the watering song.
The shrill cry of a sky bird peeled off into the night. He remembered the falcon, the mountains and Abu Ishak. He must stay downwind, he must cover his tracks.… But wait—he was Alec Ramsay, not a Bedouin scout.
The eerie tune echoed clearly in his head. If all he remembered had been but a dream, how had he come to know the melody, even the strange foreign words, of this tribal song? He pinched himself to make sure he was really awake.
Alec went back to the trailer and found a lead rope there. He set out into the dark, calling to the Black, but this time the stallion did not answer. Alec was not worried—his horse would not wander far. As he searched the dark his thoughts returned to the incredible dream. Or was it more than a dream? He remembered having heard about people recalling past lives under hypnosis. Some experts tried to explain these phenomena by comparing them to what happens when telephone wires accidentally cross each other and one person suddenly finds himself eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation.
If anyone had ever told Alec that he could have one of these experiences, he would have called them crazy. But now he couldn’t help but wonder if this “crossing of wires” might explain what had happened and how, for a short amount of time, he had shared the life and experiences of someone else in a far different time and place. Who could explain it? Whatever had happened, the Black seemed to be connecting everything together. Perhaps this living memory had somehow been conducted through the Black to Alec. Perhaps his horse was the key to the mystery, acting like a lightning rod that attracts and draws electricity from a stormy sky.
Once again Alec found himself unconsciously singing the familiar refrain to the desert song:
Jâ maljâna
Sallamha-llâh
min ğîlânah!
>
The Black shrilled loudly in response and came to him, just as if Alec had called him in from the pasture back on the farm. As Alec snapped the lead rope onto the halter ring, he remembered how that was the very way Rashid had called to the stallion as they wandered together in the mountains.
A gust of wind cut through the sky, overpowering the sounds of the desert. Yet somehow those rambling melodic notes remained. Alec looked up at the Black. It was as if they shared some great secret known only to the two of them. The stallion’s eyes were ablaze as he ran his soft nose over Alec’s hand, arm and neck. His chest quivered and he neighed in long-drawn, silvery notes. Alec felt a settling calm pass over him, as if he had just taken a glass from his lips after quenching a great thirst.
The stallion’s long black mane billowed in the wind as he turned his gaze to the sky. Alec reached up and gently rubbed the Black’s forehead. He thought of all their adventures together and the races they had won. Even after all that had happened, Alec still couldn’t help but wonder why he and he alone had been able to win the trust and love of this wild stallion. The Black was the kind of animal that could never be tamed. Yet this marvelous stallion had chosen him as a friend and altered the course of their lives forever.
Alec leaned up against the statuesque figure of the big black horse, and he too turned his head to the starry panorama, letting the beauty of the night sink into him. Some things would never change, things like the desert, the sky, the stars. Time seemed to be frozen in the starshine. Alec barely noticed the dish-shaped moon dip below the horizon. When he finally led the stallion back to the trailer, the pale morning light was already beginning to brighten the eastern sky. Red clouds streaked the heavens.