Black Stallion and Satan (13 page)

Going to the stall door, Alec saw the veterinarian standing beside the stallion. El Dorado’s head hung low and he constantly shifted his weight from one leg to another.

After a few minutes the veterinarian left the stall and hurried away. The group remained there for a while, then broke up, with Henry and Alec walking to the Black’s stall.

“What do you think is wrong with El Dorado, Henry?” Alec asked.

The trainer’s face was thoughtful, and he neither turned to the boy nor answered his question. Instead,
he said, “Open the top of his door while I get the tack, Alec.”

When Alec opened the door, the Black pushed his head toward him. Then the stallion caught sight of Avenger and Cavaliere coming in from the track, and he uttered his shrill scream. Moving inside the stall with him, Alec ran his hands down the long neck. “We’re going out,” he said. “And you’ve got to take it easy out there, Black. You’ve got to … or we go home.”

Henry handed Alec the saddle, which the boy put on the Black. The stallion moved uneasily when Alec tightened the girth; then the boy took the bridle from Henry and slipped it over the stallion’s head.

“He knows what’s up, all right,” Alec told Henry.

The Black pushed heavily against the door, his ears pricked and eyes gleaming. Kashmir went up the row toward the track, and the Black’s gaze followed him as he screamed his challenge at the sorrel stallion.

“All right, Henry,” Alec said. “Everything is okay.”

Henry turned to see all the other people in the area watching them; then, taking the Black by the bridle, he opened the door.

With Alec holding him, the stallion moved quickly from the stall. He snorted repeatedly but made no effort to rear or break away.

“I think he’s going to do all right, Henry,” Alec said.

“We’ve only just started,” Henry returned.

The Black moved quickly up the row, as though eager to reach the track. Near the gate, Henry boosted
Alec into the saddle. “What’d I tell you!” Alec said excitedly. “Not one bad move!”

Shaking his head, Henry said, “Sure seems you’re right, Alec. Hard to believe. Get going now, but just a slow gallop.”

It was only when the Black and Alec were on the track that Henry shouted. For the trainer’s gaze had turned to Kashmir rounding the first turn and, suddenly, he thought he knew why the Black’s head had turned neither to the left nor right coming up the row … why he had been so eager to reach the track. The Black knew Kashmir was ahead of him. He could be going after the sorrel stallion!

Henry shouted again to Alec, but the boy was out of hearing distance. Fearfully Henry watched the Black quickly shift his action to a full gallop. He saw Alec’s attempts to hold him back, but there was no shortening of the giant strides. Surely the Black intended to run Kashmir down! Turning abruptly, Henry hurried back to the stables.

Alec kept a tight hold on the Black, remembering that Henry had told him he wanted only a slow gallop. But the Black had hold of the bit and was pulling hard. He wanted to stretch out still more. And it was only natural that he wanted to go, Alec thought, with Kashmir ahead of him.

Moving lower against the black neck, he called to his horse, “Take it easy, fella. It’s too early. It’s not the way Henry wants us to do it.”

Still pulling, the Black moved into the first turn, and his strides lengthened even more.

When they came off the turn, Alec saw the sorrel stallion halfway down the backstretch. It was then that the Black screamed and took over. His body leveled out, yet his head was high with ears pricked forward.

There was nothing Alec could do now but stay with the Black. He had no control over him, for the stallion was running wild. Screaming, the Black bore down upon Kashmir and was directly behind him going into the turn.

The jockey riding Kashmir turned his head, then raised his whip to ward off the oncoming stallion. The Black lunged for Kashmir’s neck. Desperately Alec tried to take him away as the whip came down to strike his horse on the nose. The blow caused the Black to miss his mark, and the stallion swerved abruptly, almost unseating Alec.

A moment later both stallions had come to a stop and were turning upon each other. Kashmir’s jockey slid down from his horse. Alec fought the Black, trying to get him away. But the stallion rose to meet Kashmir. As Alec went up with him, he saw Henry and the other men, pitchforks and shovels in their hands, move in on the two fighting stallions.

The sorrel veered away at sight of the men and they caught him. When the Black came down, he bucked hard and Alec was thrown to the ground. For a moment he thought he was going to lose consciousness. When his vision cleared, there were many men holding on to the Black’s bridle and they had a rope about his neck.

Alec knew that it was all over now, for this was the
Black’s answer. There would be no International Cup race for him.

An hour later, Alec stood quietly beside the Black in the closed stall. They were alone, for Henry had gone to the Race Secretary’s office to withdraw the Black’s name from the entries in the International Cup race.

Alec stood in the corner of the stall, waiting for the Black to come to him. He wanted desperately to make amends for bringing him here where he wasn’t meant to be. He accepted the blame for all that had happened. Henry had warned him, but he had gone his way, believing he could control the Black despite the stallion’s natural instinct to fight.

But all that was behind him now. He would start over again. He’d take the Black to the farm. Dad would meet him there, and they’d go ahead with their original plans while Henry raced Satan. Alec didn’t even want to see the running of the International Cup. He’d stay at the farm with the Black.

“I know I’ve got a lot to make up for,” he told the stallion. “None of it was your fault. You only did what your natural instinct drove you to do. You haven’t been trained like the others. And in many ways I’m glad. I want you the way you are, and that’s why we’re going away.”

He had stood there a long while before the Black moved in his direction. But the stallion stopped a few feet away and without moving closer stretched his head to him. Alec let him nuzzle his pocket, seeking the carrot that was there. He raised his hand to the Black’s nose, but the stallion pulled back at his touch. Alec held
the carrot out to him. The stallion extended his head again, and as Alec fed it to him he succeeded in gently touching the soft nose.

For a long while he remained beside the Black before leaving the stall. Outside he saw the group gathered again in front of El Dorado’s stall. It seemed that everyone was there, including the press. He was walking over when Henry moved away from the group and came toward him.

“Is he any worse?” Alec asked when Henry reached him.

The trainer took him by the arm, turning him back toward the Black’s stall. But Alec had had a chance to see the worried and drawn looks on the faces of the men before El Dorado’s stall.

“I didn’t get to the Race Secretary’s office,” Henry said grimly. “I didn’t need to.”

“Why? What’s the matter?” Henry still hadn’t turned to him, and Alec could catch only a glimpse of his face as they walked along. And he didn’t like what he saw there.

“The Race Secretary is over there,” Henry said, “along with the track vet and the State vet, who was called in.”

“But why, Henry? Is El Dorado that sick?” Alec looked at the crowd, now gathered in small, tight groups.

“It’s serious, Alec,” Henry said solemnly, turning to the boy for the first time. “El Dorado has swamp fever, the most dreaded horse disease known. They’re putting him down tonight,” he added quietly. “There’s no cure.… It’s the only thing they can do.”

The blood had left Alec’s face, and it was only after a few minutes had passed that he asked hopefully, “But it’s not contagious, is it, Henry?”

The trainer nodded without meeting the boy’s eyes. “It is, Alec,” he said. “It can reach epidemic proportions if not controlled. We can’t leave. Every horse here has been placed in quarantine. A meeting has been called for tomorrow morning in the Secretary’s office. We’ll know more then.”

Alec said nothing. Across the row were Avenger and Cavaliere and Kashmir, all with their heads pushed over their stall doors. Down the line on Alec’s side were Phar Fly and Satan and Sea King … and just behind him was the Black. All of them had been exposed to swamp fever. There was no running away now. It was too late for that.

The Black whinnied, but Alec didn’t turn to him. Instead he clasped his face in his hands while Henry’s arm went around his shoulders to steady him.

Their faces grave, the trainers filed into the office of the Race Secretary. Silently they took their seats around the long rectangular table at the head of which sat the Secretary. On his right was the State Veterinarian, and to the rear of the table were the sportswriters with their pads and pencils already in hand.

Alec sat beside Henry, waiting like everyone else.

The Secretary rose to his feet, and his eyes were on the sheet of paper lying on the table before him as he said, “The autopsy performed this morning on El Dorado proved without doubt that he had equine infectious anemia, commonly called swamp fever.” He paused, his eyes leaving the paper for the men seated at the table. “I know that all of you have some knowledge of this disease, but at an earlier meeting this morning of the directors of the track and veterinarians we decided that it would be best for the State Veterinarian, Doctor Murray, to acquaint you with all the facts concerning
swamp fever. Doctor Murray,” he announced, turning to the man on his right.

The State Veterinarian rose from his chair, his bald head directly in a beam of sunlight that found its way through the curtained window. “The cause of swamp fever,” he said solemnly, “is a virus carried in the bloodstream. It is most commonly found in horses and mules. A horse may die of the first attack or, as is usually the case, he recovers and seems perfectly well until he experiences another attack. When the attacks come frequently, death follows shortly thereafter. Horses having swamp fever should be destroyed at once, so as not to infect healthy horses with the disease.” Pausing, he added, “At present, there is no vaccine or immunity known to prevent a horse from contracting swamp fever.”

The veterinarian was a tall man and now he straightened to his full height as he looked around the table. “The disease can reach epidemic proportions if not controlled. It is transmitted from infected horses to healthy animals by flies and mosquitoes or through stable equipment such as combs, brushes, saddles, bridles, blankets and anything else which may have touched an abrasion of the infected horse and is then used on a healthy animal. It may spread, too, when infected and healthy horses are fed and watered from the same buckets or are in any way placed in intimate contact with one another.”

The State Veterinarian paused again for a moment, his gaze dropping to the table, then returning to the men who listened to him in sober silence.

“Your horses have all been exposed to this
disease,” he continued very gravely. “Even now they may have it, for the incubation period of swamp fever is generally from seven to twenty-eight days, during which time there are no obvious characteristic symptoms. The symptoms, when they do appear, are a fever of one hundred five or as high as one hundred eight degrees Fahrenheit; dejection, usually with low-hanging head; a shifting of weight from one leg to another; breathing more quickly, sometimes with abdomen; swelling of legs and loss of weight.

“Your horses, gentlemen, are now under a forty-day quarantine, the approximate time necessary for us to determine whether or not they are infected. It is regrettable, but this is the only possible action the state can take to prevent this fatal disease from spreading. The directors of the track have had no alternative but to cancel the International Cup race, and we’re asking you gentlemen to take your horses to a state farm a short distance away, where screening tests will be made to ascertain whether or not any horse has contracted swamp fever from El Dorado. We cannot force you to move your horses to the farm or to take the tests, but I must remind you, gentlemen, that in all fairness to the hundreds of horses due to arrive shortly at this track for the regular meeting, you owe it to them and to the sport in general to remove your horses to the farm, so that there will be no opportunity for this disease to spread any further.”

The State Veterinarian paused for a long while, then said, “Gentlemen, I would like a show of hands of those who will consent to move their horses to the farm.”

Despondently all the men raised their hands. No questions were asked. No word was spoken. The cancellation of the race to which they had looked forward for so many months was of no importance now to any one of them. Instead, each was haunted by the fear that his horse might be stricken … that before long he, too, would have to consent to the destruction of his horse. They were the trainers of the world’s finest horses … horses that in the years to come were to have passed on their speed to their get for the improvement of the breed. Now, they were to be exiled.

The State Veterinarian was speaking again, and the men raised their eyes to his. “Your horses can have swamp fever without showing the characteristic symptoms,” he said. “The only definite way we have of finding out is to take blood samples from your horses and, pooling this blood, inoculate it into the bloodstream of a horse who has not been exposed to the disease. If no evidence of the disease appears in the inoculated test horse, your horses will be given a clean bill of health and released. However, if swamp fever develops in the test horse, each of your horses must be tested individually to find out which one or more has the disease.”

The State Veterinarian cleared his throat. “I know the difficult time that is ahead of you, gentlemen. We appreciate the full cooperation you have promised us. We hope, as you do, that none of your horses will be found to have swamp fever and that clean bills of health will be given to all. We request that you have your horses ready to leave the track by noon. All horses will travel individually, and we’ll have vans for those of you who don’t have any here.”