The Black Stallion and the Girl

by Walter Farley

  “You’re not just anyone,” he said. “I love you.”

  “And I love you,” she said. “More now than ever because I know what you gave up for me.”

  “But, still, you won’t stay?”

  “I want to but I can’t,” she said miserably.

  Alec drove in silence, knowing he could do nothing more to change her mind. He must accept the fact that their being together was not going to last. He had tried everything but her decision to leave was unshakable. Moreover, he had his pride. He didn’t want to plead with her like a slavering puppy. The decision had to come from her if it was to be any good between them. Despite his knowing this, he found himself nose-diving into a black pit of depression and fought against it. He wanted no bloody battles with himself or with Pam, loving her as he did. She loved him, he believed, but she loved life more. She was a wanderer, chasing the sun wherever it might lead in search of new experiences and challenges.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “Nothing but beautiful thoughts,” he said bitterly.

  She twisted her head to look at him. “Hell is more likely from your eyes,” she said. “I don’t mean to be cruel.”

  “How do you expect me to feel?” he asked. He felt the tightness in his stomach, swelling, plunging, and sought to stop it by saying angrily, “There’s no magical power in frustration, Pam, and that’s how I feel about us.”

  “Frustration?” she repeated. “I thought we had something else, such as being true to one’s self and to each other—real happiness.”

  “All right,” he said quietly. “I’m going to spoil our happiness by saying, ‘I love you too much to let you go.’ ”

  “But you must,” she said as quietly.

  “Why?”

  “Because I think we may both get what we want in time,” she said, her voice trembling and very close to tears. “But not now. I’m not ready to settle down any more than you are. I’ve too many things to see and do, and so have you. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. We’d feel trapped, unable to do what we want to do.”

  “Will it be any better later on?” Alec asked, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice.

  “I think so,” she said softly. “That’s what I meant when I said we’ll both get what we want in time. It shouldn’t be frustrating, this waiting—not with all the things we have to do—and if you love me as I love you.” She paused before going on. “Look at it this way, Alec. If I asked you to leave, would you come with me?”

  Alec kept his gaze on the road but he knew her eyes were questioning him as well as her voice.

  “No,” he said finally. “You know I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Racing is where I belong.”

  He heard her laugh but knew there was no laughter in her eyes, no more than in his own.

  “So there,” she said. “It’s as simple as that. You have important things to do and so have I.”

  “But there’s a difference,” he said. “At the farm you’d be close to nature and all that you love.”

  “I know,” she answered, “and I want to come back to it and to you. But not now,” she added hastily. “It’s too early for both of us.”

  “You’ll be hurt, if you go on as you do,” Alec said. “They’re going to knock you down. You’ll find people who are lots worse than Henry, and you won’t be able to change them as you did him.”

  “Then, when I come back, we’ll help to outbreed them,” she said gaily. “Don’t worry so.”

  “I’m not going to wait until you come back,” Alec said. “I’m coming after you. Every place you go, I’ll be there, if only for a day at a time, until I find you’re ready to come back to stay. I’m not giving you up.”

  “That will be best of all,” she answered.

  Reaching the farm, he waited in the apartment while she packed. And all the time the phonograph played, for she left it until last. The music crashed like thunder in the small room. Somewhere in those clanging chords, somewhere in those ferocious guitars, somewhere in those unintelligible choruses he sensed a clue to her need to go. But he couldn’t find it. The music was too loud, too primitive. It rent his stomach and his mind.

  Only when she played records sung by the folk singers did he find a message in the music. He listened to the clear beauty of their voices and lyrics as they sang sweetly of love and joy and morning sunshine; that was the Pam he knew.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, finally, knowing he could do no more than to ask the direction her path would take.

  She emerged from behind the kitchen screen where she had changed from city clothes. She wore a floppy cowboy hat and her standard uniform of jeans, a faded blue shirt with button-down collar that had belonged to her father, and brown loafers in need of a good saddle-soaping. As clean as she kept the stable tack, she seemed to take great pride in never touching her loafers with the sponge. He wondered at the contradiction. Perhaps it was that she didn’t attach much importance to her own appearance and, if anything, played it down.

  “I’m going to visit a friend in Maryland,” she said; then, aware of his suspicions, added, “… a girl friend, Alec, an old school friend. I’ll give you her name and address.”

  “But must you go tonight?”

  “I like driving at night and Nancy’s expecting me.” She paused, looking at him intently. “I’m not changing my mind, Alec, so please don’t change yours.”

  She went on with her packing and Alec carried the cardboard boxes down to the car as she filled them. They often touched in the transfer, and the contact was almost like an animal form of communication with no need for words to express their feelings for each other.

  When darkness came she didn’t put on the lights. “That’s it,” she said, “all done.” Slinging her black-leather shoulder bag over her arm, she stood before him.

  He could see her face in the light from the doorway; she seemed so young, so open—too open. He felt much older than she, as old as Henry. Was it that they belonged to different ages—hers one of trust while he had been brought up in an age of cynicism? She would continue to lead the life that made sense to her. She was doing her own thing in her own time.

  “I wish you’d put off leaving until tomorrow,” he persisted. “You’re tired, and it could be dangerous driving all the way to Maryland. It’ll take you most of the night.”

  “I like driving to meet the dawn,” she said.

  He knew there would be no changing her mind, that she would go to Maryland and beyond as she and her fate saw fit. It made no difference that her paths, like the night before her, would be dark.

  She put her arms around him, and said, “I’ll be expecting you wherever I am, just like you said.”

  “You’ll always let me know where you are?”

  “Always.”

  The taste of her skin against his own, the warmth of her breath and the sound of her voice stirred emotions that went deeper than any he had ever known. How could he let her go?

  He kissed her and held her closer still. “I’ll come with you,” he said. “We’ll get married tonight.”

  She pushed her head away from his, and something within him collapsed as he looked into her eyes.

  “You’d soon hate me for taking you away,” she answered. “Don’t you understand what I mean, Alec?… what I’ve tried to say before? I’m not ready for marriage even if you think you are. And I think too much of marriage not to be ready for it. It’s the greatest challenge I’ll ever know, and I want to make it work. I want to have more to give you than I can give you now. Please, Alec,” she pleaded, “don’t let me change my mind. Let me grow up a little more.”

  His arms dropped from her, and he turned his head away. “It’s no good, Pam,” he said angrily. “Your world is halfway between imagination and reality. Don’t you see? It sets you adrift, seeking what it ought to be, might be, yet can never be. It can only become a nightmare for you!”

  When he had finished, she swung the leather bag over her shoul
der and left the apartment without looking back. He followed, already regretting his outburst, knowing her rejection of him was responsible for it. Yet he meant what he’d said. He was no different from others, young and old, who doubted that anything could be changed from the way it was, and who believed that anyone who tried was not only a fool but could be hurt terribly. He was fearful for Pam’s very life and, loving her as he did, he had needed to speak out.

  Below, she went from one stall to the next, saying good-by to the two-year-olds she had trained. He followed in silence, speaking only when she reached Black Sand’s empty stall.

  “Would you like to see where I buried him?”

  “No,” she answered without taking her eyes from the stall. “I don’t think of him as being there anyway. He’s with me as I am with him. We’ll be together always.”

  “We brought up another colt for training,” Alec said, hoping to interest her. “You’d like him, Pam. His name’s Blackjack, and he’s the only colt we have who’s sired by the Black. He’s in the paddock outside. You can see him as you leave. Maybe you’ll like him enough to …”

  She laughed as she turned to him, and he was glad that she was no longer angry.

  “No maybes,” she replied. “We’ve both said what we’ve had to say.”

  “But …”

  “No buts either,” she said adamantly, taking his arm and moving him toward the door. “I’m going now.”

  “I was going to tell you that the Black’s coming home,” he said. “I was saving it as a surprise if you stayed.”

  “Then you’re retiring him? I’m glad, Alec.”

  He looked into her eyes, knowing his answer was important to her. She was as concerned for his safety as he was for hers. She really wanted to find out if he and the Black were going on in that steel-shod world she’d known today.

  “He’ll get a good rest but I’m not retiring him, Pam,” Alec said. “He’s a race horse, not a loafer. Don’t think for a moment he’d have a great life, standing here. He wouldn’t. He’d miss racing. He’d miss the cheering and all that goes with it. He wouldn’t like it around here, Pam, not for long, anyway. He needs to go.”

  “You mean like me,” she said quietly.

  In her face he saw a trace of humor and a wrinkle at the corners of her mouth, a wandering look. “Like you,” he agreed sadly, putting his arms around her.

  She got into the old car, her hand on his through the window. “Here’s my friend’s address in Maryland,” she said. “I’ll be there two weeks.”

  “Then where?” he asked, wanting to know so he could find her again if anything kept him from seeing her in Maryland.

  “I’m going to France,” she said.

  “France,” he repeated. “You’re kidding.”

  His astonishment seemed to amuse her and she smiled. “No, I mean it,” she said seriously. “I’m going to work in Paris for a while, until I get enough money saved for a trip somewhere else. Maybe Switzerland. I’ve always wanted to ski. I can water-ski, but that’s a lot different, I guess. Then I’d like to go to Vienna to see the Lipizzan horses at the Spanish Riding School. Maybe I can even get a job there. I want to go to Ireland, too,” she went on eagerly. “I’ve read so much about their hunts and steeplechases. Have you ever jumped, Alec?”

  “No,” he said, overwhelmed by her itinerary. He intended to go after her as soon as the Black came home for a rest, but it was not going to be easy for him. France and Switzerland, Austria and Ireland were a long way off.

  “Well, when we’re in Ireland we’ll learn to jump together,” she said.

  Alec said nothing but he didn’t let go of her hand. He felt her fingers clutch his, and for a moment he thought she might get out of the car and stay. Then quickly she shifted into first, the gears grinding and making a horrible sound.

  “You should get that transmission fixed,” he said. “If you wait, we’ll get to it the first thing in the morning.”

  “Don’t worry,” she called, moving away. “Everything will go smoothly.”

  “I’ll be down to Maryland,” he shouted after her.

  He caught a last glimpse of her face beneath the floppy cowboy hat. Her mouth held a queer smile as if she had looked into the future and knew what would happen. Her final words reached him, carried on the wind as free as she. “I’ll look for you, Alec. I love you.… Remember, I love you.”

  The new colt, Blackjack, stopped grazing as the car went past. Then he began following it, running along the fence with majestic, unrestrained power. Watching him, Alec thought of the black riderless horse that symbolized a lost leader in the ancient days of mounted warriors, a sign that his master had fallen and would ride no more.

  Alec’s eyes left the horse to follow the red rear lights of the car as it turned down the highway. Pam had not fallen but was going on to other adventures. He wouldn’t let her get away. He would follow no matter where she went until, finally, the day would come when she’d return with him to Hopeful Farm, and they would be together always.

  Alec climbed the fence and walked across the paddock. He would make sure his days were well occupied until he saw Pam again. He would plunge into his work and many hours would pass without his thinking of her. But there would be times when his thoughts of her would escape and run rampant, especially at night; when he would walk the fields, knowing he would not find what he was looking for. He might be able to think of all sorts of remedies but there was no chance of amputating the past completely until Pam walked at his side again.

  Alec came to a stop when Blackjack saw him. The colt would be a good one, just as he’d told Pam, being over sixteen hands and sired by the Black. He decided he would ride him in the morning, early, before anyone else was up. Afterward, he would return to Aqueduct and join the rest of the world, as Pam had done.

  Blackjack came over to him hesitantly, unsure of himself and of Alec. He stopped a short distance away, his eyes large and bright in the starshine.

  Alec waited for him to come all the way, making no move, not hurrying him at all. He felt a new sense of patience, of sureness, of rightness. It was real and here to stay. It was the result of his love for Pam and for what she had taught him. She had softness yet resilience, gaiety yet earnestness, a need for solitude yet an outpouring of love for her fellow man and, most of all, she had faith in a beloved world. She had touched him with her magic and he hoped that in some way he had returned the gift.

  A soft breeze swept his face, and his eyes turned to the star-lit heavens. Whenever he wasn’t with her, her fingers would be the wind and the wind her fingers, and all space would be the smile of her.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Walter Farley’s love for horses began when he was a small boy living in Syracuse, New York, and continued as he grew up in New York City, where his family moved. Unlike most city children, he was able to fulfill this love through an uncle who was a professional horseman. Young Walter spent much of his time with this uncle, learning about the different kinds of horse training and the people associated with them.

  Walter Farley began to write his first book, The Black Stallion, while he was a student at Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. He eventually finished it, and it was published in 1941 while he was still an undergraduate at Columbia University.

  The appearance of The Black Stallion brought such an enthusiastic response from young readers that Mr. Farley went on to create more stories about the Black, and about other horses as well. In his life he wrote a total of thirty-four books, including Man o’ War, the story of America’s greatest thoroughbred, and two photographic storybooks based on the two Black Stallion movies. His books have been enormously popular in the United States and have been published in twenty-one foreign countries.

  Mr. Farley and his wife, Rosemary, had four children, whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and at a beach house in Florida. Horses, dogs and cats were always a part of the household.

  In 1989 Mr
. Farley was honored by his hometown library in Venice, Florida, which established the Walter Farley Literary Landmark in its children’s wing. Mr. Farley died in October 1989, shortly before the publication of The Young Black Stallion, the twenty-first book in the Black Stallion series. Mr. Farley co-authored The Young Black Stallion with his son, Steven.

  DON’T MISS ANY OF WALTER FARLEY’S

  CLASSIC HORSE STORIES ABOUT ALEC RAMSAY!

  THE ORIGINAL STORY ABOUT

  ALEC AND THE BLACK

  Alec Ramsay first saw the Black Stallion when his ship docked at a small Arabian port on the Red Sea. Little did he dream then that the magnificent wild horse was destined to play an important part in his young life; that the strange understanding that grew between them would lead through untold dangers to high adventure in America.

  THE SECOND GREAT ADVENTURE

  ABOUT ALEC AND THE BLACK

  What was the motive of the night prowler in attempting to destroy the Black, one of the world’s most famous horses? The prowler left behind him a gold medallion on which was embossed the figure of a large white bird, its wings outstretched in flight. Was it the Phoenix, the fabulous bird of mythology that symbolizes the resurrection of the dead?

  AN EXCITING RACING STORY

  WITH THE BLACK’S OLDEST FILLY

  Can a filly win the Kentucky Derby? That’s what Henry Dailey hopes when he buys the Black Stallion’s filly. But Black Minx has a mind of her own. Her desire to go fast is great, but so strongly does she resist training that Alec and Henry have to trick her into running! As they bring her to Churchill Downs for the great race, they wonder if she truly is up to the challenge.

  A GRIPPING RACING DRAMA,

  FULL OF SUSPENSE

  Hopeful Farm is ablaze! Alec watches helplessly as the stable—and all his dreams for the future—go up in smoke. To make matters worse, a strong young colt named Eclipse is threatening to replace the Black in the hearts of racing fans. Against all odds, Alec sets out to save the farm and prove that the Black is still the greatest racehorse of all time.