“Don’t laugh, Steve,” Jay said. “You have every right to demand that you be allowed to race Flame. After all, if you can’t believe what you read here on Earth, why …”
Steve interrupted again. “But I still have to answer their questions. And they’ll ask where we’re from.”
“You and Flame are from this world, aren’t you?” Jay demanded. “That’s all that is necessary to tell them.”
Steve made no reply. Instead he looked around him, finding familiar objects … the stove, Pitch’s pipes and can of tea, the trunks and boxes, anything at all to help him keep his mental balance.
Jay lapsed into a moment of thoughtful silence, then his hand descended roughly on Steve’s shoulder. “I’ve got it, Steve. I know exactly what we can do.” Swinging around, he sat down on the cot.
“Flick’s been pretty insistent that we just drop you and Flame off near Cuba while I join you later for the race itself. But I think that when I tell him of your grave concern for Flame’s safety he might be convinced that it’s necessary for me to remain with you. After all, it’s pretty important to us too that you don’t run into any trouble with the officials. We mustn’t start a lot of talk.
“Now near this fishing village I mentioned there are several homes that are closed tight,” Jay continued. “I’m certain they’re available for rental, and one has a small stable behind it.”
“How do you know all this?” Steve asked.
“I told you I found out early last night, Steve,” Jay answered impatiently. “Flick was agreeable to my taking the cruiser and doing a little reconnaissance. It took only a few minutes. It’ll be nothing at all in the big ship. Whiff!… and we’re there.”
Steve’s head reeled. Only a few minutes … with Cuba almost two thousand miles away! Jay was going on, unmindful of the impact of his words upon Steve.
“I’ll stay with Flame while you go to Havana and find out if this race is open to the world or isn’t. If it is, you return for Flame and race him. If it isn’t, we bring you back here. It’s all very simple, and I can’t see that anything can go wrong.”
Steve rose from the cot. “But how will we get him to Havana? He can’t walk fifty miles and then race.”
“Of course not, Steve. There you go, bothering yourself with details again! We’ll hire a truck. I’m sure there must be a number available in the village. And don’t say that we don’t have any Cuban money. I’ll attend to that. Really, Steve, in some ways you’re so much like Flick. You don’t give me any credit for …”
Jay stopped, and then added apologetically, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Steve. I’m very fond of you, just as I am of Flick. But I wish you would let me attend to a few things. I’ve really been very busy, much more so than you may think. After I got back from Cuba I went right to work on this hackamore, and I still have plenty to do. I must make a blanket for Flame, Steve. I won’t have him uncovered while he’s hot.”
Jumping nimbly to his feet, Jay patted the boy’s shoulder. “You relax now, Steve, and leave all the details to me. You’ll have plenty to do just seeing to it that Flame runs the best race he can. Oh, I do hope he doesn’t let us down!”
Jay started for the ledge, stopped and said, “We’ll leave tomorrow at sunset, Steve. It’s very important that you be not a minute late. We’ll glow a bit coming in even though it is only a skip. Don’t fail me now.”
After Jay had gone Steve looked at the living, fibrous tissue of the strange hackamore. His fingers closed over it and he felt its warmth, the same warmth and trust Jay and Flick conveyed to him whenever they were near. Somehow he knew it had taken their place. He hoped they would let him keep it always.
He left the cave then, knowing what he had to do. He whistled to Flame before going down the trail, and the stallion was there to meet him when he reached the valley floor.
For a moment he let Flame smell the bitless bridle. Flame, nuzzling the long tassels of sheer thread, showed no fear of it.
When Steve slipped the bridle on him the fibers seemed to shorten, causing the bridle to fit snugly about Flame’s small head. But the golden tassels, hanging below and on either side of his large nostrils, remained their original length. Steve led Flame back to the trail and, after mounting, drew up the reins.
He sat quietly on Flame’s back, and the stallion made no move. Then Steve leaned forward, whispering. He looked down the valley at the long stretch before them. He waited and Flame waited too. Both were tense and eager to go. Eyes were straight ahead. Flame’s ears were pricked. The waiting became harder but neither moved. Muscles were strained almost to the breaking point. Then, just as the first rays of the morning sun struck the dome of Azul Island, came the unleashing, the end of waiting.
“Go!” called Steve, and on either side of them raced the horses of the world.
THE ROOM
10
Sunset the following day came swiftly to Steve Duncan, and now he stood beside his horse in the great sea chamber. He looked at the soft flow of water in the narrow canal as it rocked the launch quietly against the aged wooden piles. Even the sea was encouraging him to leave, for most days the canal was white with salty foam from great waves crashing against the outer wall before finding their way inside. How often he and Pitch had awaited just such a calm sea as this before undertaking the perilous passage through the coral rock!
Steve whispered to his horse but made no effort to lead him down the wide planks. Flame wore his hackamore and the long tassels seemed alive when he tossed his head, snorting at the launch. If it had not been for the hackamore, Steve might have believed that Jay and Flick had never been, that he could not be leaving Azul Island with Flame! He had not seen Jay since the early morning visit of the day before.
It was almost sunset. They had better be on their way quickly and yet … Steve did not move and the seconds passed, long seconds filled with dread and doubts and yet wonderful dreams as well. He felt the lines of the bitless bridle contract in the palms of his perspiring hands, becoming as light as the sheerest thread yet heavy in their lifelike throbbing.
He knew what he was about to do, and that he had no earthly right to be doing it. Soon he and Flame would be passengers aboard that ship from outer space. It was all so fantastic, so incredible … but all so true. As true and real as his standing there beside Flame. And he was about to go of his own free will. That too was true.
“Come, Flame,” he said.
The red stallion raised his forefeet to the planks, took another step and then stood still, his legs rigid.
Steve waited, talking to him all the while. He held the lines taut but did not pull, and neither did Flame. The daylight coming through the low sea hole was fading, but Steve did not want to open the wide doors above the hole until Flame was aboard the launch, his head turned away from the outer world. He must not become frightened by what he saw.
Steve’s voice became edgy in his anxiety over the growing darkness. He was late now, for Jay had said that it was most important to be at the ship by sunset. He began to turn Flame’s head one way and then the other, trying to get him to shift his balance, to move his forelegs.
“Come, Flame,” he repeated urgently.
The long, straight legs moved a little, the small head bent down, sniffing the boards. The chamber grew darker. Desperately Steve pulled on the lines. What if they didn’t leave after all! He realized then how much he really wanted to go with Jay and Flick.
Flame raised his head at Steve’s urgent pull on the lines. His large eyes met the boy’s curiously, wanting to know just how much was expected of him.
“You’ve done this before, Flame,” Steve pleaded.
The stallion bent his head once more, sniffing the boards, his nostrils blown wide.
Steve turned Flame’s head from one side to the other. Suddenly the horse’s forelegs shifted, and there was a great lurching of his body. The sound of his hoofs on the boards thudded hollowly as he followed Steve onto the launch.
&nb
sp; The first step had been taken! Steve stood still for a moment, stroking his horse, quieting him. Then he tied the lines to the gunwale, although he knew that nothing would hold Flame if he really wanted to get away. He continued talking while he went behind Flame to the stern; there he slid open the wooden doors to the sea.
A fresh evening breeze swept into the chamber with the increased light. But Steve felt utter dismay when he saw how low the sun had descended. Another moment and it would be gone!
Suddenly Flame shifted his weight, and the launch rocked as he sought to turn his head, to see what lay behind him.
Steve hurried to Flame, but he could not stay there long. He had no time. For him, a dangerous game of chance had begun, and there was no turning back, now or ever. He switched on the ignition, and the engine caught with a sudden roar made louder by the close confines of the chamber. The sound startled Flame and Steve touched him lightly, trying to comfort him. At the same time he had the launch moving, backing slowly out of the chamber.
As the boat slid along the canal, Flame tore the lines loose from the gunwale. Steve grabbed them, keeping his horse from rearing as the launch swept through the exit.
They rose with the swells of the sea, and Flame screamed shrilly. But there was not much else he could do, with open water on either side of him.
Steve continued talking to his horse, trying to reassure him that everything was all right. He would have liked to close the doors of the sea chamber, but without Pitch’s help it was impossible. That someone might discover the entrance to Azul Island during his absence was another hazard in the dangerous game he was playing.
Flame looked all around, constantly screaming while the launch backed farther away from the sheer wall of stone. Suddenly Steve turned the wheel and the boat slid between two pieces of rock whose tips just broke the surface. Then the launch went forward, its prow pointed toward the open sea.
The sun had set, and only the brilliant afterglow remained. Carefully and slowly, Steve guided the launch through the coral reef.
Behind him he heard the dull thud of Flame’s pawing. He continued talking to the stallion, soothing him with words while his eyes and thoughts were momentarily elsewhere. Then the pawing stopped, and he heard the quick shifting of hoofs. He felt Flame’s hot breath on his neck, but he couldn’t turn to him, couldn’t take his eyes off the narrow channel ahead. Nor could he reach back and touch Flame, for both hands were needed on the wheel. So he stood there quietly and terribly concerned, becoming alarmed for himself and his horse, and all that lay beyond.
The white patch he sought lay a few hundred yards past the last of the coral reefs. It rose gracefully with the giant swells but remained always in the same spot, as if it were anchored to the depths of the Caribbean.
By this time the brilliance of the heavens had faded and the sky was a pale, murky red. As Steve neared the patch it too changed color, becoming phosphorescent in the twilight of early evening. He knew that he had arrived much too late, but there was no turning back. He could not come again another day … he would not have had the courage to return. For now, with the patch directly before him, he felt all the fears he had successfully imprisoned seeking release. He tried to quell his mounting dread. He repeated everything he had told himself so many times. He must accept Jay and Flick and their world. He must be confident and trusting. He must believe in them.
“I have nothing to fear except what I’ve learned to fear in this world,” he said aloud.
But his spoken words rang with insincerity. Now, nothing he could say could crush the doubts, the suspicions and fears which rose within him. His hands turned the wheel, seeking to take the launch away from the patch. He would return to Blue Valley and all that he knew to be standard and normal and sane.
The wheel turned easily but the boat did not respond to the change in course. Its prow cut the waters directly ahead, drawing closer and closer to the luminous patch. Even when Steve reversed the propeller there was no slackening of their forward speed!
He knew then that the launch was no longer under his control. He turned to Flame for comfort, but the stallion held his head high, his bright eyes staring beyond. No sound came from him, and Steve turned to look with him at the area above the patch, which was now bathed in a golden light that grew in size and brilliance. The waters below it turned from a deep, dark blue to a bubbling silver gray. The swells disappeared, leaving the sea flat.
The prow of the boat pierced the veiled, golden shroud and then came to an abrupt stop, throwing Steve and Flame forward. Before their eyes the bow rose and they stumbled backward, their simultaneous cries shattering the silent evening. Then they too were enveloped by the light.
Steve felt the wooden deck rise beneath his feet, yet he could not see the launch or Flame or anything else. His keenest sense was that of great empty spaces all around him, and he stared into the vastness seeing nothing at all, not even light or darkness. And yet, strangely enough, all dread and fear had left him.
From close beside him Jay said, “Get out, Steve. You’re here at last.”
“I am?” he asked into the nothing, his voice echoing and re-echoing in the vast, empty void.
“Of course,” Jay said, impatient now. “I’m having such a time with Flick because you’re late. He’s afraid we’ll be seen and now he doesn’t want to go at all.”
Steve felt Jay’s hands on his arm but he could not see him. He knew he was being guided hurriedly off the launch because he went up what he knew were the planks leading from the deck. Behind him came Flame. But he could not hear the stallion’s hoofs any more than he could his own footsteps.
“Careful, Steve,” Jay cautioned. “Watch your step. We’re getting off now.”
Steve thought it ridiculous to be told to watch his step when he could see nothing but those murky, endless spaces of … Of what? He couldn’t decide. But they were there all the same.
He stepped from that void into a great room. Jay, whom he could now see, went over to the stallion and straightened the brow band of the hackamore.
“I do wish you had started earlier, Steve,” he said gravely without taking his eyes off Flame. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen now. Flick’s in a very nervous state.”
Steve glanced around the room in which they stood.
“You won’t find him here,” Jay said. “He went to the chart room to check the screen.”
It wasn’t important to Steve where Flick was. He took hold of the lines of the hackamore, grasping them tightly for support, while he took another look around the room.
The walls were hung with great tapestries which changed color constantly before his eyes, becoming shades he recognized and still others that no one in this world had ever seen before. It was their movement that caused him to tremble suddenly. They seemed to be alive and breathing! They all billowed together and glowed in a new and fiery brilliance. He stared at them, feeling their resentment at his very presence.
Jay noted the alarm in Steve’s eyes and said kindly, “Don’t let them bother you. They’re disturbed easily but soon get over it.” Then, smiling, “Of course you’re very new to them,” he added.
“Then they are real,” Steve said. “They’re alive.”
“In a way, Steve. In the same way everything is alive in one form or another. Nothing is ever really dead, you know.”
There was neither depth nor height to the room, neither length nor width. Steve felt that he could walk forever without ever reaching those living walls, that the harder he tried the farther back they would move. Suddenly their colors changed again. They were no longer an angry red but were billowing in soft, somber tones. Yet they continued to move, breathing lightly as if at rest in their final acceptance of him.
“See, Steve,” Jay said. “They’ve settled down again, just as I said they would.” He placed an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Let’s have a seat now and decide on the best way to handle Flick.”
Steve let Jay guide him forward. There
seemed to be a floor of soft metal beneath his feet, so pliable that it yielded with every step he took.
He stopped in his tracks once, turning his head to see where Flame was. The stallion was still standing where Jay had left him, his red coat shining brighter than ever against the background of colorless, empty space from which they had emerged. But it was not empty space, Steve reminded himself. The launch had to be there, somewhere.
Flame’s head was held high, his neck arched in a manner that he seldom maintained for very long. Steve noticed that the lines of the hackamore hung tautly to the floor, as though held by the molten metal itself.
“Let him be, Steve,” Jay said. “It’s the easiest way of handling him now. We don’t want him upset, and it’s only for a little while. He’s resting comfortably. Sit down, please.”
There were no chairs, no furniture in this endless room. Yet Jay gently pushed him down and Steve felt a support of some sort beneath him. Whatever it was, it hugged him close, molding itself to his figure even when he moved his arms and legs. Never before had he sat so comfortably or been so relaxed, so completely at ease.
“That’s it, Steve,” Jay said approvingly, “just take it nice and easy. Let me figure out the best way of handling Flick. Of course he’s absolutely right about the possibility of our being seen when we don’t have the setting sun as a backdrop for our landing.”
He paused, turning his disturbed eyes upon Steve. “In a night sky this ship is about as concealable as a fireball. We haven’t been able to do much about that, Steve, not yet. No more than we can get rid of those gases that lie upon the water after we do arrive. They’re apt to betray our location to anyone who knows the score, as you found out for yourself.
“But getting back to our traveling at night. I say we ought to take a chance on it, don’t you, Steve? What can your people think we are but a falling star or, at most, a meteor, as you did. Whisk, we’re down and away in the launch. Whisk, Flick and the ship are back here. Nothing to it, really, if I can just get old Flick to think along those lines.”
The Island Stallion Races Page 9
