The Black Stallion's Sulky Colt by Walter Farley

Author:Walter Farley [Farley, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80484-6
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

GOSHEN

10

Alec waited for Henry until long after midnight before going to bed. He lay in the darkness, wondering if Henry had gotten Jimmy safely on his train. Actually, Henry had driven his friend all the way to New York, for he’d been afraid to let him go alone. But Alec didn’t know that. As he figured it, if everything had gone all right, Henry should have been back before now.

Alec listened for Bonfire but the colt was quiet. He’d cooled out well and showed no ill effects from his hard night’s work except that he was tired.

The race had been a nightmare for Alec. It wasn’t an easy thing to see a horse fighting to produce more speed, as Bonfire had done, with nothing left to give. That fast first quarter of a mile, which Jimmy had demanded of them, had taken all the colt could give after all his warm-ups. Alec knew that if only he had been allowed to rate Bonfire behind the others for most of the race he might have won. But it hadn’t gone that way.

Alec turned on his other side. At least the race had accomplished something. Jimmy had seen for himself that Henry was right about the colt. No words could have done as much. After the race Jimmy had been a beaten man. He’d kept repeating that he was a fool, an old fool. And Henry kept saying that he was, too. It had been a strange aftermath to their previous fiery encounter.

An hour later Henry came into the tack room.

“Turn on the light,” Alec said. “I’m awake.”

“I can undress in the dark,” Henry answered. “I’ve had enough lights for one night.”

Alec wondered if he meant the track lights but didn’t ask.

“Is Jimmy all right?”

“I guess so. I got him into his berth and waited until the train left. If he gets some sleep he should be okay by Pittsburgh.”

Alec waited until Henry was in bed before speaking again. He wanted to talk about the race. He wanted Henry’s assurance that everything was going to turn out all right for their colt. “If Jimmy had only listened to you, he would have had something good to take back with him. He’d have felt better instead of worse.”

For many seconds Henry didn’t answer and then he said, “I don’t want to talk about it tonight, Alec. I’m as much to blame as he is for what happened. I lost my head when there were other ways to make him understand. I got him mad, and he took it out on you and Bonfire. He never would have made you go so fast in all those warm-ups otherwise.”

Alec said, in justification of Henry, “You had to tell him how you felt about the colt.”

“There were other ways of handling it,” Henry replied. “I’ve known Jimmy long enough to know what they were.”

For a while Henry said nothing after that and Alec let him alone. Finally Henry said, more to himself than to Alec, “I remember when I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty.

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