Black Stallion and Satan Read Online Free

Henry returned. “It pretty much depends on how you’re goin’ to look at things from now on.” He paused, shifting uneasily on his feet. “I think you oughta take stock of what you got right now an’ the future that’s lined up for you an’Satan. He’s goin’ places an’ you’re goin’ along with him. But he’s no one-man horse, Alec, an’ you got no right to expect him to be. Satan can be handled by ‘most anybody. He’s been trained to do what’s expected of him. It’s the way it should be … the only way. And he’s a better horse for it … better than the Black, I mean. He’s got the Black’s speed yet he’s controllable, an’ that’s what makes him the champion he is.”
    Taking Alec by the arm, he said, “C’mon down to the tack room a minute.” And, as they walked along, Henry added, “Y’got to realize, too, that Satan is giving you somethin’ the Black couldn’t give you. The Black never could be raced.… He was never meant to set foot on a track with other horses. He ran wild with you in that Chicago match race; you know that as well as I do. He’s no campaigner like Satan, for you’d never know what he might do from one race to another. He’s as apt to fight as run.”
    They were at the door of the tack room when Henry stopped and turned to Alec. “And don’t you think for one moment Abu Ishak doesn’t know that, Alec. That’s why he didn’t send the Black over here to race as he said he was goin’ to do when we saw him last fall at the running of the Hopeful. Abu went back to Arabia and thought it over. An’ when he did, he knew darn well it just couldn’t be done. I’ll bet that’s why he hasn’t even answered your letters.”
    Henry walked into the tack room, his hand on the boy’s arm. He came to a halt before the picture of the Black. “What I’d do, if I were you, Alec, would be to put this picture away an’ the Black along with it. I’d sayto myself, ‘It was good, but now it’s over. It’s all part of the past.… It’s done, finished.’ ” Henry shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s what I wanted to say. You know better’n me whether I been talkin’ through my hat or not. You got to decide for yourself now.”
    Henry left Alec alone in the room.
    For many minutes Alec looked steadily at the picture without moving; then, finally, he walked forward, lifting it from the wall. He carried it to the old chest and wrapped it carefully in a blanket before putting it inside and closing the lid; then he turned and walked away.
    Henry was waiting for him outside the door.
    “You were right, Henry,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve been thinking of him all along … wishing it could be the same with Satan as it was with him. I’ve put him away. It’s over, as you say.”
    Henry placed his arm across Alec’s shoulders as they walked past the stalls. “We’ll go out to the track early tomorrow,” he said. “We won’t work Satan, but we’ll just hang around with him.”
    “When’s the next race, Henry?”
    “Not for a month, when we take him to Chicago. He’ll be running against older horses at Arlington Park, but I don’t think he’ll have any trouble if he goes as he did today.”
    “He will,” Alec said. “He couldn’t run any other way.”
    They had reached the barn door, and Henry had switched off the lights, when they heard footsteps coming up the driveway. Alec was the first to make out his father’s lanky figure in the darkness. “It’s Dad,” he told Henry, and the man turned on the lights again.
    Seeing Alec, Mr. Ramsay said, “I’ve been waiting, Alec, but you were gone so long I thought I’d better bring …” He stopped as Henry appeared in the doorway behind Alec. “Oh, I didn’t know Henry was here with you.”
    They stepped back into the barn as Mr. Ramsay entered, and their eyes were on the letter he held in his hand. “It’s from Arabia,” he was saying. “It was in the mailbox when we got