Boy on a Black Horse Read Online Free Page B

of water ever since … ever since a couple of years before. Water was a back stabber to me. On the surface it twinkled and sparkled and smiled, but underneath, it was drowning deep.
    â€œOopsie, it’s really getting late,” I told the world. “Time to go home.” But I didn’t go. I hated being scared and I didn’t like to give in to it. Maybe it was okay to be scared, maybe it was even reasonable under the circumstances, but something in me wasn’t being reasonable about this Chav-and-Rom thing.
    If they could do it …
    There Diddle stood with her ears sideward, swishing her curly tail and waiting for me to make up my mind. If any horse in the world could take me safely across that bridge, Diddle could. All of a sudden I was mad—at myself, mostly, for being a back stabber about Diddle. No black stallion was better than her.
    â€œOkay, girl, let’s do it.” I listened hard—no train was coming. Then I sent her forward.
    She nodded along, stepping between the ties, never even looking at the river glinting too far below. What a trail horse she was. The best. I let her handle it and sat tight and tried not to look down. In a way it was nothing.
    And in a way it was the most important thing I had ever done, because on the other side were Chav and the black horse.
    At the corner where the railroad and the river met, screened off by trees, with nothing around it but woods, was an abandoned farm. I saw the top of the yellow brick silo first, with the low sun hitting it and turning it gold. In the shadows were the falling-down barn and farmhouse. Then I saw the black stallion grazing where the sun hit the top of the meadow, and I stopped Diddle on the tracks because my breath had stopped. There were no fence, no hobbles, no halter line. The grazing stallion was as free as a wild thing, and lying on its back like he was asleep, like being rocked in a black-horse cradle, with his face in its mane and his arms down around its shoulders, was Chav. He had his shirt off, and the heat of the horse and the sunshine were keeping him warm. His bare skin pressed against the horse’s skin. His black hair hung down and mixed with the black horse’s mane. He had his eyes closed; he didn’t see me.
    Together the two of them were so beautiful that when I breathed in, it was like a sob. Now it felt all wrong for me to be there. Why was I being so none-of-my-business nosy, following him? I would have turned Diddle around and gone home that minute—but right then a high, happy voice yelled, “Hey! It’s her!” and there were Baval and Chavali.
    They came running up from the silo. “Come see our castle,” Baval called as if I were an old friend, so I rode down the meadow to meet them. They both stood and watched Diddle with wide eyes.
    â€œWhat kind of horse is that?” Baval wanted to know.
    â€œFat and furry.”
    â€œNo, I mean—did you give her a perm all over?”
    â€œCan I ride her?” Chavali asked, which took a lot when she was so shy, and of course I got off Diddle and lifted her on. I led Diddle, and Chavali rode, and Baval ran ahead down to the castle, which turned out to be the silo. With its big bricks sticking up jagged at the top where its roof had come off, it did look sort of like a castle tower. At the bottom somebody had knocked loose an archway of bricks, enough so that a kid could crawl in, and there were blankets and things in there, and a tarp covering the ground, and another one rigged up overhead.
    â€œAre you camping out here or something?” I asked Baval. It seemed strange. Where were the adults? Did these kids have parents who let them do this? The days were still warm enough, but the nights were getting cold.
    He giggled and didn’t answer. Then I heard footsteps and turned around, and there was Chav.
    He wasn’t looking at me, just at Diddle, but I looked at him. There were scars on his chest and