“See,” Henry said to the pier official as Alec and the colt came down the plank. “See. What’d I tell you?”

“Yep,” the man returned, glancing down at the folded paper in his hand. “Well it’s his horse, ain’t it? So I guess he oughta know how to handle him. Alec Ramsay’s his name, huh?”

Nodding, Henry kept his eyes upon the colt and Alec as they came toward him. The colt was kicking his hind legs back and making as big a fuss as he could. Occasionally he would throw his forelegs out, but Henry knew that they were no danger to Alec so long as he stuck close to the side of the colt’s head.

When they had reached the gate, the pier official said to Alec, “Take him through, kid, and get goin’. Lots of other stuff comin’ off that tub.”

Winking at Alec, Henry moved over beside him.

“He’s it, Henry!” Alec almost shouted. “He’s everything we hoped for. I know he is. I can feel it right here in his muzzle even!”

“Y’keep a good hold of it,” Henry cautioned. “There’s enough noise and commotion around here to drive any horse loco, let alone this one. Keep over here, Alec, away from those trucks.”

The colt tried to rear, and dragged Alec a short way; then the boy had him under control again. But the colt’s ears still lay back, and his eyes continued to blaze.

And it was his eyes that Henry looked at more and more often as they walked along. They were smaller than his sire’s, and the glare from them was fixed and stony. They bothered Henry. For throughout his life the old trainer had prided himself on being able to tell much about a horse from his eyes. And he didn’t like what he saw in the black colt’s. Too much lurked there … craftiness, cunning, viciousness, yes … and something else, too. Something which Henry couldn’t figure out. Something which he could only feel … and it was sinister. He’d never seen it in the eyes of any horse before, even the Black. And he wondered if, possibly, this colt could be a throwback to his wild forebears … horses who had roamed the desert and the little-known lands beyond the Rub‘ al Khali, arrogant and ruthless, fearing neither man nor beast and harboring a savage, smoldering hatred of both.

Alec was talking half to himself, half to Henry. “Every inch of him is the Black,” he muttered. “Every last inch of him. He’s going to have the same broad chest and long, slender neck.” Turning to Henry, he said excitedly, “Look at the arch on that neck, Henry. And the small head! And he’s going to be big! You can tell that by his frame, Henry. Big! Like the Black!”

Henry didn’t say anything. Perhaps, he thought, it wasn’t going to be so easy after all … as easy as he’d told Mr. Ramsay it was going to be.