Free The Black Stallion Revolts by Walter Farley Page A

hundreds of tiny red veins streaking the whites. His nose was short, and looked small between his puffed and bruised cheeks. He had a wide mouth and large lips. Or were they swollen, too?
    His glazed eyes traveled down the rest of his body. He carried all his weight in his shoulders and arms. Otherwise he was light, with a small waist, slender thighs and long legs. What use had he made of this body, these hands? He turned them up, looking at the palms. They were calloused and hard beneath the dried blood. His fingers were lean and strong. His hands had known work, hard work.
    Turning on the water, he let it run over his head. The swelling on his crown throbbed, and it was sore to his touch. His headache was persistent, but once more the severe pains had subsided. He let the water run until it had washed his hair clean of all blood. He cupped it to his face with careful, gentle hands, and then he pushed back his hair, smoothing it down as best he could. When he had finished he looked far better except for his torn clothes and bare feet. But he could do nothing about those.
    Before leaving the bathroom, he studied his face again. He wanted to know it, to remember it, for it belonged to him,
to McGregor
. He noticed the freckles on his nose and beneath his eyes, now that his face was clean. He saw, too, the thin white lines at the corners of his eyes, lines that came from squinting for long hoursbeneath a hot sun. His past life, he knew then, had been spent in the open. Doing what, though?
    Hearing the incessant blaring of a horn, he left the bathroom to go to the car. He got inside without the station attendant’s seeing him. Once more he lay back in the corner of the seat.
    The fat man said while starting the engine, “You had me worried for a moment. I thought you might have decided not to come along.” He laughed, but it was a kind laugh, the laugh of a person who liked people, all sorts of people. Yet curiosity was there, too, and it was reflected in his eyes and face. “You cleaned up fine,” he said. “Does it make you feel better?”
    McGregor only nodded.
    The kid doesn’t want to talk much, the fat man thought. Well, that was understandable. McGregor must have gone through a lot at the hands of those drivers. “I asked the gas station attendant if he knew of any doctors in this section,” he said.
    McGregor’s eyes opened, and for a second the man thought he saw deep fear in them. “The guy laughed when I asked him,” he went on. “Said the closest one was fifty miles back up the road and none going this way.”
    “Don’t need a doctor,” McGregor said.
    For a while the fat man drove in silence, yet his gaze left the road often to glance at the huddled figure in the far corner. Finally he said, “Could you eat a sandwich? There are some right behind you.”
    When McGregor didn’t reply, the man reached behind the seat himself and placed the box of sandwiches between them. “Help yourself,” he said.
    The road went across a flat stretch of country, and the car surged forward with increased speed beneath the heaviness of its driver’s foot.
    Yet the fat man took time to glance at the boy again when he heard the cover being removed from the box. He saw McGregor’s glazed eyes turn toward him and then away, quickly, shiftily. He became a little worried about McGregor. Those eyes held more than pain. A haunted look was there … or was it more of a
hunted
look? He shrugged his disturbing thought from him. McGregor was only a kid, a poor kid who was bumming his way around the country. He had given rides to many of his kind. He had helped lots of them.
    He said, “I always carry my own food when I drive all night, especially going through desolate country like this.” He didn’t look at McGregor. He knew the kid would eat if he kept his eyes off him.
    “I’m interested in young people,” he said jovially. “In fact, working for them is all I do now. I’m a retired building contractor. Retired