Which is why Ned’s mule was unique, a phenomenon. Put a dozen mules on a track and when the word Go is given, a dozen different directions will be taken, like a scattering of disturbed bugs on the surface of a pond; the one of the twelve whose direction happens to coincide with the track, will inevitably win.
But not Ned’s mule. Father said it ran like a horse, but without the horse’s frantic frenzy, the starts and falterings and the frightened heartbreaking bursts of speed. It ran a race like a job: it sprang into what it had already calculated would be the exact necessary speed at Ned’s touch (or voice or whatever his signal was) and that speed never altered until it crossed the finish line and Ned stopped it. And nobody, not even Father — who was Ned’s, well, not groom exactly but rather his second and betting agent — knew just what Ned did to it.
Naturally the legend of that grew and mounted (doing no harm to their stable either) also. I mean, of just what magic Ned had found or invented to make the mule run completely unlike any known mule. But they — we — never learned what it was, nor did anybody else ever ride as its jockey, even after Ned began to put on years and weight, until the mule died, unbeaten at twenty-two years of age; its grave (any number of Edmondses have certainly already shown it to you) is out there at McCaslin now.
That’s what Ned meant and Boon knew it, and Ned knew he knew it. They stared at each other. “This aint that mule,” Boon said. “This is a horse.”
“This horse got the same kind of sense that mule had,” Ned said. “He aint got as much of it but it’s the same kind.” They stared at each other. Then Boon said,
“Let’s go look at him.” Minnie lighted a lamp. With Boon carrying it, we all went out to the back porch and into the yard, Minnie and Miss Corrie and Miss Reba too.
The moon was just getting up now and we could see a little. The horse was tied beneath a locust tree in the corner. Its eyes glowed, then flashed away; it snorted and we could hear one nervous foot.
“You ladies kindly stand back a minute, please,” Ned said. “He aint used to much society yet.” We stopped, Boon holding the lamp high; the eyes glowed coldly and nervously again as Ned walked toward it, talking to it until he could touch its shoulder, stroking it, still talking to it until he had the halter in his hand. “Now, dont run that lamp at him,” he told Boon. “Just walk up and hold the light where the ladies can see a horse if they wants to. And when I says horse, I means horse. Not them plugs they calls horses back yonder in Jefferson.”
“Stop talking and bring him out where we can see him,” Boon said.
“You’re looking at him now,” Ned said. “Hold the lamp up.” Nevertheless he brought the horse out and moved him a little. Oh yes, I remember him: a three-year-old three-quarters-bred (at least, maybe more: I wasn’t expert enough to tell) chestnut gelding, not large, not even sixteen hands, but with the long neck for balance and the laid-back shoulders for speed and the big hocks for drive (and, according to Ned, Ned McCaslin for heart and will). So that even at only eleven, I believe I was thinking exactly what Boon proved a moment later that he was. He looked at the horse. Then he looked at Ned. But when he spoke his voice was no more than a murmur:
“This horse is—”
“Wait,” Miss Corrie said. That’s right. I hadn’t even noticed Otis. That was something else about him: when you noticed him, it was just a second before it would have been too late. But that was still not what was wrong about him.
“God, yes,” Miss Reba said. I tell you, women are wonderful. “Get out of here,” she told Otis.
“Go in the house, Otis,” Miss Corrie said.
“You bet,” Otis said. “Come on, Lucius.”
“No,” Miss Corrie said. “Just you. Go on now. You can go up to your room now.”
“It’s early yet,” Otis said. “I aint sleepy neither.”
“I aint going to tell you twice,” Miss Reba said. Boon waited until Otis was in the house. We all did, Boon holding the lamp high so its light fell mostly on his and Ned’s faces, speaking again in that heatless monotone, he and Ned both:
“This horse is stolen,” Boon murmured.
“What would you call that automobile?” Ned murmured.
Yes, wonderful; Miss Reba’s tone was no more than Boon’s and Ned’s: only brisker: “You got to get it out of town.”
“That’s just exactly the idea I brought him here with,” Ned said. “Soon as I eats my supper, me and him gonter start for Possum.”
“Have you got any idea how far it is to Possum, let alone in what direction?” Boon said.
“Does it matter?” Ned said. “When Boss left town without taking that automobile with him right in his hand, did your mind worry you about how far Memphis was?”
Miss Reba moved. “Come in the house,” she said. “Can anybody see him here?” she said to Ned.
“Nome,” Ned said. “I got that much sense. I done already seen to that.” He tied the horse to the tree again and we followed Miss Reba up the back steps.
“The kitchen,” she said. “It’s getting time for company to start coming in.” In the kitchen she said to Minnie: “Sit in my room where you can answer the door. Did you give me the keys back or have you — All right. Dont give no credit to anybody unless you know them; make the change before you even pull the cork if you can. See who’s in the house now too. If anybody asks for Miss Corrie, just say her friend from Chicago’s in town.”
“In case any of them dont believe you, tell them to come around the alley and knock on the back door,” Boon said.
“For Christ’s sake,” Miss Reba said. “Haven’t you got troubles enough already to keep you busy? If you dont want Corrie having company, why the hell dont you buy her outright instead of just renting her once every six months?”
“All right, all right,” Boon said.
“And see where everybody in the house is, too,” Miss Reba told Minnie.
“I’ll see about him, myself,” Miss Corrie said.
“Make him stay there,” Miss Reba said. “He’s already played all the hell with horses I’m going to put up with in one day.” Miss Corrie went out. Miss Reba went herself and closed the door and stood looking at Ned. “You mean, you were going to walk to Parsham and lead that horse?”
“That’s right,” Ned said.
“Do you know how far it is to Parsham?”
“Do it matter?” Ned said again. “I dont need to know how far it is to Possum. All I needs is Possum. That’s why I changed my mind about leading him: it might be far. At first I thought, being as you’re in the connection business—”
“What the hell do you mean?” Miss Reba said. “I run a house. Anybody that’s too polite to call it that, I dont want in my front door or back door neither.”
“I mean, one of your ladies’ connections,” Ned said. “That might have a saddle horse or even a plow horse or even a mule I could ride whilst Lucius rides the colt, and go to Possum that way. But we aint only got to run a solid mile the day after tomorrow, we got to do it three times and at least two of them gonter have to be before the next horse can. So I’m gonter walk him to Possum.”
“All right,” Miss Reba said. “You and the horse are in Parsham. All you need now is a horse race.”
“Any man with a horse can find a horse race anywhere,” Ned said. “All he needs is for both of them to be able to stand up long enough to start.”
“Can you make this one stand up that long?”
“That’s right,” Ned said.
“Can you make him run while he’s standing up?”
“That’s right,” Ned said.
“How do you know you can?”
“I made that mule run,” Ned said.
“What mule?” Miss Reba said. Miss Corrie came in, shutting the door behind her. “Shut it good,” Miss Reba said. She said to Ned: “All right. Tell me about that race.” Now Ned looked at her, for a full quarter of a minute; the spoiled immune privileged-retainer impudence of his relations with Boon and the avuncular bossiness of those with me, were completely gone.
“You sounds like you want to talk sense for a while,” he said.
“Try me,” Miss Reba said.
“All right,” Ned said. “A man, another rich white man, I dont call his name but I can find him; aint but one horse like that in twenty miles of Possum, let alone ten — owns a blood horse too that has already run twice against this horse last winter and beat him twice. That Possum horse beat this horse just enough bad the first time, for the other rich white man that owned this horse to bet twice as much the second time. And got beat just enough more bad that second time, that when this horse turns up in Possum day after tomorrow, wanting to run him another race, that Possum rich white man wont be just willing to run his horse again,
