“Otis!” Everbe said.
“We aint come to that yet,” Ned said, as gentle as Otis. “The first thing is to get them three heats run and to be in front when at least two of them is finished. Then we’ll git around to how much.”
“Heh heh heh,” Otis said, not laughing either. “That is, there aint going to be nothing to pay nobody with until you win it — that’s you. And you cant even run at it without somebody setting on the horse — that’s me. Is that right?”
“Otis!” Everbe said.
“That’s right,” Ned said. “We all of us working on shares so we’ll have something to divide afterward. Your share will have to wait too, like ourn.”
“Yeah,” Otis said. “I seen that kind of share dividing in the Arkansas cotton business. The trouble is, the share of the fellow that does the sharing is always a little different from the share of the fellow that done the dividing. The fellow that done the sharing is still waiting for his share because he aint yet located where it’s at. So from now on, I’ll just take the cash-in-advance share and let you folks keep all the dividing.”
“How much do that come to?” Ned said.
“You cant be interested, because you aint even run the first heat yet, let alone won it. But I dont mind telling you, in confidence, you might say. It’ll be ten dollars.”
“Otis!” Everbe said. She moved now; she cried, “Aint you ashamed?”
“Hold up, Miss,” Ned said. “I’ll handle it.” He looked tired, but that was all. Without haste he drew a folded flour sack from his hip pocket and unfolded it and took out his worn snap purse and opened it. “Hold out your hand,” he told Lycurgus, who did so while Ned counted slowly onto the palm six frayed dollar bills and then about a cupful of coins of various denominations. “It’s gonter be fifteen cents short, but Mr Hogganbeck will make it up.”
“Make it up to what?” Otis said.
“To what you said. Ten dollars,” Ned said.
“You cant seem to hear neither,” Otis said. “What I said was twenty dollars.” Now Boon moved.
“God damn it,” he said.
“Just hold up,” Ned told him. His hand didn’t even stop, now returning the coins one by one from Lycurgus’s hand, and then the frayed bills, back into the purse, and closed it and folded it back into the flour sack and put the sack back into his pocket. “So you aint gonter ride the horse,” he said to Otis.
“I aint seen my price—” Otis said.
“Mr Boon Hogganbeck there is fixing to hand it to you right now,” Ned said. “Whyn’t you just come right out like a man and say you aint gonter ride that horse? It dont matter why you aint.” They looked at each other. “Come on. Say it out.”
“Naw,” Otis said. “I aint going to ride it.” He said something else, foul, which was his nature; vicious, which was his nature; completely unnecessary, which was his nature too. Yes, even finally knowing what it was didn’t help with him. By this time Everbe had him. She snatched him, hard. And this time he snarled. He cursed her. “Watch out. I aint near done talking yet — if I’m a mind.”
“Say the word,” Butch said. “I’ll beat the hell out of him just on principle; I wont even bother with pleasure. How the hell did Sugar Boy ever let him get this far without at least one whelp on him?”
“No!” Everbe said to Butch. She still held Otis by the arm. “You’re going back home on the next train!”
“Now you’re tooting,” Otis said. “I’d a been there right now except for you.” She released him.
“Go on back to the surrey,” she said.
“You cant risk it,” Boon said rapidly to her. “You’ll have to go with him.” He said: “All right. You all go back to town. You can send for me and Lucius about sundown.”
And I knew what that meant, what decision he had wrestled with and licked. But Butch fooled us; the confident angler was letting his fish have the backing too. “Sure,” he said. “Send back for us.” Everbe and Otis went on. “Now that that’s settled, who is going to ride the horse?”
“This boy here,” Ned said. “He a one-handed horse.”
“Heh heh heh,” Butch said; he was laughing this time. “I seen this horse run here last winter. If one hand can even wake him up, it will take more hands than a spider or a daddy longlegs to get him out in front of that horse of Colonel Linscomb’s.”
“Maybe you right,” Ned said. “That’s what we gonter find out now. Son,” he said to Lycurgus, “hand me my coat.” I had not even noticed the coat yet, but now Lycurgus had it; also the peeled switch. Ned took both and put the coat on. He said to Boon and Butch: “Yawl stand over yonder under them trees with Uncle Possum where you’ll be in the shade and wont distract his mind. Hand me your foot,” he told me.
We did so. I mean, Ned threw me up and Boon and Butch and Lycurgus went back to the tree where Uncle Parsham was already standing. Even though we had made only three trips around the pasture this morning, we had a vestigial path which Lightning would remember whether I could see it or not. Ned led him out to what had been our old starting point this morning.
He spoke, quiet and succinct. He was not Uncle Remus now. But then, he never was when it was just me and members of his own race around:
“That track tomorrow aint but a half a mile, so you gonter go around it twice. Make like this is it, so when he sees that real track tomorrow, he’ll already know beforehand what to expect and to do. You understand?”
“Yes,” I said. “Ride him around it twice—”
He handed me the switch. “Get him going quick and hard. Cut him once with this before he even knows it. Then dont touch him again with it until I tells you to. Keep him going as fast as you can with your heels and talking to him but dont bother him: just set there. Keep your mind on it that you’re going around twice, and try to think his mind onto that too, like you done with them colts out at McCaslin. You cant do it, but you got the switch this time.
But dont touch him with it until I tells you to.” He turned his back; he was doing something now inside the shelter of his coat — something infinitesimal with his hidden hands; suddenly I smelled something, faint yet sharp; I realise now that I should have recognised it at once but I didn’t have time then. He turned back; as when he had coaxed the horse into the boxcar this morning, his hand touched, caressed Lightning’s muzzle for maybe a second, then he stepped back, Lightning already trying to follow him had I not reined him back. “Go!” Ned said. “Cut him!”
I did. He leapt, sprang, out of simple fright: nothing else; it took a half-stride to get his head back and another stride before he realised we wanted to follow the track, path again, at full gallop now, on just enough outside rein to hold him on the course; I already heeling him as hard as I could even before the fright began to fade.
Only, there we were again, just like this morning: going good, obedient enough, plenty of power, but once more with that sense that his head didn’t really want to go anywhere; until we entered the back stretch and he saw Ned again on the opposite side of the ring.
It was the explosion again; he had taken the bit away from me; he had already left the path and was cutting straight across to Ned before I got balance enough to reach my good hand down and take the rein short and haul, wrench him angling back into the track, going hard now; I had to hold him on the outside to make the back turn and into the stretch where he could see Ned again and once more reached for the bit to go straight to him; I was using the cut hand too now to hold him onto the track; it seemed forever until Ned spoke. “Cut him,” he said. “Then throw the switch away.”
I did so and flung the switch backward; the leap again but I had him now since it only took one rein, the outside one, to keep him on the course, going good now, around the first turn and I was ready for him this time when he would see Ned, on through the back stretch still going, into and around the last turn, still going, Ned standing now about twenty yards beyond where our finish line would be, speaking just exactly loud enough for Lightning to hear him and just exactly as he had spoken to him in the boxcar door last night — and I didn’t need the switch now; I wouldn’t have had time to use it if I had had it and I thought until then that I had ridden at least one horse that I called hot anyway: a half-bred colt of Cousin Zack’s with Morgan on the bottom: but nothing like this, this burst, surge, as
