“I dont want to see nobody!” I said. “I want to go home!”
“All right,” Boon said. “Here — anybody — will somebody put him on that train this morning? I got money — can get it—”
“Shut up,” I said. “I aint going nowhere now.” I went on, still blind; or that is, the hand carried me.
“Wait,” Boon said. “Wait, Lucius.”
“Shut up,” I said. The hand curved me around; there was a wall now.
“Wipe your face,” Mr Poleymus said. He held out a bandanna handkerchief but I didn’t take it; my bandage would sop it up all right. Anyway, the riding-sock did. It was used to being cried into. Who knew? if it stayed with me long enough, it might even win a horse race. I could see now; we were in the lobby. I started to turn but he held me. “Hold up a minute,” he said. “If you still dont want to see anybody.”
It was Miss Reba and Everbe coming down the stairs carrying their grips but Minnie wasn’t with them. The car-driving deputy was waiting. He took the grips and they went on; they didn’t look toward us, Miss Reba with her head mad and hard and high; if the deputy hadn’t moved quick she would have tromped right over him, grips and all. They went out. “I’ll buy you a ticket home,” Mr Poleymus said. “Get on that train.” I didn’t say Shut up to him. “You’ve run out of folks sure enough now, I’ll stay with you and tell the conductor—”
“I’m going to wait for Ned,” I said. “I cant go without him. If you hadn’t ruined everything yesterday, we’d all been gone by now.”
“Who’s Ned?” he said. I told him. “You mean you’re going to run that horse today anyhow? you and Ned by yourself?” I told him. “Where’s Ned now?” I told him. “Come on,” he said. “We can go out the side door.” Ned was standing at the mule’s head. The back of the automobile was toward us. And Minnie still wasn’t with them. Maybe she went back to Memphis yesterday with Sam and Otis; maybe now that she had Otis again she wasn’t going to lift her hand off of him until it had that tooth in it. That’s what I would have done, anyway.
“So Mr Poleymus finally caught you too, did he?” Ned said. “What’s the matter? aint he got no handcuffs your size?”
“Shut up,” I said.
“When you going to get him back home, son?” Mr Poleymus said to Ned.
“I hope tonight,” Ned said; he wasn’t being Uncle Remus or smart or cute or anything now. “Soon as I get rid of this horse race and can do something about it.”
“Have you got enough money?”
“Yes sir,” Ned said. “Much oblige. We’ll be all right after this race.” He cramped the wheel and we got in. Mr Poleymus stood with his hand on the top stanchion. He said:
“So you really are going to race that Linscomb horse this afternoon.”
“We gonter beat that Linscomb horse this afternoon,” Ned said.
“You hope so,” Mr Poleymus said.
“I know so,” Ned said.
“How much do you know so?” Mr Poleymus said.
“I wish I had a hundred dollars of my own to bet on it,” Ned said. They looked at each other; it was a good while. Then Mr Poleymus turned loosed the stanchion and took from his pocket a worn snap purse that when I saw it I thought I was seeing double because it was exactly like Ned’s, scuffed and worn and even longer than the riding-sock, that you didn’t even know who was paying who for what, and unsnapped it and took out two one-dollar bills and snapped the purse shut and handed the bills to Ned.
“Bet this for me,” he said. “If you’re right, you can keep half of it.” Ned took the money.
“I’ll bet it for you,” he said. “But much oblige. By sundown tonight I can lend you half of three or four times this much.” We drove on then — I mean, Ned drove on — turning; we didn’t pass the automobile at all. “Been crying again,” he said. “A race horse jockey and still aint growed out of crying.”
“Shut up,” I said. But he was turning the buggy again, on across the tracks and on along what would have been the other side of the Square if Parsham ever got big enough to have a Square, and stopped; we were in front of a store.
“Hold him,” Ned said and got out and went in the store, not long, and came back with a paper sack and got in and took the lines, back toward home — I mean Uncle Parsham’s — now and with his free hand took from the big bag a small one; it was peppermint drops. “Here,” he said.
“I got some bananas too and soon as we get Lightning back to that private spring-branch paddock we uses, we can set down and eat um and then maybe I can get some sleep before I forget how to. And meanwhiles, stop fretting about that gal, now you done said your say to Boon Hogganbeck. Hitting a woman dont hurt her because a woman dont shove back at a lick like a man do; she just gives to it and then when your back is turned, reaches for the flatiron or the butcher knife.
That’s why hitting them dont break nothing; all it does is just black her eye or cut her mouf a little. And that aint nothing to a woman. Because why? Because what better sign than a black eye or a cut mouf can a woman want from a man that he got her on his mind?”
So once more, in the clutch of our respective starting grooms, McWillie and I sat our skittering and jockeying mounts behind that wire. (That’s right, skittering and jockeying, Lightning too; at least he had learned — anyway remembered from yesterday — that he was supposed to be at least up with Acheron when the running started, even if he hadn’t discovered yet that he was supposed — hoped — to be in front when it stopped.)
This time Ned’s final instructions were simple, explicit, and succinct: “Just remember, I knows I can make him run once, and I believes I can make him run twice. Only, we wants to save that once I knows, until we knows we needs it. So here’s what I want you to do for this first heat: Just before them judges and such hollers Go! you say to yourself My name is Ned William McCaslin and then do it.”
“Do what?” I said.
“I dont know yet neither,” he said. “But Akrum is a horse, and with a horse anything can happen. And with a nigger boy on him, it’s twice as likely to. You just got to watch and be ready, so that when it do happen, you done already said My name is Ned William McCaslin and then do it and do it quick. And dont worry. If it dont work and dont nothing happen, I’ll be waiting right there at the finish, where I come in. Because we knows I can make him run once.”
Then the voice hollered Go! and our grooms sprang for their lives and we were off (as I said, we had drawn this time and McWillie had the pole). Or McWillie was off, that is. Because I dont remember: whether I had planned it or just did it by instinct, so that when McWillie broke, I was already braced and Lightning’s first spring rammed him into the bridle all the way up to my shoulders, bad hand and all.
Acheron already in full run and three lengths ahead when I let Lightning go, but still kept the three-length gap, both of us going now but three horses apart, when I saw McWillie do what you call nowadays a double-take: a single quick glance aside, using only his eyeballs, expecting to see me of course more or less at his knee, then seeming to drive on at full speed for another stride or so before his vision told his intelligence that Lightning and I were not there.
Then he turned, jerked his whole head around to look back and I remember still the whites of his eyes and his open mouth; I could see him sawing frantically at Acheron to slow him; I sincerely believe I even heard him yell back at me: “Goddammit, white boy, if you gonter race, race!” the gap between us closing fast now because he now had Acheron wrenched back and crossways until he was now at right angles to the course, more or less filling the track sideways from rail to rail it looked like and facing the outside rail and for that moment, instant, second, motionless; I am convinced that McWillie’s now frantic mind actually toyed with the idea of turning and running back until he could turn again with Lightning in front.
Nor no premeditation, nothing: I just said in my mind My name is Ned William McCaslin and cut Lightning as hard as I could with the switch, pulling
