“I made him run that time,” Ned said.
“I said, again,” Mr van Tosch said. They sat there. “Priest,” Mr van Tosch said, “do you believe he can do it again?”
“Yes,” Grandfather said.
“How much do you believe it?” They sat there.
“Are you addressing me as a banker or a what?” Grandfather said.
“Call it a perfectly normal and natural northwest Mississippi countryman taking his perfectly normal and natural God-given and bill-of-rights-defended sabbatical among the fleshpots of southwestern Tennessee,” Colonel Linscomb said.
“All right,” Mr van Tosch said. “I’ll bet you Coppermine against Ned’s secret, one heat of one mile. If Ned can make Coppermine beat that black of Linscomb’s again, I get the secret and Coppermine is yours. If Coppermine loses, I dont want your secret and you take or leave Coppermine for five hundred dollars—”
“That is, if he loses, I can have Coppermine for five hundred dollars, or if I pay you five hundred dollars, I dont have to take him,” Grandfather said.
“Right,” Mr van Tosch said. “And to give you a chance to hedge, I will bet you two dollars to one that Ned cant make him run again.” They sat there.
“So I’ve either got to win that horse or buy him in spite of anything I can do,” Grandfather said.
“Or maybe you didn’t have a youth,” Mr van Tosch said. “But try to remember one. You’re among friends here; try for a little while not to be a banker. Try.” They sat there.
“Two-fifty,” Grandfather said.
“Five,” Mr van Tosch said.
“Three-fifty,” Grandfather said.
“Five,” Mr van Tosch said.
“Four-and-a-quarter,” Grandfather said.
“Five,” Mr van Tosch said.
“Four-fifty,” Grandfather said.
“Four-ninety-five,” Mr van Tosch said.
“Done,” Grandfather said.
“Done,” Mr van Tosch said.
So for the fourth time McWillie on Acheron and I on Lightning (I mean Coppermine) skittered and jockeyed behind that taut little frail jute string. McWillie wasn’t speaking to me at all now; he was frightened and outraged, baffled and determined; he knew that something had happened yesterday which should not have happened; which in a sense should not have happened to anyone, certainly not to a nineteen-year-old boy who was simply trying to win what he had thought was a simple horse race: no holds barred, of course, but at least a mutual agreement that nobody would resort to necromancy. We had not drawn for position this time. We — McWillie and I — had been offered the privilege, but Ned said at once: “Nemmine this time.
McWillie needs to feel better after yesterday, so let him have the pole where he can start feeling better now.” Which, from rage or chivalry, I didn’t know which, McWillie refused, bringing us to what appeared insoluble impasse, until the official — the pending homicide one — solved it quick by saying,
“Here, you boys, if you aim to run this race, get on up behind that-ere bagging twine where you belong.” Nor had Ned gone through his preliminary incantation or ritual of rubbing Lightning’s muzzle. I dont say, forgot to; Ned didn’t forget things. So obviously I hadn’t been watching, noticing closely enough; anyway, it was too late now.
Nor had he given me any last-minute instructions this time either; but then, what was there for him to say? And last night Mr van Tosch and Colonel Linscomb and Grandfather had agreed that, since this was a private running, almost you might say a grudge match, effort should be made and all concerned cautioned to keep it private.
Which would have been as easy to do in Parsham as to keep tomorrow’s weather private and restricted to Colonel Linscomb’s pasture, since — a community composed of one winter-resort hotel and two stores and a cattle chute and depot at a railroad intersection and the churches and schools and scattered farmhouses of a remote countryside — any news, let alone word of any horse race, not to mention a repeat between these two horses, spread across Parsham as instantaneously as weather does.
So they were here today too, including the night-telegraphist judge who really should sleep sometimes: not as many as yesterday, but a considerable more than Grandfather and Mr van Tosch had given the impression of wanting — the stained hats, the tobacco, the tieless shirts and overalls — when somebody hollered Go! and the string snatched away and we were off.
We were off, McWillie as usual two strides out before Lightning seemed to notice we had started, and pulled quickly and obediently up until he could more or less lay his cheek against McWillie’s knee (in case he wanted to), near turn, back stretch, mine and McWillie’s juxtaposition altering, closing and opening with that dreamlike and unhurried quality probably quite familiar to people who fly aeroplanes in close formation; far turn and into the stretch for the first lap, I by simple rote whipping Lightning onward about one stride before he would remember to begin to look for Ned; I took one quick raking glance at the faces along the rail looking for Ned’s and Lightning ran that whole stretch not watching where he was going at all but scanning the rush of faces for Ned’s, likewise in vain; near turn again, the back stretch again and into the far turn, the home stretch; I was already swinging Lightning out toward the outside rail where (Acheron might be beating us but at least he wouldn’t obstruct our view) he could see.
But if he had seen Ned this time, he didn’t tell me. Nor could I tell him, Look! Look yonder! There he is! because Ned wasn’t there: only the vacant track beyond the taut line of the wire as fragile-looking as a filtered or maybe attenuated moonbeam, McWillie whipping furiously now and Lightning responding like a charm, exactly one neck back; if Acheron had known any way to run sixty miles an hour, we would too — one neck back; if Acheron had decided to stop ten feet before the wire, so would we — one neck back.
But he didn’t. We went on, still paired but staggered a little, as though bolted together; the wire flicked overhead, McWillie and I speaking again now — that is, he was, yelling back at me in a kind of cannibal glee: “Yah-yah-yah, yah-yah-yah,” slowing also but not stopping, going straight on (I suppose) to the stable; he and Acheron certainly deserved to. I turned Lightning and walked back. Ned was trotting toward us, Grandfather behind him though not trotting; our sycophants and adulators of yesterday had abandoned us; Caesar was not Caesar now.
“Come on,” Ned said, taking the bit, rapid but calm: only impatient, almost inattentive. “Hand—”
“What happened?” Grandfather said. “What the devil happened?”
“Nothing,” Ned said. “I never had no sour dean for him this time, and he knowed it. Didn’t I tell you this horse got sense?” Then to me: “There’s Bobo over yonder waiting. Hand this plug back to him so he can take it on to Memphis. We’re going home tonight.”
“But wait,” I said. “Wait.”
“Forget this horse,” Ned said. “We dont want him. Boss has got his automobile back and all he lost was four hundred and ninety-six dollars and it’s worth four hundred and ninety-six dollars not to own this horse. Because what in the world would we do with him, supposing they was to quit making them stinking little fishes? Let Mr van Man have him back; maybe some day Coppermine will tell him and Bobo what happened here yesterday.”
We didn’t go home tonight though. We were still at Colonel Linscomb’s, in the office again, after supper again. Boon looked battered and patched up and a considerable subdued, but he was calm and peaceful enough. And clean too: he had shaved and had on a fresh shirt. I mean, a new shirt that he must have bought in Hardwick, sitting on the same straight hard chair Ned had sat on last night.
“Naw,” he said. “I wasn’t fighting him about that. I wasn’t even mad about that no more. That was her business. Besides, you cant just cut right off: you got to — got—”
“Taper off?” Grandfather said.
“No sir,” Boon said. “Not taper off. You quit, only you still got to clean up the trash, litter, no matter how good you finished. It wasn’t that. What I aimed to break his neck for was for calling my wife a whore.”
“You mean you’re going to marry her?” Grandfather said. But it was not Grandfather: it was me that Boon pounced, almost jumped at.
“God damn it,” he said, “if you can go bare-handed against a knife defending her, why the hell cant I marry her? Aint I as good as you are, even if I aint eleven years old?”
And that’s about all. About six the next afternoon we came over the last hill, and there was the clock on the courthouse above the trees around the Square. Ned said, “Hee hee hee.” He was in front with Boon. He said: “Seems like I been gone two years.”
“When Delphine gets through with you tonight, maybe you’ll wish you had,” Grandfather said.
“Or maybe not come back a-tall,” Ned said. “But a woman, got to keep sweeping and cooking and washing and dusting on her mind all day long, I reckon she needs a little excitement once in a while.”
Then we were there. The automobile stopped. I didn’t move. Grandfather got out, so I did too. “Mr Ballott’s got the key,” Boon said.
“No he hasn’t,” Grandfather said. He took the key from his pocket and gave it to Boon. “Come on,” he said. We crossed the street toward home. And do you know what I thought? I thought It hasn’t even changed.
