Happy Thanksgiving, Two-Tie.
Good morning, Vernon. What do you know?
You wanted I should call when Pelter was in. Well, he's in. Nightcap Sadday. Two thousand dollar claimer for horses which ain't win two since May.
How far's he going?
A mile.
Hmmm. So what do you hear? Do the layabouts in the Polky Dot think he can still get up to speed?
Against two thousand dollar horses? When he's been running for fifteen? To be honest wit ya, I been amazed. These clowns remember Pelter. Nothing about what little stakes he win, what distance he likes, how old he is. Nothing about how bad he broke down. None of that. The Darkesville Stalker, that's what they remember, the poor man's Stymie, bred in a field. They ain't forget that name. I think he's a sentimental favorite Sadday. He oughta run for governor. He might could beat Arch Moore.
I'd vote for him, Two-Tie said. If I still had a vote.
How come you can't vote? You never did no time for that bookstore, ain't it? I thought they let you off clean, no probation, nothing.
I live in Ohio now.
O yeah. Hey, look at this. Same Sadday, in the fourth. Here's that three-year-old Zeno claimed off your guy, Hansel, the one that's hooked up wit your niece-Jim Hamm's got the horse for Mrs. Zeno now. The Mahdi. Shipping up from Charles Town. Hey, they say that Hansel goes on yak yak yakking about claiming him back-could he be looney, that guy? He's got a funny look in his eye.
Umbeschrien-you're supposed to tell me if he's looney-you find out, you hear? And Vernon-speaking of claims-you hear anything else I should know?
Like what?
I realize that only some certified moron would even think about claiming a nine-year-old horse what pulled up in the stretch once last year. Still, Vernon…
I know what you mean. It's Pelter.
But the horse is nine years old, Vernon.
Aaay, racetrackers are crazy. You start with that presumption.
What kind of greedy, disgusting asshole would trade around a class animal like that, from hand to hand, in its old age, like it was a poker chip. Here is a horse what has already made a substantial contribution to society-seventy-seven grand lifetime, if I remember right. He wakes up in a strange barn with a moron in charge who don't know nutting about his lingering medical problems, and outside of if he win or lose, could care less. The horse is looking at a miserable death.
Aaanh, this business will drive you nuts if you let it. What do you care? You going soft on me? What's going on?
What do I care? That is a interesting question, Vernon. Never mind what I care, just put the word out, will ya? Two-Tie will take it very, very bad if anybody claims that horse.
For two grand?
For any price. Two-Tie will take it deeply personal. Spread the word. You follow me? I realize you can't be responsible for mental cases, Vernon. Or strangers. Assholes and morons, yes.
I'll see what I can do.
Thank you, Vernon. How is it coming with that special race for spring? Lord of Misrule.
I don't know, Two-Tie. It don't look good. Standish don't want to shock the Chamber of Commerce types, sending the meatwagon after some cripple even a greenhorn could see the horse shouldna been running in the first place.
I want you should remind Mr. Standish politely how he got tight with the Rotary Club in the first place. And the glass factories.
Suitcase sighed hopelessly.
And ask him who roped in Glory Coal?
Suitcase said he would do so.
Thank you, Vernon. What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Eating turkey with the missus?
You know, Estelle was going to do the turkey for the kids and the five grandbabies. Monday she picks up a twenty-two-pound butterball out the freezer bin at the Giant Eagle and sumpm goes pop in her back. Behind the shoulder. Some Thanksgiving. She's gotta cook for eleven people with one of them collars around her neck looks like a toilet seat.
She don't gotta cook nutting. I'm gonna send over a licensed practical nurse who will also cook your turkey for you. Best turkey you ever eat. Stuffed with bay oysters and cornbread. Tell Estelle not to do nutting or buy nutting-the nurse'll bring everything with her. Ruth Pigeon. Kidstuff's old lady.
Ain't she spending the holiday with Kidstuff?
I'm sorry to say the kid has temporarily tied himself up in other business.
The Boston floozy.
Yeah. This gives Ruthie sumpm to do.
I'll tell Estelle. Hey, that's real good of you.
Think nutting of it.
You wouldn't maybe care to join us?
Two-Tie laughed softly at the bare idea-Elizabeth and him would of course eat in the Ritzy Lunch and spend a quiet evening at home-but then, the invite had been strictly for form's sake. Everyone knew that Two-Tie did not do family feasts-no weddings, no christenings, no graduations. Funerals, yes. Some people said he kept kosher, but this could not be right since sometimes he turned up at wakes, where he filled up a paper plate with ham and potato salad like everybody else. And on the other hand he would not show his face at a bar mitzvah either. People said that family scenes depressed him, unless it was shoving some stiff in the ground, on account of he had lost a very young wife himself years ago-the one in whose honor he wore the black bow tie. But no one in Carbonport or Indian Mound had actually known this individual, or had the nerve to ask, or could remember Two-Tie in any domestic arrangement other than bachelor with dog.
One other thing I gotta tell you.
What is it, Vernon.
Your niece-I don't know what it means yet-her name comes up the other day as co-owner for a horse Joe Dale Bigg let old Deucey have the animal on the cuff.
Bigg! What business has that sweet young girl got with Bigg?
Don't get excited, it's nothing like that. This is a six-year-old horse, got some class, Joe Dale used to keep him down the farm, run him twice a year for five, six grand. Win once and refused in the gate three times. Another Speculation grandson that ain't panned out.
Not the dental patient? Two-Tie asked. Little Spinoza?
That's the one. First I had a letter from Joe Dale about alien on the horse, three thousand dollars in nobody's name but Deucey Gifford's. This week I see the foaling papers: now it's the girl, that old colored groom they call Medicine Ed, and Deucey. I don't know what their game is, I don't hear yet if they're fronting for that fellow Hansel or what, but I don't think so. That wouldn't be like Deucey.
What about the horse?
Like I said, never went nowhere. Two, three wins in twenty-five starts lifetime. Nothing at all but one show in the past two years. And common-half crazy-you know. Speculation grandson. The dental patient. Everybody knows that story. And Biggy Bigg just got out of Pruntytown. So Joe Dale unloaded the horse cheap, maybe that's all it is. Anyhow check out the seventh race Friday, he's in for 45 hundred.
Joe Dale Bigg, Two-Tie said in disgust. It ain't enough for him to take doctors and lawyers to the cleaners-he's gotta skunk negroes and orphans too.
Suitcase said nothing, for as Two-Tie knew, Joe Dale and him was close as wax, almost as close as Suitcase and Two-Tie.
Well, let us not speak of cheap tricks at a track where the leading trainer don't have to know a horse from a hole in the ground-I'll tell the scumbag myself what I think of him if he touches my niece.
Be reasonable, how in hell he's going to know she's your niece? You told me not to say nuttin to nobody. Anyhow, like I told you, Joe Dale's out of it. The horse went from him to Deucey to the girl, not from him to Deucey and the girl. If you got a beef it's with Deucey.
You honestly think Bigg ain't holding some cards? Wait till he sees that fresh young woman, he'll think up some angle even if he didn't have one in front.
To tell you the truth, if I'm you, I don't worry about it.
What does that mean, Vernon? I don't like the sound of that.
When did you ever see Joe Dale Bigg with any type of broad but a diamond dolly? Balloons out to here and bleach blond hair by the cubic foot. Joe Dale likes to pay top dollar for his girls and let's face it, the niece is a hippy, they give it away. They have ideals, but still. For free! And no more tits than a Boy Scout. And how about that afro on top?
She's a very charming girl, a great deal like her mother Dorothy, except for the hair, said Two-Tie in an injured tone.
Forget it. She's safe. She ain't his type, Suitcase said.
AN HOUR BEFORE Little Spinoza's first race they sat around in a funeral mood-all except Little Spinoza who stood in his bucket of ice as cool as a Tiffany cocktail stirrer, dreaming in black jewelry eyes of emerald alfalfa and clover of Burmese jade. He had miraculously regained his innocence as they had all lost theirs. He had forgotten what it was to go to the dirty races, but they were owners now-maybe they should have stayed drudges, toadies and slaves. They should have known they weren't the lucky type.
Deucey turned up the collar of her gray raincoat and plopped a soggy woolen golfing cap on her head as if it had been an ice bag. She reached in her pocket and went to work on a pint of Early Times. Medicine Ed sat in a metal folding chair with his stick leg propped straight out in front of him on a bale of hay. His liver brown hands were floury from the cold. He was oiling a petrified curl of leather from a halter, the little blackened end piece that went through the buckle. It ain't a decent piece of tack in the outfit, he had complained and set to work gravely, so he could sit there looking down in his lap and wouldn't have to talk to the women. Maggie lay on her back in the straw next to Little Spinoza, staring at him and trying to understand, but without her fingers spidering over his legs and back, his horse brain was closed to her, dark as an Ocean City frozen custard stand in December.
They were all expecting the worst. Maybe he had turned into a chucklehead girl on them. Or like these boys round here anymore he did not want to work. Or maybe he was woolgathered about his manhood, not knowing what he was. Even though he wasn't supposed to win, they had thought he'd be pawing up sparks by now, thinking about his race. They had thought that Earlie or whoever it was would have a hard time pulling him, but at forty minutes to post he didn't seem to have noticed yet that he would have to run.
Around 6:30, the pony-girl Alice Nuzum ambled along. How y'all doing tonight? she said. At first no one bothered to answer her, for they weren't cheered by her visit. I'm taking this one lying down, Maggie finally said, from the straw at Spinoza's feet. Who wants to know? Deucey said, passing the pony-girl the open pint of Early Times without looking at her. Alice, I'm going to share my likker with you even though you ain't said nothing good about my horse in a month. Tell you the truth, Alice began. Don't, Deucey said.
Medicine Ed stood up and limped off to the tack room, carrying the discolored bit of halter out in front of him like a dead snake. He always kept a respectful distance from Alice, for to him she look like some cunjure woman's helping hand, that do her bidding in the deep of night and the rest of the time live alone under a rock.
I can see this ain't the right time, the pony-girl said and stepped up to the webbing where the horse stood in a tub of ice. Little Spinoza nickered with pleasure at the sight of her.
Deucey groaned. Cussed horse is more interested in his pals than in the damn race. Hey, tell him he's in the gate in less than thirty minutes, will ya. Maybe he listens to you.
Alice sank her chewed-off fingernails in Little Spinoza's topknot. Wake up, little buddy. O well, I guess today ain't the day, eh?
Maggie gazed at them from below. Suddenly, today of all days, she found herself liking Alice's looks. Alice was profoundly short-waisted; her Brunswick High School Marching Band jacket might have been on display in Puterbaugh's Department Store window, holding its shape with a full gut of tissue paper. It was a hard, round, muscular chest with small breasts that just rounded it out. Her legs were skinny as wires. The black hair that hung through a red rubberband behind her head was greasy, her skin was bumpy, and her fingernails ended in half moons of blue dirt. She didn't care one straw how she looked. She was around Maggie's age. She was fearless, though, and she knew how to crouch on the back of a horse.
Okay, so maybe this ain't the time, she said without turning around, but what the heck, this afternoon I'm lying on my cellar floor pumping iron?-(she lived with her mother in East Liverpool)-and suddenly I get this, like, flash of light what kinda horse you got here. I had him wrong-now they stared at her out-and-out hostilely-yup, well, no hurry, but I know this, you'll be calling me up tomorrow. If Earlie and the horse make it through this race alive, don't give up, gimme a call, I'm the one you want. You're gonna have to put me on your horse. Look under Nuzum in East Liverpool. I don't have no agent yet. You'll be in touch. See youse later.
They gazed dully after the shiny black jacket loping on wires for legs across the wet and floodlit road. Put her on their horse, when they had the leading rider? Fat chance.
They stared Alice out of sight, nobody spoke, and then they were dragging off through the puddles to the post parade, all down in the mouth except Little Spinoza, who might have been a small boy on his way to dip tadpoles in the woods, marching along, splish splash, across the rain-glazed parking lots, gazing at everything brightly and airily, swinging his little pail.
Even when they got to the track where on a race night, so stories had it, Little Spinoza used to go pop-eyed with terror, exude yellow lather like sewer foam under his belly and bite or kick anyone that strayed into his path, he only blinked, at first, at the milling crowds. What were all these loud obnoxious people doing here? Where was his fly-light rider Alice Nuzum? What about his working companion Grizzly-where was he? Were they going for another lazy gallop towards the long white hem of sun just showing in the south? No they were not. Instead of that glowing, silent, bird-scattered seam of morning along the horizon, there rose up this raucous light-soaked clubhouse crawling with human beings.
Little Spinoza looked around for Maggie, his handmaiden who had made it her job to shape the world comfy or even ecstatic. Where she was, was no pain. And here she was, but getting smaller and weaker while waves of something hurtful and chaotic, some harsh old world he dimly remembered, were getting louder, faster and taller. By the time they turned into the paddock, Little Spinoza looked offended and suspicious, and after the tattoo man rolled up his lip-naturally he didn't like for anyone he didn't know to poke around his mouth-his eyes opened wide. Wide and round and blank.
He was the six horse. Could be worse, Deucey had said: If he comes out of the gate straight, he can still get to the rail with his speed. And he didn't go crazy yet. He wasn't awash between his legs in sickly yellow sweat. When Deucey tightened the girth on his racing saddle he almost pulled Maggie off her feet, slashing down once with his teeth, but in the last moment Maggie snatched on the shank and he came up looking dazed and embarrassed-after all it was only Deucey, smelling of whiskey and bubblegum. Even after the call, Riders up! he held together, only pinned his ears and looked, in his usually perfect face, smeared and wild. He didn't even change that much when Deucey gave Earlie a leg up and the jockey landed on his back.
Earlie's face, though he was only thirty-three years old, was as fallen in and collapsed in its loose brown skin as a baked apple. He had probably had a long night already. He perched up there on Little Spinoza's neck and Deucey said, Jesus, Earlie, my horse looks like a grenade without the pin all of a sudden. All I ask is don't get him hurt, you hear? Let him get a race under him, but save him for next time. Just skip the walking ring and get him out of here now.
Earlie nodded, and inching little tiny sideways dance steps with the horse's jaw pulled into the man, they headed out to the track. Without moving his tense upper lip the jockey muttered, or sawed his teeth, against the horse's neck. When exactly did Earlie insinuate his heart's desire to the body of his dancing partner? They tangoed frigidly, inelastically, clockwise along the rail as one by one the other horses came round them and were loaded in. Little Spinoza last-the word was out on the Speculation grandson. And maybe it happened there-some exchange of vicious endearments when they were first shut in together in the clanging intimacy of the gate. For that was where Little Spinoza went out of his mind. Reared up-filled the top of the frame with black that shouldn't be there (it was like a flash of the Jolly Roger), then plunged terrifyingly out of sight-he must be down on his knees or neck and the jockey crushed to death under him, such things happened. But then the bell rang and he sprang into the world on his feet but turned sideways. The jockey hung down his left side like a spider, one hand spun in the horse's mane, the other clamping his right ear, one soft boot barely hooked over Little Spinoza's spine. Pulled himself back onto the horse, anger pumping black life into his wrinkled little face-and then you could see him telling the horse what to do.
But Little Spinoza hadn't waited, they were five lengths behind the worst horse at the clubhouse turn when Little Spinoza opened out, pumping in long glides like a water strider, and closed on the ragged back end of the field. He ate up the two horse who had dropped out of it. What did he want the ones in front for? Maybe he was just trying to get away from the claws stuck in his neck. He threaded his way into the flying mud and chopping legs, climbed through that up to fourth in the backstretch, where he hung, and then at the half-mile pole there was a kind of subtle jump or jerk: it was Earlie finally taking hold of him, asking him to work.
Little Spinoza began to die. The five horse moved slowly by him on the outside, the ten horse and the three horse on the rail. Earlie rolled his hands and raised his stick, tried neck, flank, withers, and it was only remarkable how completely nothing happened. I make him work. But the horse wanted only to lose-no, not lose, just disappear in plain air, shrink out of the world altogether.
The jockey now lost his head, began screaming words into the shapely but deaf black ears and cutting him under his belly and in any strange place that hadn't been tried, any soft flesh-the whip crisscrossed his sheath, slashed the loose folds under his forearms. It was the sixteenth pole and Little Spinoza was through. He visibly drew into himself and one by one the others streamed around him. You would have thought it would take more than the length of the stretch to end up tenth behind a horse as bad as the two horse, but he did it, or maybe he only seemed to be moving his legs.
Standing in the stirrups, Earlie swept by the gap where they stood, not looking at them. When he pushed up the goggles his face was two brilliant little punctures in a mask of gray mud. He was furious. He wasn't afraid of them. He wasn't hiding from them. Maggie could already see in the gritty furrows along his mouth his story of the thing: He didn't owe them a horse back-they had almost got him killed. As he pulled up he cut Little Spinoza three last times with the stick, once across the nose, once across the ears, once across the flat of his cheek.
Get off my horse, you crazy frenchie. Deucey came charging through the gap.
The jockey jumped off Little Spinoza while he was still slowing to a lope, wheeled and kicked him in the belly. And let go of the reins. Little Spinoza's head flew up and the horse plunged forward into the small party gathering at the winner's circle. A woman screamed and another in a black picture hat sat down in the dirt.
He lit out for the inky darkness of the infield and Maggie ran that way too. Itty bitty, eeny meeny, eine kleine, Spin, o, za, she cried in the high meaningless singsong she reserved for the horse, nature naturing, and he stopped, seeming to know that voice. She inched closer. No no no, not the rail, not the rail, you goose, all in nursery-rhyme falsetto, to fill up the crackling space between them. Then she snatched. He reared but her hand was on the bridle. Snapped the shank on him, bunched the reins, and they made a wide arc into the darkness, away from the winner's circle, towards the gap.
Deucey came panting, Medicine Ed dragged his leg along behind her.
He can't open that eye, Maggie told them, suddenly sobbing.
He be all right, Ed said.
I might kill that sonofabitch with my bare hands, said Deucey.
Boy scared for his life, Ed said.
We'll be lucky if we ever get this horse back in a gate now.
And yet Little Spinoza was tripping along with them collectedly enough, considering he hadn't been jogged to cool him down. His nostrils were wet, ruby red and cavernous. Sandy mud caked his face and chest and even his closed eye.
At least you got to see a little of his speed, honey, Deucey added, shaking the rain off her golfing cap.
Jesus, when was that? Maggie said, looking around in amazement.
He come out of the gate backwards, girlie, backwards, with the boy hanging off him, and he still gets up there in the mud in fifty and change. Did you see his stride? He digs in like a steam shovel.
But then he died, Maggie said.
He ain't died, he quit.
What's the big difference?
Soon as that boy use the stick on him he quit, Ed said.
No-it was before that-already when Earlie took hold of him at the half he lost interest, I saw it, Maggie said.
Well, he certainly looked like shit, Deucey said, with satisfaction.
Maybe that's because he is shit, Maggie said.
Deucey and Ed looked at her with pity, then at each other.
Only if you ignorant, Ed said. The story gone be right there in them little numbers if you can reckon.
Well I never said I could reckon. What I'd like to know is who can get that goofy horse to run all the way to the end?
There, that shut them up. They trudged along in silence. Medicine Ed sighed. They's ways, he could have said to them, they's ways of bringing a horse to his self at least one time before he, Medicine Ed, lose his nut and all hope of a home. He wasn't about to tell the women that.
Instead he asked: Who gone ride this horse now?
Alice Nuzum, Maggie said, has a theory.
I mean to talk to that Alice. Deucey narrowed her eyes as if this were all Alice's doing.
Can you tell what Alice is thinking? Maggie asked.
Hell no, said Deucey.
Nome, Medicine Ed agreed. Yet and still. Alice probably the onliest one will get on this horse after that damn race. If Alice will.
She will, Maggie said, picturing the band jacket like a black satin pumpkin, the pipe cleaner legs, the long oily pony-tail in its broccoli-bunch rubberband.
She better, Deucey said.
PERFUMED, BARBERED, SLUG-LIPPED Joe Dale Bigg, alias (no doubt) Biglia or something of the sort, came looking for her in his big blue Cadillac, and that's what gave you your power over him from the start. The leading trainer came cruising over the rusty frozen mud between the shedrows in his dark-blue-and-stainless-steel Sedan de Ville, doing about two miles an hour. He ground to a stop and leaned out familiarly over his thousand-dollar gold wristwatch and talked to you for thirty minutes straight about this and that, about nothing really, with the motor purring the whole time, the most affable man in the world as only Sicilians can be affable, but you knew from the start, before he even rolled down those violet windows, it was Maggie he had come looking for. You could see past those laughing, fleshy, blue-shadowed cheeks right to the back of his cave.
He was hungry. Restless, deprived, empty as a wolf. You knew the look.
He wanted her, not you. He hadn't even thought about why or whose she was or what it was in particular about her, he just followed his thick, flat nose. Maybe it wasn't used to getting pulled, his nose. At any rate, shame didn't compel the guy to talk to you, much less guilt, so what could it be? The man couldn't stop operating, that was what it was. He was aggressive but also indirect, like warm grease. He came close and soaked in.
You got a nice little string of horses. Yeah. You can pick em. Everybody says that. I noticed that. I wish I had that. That's talent. Naaaa, I mean it. I'm a salesman, a businessman, not a horse trader. I got good people working for me, that's all. I come up with the money, I got owners to throw away, which is something you don't got, Hansel. Am I right or wrong? But I depend on other people's smarts to tell me which horse when.
You said nothing and he watched you tap flakes of hay into the hanging rack one by one. It was Pelter's stall, but the tall, dark, mile-long horse was lurking in the inner shadows, poking his fine Roman nose curiously through his bedding. Did Joe Dale know it was Pelter?
Hey, I heard old Roland Hickok thought the world of you, Joe Dale said, and so he answered your question. I'm not surprised. He could pick em. I tell you what: he never thought much of me. When the money starts rolling in I say to myself, All right, now the old man will show me some respect, but no, he won't even talk to me. After a while I get the idea he thinks I'm a sleazeball. Not that he would ever say so. He had manners, you know? Class. Like he came from the type of family, the boys go to some school in New England where they play lacrosse and it snows three feet in the winter, and the girls' weddings get write-ups in the New York Times. I mean, his father and brother trained for the Ogdens-in the Hickok family he was the black sheep, and in West Virginia he had a holy air around him like fucking George Washington. So what does he need me for? But you he gives his champion horse, his old-time stakes winner-what's the name of that horse?
You just smile.
Punter? Naa, that ain't it. Pelter, he answers himself. The Darkesville Stalker, First Horse of West Virginia. Now that says something.
He didn't give me Pelter. I paid for the animal, you say. I was working for Hickok at the time.
Yeah, but money was never the issue with Roland Hickok. He had class and he picked you. That says it all.
The guy was good-he about had you pegged-for a moment you couldn't let him see your face, because it was glowing with pride. You turned your shoulder to him, busied yourself with a case of electrolytes, counting the foil packages.
Plus you get the girls to work for you, Joe Dale went on. I wish I had that. I got no women in my barn. Everybody knows they have a softer touch, more patient. They get more out of the animals. They don't strong-arm a horse. They finesse. There it was. You knew he'd come round to her, sliding under the door, soaking in, pearling up the edges. Instead of hiding her you pushed her towards him-surprise him a little.
Girls work harder, he said.
Girlfriends work cheaper, you said with a wry smile.
She must love the hell out of you, Joe Dale said. You couldn't get me to sling hay bales for no amount of love or money, no matter how cute your ass was.
Actually I'm only second best, you said coolly. After Hickok sold me his horse it was nothing but Pelter. She likes that horse.
Izzat right? Joe Dale shook his head in wonderment. Yeah, some of em's like that. Even the trollops that drip diamonds, you'd be surprised. It's like, Ooooo, he's so beautiful, can I pet him? Sure, baby. Imagine thinking one of these dumb hayeaters is beautiful. He laughed. Must be the sight of those big shlongs that gets em sentimental. Hey, that girl of yours looks intelligent, though. I used to know girls like her back in New York. I bet she went to Barnard College or somewhere. What is she, Jewish?
You know-she might be, you said, as if you'd never thought of that before. Why don't you ask her yourself, if you're interested? She'll tell you. She's quite a candid person.
Maybe I will-try to get her away from you while I'm at it-into my barn, I mean. I pay better. Big open-faced smile, shining with well-groomed wop geniality.
He talked dirty to you and that, too, was a way of looking for her. Hey, I even had a Jewish girlfriend once. She was only this big-he held his manicured thumb and index finger an inch apart-which usually I like, but it took me a long time to get around to banging her. I thought she'd have a big twat, don't ask me why-because of what they say about twats and noses, you know?-so it was prejudice, I admit it, because she didn't even have a big nose. But turns out she was incredible, a little hairy down there but tight like a pencil sharpener. I swear she ruined me for Catholic girls for three years.
You stared at him but he was absorbed in pulling a hair out of his watchband, laughing softly at his own joke. A mean wind had blown in from Ohio on the tail of the rain. The puddle by the back gate had a thin new skin of ice. Inside Joe Dale's Cadillac the heat must have been ninety degrees. The window was all the way down, his pale aqua shirt lay open at the collar and he wasn't even wearing a coat. That was when you decided to take whatever he dangled and turn it upside down on him. Do business but do exactly as you liked. You knew an offer was coming. Some type of deal to give him power over you, only he would have no power over you. You waited and there it came.
You know, Hansel, I got more than I can handle. You got the kind of brains behind horses I wish I had, no, I mean it, I got the humility to see I need help. I know what I do good, nobody does it better, but I need people like you. What do you say I push some owners your way, and maybe sometimes a horse that don't win for me? And you tell me what looks good to you out there and I see about getting it for you, no claim necessary. See, that's one thing about having that leading trainer hand to file. Maybe I don't know much, but plenty of times I go to the owner, make the case he's with the wrong guy, and whatever I say, the jerk's so sick of wondering if his trainer is turning him around, he does what I say. You need owners, Hansel. Am I right?
I wouldn't turn the right kind away, you say.
This way I get you some live ones, deep dough, high rollers, flashy good time guys, accident lawyers and like that, lotsa playing room there. And also I got some people waiting in line right now who don't want their names involved for various reasons. You take their horses, you go down as owner on paper, or the girl can-whichever way you want-they'll pay by the day and meanwhile-we'll be in touch. You know how to get horses ready as good as I do. In fact, better. Big friendly grin here. Only, now and then I let you know about a race that's literally made for them and you might not of heard about it-see what I'm getting at?
So there it was. You had nothing to lose-asked right away for his ass on the table.
I want that horse back that Zeno claimed from me. The Mahdi. He's in for two grand on Saturday night.
Jesus Christ, Hansel, I don't know if I can move that fast. Who's the trainer?
Jim Hamm, for Mrs. Zeno.
Not good, not good. Jim Hamm don't do business with me-not directly. I don't think he likes me. He smiled.
Get me somebody who puts up two grand and dailys and I'll claim him myself. Nobody's going to lose money on the deal, I'll tell you that. If you can get me two thousand-sure, okay, I'll take a horse for you. Those are my terms. Take it or leave it.
Oooo. Must be a helluva horse, huh. The Mahdi, eh? Joe Dale said, pretending to be impressed.
He's a piece of junk, but he'll win at the Mound for a while. If he stays sound.
What's that again-fourth race Saturday night? But of course you hadn't said which race. He was letting you know he knew. You peered at him without answering.
He shrugged. Hey, you know what you're talking about. I'll see what I can do.
And he departed. So it looked like luck, which had been doing her best to claw her way through to you, had decreed that you should have The Mahdi back after all, which made beautiful sense-but of course you had no intention of doing what Joe Dale Bigg asked you to do, unless it happened to coincide with your own intention. A small-town mafioso like that couldn't hurt you. You'd have to look out for Maggie now-she wasn't as strong-but Biglia deserved no loyalty. He was dark and rich in flesh like duck meat, but shallow. He talked dirty about women to men he hardly knew. Never mind that Women are more patient crap. Joe Dale, same as Biggy, went into rages at spirited horses and kicked and bullied them-the whole family was famous for it. He didn't even like to come in his barn and dirty his shoes. In fact he hated animals. He was vulgar. He couldn't love. He was nothing but a dark emptiness-the absence of good. He could do you no harm.
SEEM LIKE EVERY DAY since time he been thinking what a shame and pity it is how the world is coming down, how the pride of work has disappeared, until they just laugh at him, the boys that come on the racetrack now-how the horses is misused and abused, started out racing too young before they bones is hard, not rested proper and dosed with all kind of shots and pills, and so consequently don't last-how these five-and-dime horsetrainers and they ten-cent owners anymore be tighter than the bark on a beech tree, when it come to anything but rush rush rush them horses back to the track and collect a bet. It ain't no real sportsmen round here no more, if it ever was, or either sportswomen. And John Q. Public wasn't no dumber than he used to was, but also he ain't no smarter.
Seem like since time, that was the most fun old Medicine Ed been having, studying on it every day, every day, how this good thing has come down and this other thing that once was fine, has went to pieces on him. Until he be sick and tired of his own self. And then he land up in his mashed-in trailer in the deep of night, mumbling through his bald gums and mixing up some pocket toby to get his own back. Snatching blind at any thread that maybe tie his luck to him.
And which is why every now and then when some kind of a good thing come together in nature, it make the whole world new. Seem like once again he have found that harmony, how they is a power in charge and strong secret threads lead around and under, and tie it all together.
And which is what happened that night with Little Spinoza.
He might have knowed that Alice Nuzum, who didn't resemble no other human being he has ever seen, man nor either woman, would have to be a luck thrower of some kind. The way she look-not ugly but like something born between mud and river water, like something out of a creek swamp-a person must figure fate has already laid a shaping hand on her and is satisfied. Or can't do no worse. Or maybe mean to make it even to her in some way.
Nothing in Little Spinoza's routine changed behind that bad race. It was still Alice on Little Spinoza at four fifteen in the morning and old Deucey peering into the fog from the river with her spyglass and stop watch, clocking Little Spinoza's little bit of speed. And which was still there, the speed, but now it ain't even no one to hide it from. Earlie Beaufait has done them the favor to badmouth Little Spinoza and his trainer and three cockamamie owners too. Horse be no count, they say, a killer in the gate and a quitter in the stretch, with a hard, ruinated mouth. One more incident and management gone be stamping his foaling papers NOT FIT FOR RACING.
And the apprentice jockey them three have found under a rock somewheres, since Earlie quit them! A townie, a female, and ugly enough to scare a hound dog off a gut wagon-and a bugboy at that, you know how they say about a bugboy, he save you seven pounds in the gate and add thirty pounds in the stretch-and this is a horse even Earlie Beaufait couldn't get no stretch run out of him. So this time for two weeks everybody keep that clear of the horse you think he carry that equine selfalitis. Not even Joe Dale Bigg come round. And then Deucey drops him in for three thousand.
Everybody think they see them coming, everybody figure the plain obvious truth-them are the broke, pityfull owners of Little Spinoza that done shelled out their last two-dollar bill on that horse-the colored groom, the he-she trainer and the lost college girl-them three are gone try and get him claimed for what they paid for him, which was far too much money already.
But what Alice Nuzum say is this. Whoever come up with that idea that Little Spinoza has early speed? He has speed all right-and it is an exact amount coiled up in him the way a black snake will live snug under your well cover all winter. He is a one-run horse but of a very classy kind, Alice say. He has an exact amount of speed which could last an exact time, from the last possible moment when you call on him, until that wire. But until now he has squandered it early. He is like some corner zoot suiter cut loose with his mama's death benefit before he has become a man, before he has grown sense to put it in the bank or either a choice bit of real estate. He come out the gate going every whichaway in terror and pure foolishness. He go every whichaway and finally he tire and die, and if the boy hit him he wither up besides. And yet he is a dreamer horse who like to look at ducks splashing down on the river and hawks sailing on the wind. Alice say: What if he can sleep like Sleeping Beauty, only on his feet, with no pain, and stay asleep till I wake him up at the quarter pole? And Medicine Ed can follow her idea: As long as the pace up front ain't too slow, as long as the frontrunners be halfway honest, he might could get there.
To rate him, Alice has to hypmotize the horse a little, and she say she can do it. How can she? O she has her little ways, she say, maybe I sing him to sleep, and she smiles that no-lip smile that put Medicine Ed in mind of a newt.
Alice couldn't prove it. She showed them, in a little trial with Grizzly and Miss Fowlerville and Railroad Joe, how Little Spinoza come swooping by in the stretch. True, them others wasn't but 2000 or even 1500 dollar horses-and two belong to Hansel, but the young fool had suddenly drove off somewhere for two days to see about a horse, and left Medicine Ed in charge. Naturally a lit-up grandstand and a thousand screaming bettors be something different from dark and silence of first morn-let alone a paddock judge poking in his mouth, and the starter man grabbing his ear or snatching his lip in the gate. All the same, that is Alice's idea, which do have the beauty to tie all the parts together.
They look for a weekend race, so it is a decent handle. They don't talk about it, but they all fixing to cash that bet. Won't anybody in the house like Spinoza save for them three, thank you Lord! Of course Medicine Ed must tell Two-Tie, for he will need him a small advance. And Two-Tie have his own people, no way round that. And might probly that old porkypine Deucey have somebody she got to let in, some orphan or hard case. And who can doubt but what the frizzly hair girl gone to tell the young fool all?-though old Deucey may have suspicioned that, and maybe she liked this week on purpose, when Hansel has disappeared somewhere to see a man about a horse.
All signs saying that Sadday, first Sadday in December, be a fair day and a good track, not wet and heavy nor either too hard froze. And soon's they was a card to study, Deucey and Medicine Ed and Alice went over the entries prepared to scratch if it was no speed in the race. But they was two clear frontrunners for sure gone to fight it out up there, the one horse, Ink Spot, and the six horse, Navy something, and the four horse might be in it too, Medicine Ed disremembered the name.
Little Spinoza drew post position number eight in a eight-horse race, but this time that high number work to his good. This way Little Spinoza automatically be the last to load in the gate instead of a problem case, getting the starters nervous and mad until they might do something in anger that could hurt the horse, or worse, wake him up. And anyhow Alice Nuzum been with Little Spinoza in the gate three times already since that bad race and say he is cured.
Lord put me wise. Alice Nuzum say she going to sing Little Spinoza to sleep, and that is exactly what she do.
Them three are standing in the gap for the post parade when Alice and Little Spinoza tack by, them all three look at each other and they mouths fall open and they close them again. Deucey yanks the stiffened handkerchief out from under her flask and wipes her head. The frizzly hair girl laughs kind of funny-time behind her hand. Deep in his pocket Medicine Ed rubs a red flannel bag between dog finger and thumb. For they have heard Alice singing, it ain't a big voice but pointy and sharp as a stick: By and by, when the morning comes. All-l-l-l the saints…
Why, it is a song his mother used to sing in church, one he knew long ago. All the saints gone to gathering home. And maybe it is his imagination, but he think Little Spinoza is listening. The horse go along last in line, faraway in his face but collected. His ears prick up tall, quivering-and there is Alice high up on his back with her little bony knees pointed in, hypmotizing him with her small steely voice. Alice lean into his neck in them raggedy silver silks which Deucey bought for four bits from somebody stable that was busting up. Medicine Ed had to pin them together behind her neck with a bandage pin. He never hear no announcement, so many minutes to post time. He hear his mother's voice from the wings of New Life Baptist Church in Cambray, not a little metal threadwire like Alice's, but big as a house:
In the land of perfect day when the mist has rolled away We will understand it better by and by.
Then he ain't hear nothing. His mother's voice was all around him. He didn't recall looking at no tote board, but yet and still he knew when the numbers stand at 35, then fall to 22, back up to 25, and 22, and all of a sudden down to 12. And then the horses were at the gate, and in the gate, each by each. He saw Little Spinoza step into the eight slot civil as you please, like a man walk in a cloak room to ask for his hat.
Then they break, and it was all eight of them in a line. Yes, Little Spinoza was right with the others, on top of his feet, his feet drumming in that cold sand, his head stretching forward, but then Medicine Ed get that draggyfied, sunken feeling that him and Deucey and the frizzly hair girl be the only ones looking. The onliest ones looking where Little Spinoza be at, that is, for where he was, it wasn't no other horses to see. Then they was all together in one small sinking boat, him and Deucey and the frizzly girl and Alice and Little Spinoza. That's how far back Little Spinoza was running.
They hadn't no strength even to shout his name. Trouble cotton up they lungs. Disappointment sit heavy on they heads. They can just about lift they chin and watch. It was no way in the world that horse could make it back in this race. That Alice Nuzum so far off in her rating until she have to be thinking of getting there yesday. Or maybe tomorrow. Not today. Medicine Ed look up front. It's a whole nuther race gone on up there, the four horse trying to open it up in front, the one horse stalking him two lengths back on the rail and the three horse dogging the one horse at his elbow. And the rest of the field knotted up on the inside five, six lengths back, like soup greens hanging off a long spoon. But even if you want to lose Little Spinoza in this pack, you can't. He is lollergagging along ten lengths back of the others, dead last.
Medicine Ed is gone to be not two-fifty but four-fifty in the hole with Two-Tie. And Two-Tie himself will take a beating in the race. Medicine Ed will look like a damn fool, more than what he already do, and on top of that, his good credit gone. Just when he want to drop his head in his hands for shame, Medicine Ed hear the words: We will understand it better by and by.
And that's when Little Spinoza start to make his move. Alice climb up some way on his neck and take hold but she don't use no stick. They have got just three-eighths of a mile to go and they don't even look at that mess on the inside. In their hurryment they go round. And they it is again, gobbling up ground like a black steam shovel-here come Little Spinoza and Alice flying up the stretch. Here come the Speculation grandson flat out, sailing around the six and seven horse and sliding up between the five and the two like a black polish cloth in a mahogany hand, opening, closing, opening out again, inside the four horse, who done faded out of it, and the three horse, who make one last push but it ain't enough, and swooping up on Ink Spot whose boy look round at the wire but it is too late.
Only Deucey yelled a little. Medicine Ed done lost his voice. He bowed his head for the beauty of it and because it come from his dead mother. Also the frizzly head girl ain't squeal nor holler. Her eyes was wide and shining and she sink her fingers into his bony arm behind the elbow and squeeze so hard it hurt. I can't believe I saw that, she say, it was so… great. For once he almost like her hungry ignorance, which at least it wasn't small or mean. After all she Two-Tie's blood kin. The three of them head for the winner's circle, floating on they cloud through the people towards the gap, just believing they luck, kicking through dead tickets and grease-pearled pizza plates, hardly moving they feet.
Man takes his picture. Then they waiting to see what Little Spinoza will pay. In that cloud, Medicine Ed ready to feel free. He wished Gus Zeno was alive to see him. Or Charles Philpott. He wished anybody was alive to see him. The young fool was away up north somewheres, seeing about a horse-he hinted it was a owner in the works. The young fool had been let in. In a winking, sporting way he had rode ten dollars on Little Spinoza, but he didn't have no faith.
Only, when Medicine Ed caught Joe Dale Bigg standing yonder outside the winner's circle, he come down to earth with a thump. For Ed could see it: Joe Dale believed. Joe Dale believed, and it was worse than the other white boss disbelieving that them three were able. Joe Dale Bigg believed more than it was there to believe in. He believed it have all been one big plan, and which was to make him look like a fool.
Joe Dale Bigg was a half bald man with a big forehead. Just now the forehead glow blue white and push out round and damp in front like a boiled egg. His thick hair stand out a little crumped from his head. His dark eyes were watching them three. His arms was folded across his chest like a judge. Medicine Ed remembered to taken the little red flannel bag between his fingers and softly rub. He knew he couldn't do nothing for Deucey. Her trouble was coming. He knew the frizzly hair girl must suffer too. But he would be safe. Inside his pocket piece used to be anvil dust and a thumbnail of blue Getaway Goofer Powder, dressed with a drop of Jockey Club fast luck oil he order in from Lucky Heart Curios, Memphis, Tennessee. Every dimestore cunjure in South Carolina had the same. But now it's a strong Leave Alone powder in there too. He has the scooped-up going-away tracks of all three of them white bosses at the Mound who like to scheme and get in your bidness, and can't be satisfied, and want it back, what anymany little bit of anything you finally lay hold of. This speckle stuff give him keepaway power over the stallman, Suitcase Smithers, and Racing Secretary Chenille, and the leading trainer, Joe Dale Bigg. And just in case, his boss Tommy is in there too.
Medicine Ed taken the red flannel bag between his fingers and rub. He said: In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, I ask you to take all the bad luck off me and make it go on them who tryna take from me, what I done rightly win, put the harm on them and let it go back to the Devil where it come from. And he rubbed and listened to them clicking softly together in this strong Leave Alone powder, the carefully parched manly parts of Little Spinoza, smoked down to the size of marbles, over a dry wood fire.