That Was a Horse Race
I
I REMEMBER how the setting sun’s hot face glared through black shaggy pines on the ridge beyond Surry as I drove down toward the village, and remember too the sinking of my heart when the buggy dipped into the cool shadow which filled the valley. War Feather trotted faster, scenting journey’s end, but to a supperless boy, who had so lately abandoned everything friendly and familiar, the gloomy twilight crept up across knees and chest and head like a strange dark river closing over me.
And heaven knows I was ill-equipped to swim alone. My father’s long illness had gobbled up his estate and most of my savings until at the end my inheritance was little more than a clean slate, our oldest buggy, and War Feather to carry me to my new home. Or rather to a hoped-for home — hope built on a cautiously formal letter which, without risking one short word as to my zeal or character, ‘begged to introduce young Daniel Wendell to Judge Shelton of Surry.’ Whether the great man would accept me, however, was more chancy than a horse race, as my father used to say, so that altogether my spirits were at pretty low ebb.
War Feather may have felt my discouragement and hoped to lighten it, or maybe he yearned to enter new country in style. At any rate, when a tall chestnut horse whirled a shining buggy from a side road a few rods ahead, my black cocked his ears. The chestnut shaved the grass bank on the turn, stepping out as though he carried the mail, and the yellowed leaves in the ditch flipped up to follow the spinning wheels. With a delighted snort War Feather jerked the reins loose in my careless hand and, like another flying leaf, took after the stranger at his best gait.
Warned by our sudden burst of hoofbeats that he was in for a brush, the chestnut’s driver wasted no backward glance, but settled all his attention on the reins. And none too soon, either. With obvious pleasure his mount leaped into a powerful slashing stride that shouted speed to burn. A hundred yards we raced so, past the first houses of the village, and in those few seconds the chill wind and stinging dust and the double tattoo of trotting feet swept all my gloom away.
Now, from his testy grinding and tugging at the bit, it was War Feather’s turn to fret; though he skimmed over that rutted road as fast as I ever saw him travel outside of a money race, he failed to thrust his black nose even with the stranger’s wheels. The chestnut shook his blond mane in scorn — and that was more than my vain companion could stomach. He snorted in resentment, and then gave a little wicked jerk of his black ears and laid them flat.
I knew that signal. Not to speak ill of a friend, War Feather was only a horse. He raced to win, with no more regard for rules or sportsmanship than the cheapest tout. My case was different, and I had no mind to debut in Surry by beating a local speedster unfairly, for in those days the trotting gait alone was counted honest going. So, before my angry mount could shift to his natural pacing stride, I twitched the bit to remind him of company manners and drew him down to a walk. Fuming with disgust, he blew and stamped while the chestnut dwindled to a speck up the darkening road.
Beside me a scornful voice drawled, ‘You showed judgment, bub, though I do hate to see anyone knuckle under so quick.’
I glared at the thin, red-nosed loafer in dirty overalls who leaned his elbows on the hitch rail of a hardware store. ‘A man don’t get much business done if he brushes with every cob on the road! ‘ I said. Aside from the slur on my gameness, I was annoyed that traveling two hundred miles from home earned no more respectful salutation than ‘bub.’ Impressively I demanded, ‘Can you direct me to Judge Shelton?’
The fellow grinned, bending to scrape his whiskered chin along an equally hairy arm. ‘If you could’ve held on for a quarter mile you might’ve caught the Judge.’
‘Oh!’ Though the chestnut had vanished, my disappointment was tempered with relief. ‘Lucky I didn’t beat him, then — might have soured him on me first-off.’
‘I wouldn’t fret none.’ Amusement set him squirming inside the generous overalls. ’That cob ain’t Maud S., but he’s got considerable reputation locally. If you’d like to try again I can tell you where he went.’ A toothless grin which suggested that I should want no more of that flyer’s dust riled my green temper.
‘Just to keep the record straight, mister, I pulled in to hold my horse to his gait; I spent a deal of time teaching it to him, and hate to see time wasted. Anyway, from his blond mane and tail I judge that chestnut’s a Lambert, and my father’s Blackhawks can race any Lambert off his feet!’ I turned my horse’s head toward the scoffer. ‘Meet one of them — War Feather.’
For a moment they eyed each other, the black wrinkling his lip, the man peering up at his forehead marked with a tapering white splash like an Indian feather. ‘Good name,’ he admitted, grudgingly. ‘An’ far as I can judge by sight, a cracking good horse.’ His dim eyes lighted suddenly; he straightened from the rail. ‘You aim to see the Judge to-night? Because you might have trouble following the way, with dark coming on, and all.’ He hesitated, scratching his bony elbows, and coughed.
Truly the dusty road was now but a pale streak in the twilight except before the post office, where a boy had climbed to light the big lantern. The hot reek of oil drifted over us, and War Feather blew his nose. Somewhere near by the swish of a grooming brush blended with hushed singing, ‘Tenting to-night . . . on the old camp ground.’ When my loafer added his thin, dull whistle, War Feather turned his head to stare, for the fellow barely sounded the notes between pursed lips as my father used to do in thoughtful mood.
I had memories enough already, and shifted uneasily in the buggy. ‘Is Judge Shelton likely to be back soon?’
‘No, sir!’ He winked at a huge ruddy moon just topping the pine ridge. ‘He’s drove down to Circle Pond with the rest of the boys.’ Once more he coughed, scratched one shin with a gaping boot, and finally blurted, ‘If you want, I can go along to show you the way.’
Since nothing about the scarecrow but his willingness recommended him, my first impulse was to decline the honor, especially as intruding business on an evening’s sport would require delicate handling. On the other side, I knew from experience that ‘the boys’ would never quit driving while that moonlight lasted, and I had traveled too long a road to bear another night’s delay.
‘Much obliged,’ I said, cramping the wheel while he climbed in to settle back with a pleased brisk rubbing of wrinkled hands. With him came a lusty odor, mainly of rum, which confirmed my first judgment, but the die was cast and I lacked experience enough to turn him out again gracefully. ‘My name’s Wendell, from Vermont,’ I mumbled as we started up the road.
‘Stuart — Reb Stuart.’ He favored me with a closer view of his barren gums. ‘No relation to the General; the boys hung that tag on me when he was chasing us around Dixie.’ The watery eyes feasted a moment on War Feather’s easy stride, steady as the swung of a pendulum. ‘God!’ he sighed. ‘I ain’t rode behind a tiptop goer for ever so long, Mr. Wendell.’
From looks and flavor I could believe him to be little sought after by respectable horsemen, but the genuine yearning in his voice — and maybe the ‘Mr. Wendell’ — moved me to give him a taste of real speed. Not far from town, Opportunity appeared in top hat and pearl-buttoned box coat, the young blood therein sadly manhandling a peppery gray stallion who welcomed our challenge. With more courage than reason, it appeared; this time War Feather’s trotting gait was enough to run them into the ground in a smart quarter-mile brush that boiled Reb Stuart into a fever of excitement.
‘I gorry!’ he screamed above the din of our triumphant hoofs. ‘Take Shelton off his high horse with this flyer, will you?’ He slapped my knee, hooting, ‘I gorry, I want to see him eat dust for once, the old spread-eagle rooster!’ and spraying my face worse than a sneezing horse.
Years of rebuff must have been gnawing him, since he went on praising and ranting in turn with such mad abandon that I was mighty relieved to reach Circle Pond at last.
II
The local gentry were out in force there, and the sight of gigs and buggies sweeping like swallows along the moonlit curve of road beside the shimmering water brought back my homesickness redoubled. Just so, at this hour, my father and his friends would have been out on the Mill Road testing their favorites for the hundredth time, shouting moth-eaten jests, then pulling up to breathe, to argue trotting strains and shoeing tricks — questions long worn threadbare yet never laid aside.
Beside a gaunt oak half a dozen rigs clustered on the dusty grass just off the road, one the new buggy and chestnut horse I had pursued in town. My heart tripped a little. Not brash enough to drive in among strange elders, I left War Feather standing while I walked over, hat in hand. ‘Judge Shelton?’ I asked, very dry of mouth.
The chestnut’s driver ran his hand through already upstanding silvery hair and squinted down through the smoke of a short cigar gripped in massive jaws. Everything about the man was so impressive that, often and reverently as I had studied his picture, the reality unnerved me. Four years of waiting and working for this moment sent the chill sweat trickling down my ribs while I gulped, struggling to launch my carefully rehearsed introduction.
In that moment of taut silence the thin piping of the frogs sounded loud in the calm pond. On the road a springy white mare and a darker horse pounded by, neck and neck, the white’s hatless driver chirping and twittering louder than the frogs. The dark horse broke suddenly to a racking half-trot, and at that flawed rhythm every head in the group swiveled toward the race. I held my tongue, knowing it was no time to bring up mundane affairs. With the rest I watched the driver settle his mount skillfully and regain even terms before they rounded the bend. Like cadets at drill, all turned their faces back to me. The Judge relaxed, even smiled.
Before I could seize the ripe moment Reb Stuart snatched it away. ‘ Evening, Judge!’ he drawled, insolent in tone and attitude as he lounged beside me. ‘This young gent claims you’ve bluffed long enough with your four-flush Flying Dutchman, an’ he’s here to make you fly the other way.’
For one torturing instant my heart stopped — the world stopped. No nightmare could conjure a more hideous introduction. Judge Shelton’s moustache bristled and the bunching frown of his snowy eyebrows deepened when a rustle of laughter swept his friends like a breeze through dry corn.
‘That’s not what I came for!’ I gasped. Mortification drove the prepared speech clean from my mind and left an aching emptiness. ‘I want to study law —’
‘I don’t run a school!’ The Shelton scowl fell impartially on me and my disreputable guide.
‘No, sir — but I’ve hoped for years — if you’d let me read law in your office —* Taking time out to gulp for breath, I could have throttled Reb Stuart, or myself for bringing him. We must look a proper pair — my dusty, wrinkled suit, my dusty face and hair. ‘I’ve been saving every cent—’
‘I’ve given up taking pupils!’
The very repression of his outraged feelings should have told me there was no appeal from Cæsar. Groping in my black fog of disappointment, too late I tried the sensible opening. ‘Wait, sir!’ I fumbled through my pockets. ‘Here’s a letter!’ His contemptuous snort warned me I was off on another wrong road and I bogged down completely.
Impatient of my awkwardness, the great man heaved an exaggerated sigh and stretched out his hand. ‘I knew it! If ever a sponger came to me without fetching a letter from my lifelong friend, Thaddeus B. What’s-his-name, the shock might unseat my reason.’
Despair slackened the hobbles which hope and common sense had kept on my temper. ‘Keep a grip on your reason, then,’ I snapped, stuffing the letter back into my pocket, ‘for here I am, Daniel Wendell of Vermont, to plead my own case.’
There was a split second when I thought some glint of respect softened the forbidding glare, but it died as Reb Stuart whistled. ‘Quite a roarer, ain’t he, Judge? Know what he said, back in town? Said his horse could beat any Lambert that was ever foaled!’ The fool’s laughter crackled like burning brush. ‘An’ that wa’n’t a minute after your Dutchman left him behind.’
Not even surprise could ease the frown of those white brows. ‘That was you chasing me? ‘ From my fiery face he glanced to the grinning Stuart. ‘If your judgment in horseflesh matches your taste in company, I take mighty little stock in it.’
Before the general laughter reached full growth a stoop-shouldered graybeard killed it with his impatient squall. ‘Judas priest, Edward! Words don’t settle nothing!’ He backed closer, his fat mare treading gingerly on the stubble. ‘Maybe they do in court, Edward, but not on the road.’
‘I’m not here to race,’ I insisted stubbornly. ‘I came to study law with you, Judge. My father wanted me to — and I— ‘
‘Yah!’ whooped Stuart. ‘That’s the same father that raised them unbeatable horses he brags on.’
There was nothing to be gained by further courtesy. I set my heel behind his and overturned him like an empty barrel. ‘Get out of my sight!’ I ordered with spirit enough to secure his obedience. And then I faced the delighted crowd. ‘Just to keep the record straight,’ I said between my teeth, ‘what I told him was that any of our Blackhawks can run any Lambert off his feet.’
‘God ‘lmighty!’ squealed the old man who had caught up Shelton before. ‘Our Flying Dutchman’s done better’n 2.30 a dozen times!’
‘With a pacemaker and a downhill track?’
‘ Right on this road! ‘
‘Don’t blow, Henry!’ growled the Judge, somewhat red of face. ‘There’s been too much of that already.’
‘If you mean me,’ I shouted, ‘let me tell you — ‘
‘I don’t, son; every man is free to think his own horse fast.’ He smiled around the group, smoothing away his anger. ‘Isn’t that in the Constitution?’
But his friends were less amiable. A flushed fat man in linen duster and silver spectacles pounded his whip on the floorboards. ‘You can’t let him bluff you that way, Ed! Take his crowbait’s measure!’ He aimed the whip at War Feather, who had followed me on to the grass and now stood chewing a wisp of it while he stared vacantly at the excited crowd.
‘One white foot, inspect him,’ chanted the fat man. ‘Two white feet, reject him . . .’
Overwrought as I was, nothing could have riled me more thoroughly than that ancient jingle which ends, ‘Four white feet, feed him to the crows.’ Although our Hawks are marked so, back in Vermont we long ago silenced any jokes on that subject. My jaws ached from holding my tongue while I climbed into the buggy and pulled closer to the oak. ‘Judge Shelton,’ I said grimly, ‘you are the only gentleman I can call by name, so I address you. Does Surry do all its racing by word of mouth?’
Once more the bushy brows drew together, but his wrinkling eyes stayed on War Feather, so that I could not tell whether he was further outraged by my rudeness or scanning my mount’s points. At last he did look at me, and with something of that warmer light I had caught before. ‘I’ll oblige you, son. You do need a lesson, and our last brush was too short for a fair test.’ One graygloved hand turned the chestnut toward the road while the other stroked his formidable moustache. ‘We’ve a nice run around the pond, here. Reckon it close to a measured mile. Finish at this oak.’
‘Suits me.’ If I copied his brusque tone it was to conceal my satisfaction at the proposed distance. The chestnut had already shown me speed that gave some color to their boast of ‘2.30 a dozen times ‘ — but there is a world of difference between running against the clock and racing another horse. It clung in my memory that most Lamberts were rated as sprinters, too apt to lose courage if close pressed after the threequarter mark; Blackhawks, on the other hand, were last-ditch fighters. Made bold by this advantage, even before it was put to proof, and being still hot with disappointment, I could not let well enough alone. ‘ Care to lay anything on the brush?’ I asked, swinging my whip carelessly to belie a nervous tremor in my voice. ‘I’ve near a hundred saved to start me in the law; if you won’t take it that way, have a try at winning it.’
A roar of laughter from the crowd checked my heart in mid-beat. It seemed as though something more than my brashness tickled them. Covertly I studied the shining chestnut whose ears were cocked in anticipation. He was shod with a long toe in front, that new wrinkle for speed of which I had heard though I had yet to see it tested. From wet, twitching nose to whipping blond tail, he did look every inch a worldbeater.
Unmoved by jibes or laughter, the Judge sat waiting, reading my flushed face with grave eyes. ‘I reckon we’ve ridden you a mite hard, son,’ he admitted with a little nod. ‘But make allowances for home-town pride. I don’t want your money.’
‘Thanks.’ Relief must have shouted in the word; I had sweated for that money. And still I could not hold my tongue. ‘But suppose I won yours.’
‘You won’t. I know what you’re up against.’
Thank heaven I had sense enough left to appreciate the man who would dare ridicule from his friends by letting off a fresh youngster crying for a lesson. I swallowed hard. ‘Thank you, Judge Shelton. For four years I thought I wanted to study law with you, and now that I’ve met you I’m sure of it. Whatever you say, I’ll call on you tomorrow to discuss it further — and every day after that, until you agree.’
No doubt his life spent in estimating character in court made it easy for him to read my stubborn nature. At least he wrinkled his face and chewed the cigar with every appearance of belief — and corresponding distress. Then his eye brightened; he slapped his knee. ‘Look here, son,’ he beamed. ‘I will make a wager. If you win, I take you into my office. If you lose — you never mention the matter again.’
The shock of it threw me into such a fever of hope renewed that I almost missed the smothered laughter from the crowd. Whatever the secret jest, they were in on it. He must be almighty sure of his Flying Dutchman’s speed — or mighty proud. Or else — but it was unthinkable that Judge Shelton could have any underhanded plot for my defeat; so unthinkable that my ears burned when I dared to mumble, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any rough spots to watch for on the road?’
‘Smooth as silk.’ Again he smoothed his own graceful white moustache, ignoring someone in the group who stifled a laugh or a cough. ‘We keep the holes filled and leveled off,’ he explained. ‘Otherwise we let nature take its course.’ His mount stamped impatience. ‘Are you ready?’ At my nod he shook the lines, and the Flying Dutchman stepped out swiftly along the moonlit road. War Feather lunged against the bit and squealed in protest; I let him go. The crowd yelled as we sped side by side toward the first turn.
III
To give the Judge his due, win or lose he wasted no time in beginning my education. Along with the never-failing thrill of a brush, all that had gone before so flustered me that I forgot we were to trot around Circle Pond and so were actually racing on an oval track, ‘A cool head beats a fast horse,’ my father used to say. I realized the truth of it when I saw that my seasoned rival had appropriated the pole position.
Not content with that advantage, coming into the bend at the foot of the pond he let the chestnut travel wide and thereby forced me to choose between swinging dangerously near the outer ditch or falling back. Lesson Number Two: behind a trotting horse a judge is sharp as any jockey. To be sure, another choice was open — and one to bring an early test of rival nerves. Remembering my father, who would not give way to a four-horse drag, I settled lower in the wide hollow his weight had moulded in the shabby leather cushion and held War Feather squarely to the middle of the curving road.
Without taking my eyes from him, I yet glimpsed the chestnut’s sleek shoulder edging nearer and nearer. The silver mountings on his harness snapped off sparks of moonshine with every stride — beside me a high spiderweb wheel whirred like a warning rattler— and then in the same instant Shelton loosed the mad bellow of a prodded bull and I heard the pistol crack of shattering hickory. A splintered spoke buzzed through the dust past my shoulder, but from its glistening varnish it was not mine. The chestnut veered off, broke into a springy gallop — and War Feather trotted swiftly into the lead with the white road clear ahead and the moon a smiling silver goal beyond the high black lacework of the treetops.
The thrill lasted no farther than around the foot of the pond, for Judge Shelton caught his Dutchman out of the break in a few yards and came drumming up on the outside as though we were tied. The streaming blond mane pushed alongside; then a blurred wheel; then the Judge, jaws set tight as a trap, but gray gloves fingering the reins as delicately as though he handled eggs. For a hundred breathless yards outraged pride lent my black a power I had not hoped for so early in the race, and he matched the chestnut stride for furious stride while the dust boiled up and the dark trees flitted by in a whistling rush.
Halfway down the backstretch Shelton’s fingers lifted a little on the lines. Somehow that chestnut demon let out another link of speed, and no Blackhawk ever foaled could have held him off. War Feather tried; he lowered his head and drove against the bit until, fearful that he might travel over himself and break, I moved the lines gently. He shook his head, flinging off foam that stung my face, but he answered, holding his steady gait and putting every last ounce of muscle into every stride.
For all that, the chestnut moved smoothly clear of his flank, clear of his shoulder, and at last drew away into the lead, skimming above his own inky shadow on the white road like some magic flying machine, while his driver sat erect, square-shouldered, and triumphant, wild silver hair rippling in the wind. I took what comfort I could from having given the Dutchman a taste of our nerve and speed that he might remember in the last-quarter burst and watched the legal team pull a full length ahead.
More than that I dared not risk now that my future was on the hazard. I clucked to War Feather, and, since he was of the same mind, we chased my prospective tutor grimly down the quarter mile of backstretch where the dust leaped out behind the chestnut in whizzing waves to break against my black’s pelting feet. With his rival behind him, that Lambert ran to crack all records, his ears laid back to his head and his whole shining body stretched out long and low.
‘They don’t pay the prize money on form, though!’ I muttered, looking impatiently ahead as we whirled around the upper end of the pond. Beyond the Judge’s streaking rig the road swung into the last quarter-mile straightaway where I meant to make my bid. I shortened my grip on the lines, braced my feet, and drew a deep breath — and then let it go in a gasp of despair while all my newborn hopes shriveled and died away.
‘We level the road,’ the Judge had smiled, ‘but otherwise let nature take its course.’ And his friends had laughed.
A hundred yards ahead a steep raw bank of stones and gravel forced the track close to the alders rimming the pond — so close that the right of way squeezed to a strip. A smooth strip, as the Judge promised, sleek as a pine table, but so narrow that a single buggy would fill it to the drooping branches on either side. By the bright moon I saw how the tracks of many wheels converged and melted into one beaten trail, saw how it reached clean to the dead oak at the end, and understood at last the Shelton confidence and the crowd’s sly merriment. A Blackhawk’s finishing drive was useless here; barring a miracle or a stroke of apoplexy, the horse first into that quarter-mile chute must come out first at the wire. And the Flying Dutchman a length ahead. . . .
A little shiver rippled the wet black skin of my rushing mount, and his ears lifted and twitched. Perhaps he sensed the threat of that narrowing road — but, knowing War Feather well, I think it more likely that he had grown heartily sick of trailing a fancy-gaited upstart from the Lambert clan. His black ears dropped close to his dusty mane.
Dully I recognized the signal — but who was I to dictate gait and manners when my own were so awkward? There was no longer need to make a good impression in Surry; I should be moving on tomorrow. For tonight — Judge Shelton had tricked me, a stranger in a strange land; now let him try his wits against my only friend, a dumb fourfooted friend whose creed was ‘Run to win, and devil take the rules!’ I held the lines motionless, and held my breath.
Not the tiniest split second did the big black horse squander in hesitation. Without hitch or falter he glided from his fastest trot into the swifter pacing stride he was born to, his long legs reaching and thrusting with the speed and power of a locomotive’s drivers. As though a great wave lifted us the buggy rose and surged ahead, and through the haze of dust and blizzard of gravel the Shelton rig slid back at us. In a dozen giant steps War Feather’s head was at the Judge’s elbow; a dozen more and it was at the chestnut’s girth, and the thunder of eight battering hoofs rolled together like an army’s drums.
Shelton wasted no glance at us. I saw his face flush angrily and the gleam of his own bared teeth as he worked the bit desperately in the chestnut’s frothing mouth. Here was one Lambert that was an exception to the rule; far from wilting, that Flying Dutchman rolled a red-rimmed eye at us and clung bravely to his frenzied gait — seemed indeed to increase it by sheer courage. But it was not enough; all the strength and skill of horse and man were helpless to halt that dark shadow sweeping past. As we flashed between the first crowding trees War Feather swerved in ahead.
With the harsh spatter of leaves against our wheels he shifted once more into his breakneck trot to whirl me down the homestretch with the Dutchman’s snorting breath hot on my neck. I saw the crowd tumbling from their rigs to line the finish — saw them freeze in grotesque attitudes of amazement when my black burst out of the shadows into broad moonlight, and behind them a solitary figure dancing the triumph of Reb Stuart. Past the oak we rocketed, and I drew War Feather slowly down, turned him, and trotted back to face Judge Shelton and his friends.
For a long moment of incredulous silence they stared from my sweating mount to the panting Dutchman, and I waited, heart in mouth, for the verdict. The Judge drew a silk handkerchief from his hip pocket and mopped his dustcaked face.
‘Son,’ he choked out, his voice held quiet with a visible effort, ‘you — you’ve got a fast horse! I — I — ‘ And then in a rush of indignation he bellowed, ‘By Judas priest! I wouldn’t have believed it!’ Sighing, he replaced the handkerchief and fixed me with a suspicious eye. ‘I thought I had you! You didn’t resort to any sharp practice, did you?’
I wiped my own sweating face. ‘I started learning from you, Judge Shelton, when you swung wide on the first turn. This was a horse race, sir — not a court trial.’
His sheepish grin acknowledged the dig. ‘You win — and you start reading law in my office Monday morning. I have hopes of you, son.’ And then, with narrowed eyes, ‘So you did pull something tricky?’
‘Honestly, sir, I didn’t so much as lift a finger.’ When I smiled at the secret truth of that, his bushy eyebrows bristled. Hastily I added, ‘I followed your example, Judge — I just let nature take its course.’