Black Gold Read online

  Once around at a walk. Once again. Then with bated breath Jaydee signaled him to go. Black Gold did his best for the boy he understood so well, but after a short gallop he pulled up dead lame.

  Old Man Webb was alongside Jaydee in a moment. “Shoulda told you . . . maybe right off . . . You see . . . uh . . . we didn’t cut out the quarter crack. He didn’t have that operation. I thought . . . ”

  A deep and terrible anger flared up in Jaydee. “You thought what?” he almost screamed.

  The old man lowered his head. “I figgered he’d get better without it, and I didn’t want to worry Mrs. Hoots . . . . But don’t he look good?”

  Jaydee never answered. He bent forward in the saddle, and pressing the side of his face hard against Black Gold’s neck, he let the hot tears come.

  When his sobs finally quieted, he dismounted and grimly handed the reins to Hanley Webb. Then he strode back to the paddock, numbly picked up his grip, and without a backward glance trudged downward along the path up which he had raced so short a time ago.

  The old man watched, disconsolate, until the forlorn figure was nothing but a speck far down the road. He knew he would never see the boy again.

  26. Green Pastures

  FOR SOME time Black Gold lived on in the same paddock where Jaydee had found him. He seemed reasonably content. Old Man Webb continued to let him go barefoot, and how good it felt to be rid of those shoes! With each step his feet were cooled and moistened by the living green carpet.

  And he liked the freedom of being out of doors where he could see the comings and goings of horses and men, and could feel the warmth of the sun getting through to his bones. The smells, too, he liked—from the early pear blossoms of spring to the aromatic smell of mint and boxwood in the hot summer sun, to the fall sweetness of clover-rich hay.

  A few mares were brought to him to be bred, but he sired only one foal. When a bolt of lightning struck and killed it before it was a month old, Hanley Webb took the tragedy as an omen. Black Gold should have no more colts.

  So he spent his days alone, in quiet routine. Eat, sleep. Sleep, eat. Week in, week out. Days without end.

  But one blowy autumn afternoon Black Gold’s tranquil world exploded. A remembered sound was borne to him on the wind. It was the thin clear treble of the bugle. Ta—ta—ta; ta, ta, ta, ta! The signal he knew! A race was about to begin!

  He could see across the meadows the line of horses coming out on the private track over at Idle Hour Farm. He should be there! The bugle was calling him! How could he get there? Trembling violently, he threw back his head and sent out a great aching cry that held all of longing and loneliness. Now, faintly on the wind he heard the shout, “They’re off!”

  The sound pulled a trigger in his mind. He bolted to the fence rail, began galloping wildly around his paddock. The blood pounded hotly through him. He was leaving the other horses behind. Far behind! He was living again—wind singing past him, no one blocking him, no one holding him back. For sheer joy he extended himself, gave all the speed he had in him. All by himself he won the race! Going away he won it!

  Limping a little, he walked proudly to the corner of the paddock nearest Idle Hour Farm. The distant applause must be for him. The sound made him feel tingly and warm. He tossed his head skyward and this time the whinny that rang across the countryside was one of ecstasy.

  Now Black Gold knew what to do with his solitary days. Each afternoon he put on a race of his own until, in time, he had worn an oval track in the turf.

  “Will you look at that, now!” Old Man Webb exclaimed to the flocks of children who came daily to watch Black Gold run. “He’s tramped out his own track. He’s a racing horse, he is. Ain’t nothing going to stop him!”

  But, in contrast to Black Gold’s new-found happiness, Hanley Webb began to droop. As the months wore on, he became a pitiable creature. His whole figure seemed to wilt. The eyes, usually so bright and alert, had a look of yearning for remembered places and doings. It was the Christmas season that broke his spirit, the Christmas of 1926. All at once these years of loneliness became a load too heavy to bear. Were he and Black Gold forever retired? Was an imaginary track, imaginary racing, imaginary living the best they could do?

  “I’ve no one to sew so much as a button for me, or to care whether I live or die,” he told Colonel Bradley one day. “And Black Gold has nary a foal to carry his torch neither. Mebbe,” he said with a flicker of hope, “mebbe him and me should go into the racing business again, by’n by.”

  A look of shock, almost horror, crossed the Colonel’s face. “Have you forgotten his quarter crack?”

  Old Man Webb took off his hat and reamed the inside of it. “No, I ain’t forgot,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “But he allus did pull up lame, Colonel. Then ye’d cool him out, and he’d go sound as a dollar again.”

  The Colonel drew in a breath. “Well, you’re his trainer, Webb.” And he turned away abruptly, pulling hard at his cigar.

  On a crisp December day two weeks later, Old Man Webb, a satchel in one hand and a halter rope in the other, was leading Black Gold down the old Frankfort Pike to the railroad station. As he walked, he tried not to see the families decorating their Christmas trees with lights and tinsel. Alone, with no grooms in attendance, he loaded Black Gold into a boxcar bound for New Orleans.

  “’Twill be warmer down there,” he said to himself, watching his breath make a cloud of vapor. He huddled down into a corner of the car, pulled his worn topcoat about him, and tried to fasten the lone button dangling by a thread.

  27. A Penny Postcard

  IT WAS warmer in New Orleans. Poinsettias were in bloom. Vines were green and clambering everywhere. The old man sighed in satisfaction. It was so good to be back in Louisiana, and good to be training again.

  Almost upon his arrival he found a freckle-spattered boy to exercise Black Gold. “Don’t try to be another Jaydee,” he said brusquely, “’cause you can’t do it. But here’s what I got in mind. I want Black Gold to win the big New Orleans Handicap in February. But afore then, we got to get a new bar shoe made and put him in some little test races. So you start tuning him up. Go two or three miles every day. But slow, mind ye; slow.”

  Once more the old routine began, like the good, monotonous hand-turning of a grindstone. But the speed in Black Gold never sharpened enough to satisfy the old man’s expectations. Nor did the test races do much to build up his confidence. More and more often the thought recurred, how hamstrung a trainer and a champion are without the right boy in the saddle! Separately we’re nothing, he thought to himself, but together we’re lightning.

  “Together we’re harnessed lightning!” he said one night as he sat down discouraged at the battered old table in his stall. Frowning, he almost unwillingly pulled toward him a box of odds and ends. He rummaged among the old programs and blanket pins and pieces of string until he found a penny postcard, dog-eared but still usable. He didn’t write immediately. It took courage and humbleness. At last his fingers took up a stub of a pencil and slowly, laboriously the words formed:

  Dear Jaydee:

  We are in your home town. Black Gold doing fair—but we could use you, son. Any chance of your visiting your folks soon? Salome Purse comes up 1/18/27. It’s like the Derby Trial. If he wins that, he can sure win the New Orleans Handicap 2/4/27. Try to come.

  Yrs,

  H. Webb

  He added a “please,” erased it, and was glad when it showed through anyway.

  • • •

  In his quarters on the Heffering ranch, Jaydee found the postcard in his mail on the dresser. He took it wonderingly to the window, and in the gray winter light his eyes followed the penciled lines. As he read the cramped handwriting, he could see the old man in his threadbare coat, his eyes pleading. And he could see Black Gold—small, brave, and willing to try again. Holding himself in check as tightly as his fingers held the card, he went bare-headed across the snow toward the house. He wanted to share this with someone before he
wrote the answer. He knocked, and was glad when Marjorie herself opened the door. Without a word he handed her the card. They went inside, and when she had read, she looked up searchingly.

  “What are you going to do, Jaydee?”

  His eyes were set far off. He was thinking that all he’d be able to do for Black Gold would not be enough. He could sit bird-light on the little horse’s neck. He could cluck to him with heart and soul. He could threaten with the whip. But two things he knew—it would not be enough and it would not be fair.

  “What are you going to say?” Marjorie asked.

  “A single word’ll do it.”

  “‘Sorry’?”

  “Yes, ‘Sorry’,” Jaydee nodded, feeling such misery that his heart was near to bursting.

  28. The Winner Loses

  AND SO with Jaydee a thousand miles away, Black Gold was entered in the Salome Purse.

  When the day came, the people streaming into the stands were talking mostly of Black Gold; they wanted him to win. Their affection amounted to tenderness. As the field of nine horses answered the bugle, the tumult and the cheering were all for the little stallion trying to make his comeback.

  It was a day of days. Brilliant sunshine. Track fast. Entries eager.

  The voice over the loud-speaker was filling in time: “Anything can happen on today’s track—records may be broken, new heroes made. Anything!” And now the trumpeted words: “The horses are at the post. Nine entries jockeying for position. Black Gold the Number One horse with young Dave Emery up.” The words quickened. “Black Gold’s the oldest entry, but he carries more weight than any of the others—up to fifteen pounds more!”

  Old Man Webb stands tense and silent at the rail. Old Man Webb thinking: “Black Gold has the Number One position. Just like in the Derby.” Then in irritation: “He’s ready. Why don’t they take off?”

  Minutes of precious energy wasted. The four-year-olds rambunctious; the veteran campaigners quiet. One minute. Two minutes. Three. Then a sudden swing into line and “They’re off!” the caller yells, and the crowd with him.

  Nine horses leaping forward, but binoculars everywhere are focused on the shiny black with the rose-colored silks. He breaks away in the lead, holds it a second, then lets the sprinters race by him.

  Webb clenches his fist, his mind following the pattern. “Yep, yep! Ye’re racin’ true to form, savin’ yerself for the stretch!”

  With one voice the stands are urging, begging, “Come on, Black Gold! Come on, Black Gold.”

  “At the quarter pole,” the battery of speakers booms above the roar, “it’s Dearborn in the lead, Colonel Board second, Polygamia third, Black Gold number four.”

  Webb’s hat is off now, his head shiny with perspiration. His voice and twenty thousand others pleading, “You can do it, Black Gold! You can do it!”

  And the caller’s powerful voice again: “At the half it’s Colonel Board in the lead, Dearborn second, Polygamia third, Black Gold holding on to fourth.”

  “Go after Polygamia!” Hanley Webb spits out the name. “Polygamia with only a hundred pounds!” His eyes are fixed on the rose-colored jacket, seeing it as a bright fuse burning up the track.

  “At the three-quarters,” the loud-speaker blares, “it’s Colonel Board in the lead, Polygamia in second place, Black Gold third, and gaining.”

  Third place at the three-quarters! Now at the head of the stretch he is ready for the rush. The very atmosphere quivers with excitement. The stands are on their feet. Webb is beside himself, clucking in anguish, “You can do it! You got to!”

  Then suddenly the joyousness in the air is torn apart. Thundering down the home stretch, Black Gold bobbles.

  “Oh, dear God!” the cry wrenches from the old man as he sees his horse stumble, lose stride, nearly fall, the other horses veering sharp to avoid him. Desperately his jockey tries to stop him, to pull him up, but Black Gold drives on.

  For an instant a terrible quiet locks twenty thousand hearts and minds together. Then the question rockets: “What in God’s world has happened?”

  “Stop him!” the voices scream. “Someone stop him!” But the game horse will not be held in until he crosses the line.

  “Black Gold’s leg—” the horror-stricken caller shouts to the crowd. “Black Gold’s leg,” he repeats, “snapped above the ankle. His bandage was all that held it together. But he finished his race—on three legs and a heart he finished it.”

  Men and women, stunned to silence, watch grooms and veterinarians and a limping old man rush out on the track and try to help Black Gold into the waiting wagon. Even now he resents all the fuss made over him. He tosses his head impatiently, seeming to cry out, “Don’t hold me so tight; if that’s what you want of me, I can get into the wagon by myself.”

  His fans are still calling his name, as the tail gate of the wagon is pulled up, as the wagon itself slowly disappears behind the barns.

  The voice of the caller goes strangely hoarse. “Ladies and gentlemen,” it announces, “Polygamia won the race, but her owner, Mr. Rice, calls it a hollow victory. He says ‘the loser really won.’ Black Gold, the great-hearted little stallion, insisted on finishing his race. He has just been put to sleep—mercifully, without pain. He has joined the immortals.”

  The next morning, in the centerfield of the Fair Grounds, Black Gold was buried. There was no sermon and no singing; just a cluster of people with love in their hearts, groping for the right words to say. They were trying to comfort a defeated old man.

  “Listen, Webb, he’s out of his pain,” one said. “To have him other than sound wouldn’t be right. You know that.”

  A woman holding a cross in one hand and a poinsettia in the other said, “Perhaps animals don’t have souls, but maybe Black Gold was an exception. And just maybe the Psalms were written for him as well as for the likes of us. ‘The Lord ruleth me,’” she quoted as she laid the red flower on his grave, “‘and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up on the water of refreshment.’”

  Then out of the little cluster of people came trainer Ben Jones. Dear Ben Jones who had known Al Hoots, who had watched U-see-it run her first race, who had known about the dream for her colt. He put his arm about Hanley Webb’s shoulders. “The lady’s right,” he said, his voice husky with kindness. “And what’s more, Hanley, I reckon Al Hoots was sittin’ up there on a cloud, all ready to welcome Black Gold.”

  Hanley Webb’s smile was half tears.

  29. In Good Faith

  THE HANDWRITING on the newspaper wrapper was Grandma Mooney’s. Jaydee, sitting on the edge of his bunk, knew already what the paper would contain. And I know why she sent it, he thought. He had half a mind to lay it aside. No matter what the story said, it couldn’t change things. Nothing would ever be the same. The familiar misery and bitterness welled up in him again. But in a moment he took a resolute breath; his hands tore off the wrapper and unrolled the New Orleans Tribune.

  He skimmed the front page. Nothing there. Maybe, he thought, maybe last week’s tragedy never happened. Maybe it was only a nightmare. But suddenly the picture on page two leaped up at him. It was Black Gold and he, Jaydee, in the saddle. At New Orleans? At Latonia? At Churchill Downs? Places and times washed together. Then all at once he was back in Black Gold’s stall, feeling the quarter crack and hearing the smith’s portentous words . . .

  “Stop it!” he told himself. “And read! Maybe you’ll find a crumb of comfort.”

  The heading was a long bold streamer:

  TRAINER BLAMES SELF FOR BLACK GOLD’S DEATH

  And there beneath the horse’s picture was a small one of Hanley Webb, bowed low in grief. His old sweat-stained slouch hat was pulled down over a face grim with sorrow.

  “I am responsible for his death [the story began]. I never paid any attention to Black Gold’s lameness; he always seemed to work out of it. As God is my witness, I ran him in good faith.”

  A feeling of compassion rose in Jayde
e. Now he wished he had been there beside the old man when Black Gold was buried. Anxiously his eyes sought the paper again.

  Black Gold’s place of burial, [the article went on] is in the centerfield of Fair Grounds Park. It seems somehow right. He was laid to rest where he ran his first race and his last, buried with his head toward the west, toward Oklahoma and Skiatook, the original home of his mother, U-see-it.

  The grave is a beautiful spot, with flowering shrubs and poinsettias growing around it. It is only a few yards from the grave of the famous Pan Zaretta, Queen of Texas. She was the only mare that outran U-see-it, and now, with a nice twist of fate, Black Gold has bettered her record.

  Jaydee could not help smiling at that. Suddenly his anger at Webb melted completely. He went on to the final paragraph.

  The fact that Black Gold died is not as important as the way he died. The caller who made the tragic announcement to the awe-struck crowd, said it best. “He finished his race. On three legs and a heart, he finished it!”

  His was the victory of a Thoroughbred.

  Jaydee re-folded the newspaper and stood up. He went across the room to his dresser and opened the top drawer. In it he laid the paper, tucking it carefully beneath the chromed horseshoe and the golden spurs. Then slowly he closed the drawer.

  He was satisfied.

  Now, each year at Fair Grounds Park in New Orleans, a race called the Black Gold Stakes is held in honor of the courageous little stallion. And each year the winning jockey places his wreath of flowers on Black Gold’s grave.

  Children and grownups gave their pennies and their dollars to build a very special monument. Instead of dry words chiseled into stone there is a smooth curving saddle, so real that it seems to be waiting for Jaydee.

  Sometimes Jaydee does come to see the race, and then the winning jockey presents the flowers to him. As he walks slowly, alone, into the centerfield, the stands rise up row on row, and in the hushed silence Jaydee gently decorates the grave of one he loved.