Born to Trot Read online

  Cooled out at last! Her coat satin to his touch, as if she had never been worked at all. He took her to her stall, watched her bunt a mound of hay and tear out a mouthful. She was ready to eat. Yes, he had cooled her out slowly.

  With long strides he made for the office of the stable, then slowed his steps. He stopped and took a breath before he pulled the door open. At sound of the creaky noise, his father looked up. He was alone, sitting at the plain old desk with its little pile of bills and papers and an open ink bottle and the plate that Gibson’s mother kept filled with fruit.

  Mr. White’s eyes went over the boy, noticing the wet shirt flat against his ribs.

  “Time you were getting cooled out yourself,” he smiled, motioning toward the closed door at the end of the room. “Take your shower first. Then we’ll talk.”

  Gibson walked through the sparely furnished office, drumming his fingers along the trunk under the window, along the cot against the wall, and the few camp chairs. His bath took far less time than Alma Lee’s. Clothes skinned off in a trice. The shower needling him, first hot, then cold. Then on with the dry shirt his mother always left there.

  Refreshed and a little breathless, he opened the door and stood before his father, waiting.

  Mr. White half turned in his chair. He sat pensively a few moments. Then his blue eyes caught and held the brown ones of Gibson. “Son,” he said slowly, “training trotters is a strange and wonderful profession.”

  The boy stood quiet, listening with every fiber.

  “The trainer is the wind. With the breath of his own life he blows upon the sapling colt. He bends it in the way he wants it to grow, never breaking it.”

  Excitement caught at Gibson. These were words he understood.

  The voice went on. “Half of a horse’s gameness and speed is in the brain of his trainer.”

  Back in the stable a horse neighed sharply and the sound touched off answering whinnies.

  “It was a good mile you drove this morning, Son. You have a light, neat touch upon the reins. I am proud.”

  The boy’s sigh came from deep within. He reached for one of the apples on the plate, not because he was hungry but because he needed something to hold in his hand.

  “If,” Mr. White hung on the little word a long time, “if you were to go along on the Grand Circuit this summer, what would you do about Tony?”

  Gibson replied quickly. “I’d give him to a young boy, Dad. Tony’s tired of jogwork. He needs a change—country roads with rabbits and squirrels popping out at him.”

  “Then you’d like to go with me?”

  Blood climbed hot in Gibson’s cheeks. “Oh, Dad! All morning I’ve been figuring how to ask you.” Then a question crossed his face.

  Mr. White answered as if the words had been spoken. “No,” he replied gently, “not in a real race. Owners wouldn’t mind your handling the lines in the workouts, but in a race they’d object to a green driver.” He picked up a pencil and whittled a fine point. “This morning was hardly a test, Son. Alma Lee is a trained and sensible mare. Just because . . .” The words were left dangling.

  Gibson twirled the woody stem so fiercely that the apple thudded to the floor. “Jogging around the track is fun for a while, Dad,” he said, frowning, “but it’s not the real thing. At school we practice and drill in track and basketball and football just so we can compete with other schools. Training hard wouldn’t be any fun if it didn’t go on to a contest. That’s what’s important.”

  “I know what you mean, Gib, but it takes time.” Mr. White let his eyes measure the boy. “You’re slim as a colt and just as spindle-legged.” In fact, you’re downright gaunt, he thought but did not say.

  He did say, “Your mother and I think you’re trying to do too much, poking too many fingers in too many pies. Boxing. Track. Baseball. Football. Basketball. Everything.”

  “Not everything, Dad. Not tennis or swimming. But maybe next year . . .”

  “We’re hoping that going along with me on the Grand Circuit will make you let up a bit, will make you a better feeder, too, and put a little weight on you.”

  Gibson let himself sink down onto the solidness of the trunk. A far-off look came into his eyes. “The Grand Circuit!” he whispered, letting his thoughts run away. One-two, three-four. Never a skip or a break. Hard little hoofs drum-beating for the lead. Tap-tap, tap-tap. He could hear them already.

  Three

  LOADING horses. Shipping them. Unloading them. A strange city every week, but a good at-home feeling in each one. Everywhere the neat stables row on row, the clean rye straw, the good-smelling hay. Everywhere the clay mile in the sun. Everywhere the horses. And Gibson jogging them both ways of the track now. Slow. Fast. Faster. Around and around. Eating dust. Sweating and steaming with the horses. Week in, week out. This was the Grand Circuit.

  From the moment the sun nosed above the horizon until it sailed high overhead, the hours flew. Mornings, Gibson was one of the men, a driver working alongside the big trainers, alongside his father and Bill Dickerson, Tom Berry and the others. They accepted him without question.

  But in the afternoons he was a boy again and his world stood empty. Then the trainers drove in real races while he hung on the outside rail looking on—wanting to know risk and rivalry, wanting to match skill for skill, wanting to belong. Age seemed to be required, he thought bitterly. If you had white hair you could compete. Otherwise you were still a boy, not to be taken seriously. You could only watch while your father and all the others drove.

  And watching, the longing in him sharpened. There was something in the way the men crouched close to their horses and clucked or sang to them that made him long fiercely to be out there, too. He felt it most when they reached the far turn and began the brush down the stretch. Then he had to lean hard against the fence to hold his feelings in. He wanted to be in on the brush, to cluck and talk and telegraph his strength to his horse.

  What fun was it to tune up in the morning? It was like being part of a big orchestra during rehearsals. Then when the curtain went up and the signal was given, you were shunted off to one side to sit with the audience.

  It had been the same way in school last fall. Always he was on the second team, always sitting on the bench waiting to hear his name called out. And then dusk, and the game over, and his name still uncalled.

  And so the days were divided, the mornings important, the afternoons waste. Gibson tried to busy himself during the races—in the blacksmith tent where the ringing sound of the sledge killed the tap-tap, tap-tap music of the trotters; in his father’s office making endless lists of trotters and pacers with their record time for the mile. But it was no use. He might as well be fiddling with blocks and beads.

  Even while he wrote or while he helped the smith, his mind was out there on the far turn. And always some inner timing drew him to the track just when the horses were flying down the stretch. Eagerly his eyes would pick and choose until he found one in the ruck, and with clenched fists he would will that horse to win. Sometimes the game little trotter did win, inching his way forward, overhauling horse after horse until he was on top and the crowd screaming and cheering him on. Sometimes he came in only second or third, but in the boy’s mind he, himself, was always handling the lines, playing the horse along for the best he had in him.

  One afternoon in late summer Gibson was idling his time in the blacksmith tent, watching the smith cushion a hoof against pain. He did not see or hear anyone enter. Suddenly his father was spinning him around, saying in quick, sharp words, “Son! Johnny Struthers can’t drive in the next heat. We can use you.”

  “Well, I’m a greenhead fly!” The blacksmith was first to find his voice. “You’ll be about the only driver in the Grand Circuit who ain’t a graybeard,” he laughed, slapping his stomach.

  Gibson nodded, his dark eyes throwing back the yellow sparks of the forge.

  Four

  GIBSON was off down the cinder path to the stable, head straining forward as if it cou
ldn’t wait for his feet to catch up.

  “You’ll be up behind Rocco.” his father was explaining, trying to keep abreast. “You’ve never driven him before, but he’s steady as they come.” His eyes were merry as he asked, “How does it feel to be a catch driver. Son?”

  “Catch driver?” Gibson did not slacken pace, only turned his head.

  “Mmm. It’s an old name for a young fellow who catches a bit of luck like this.”

  “Like a sub called from the bench?”

  “Exactly. But catch drivers are most always gifted. They’ve got horse sense. Seem to know what a horse is going to do before he does it.”

  Back in Mr. White’s office Johnny Struthers’ racing silks hung on pegs, the jacket bellying out in the middle as if the man himself were still inside. Gibson slipped it on, fidgeting with impatience while his father lapped over the belt and fastened it with a horse-blanket pin. His eyes darted out of the office window, watching the grooms hitching up for the next race, watching the horses of earlier races cooling out, hearing the hum of the crowd, feeling the excitement, seeing the wide, empty track beckoning, beckoning.

  He looked toward his father, hoping for a word of advice, but again Mr. White had nothing to say. Only the eyes smiling, as if all had been said or done a long time ago.

  With Johnny Struthers’ cap pressed on his head, Gibson knelt down on the trunk, let his father pin it to size. Now the goggles. Now gloves pulled over sweating hands. Now Guy Heasley’s stubbled face in the door and his voice calling out, “Ready! Time for you both to be parading to the post!” His eye ran over Gibson, winking encouragement.

  Somewhere near the grandstand the band played a fanfare, the voice of the bugles helping Gibson into the sulky, braving his hands on the reins. Then the music stopped and the announcer’s words tore into the quiet. “In seventh position, young Gib White driving for Johnny Struthers.”

  Gibson heard his name called out, but it seemed far off, as if it belonged to a stranger. His eyes were on Rocco’s head. I’ve got to keep him looking straight forward. I’ve got to feel his mouth, telegraph to him. I’ve got to keep him on the trot, never letting him break. I want to get in the thick of it. I’ve got to!

  They were scoring for the word now, approaching the starter, horses and drivers impatient to get on their way. And suddenly they were at the starting line and the word “Go” was a pistol shot.

  Gibson felt Rocco gathering force. Now he was in the pack and part of the pack with the wind running along his cheeks and past his ears and into them, and his hold on the reins strong and steady. He was of the horse, one with the horse, one with his flight.

  On either side, and in front and behind, he could hear the thunder of hoofs and the drivers clicking and clucking and coaxing and shouting. He could feel Rocco going up to the bit, straining against it, quickening his action.

  The field was starting to bunch as they approached the turn. Soon Gibson would find a needle’s eye and thread Rocco through it. Together they would burn a hole to the front.

  And then at the first turn, with the race barely begun, Gibson felt his right arm jerk violently backward, saw the rein go slack in his hand. It had snapped in two! He had no control over his horse. His hand froze to the useless line and a cold knife of fear twisted within him. He glanced around, saw the field converging down on him. A bad pile-up flashed in his mind. Locked wheels. Sulkies capsized. Drivers tossed high. Horses on top of men. His father among them.

  In the split second of its happening Rocco knew he was driverless. The torn rein frilled along his neck, egging him on, loosing his head in the way he wanted to go. He broke from his trot into a mad gallop, jerking toward the inside rail, poking holes in the pack where there were none, missing sulkies by thin whispers, going for the rail.

  The whip! This was the time for it. Gibson cracked it sharply to the left, trying to send Rocco to the outside rim, away from the onrushing field. Instead, the sound took the stallion by surprise, sent him heading straight for a crash with Tom Berry. But by some miracle the wheel hubs only grazed each other in a steely whine.

  Maddened by his speed, Rocco veered closer and closer to the fence, magnetized by it. Gibson saw the top rail, higher than most and razor sharp. If Rocco plunged against it, he might be decapitated. And all the while Gibson could hear the field pounding along, narrowing down on him. Now twin jets of steam were whistling down his neck. From the corner of his eye he saw the horse behind. It was his father’s!

  Frantic, Gibson snaked the whip on Rocco’s left, but again Rocco defied it, swerving ever closer to the rail. He would surely upset his father’s horse unless . . . unless . . . Horse sense! You’ve got to know what a horse is going to do before he does it.

  There was only one way to stop him—leap on his back, ride him away. With no thought for his own safety, Gibson grabbed the crupper under Rocco’s tail, pulled himself forward, vaulted onto the horse’s back.

  Now the boy was astride a hurricane, wrenched forward, backward, slithering from side to side. He tried to grip Rocco with his knees, but the shafts of the sulky spread his legs far apart. Three times he reached for the loose rein and three times Rocco turned on a fresh blast of speed, jerking it out of his hand.

  The breath racked out of the boy, and almost at the end of his strength he grabbed once again. He had it! With a quick pull on the bridle he steered Rocco away from the rail just as his father’s horse skinned by.

  Pulling, releasing, pulling, Gibson brought the panicky horse to a stop on the outside rim. The color gone from his face, he dismounted, and step by step led Rocco, still hitched to the sulky, toward the gate.

  For a full minute the announcer’s voice was unable to penetrate the hysterical screams from the grandstand. Then a hush of relief fell on the crowd and the announcer made the most of it. “Ladies and gentlemen! You have just witnessed the most courageous feat in Grand Circuit history. From the first quarter Rocco, the number seven horse, was a runaway with a broken rein. Young Gib White jumped on his back to avoid a tragic pile up. He risked his life not only for the safety of others, but for the welfare of his horse.”

  A clamor rose from the grandstand, applause and cheers. But to Gibson the cheers were just a blur of noise; they gave him no comfort. He turned his face and hid it in Rocco’s mane. Here he was on the outer rim. On the outside again.

  Would he never compete in a real race?

  Five

  WHEN the races were over that afternoon, the stream of people flowing out of the grandstand divided. Some poured into the parking lot and out of the gate. Some rushed to Tom Berry’s stable, eager to see and perhaps even to touch the winner that had trotted the fastest race of the day. But many sought Gibson White. They trailed up and down with him as he walked the excitement and tension out of Rocco. They hurled questions at him, poked their cameras at him, at Rocco.

  Thinking of the horse, Gibson kept right on walking. He plowed through the crowd, answering questions in monosyllables, wishing the day were done.

  And then it was over, and he and his father were alone in their hotel room and it was night. But there was no sleep in them. The sound of automobile horns came up to them, and of trucks straining to climb the hill in front of the hotel, and of gears scraping as tired drivers tried to make the next town.

  The room still held the heat of the day, curtains hanging limp at the open window, sheets hot to the touch, as if they had just been ironed.

  Gibson smothered a cough.

  In the bed on the other side of the night table, Mr. White stirred. “Gib—?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  A pause, then slow words, measured. “You probably saved my life today.”

  Gibson blotted the sweat trickling down his chest. “What do you mean?”

  “Rocco was really my entry, but at the last minute I switched and gave him to you. Figured he’d be easier to handle.”

  A silence closed them in. Then, “Honest, Dad?”

  Mr. White chuckled sof
tly. “Honest as I’m lying here on this hot skillet of a bed. I doubt if I could’ve chinned myself up on Rocco’s crupper the way you did. Rocco and I both would have landed on that fence rail.”

  Again the silence, then the words, “Thanks, Son.”

  All Gibson answered was, “Gosh, Dad, it wasn’t anything.” He locked his hands behind his head and looked up at the light flashing on the ceiling from the theater across the street. A sigh of contentment escaped him. Now he didn’t mind at all the way his first race had ended.

  After a while Mr. White broke the spell. His voice was troubled. “You hardly touched your dinner tonight, Son.”

  “Just not hungry, Dad.”

  “You’ve been coughing.”

  “It’s the car fumes from the street.”

  “I don’t mean just tonight.”

  A note of irritation crept into Gibson’s voice. “I tell you, Dad, I’m all right.”

  “Maybe you are, Son, but with your mother not here I can’t take chances. She wanted you to gain weight this summer, not lose it. We’ll see a doctor in the morning.” Gibson felt the quiet words firm, knew his father’s eyes were steel blue now. “I’ve been inquiring. There’s a good clinic here. Maybe,” he said almost as an afterthought, “if the doc says you’re all right, you can drive Expectation tomorrow. Johnny Struthers may be out tomorrow, too. Now will you sleep?”

  Sleep! How could he sleep with the prospect of driving again? This time he would test the stitching on the reins, test every piece of leather. This time it would be different. He wiped the beads of perspiration from his upper lip. “I’ll try to get to sleep. And thanks, Dad.”

  Mr. White brought a pitcher of cold water and a glass and set them on the night table. “Maybe this’ll help,” he said as he crawled back into bed.

  Gibson sat up and poured himself a drink. He took a long time sipping it and when he had set the glass on the tray, he fell asleep at once.