Black Gold Page 3

  Down at Juarez the morning was blowy. Gusts of wind whipped up spirals of dust and sent them swirling around the walls of U-see-it’s stall. They made her sneeze, and it was more a filly’s sneeze than a full-grown mare’s.

  Al Hoots smiled as he looked over the half-door. Even U-see-it’s sneezes had an endearing quality for him. Then a shadow passed like a cloud across his face. He spoke his thoughts to Hanley Webb, who sat cross-legged in the straw, rubbing the mare’s forelegs, putting on the clean bandages, readying her for the afternoon’s race.

  “Whenever Rosa and I have talked about claiming races,” Al Hoots remarked, “it seemed crazy to her that a man who loves his horse would enter her in a race like that.” He expected no answer and got none. He was thinking aloud, and Hanley Webb knew it.

  “I didn’t dare tell her that this was a claiming race. I just couldn’t. She’d never understand why I’d put U-see-it in a race where any of the owners could just step up afterwards and buy her for five hundred dollars.”

  “I know, I know,” Hanley Webb agreed as he took a safety pin out of his mouth and fastened the bandage. “It’d take a combination preacher, teacher, liberryan, and lawyer to lay it out clear.”

  Al Hoots nodded. “I can’t explain to Rosa how it is when the racing secretary comes to you and says, ‘Al, we don’t have enough horses to fill one race, and I want to have a nice program for the day; so I’d like for you to enter U-see-it.’ When a good fellow like him is short only one horse, you kind of feel obliged to enter.”

  Hanley Webb patted the bandage and got to his feet. “Sure, it’s a hard thing for wimmenfolk to understand. But with my own ears I heard the secretary pleadin’ with you, and I heard him say, ‘Al, I know all the owners in the race and everybody’s your friend; nobody’s going to claim U-see-it; they all know how you feel about her.’ So stop your worrying.”

  “Oh, I’m not really worried. I was only wondering how to make Rosa understand.”

  “No need to, man! You have my word that I went myself from owner to owner, and every last one agreed not to claim U-see-it.”

  “Thanks, Webb,” Al Hoots smiled, seemingly relieved. He offered U-see-it and Hanley Webb each a peppermint, and ate one himself. “’Tis a fine gentleman’s agreement,” he said. “Just like with the Indians, a man’s word is good.”

  By afternoon the wind was blowing a gale. It whipped along the track, raising a yellow dust as high as the fence rail. Sprinkling carts went to work, but their thin spattering only seemed to encourage the wind. It boiled up clouds of dust until the sun was nearly hidden. At the barrier all of the entries in the claiming race were nervous, jigging out of position again and again.

  “Soon,” thought Al Hoots as he watched from the rail, “I can take The Little One back to the Home Place at Skiatook.” He carried her there in his mind’s eye, thinking: “Around and on her falls the snow she loves. She rolls in it and then stands up to shudder it off, making her own snowstorm.”

  He laughed inside, going on with his dream. “The racing has made her slim-waisted like a greyhound, but oats and the good hay from our bluestem grass will make her sleek and plump. Next year she’ll be ready to run again. She could never loaf her life away, like some horses do.”

  He beamed now at how lively she was, straining to go, dancing sideways, wanting to challenge the wind. She couldn’t wait! With two other entries she ducked under the barrier in a false start. A hundred yards down the track an outrider stopped the runaways, made them turn around and come back.

  Then in one tremendous instant the flag was dropped and the horses were off!

  Al Hoots’ lips stretched tight for a moment as U-see-it broke last, a good half-length behind the others. But almost at once the trip-hammer power of her legs began moving her forward, inch by inch, stride by stride.

  He held onto the rail, hearing the caller sound her name and position. “U-see-it in fourth place at the quarter.” His grip tightened. U-see-it was a small brown mouse among the bigger horses, taking twice as many strides as they did. Now she scampered her way from fourth position to third, to second. And now the caller was shouting, “U-see-it in second place at the half.” She was four lengths from the leader.

  Al’s heart pounded and he took off his hat as if the weight of it were more then he could bear. U-see-it was going to do it again, but he wished he hadn’t asked it of her, not on a day like this with the wind battering her, blowing dust in her eyes and up her nostrils and down her ears. Now he wished he had scratched her name off. But the pride in him swelled. For at the head of the stretch she was making her bid for the lead. Nothing mouselike about her now! Mane whipping like licks of flame, tail floating on the wind. The Number One horse only a length ahead. Now but a half-length. Now a neck.

  She was going to do it again! The finish line just ahead. And U-see-it a gleam of brown light reaching for it, gaining sharply.

  But—it’s too late! The race is over!

  Al Hoots wiped the dust from his lips. He glanced in agony to the heavens and in the voice of the wind he heard Rosa’s voice saying, “Now is the time to bring her back to the Home Place. Now, while she is winner.”

  After the race Al Hoots hovered over U-see-it as if the hairline finish had been a hurt that he himself had inflicted, as if he had somehow been to blame for the wind and the dust.

  Gently he helped Old Man Webb sponge her face with cool water. Then they washed her whole body with lukewarm water and alcohol. Finally with a long scraper they squeezed the water from her coat and placed the blanket over her for warmth. Then they both walked her slowly, around and around, with no word between them.

  When at last they were satisfied that she was cooled out and eating her hay, the two men started off to get their own suppers.

  “Don’t go just yet, gen’lemen!” a voice mocked. And before them stood a burly stranger, blocking their path. The slanting sun caught him full in the face and lighted the eyes for what they were—glinty and small and shrewd. A hoarse voice said, “Foxy of me to wait until you got her all bathed and cooled out, wasn’t it?” The grubby hands now waved a piece of paper. “This here’s my receipt. I paid the steward, and now she’s mine.” He pointed to U-see-it, who looked from one to the other with wide inquiring eyes.

  “She’s what?” the words wrenched themselves from Al Hoots’ mouth.

  “A claiming race, ain’t it?”

  There was nothing but silence, a deep, ominous silence, broken only by U-see-it munching her hay and switching about in her stall to look over the half-door. On either side of her, sorrel heads, gray heads, heads with blazes peered out, ears pricked in curiosity.

  Grooms with rub rags over their shoulders quickly gathered in a ring around the three men, their mouths gaping, their whole expression saying, “Anybody who tries to claim U-see-it must be part skunk or not very smart.”

  The cords on either side of Al Hoots’ neck bulged big. His mouth opened but no words came. It was Hanley Webb who blurted out, “Who in tunket you think you are?”

  The stranger’s lips parted, showing long yellow teeth that revealed his age and his tobacco chewing. “I’m the agent for an owner in today’s race.”

  “Wait just a minute!” shouted Hanley Webb, shaking his fist. “We had a gentleman’s agreement!”

  “Seems my client had a change of heart.”

  Al Hoots touched Webb’s sleeve. “You tell that man,” he bit off the words, uttering each one separately, “you tell him to wait right here. I’ll be back.”

  With face tight drawn, he walked around the little knot of men, past the adobe barns, past the row of cottage barns to the very last one. It held Hanley Webb’s bunk, and on the bunk lay Al’s own traveling bag.

  There was just one thing to do.

  He unbuckled the straps around the bag and took the rifle out of its case. Pained but resolute, he strode back with firm step. The grooms were roiled to anger now. They gave way to make room for him as he came on. His eyes were on the
stranger’s and he raised the rifle. “Now!” he commanded. “You go!”

  The agent’s face went as white as his receipt. He almost toppled over backward.

  Webb cried out, “Al! Don’t, Al! You can’t mean it!”

  The stranger, still backing away, gulped in terror. “My mistake, Hoots. My mistake.” Then he turned and fled.

  Hoots smiled weakly as the grooms came, one by one, to shake his hand. “That rat!” they said. “Doing somebody else’s dirty work!”

  “But, Al,” one shook his head doubtfully, “for your own sake I wish you hadn’t of used the rifle.”

  “Well, it’s done now, boys. It’s the last time I’ll ever enter my little mare in a claiming race.” That was all he had to say. His shoulders sagged and he seemed suddenly tired and beaten and old. He went to put his gun away, walking slow and bent, but he had gone only a few paces when a messenger summoned him to the steward’s office. He knew what the verdict would be, even before it was said.

  The words came slowly, with the steward’s kindly hand on his arm, but they were no less final. “Even under circumstances that we all understand, Hoots, you know that a claiming race is a selling race. I have no choice but to bar you and U-see-it from the tracks. Forever.” As if this were not punishment enough, the steward added, “And U-see-it’s name will be struck from the Thoroughbred Registry. I’m sorry, Hoots. Sorrier than you know.” And he reached for the limp hand and wrung it in sympathy.

  As Al Hoots walked out of the office, he was tempted to appeal the verdict, but deep in his heart he felt that the track secretary had probably done all he could.

  8. The Home Place

  HOMEWARD BOUND! Al Hoots and Hanley Webb sitting opposite each other in the worn straw seats of the northbound Cannon Ball; U-see-it in the boxcar. She alone was content. Her lead rope was unfastened and she had the whole end of the car to herself with a bale of freshly cut hay to sample and a barrel full of water.

  As the hour neared noon on the first day of the trip, the brakeman went through the cars, calling out in a loud voice, “Abilene ahead. Thirty-minute stop for dinner.”

  “You go,” Al Hoots said to Hanley Webb. “I’m not hungry.”

  Men, women, and children poured out of the train, anxious to get a table, needing to stretch their legs, eager to satisfy their hunger.

  Only the big sorrowful man sat with his elbow on the window sill, head cupped in his hand, eyes closed. Part of him had gone on ahead to Skiatook, wondering how to break the news to Rosa. And part of him was back in the boxcar, fretting over the wrong he had done U-see-it. He seemed unaware that after a while the car began filling up again, that Hanley Webb was standing beside him.

  “Here, Al, I brung you a nice ham sandwich and a cup of hot coffee.” He leaned over Al, hovering like some mother hen. “I couldn’t take it out,” he went on, doing his best to draw a responsive smile, “not till I paid for the cup, too. So, begorry, you better drink up.”

  Al Hoots turned from the window and took the cup. He raised it toward Webb. “Here’s to The Little One in the boxcar,” he said with a heavy sigh.

  He drank his coffee, and then a quiet settled down over the men. In spite of the wordlessness, the two drew strength from each other. Small, squat Hanley Webb kept wanting to comfort the big man. He wanted to say a hundred things, but said none.

  Al Hoots looked out at the fast-moving landscape, and his eyes, so dark and full of hurt, finally braved Webb to speak. “You could still take U-see-it to the little bush tracks,” he said, “even though she ain’t what you’d call a bushwhacker.”

  “Oh, no!” the deep-timbered voice was full of shock.

  Again silence fell over them while the train whistled and chugged across the plains of Texas. Minutes went by, and an hour. Then Al Hoots’ shoulders began to straighten and the weariness seemed to fall away. Suddenly he was able to speak. “Webb!” he exclaimed. “For a long time I’ve had a kind of dream. Why did it take a blow like this to start me aiming for it?” And now a smile and a fresh purpose lighted his face.

  On the afternoon of the second day two dusty, tired men and a fresh-looking mare turned into the lane at Skiatook. Al Hoots looked about him in amazement. Nothing was changed—the cottonwood branches still bare against the sky, the fields still brown and sodden. He felt as if he had been gone for years instead of days. As the two men led U-see-it up the lane, the place burst into activity. Horses came galloping across the field to the gate. Curious-eyed, they snorted their questions to U-see-it. A mother goose scurried and honked her goslings to safety. Buster came flying out of the house, his whole being hurrying and whiffing to find out if here were friend or foe. And Rosa waved her red apron to them from the doorway.

  Later that evening, when twilight had settled down and U-see-it was snugly bedded in her familiar stall, Al Hoots and Webb went into the house for supper. Rosa’s coffee was sending out its fragrance, mingling with the spicy smell of barbecued beef. The two men scraped their chairs across the worn wood floor and sat down in silence at the big plank table.

  The quiet grew deeper as if something of great portent hung in the air. Even Buster seemed to sense a strangeness. He climbed into his box and sat blinking at them all. Rosa filled each coffee cup to its brim, ladled up the beef and gravy, and set a bowl of steaming fried bread in the center of the table. Then, instead of tidying up as was her wont, she, too, sat down, waiting. The expectant look on her face made the two men uneasy. They reached for the bread, covered it over with the barbecued meat, and ate heartily, as if eating were their prime concern.

  “Now!” Rosa said, sighing happily and folding her arms across her bosom. “At last you bring U-see-it back to the Home Place. A winner. Many years she will romp in the green meadow, and then the happy hunting ground, with her music box buried beside her. Maybe so, Al?”

  The time had come. The time to make Rosa see the dream too. But first he told her of the claiming race; of the wind blowing and the dust stinging and how U-see-it was going to win, but . . .

  Rosa nodded her head to save him the embarrassment of saying the words of failure. “Coming in second is no shame,” she said.

  “No.” Al swallowed. “The shame comes after.” Swiftly he told her of the stranger who claimed U-see-it, and in the telling he did not spare himself.

  With arms still folded Rosa listened and felt the finality of the words: “U-see-it and I are barred from the big tracks forever. We are outlawed!”

  Her face clouded over. Her man’s happiest years had been spent matching U-see-it against all comers. Now the verdict was like a blight. She felt arrows of fear coming at her. The Home Place might never hold her man. Even five hundred acres might not be enough. He was brother to the Osages! The spirit in him loved a fast horse.

  Through the veil of her Indian shyness she tried to speak her thoughts. “Al,” she said, “held down here at Skiatook, you will be like the old Indian who walked away from his teepee. Never was he found again. The footprints just stopped. They—just stopped. ‘Sky took him,’ his chief said; and the place where footprints ended was ever afterward named Skiatook.”

  For a long moment no one spoke. Only the little dog whimpered in his dream.

  Rosa was puzzled. Why was not her man more troubled? Why was there the shine of hope in the tired eyes? Why the secret, glowing look? Why? She turned questioningly to Hanley Webb, who only shook his head as he opened and shut the lid of his tobacco can.

  And then the deep, husky voice began again. “U-see-it’s speed is not over and done with. It shall be preserved.”

  “Yes! In the heart and in the mind!” Rosa nodded.

  “No, Rosa. In her colt.”

  Again the room went very still. A moth hovered over the kerosene lamp and the flutter of its wings made a whisper in the stillness.

  “On the long trip home,” Al Hoots explained, “I have not been idle in my mind. U-see-it shall have a foal,” he announced, his voice strong and prophetic. “It will be a horse
colt, not a filly. And it will win the one great race in America, the Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs.” A smile played about his lips. Now he had said it all.

  The wonder in Rosa kept her voice quiet, kept her heart beating calm and steady. “You mean?” she whispered in awe. “You must mean the Kentucky Derby!”

  So this was the dream. So this was it. The moth fluttered wildly, left its wing dust on the lamp.

  Hanley Webb’s three fingers rapped out a tattoo on the plank table. “But, Al,” he hesitated, as if he hated to smother the dream, “you can’t be entering U-see-it’s colt or any horse in the Derby! You’ve been barred from all tracks.”

  The big man looked off into the years ahead. “I know, I know,” he said patiently. “But you see, the owner of the colt will be Rosa Hoots, not Al.”

  Rosa caught her breath.

  “Sufferin’ Hezekiah!” Webb persisted. “I don’t mean to arguefy, Al, but U-see-it’s colt can’t be entered. Have you forgot her name’s been struck from the Thoroughbred Registry?”

  Al Hoots laughed as if nothing could destroy his dream. “When U-see-it is in foal,” he said, “the men who sit in high places passing judgment on the names in the Registry—they will forgive her. Even if they can’t forgive me.”

  Old Man Webb slapped the palm of his hand on the table. He liked that. In his day he had gone to Sunday School, and now he misquoted the Big Book in obvious enjoyment. “Verily, verily,” he boomed out in deep solemnity, “the sins of the owners shall not be visited upon the fillies and foals.”

  Al Hoots said, “Only one thing to slow the dream a little while.”

  “What’s that?” Rosa asked.

  “Money.”

  “Money for what?”

  “It will take a pile of money to send U-see-it all the way to Kentucky. Up there at Colonel Bradley’s farm is the stallion that must sire her colt. His name is Black Toney. Somehow we’ll send her there. And, Webb,” he added, “we will want you to stay on with U-see-it and train her colt. We’ll manage it somehow. Won’t we, Rosa?”