Black Gold Page 9

  Black Gold was a hero! Even though it was only the middle of May, men called him the horse of the year. Everything he did made news. If he kicked his water bucket to smithereens, some reporter was on hand to take a picture. If he had a sniffle, it caused wide concern.

  People everywhere gathered him into their hearts. Oklahomans affectionately called him “the pride of the Osages.” Kentucky referred to him as “their Black Toney’s son.” Louisiana adopted him not only because he ran his first race there, but was not his jockey born and bred in New Orleans? The rest of the nation just plain loved him for his spirit.

  “Where will he race next?” was the question on everyone’s tongue. Thick as raindrops the invitations came—by telephone, by telegram, by mail. “Black Gold is good for the sport of racing,” the messages said. “We hereby invite you to enter him in the Ohio State Derby . . . the Chicago Derby . . . the Tri-State Fair at Ashland, Kentucky . . . the autumn meeting of the Kentucky Jockey Club.”

  Old Man Webb was beside himself with joy. He could not say No. He believed that Black Gold was invincible, like some legendary horse of old, and he wanted to prove it. Sure! Had he not been racing as a two-year-old when most colts are just “prepping up?” Now he must go on adding more stars to his crown. It was his destiny!

  So . . . less than a week after the Kentucky Derby, Black Gold was winning the Ohio State Derby. By ten lengths! “What did I tell ye?” the old man beamed. “There’s no stopping him!”

  Only a few wise men wondered if the willing horse should be raced less and rested more.

  And then, on June 23 at Latonia, Black Gold finished last in a field of seven horses, many of whom he had vanquished in the Kentucky Derby. It was the first loss for the team of Black Gold and Jaydee Mooney. Was it the soreness in his foot showing up again—the same trouble he’d had the week before the Derby? Or was it the sticky condition of the track?

  “’Twas the gumbo track, a-course,” Old Man Webb insisted.

  But five days later over a fast track Black Gold and Jaydee could not quite catch the leaders. They had to take third place. “Your timing is off!” Hanley Webb accused Jaydee. “You’re coddling him.”

  “I have to! It’s that foot again, sir. Maybe we really oughta give him a rest.”

  “Don’t be ridic’lous! We’ll give him more work! That’s what fixed him afore the Derby; and ’twill again.”

  • • •

  It was Jaydee who discovered what was wrong with Black Gold. After a third race lost, he took the shoe pullers, pried off the thin racing shoe, and started to explore. At first everything seemed quite all right. The wedge-shaped frog in the center of the hoof was nice and cushiony, as it should be. Then he cleaned out the foot carefully and began studying the inside wall.

  It’s sound, he thought, and perfectly bell-shaped. Then he noticed what seemed to be one of the colt’s own black hairs embedded in the hoof wall. But when he tried to pick it out, he found it was not a hair at all. A very fine crack went all the way up inside the hoof.

  Could this be a quarter crack? A knife-edge of fear twisted into the core of Jaydee. Still holding Black Gold’s hoof between his knees, he thought hard. Other horses have had quarter cracks, but what was the cure? Was there a cure? There had to be!

  Gently he put the hoof down and peered into the next stall, looking for Hanley Webb. Chief Johnson sat there alone, sewing tapes on one of Black Gold’s blankets. He spoke without turning his head.

  “Webb gone to town,” he said. “He buy groceries. And carrots for all.”

  Jaydee felt an overpowering need to do something now. This very minute. He ran over toward the blacksmith tent, banty chicks scuttering out of the way, goats almost tripping him.

  “Smith!” he yelled. “Mr. Buschor!” he called the man’s name.

  The smith, a burly man with grizzled whiskers, was rolling down his sleeves, ready to stop work for the day. “What’s all the ruckus?” he asked, hanging up his tongs.

  “Come quick!” Jaydee pleaded.

  “Emergency?”

  “Oh, yes, sir! I just found a crack in Black Gold’s foot. Couldn’t that be what’s making him go lame?”

  No reply came, but together they hurried back to the stable. “Which foot?” asked Buschor as they reached Black Gold’s stall.

  “Left front, sir. There must be something we can do . . . isn’t there?”

  But the smith was concentrating, running his horny fingers along the crack and then up to the knee.

  “I’ve had cases like this before,” he said at last.

  “And what’d you do?”

  “I built a bar plate across the heel of the shoe,” he answered matter-of-factly.

  Jaydee saw the shoe in his mind. “It’ll keep the crack from getting wider, won’t it?”

  “It will. And it’ll ease all that soreness in his foot. But,” he lifted a warning finger, “’twon’t be no permanent cure. It’s only a makeshift.”

  Old Man Webb came striding along just then, his arms loaded with groceries. He stormed into Black Gold’s stall. “What’s going on here?” he puffed.

  “I just chanced to be going by,” the smith said, “and I was kinda curious about what was making Black Gold go gimpy.”

  “Truth is, I asked him to come in,” Jaydee confessed.

  The old man snorted. “Now that you two’ve been conniving, what did you find?”

  “Nothin’ but what a bar shoe’ll fix. Temporary, that is.”

  “Contraptions!” Webb barked, and his mouth drew down at the corners. “They rankle me. That’s why I never go to the trottin’ tracks with their horses all crutched up with hobbles and poles and boots and breast collars.” He looked the smith in the eye. “When I want ye, I’ll do the calling. Don’t pay no mind to Jaydee; he’s a worrier.”

  Five days later, after another race lost, Old Man Webb himself sent for the blacksmith. “All right,” he agreed reluctantly. “Go ahead. We’ll try that shoe.”

  Some said the shoe was magic. But the smith knew better. He knew it took more than a shoe to win the Chicago Derby. Even the trainers of the other entries admitted that any other horse with any other jockey would have given up. Going into the back stretch, Black Gold was a full forty lengths behind the leader. Yet he won!

  Newspapers from coast to coast carried the story. The New York Times gave it almost a column. “We salute a game fighter,” they said, “a horse who can run all day with his head in the air. The farther he goes, the greater his speed.”

  “See?” Old Man Webb shook his fist happily just two inches under Jaydee’s nose. “There’s stamina for you! That horse is made o’ iron! He’ll race forever!”

  24. Critical Decision

  BUT THE smith was more of a prophet than Hanley Webb. The bar shoe gave only temporary relief, and the quarter crack widened. Yet in spite of his tortured foot, Black Gold kept on racing, and by sheer willpower won his races. Now, people somehow began to identify themselves with him. If he could go on winning over such a handicap, they too could go on living with their own lameness, deafness, whatever their burden.

  But near the close of the racing season that year, Jaydee could stand Black Gold’s suffering no longer. On his way home late one evening he noticed a light in the blacksmith’s tent and went inside.

  “Mr. Buschor?”

  The man turned in surprise. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, his face sobering to match Jaydee’s. “What is it, Mooney?”

  “It’s about Black Gold. The bar plate on his shoe doesn’t help any more.”

  “Whyn’t you tell me something I ain’t already seen with my own eyes?” the smith asked brusquely. Then he added in a kinder tone, “Cheer up, fella. Nothin’s ever so bad but what it could be worsened or bettered. Set down on that keg over there and just let me finish up this shoe for King’s Ransom. We can chin while I work.”

  Marking time, Jaydee picked up a sliver of hoof trimming and put it in his pocket. “Nothing Buster prizes more,” h
e said, “than a fresh piece of hoof to chew on and to play with. Black Gold’s certainly no playmate any more.”

  “’Tain’t no wonder!” the smith sputtered. He took off his apron and hung it on a nail. “Now,” he said, looking very directly at Jaydee, “what Black Gold needs is an operation.”

  “Operation!” The quick sound of fear showed in Jaydee’s voice.

  “Hold on, boy. ’Tain’t that serious. But mind ye, there’s got to be two steps to it.”

  “What are they, sir?”

  “First ye rest him. About a month or so, I’d say. Just turn him out on some good springy turf and let him go barefoot.”

  “And then?”

  “Why, the operation, a-course.” The smith answered cheerfully, trying to give the boy courage. “It’s simple as A B C to a good vet. He just takes his knife, a real sharp ’un, and he cuts a groove along each side of the crack.”

  “Yes?”

  “And then he takes a pair o’ nippers and pulls out the piece of hoof between the two grooves.”

  Jaydee flinched.

  “Oh, stop yer worritin’. ’Tain’t so dreadful as all that. Nearest I can tell ye, it’s like peeling an onion. Or maybe it’s more like pulling a hangnail.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “Why, the new wall of the hoof grows right down so smooth you wouldn’t know there’d ever been a crack. He’ll race as good as ever.” He paused. “Only one thing serious about this whole job.”

  “What’s that?” Jaydee asked quickly.

  “If it ain’t done.”

  Instead of going home, Jaydee turned back toward the stable. He couldn’t go home. This was so important he had to tell Webb first. He must stop him from planning any more races.

  Black Gold and Buster, Old Man Webb and the Chief, were all bedded down for the night when Jaydee poked his head in the door.

  “You awake?” he whispered.

  The old man snorted. “’Course I’m awake; that’s how I sleep.” A troubled sigh came from the bunk bed. “I been layin’ here, wondering if Buschor could trim Black Gold’s foot and reset the bar plate so’s he could finish out the season.”

  “No.” Jaydee’s voice was quiet, firm, resolute. “Black Gold’s got to rest and then the quarter crack has got to be cut out.”

  “So? You been consultin’ with Buschor again?”

  “I didn’t want to, sir, but I’m going away. Far away.”

  “You’re what?” The old man sat bolt upright.

  Jaydee was glad for the darkness. The words surprised even himself. They had suddenly spilled out. If Black Gold had to go on racing, he could no longer be a party to it, and if Black Gold had his operation, there would be no racing for months. Then he would have to go to the owners who had asked him to race before, and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do this.

  “Look-a-here, Jaydee. I been boss and father both to ye. Ain’t you making a muckle of a mickle? You sure about going away?”

  “I never was so sure, Mister Webb. If ever I’m to ride him again, Black Gold has to have that quarter crack fixed.”

  The Indian Chief turned and grunted in his sleep.

  “But where? Where are you going?” Webb asked.

  “I don’t have the least idea. Only I just got to get out of here. Far as I can go. Maybe California or Canada.” Suddenly he thought of the girl who had stood in the centerfield with Mrs. Hoots during the Derby. Her father had twenty-five head of horses and was an old friend of Mr. Hoots. “Yes, I might even go clean out of the country—to Canada,” Jaydee said. “Maybe that Mr. Hefferman could put me in touch with folks who need a jockey or a trainer.”

  “Heffering,” the old man corrected testily. “Not Hefferman.”

  Black Gold sneezed just then, and the old man’s resistance turned to ashes. What he saw now in the darkness was the truth. His eyes had known it a long time, but his mind had said No to all the signs—to the growing harshness of the coat, the puny appetite, the ribs beginning to show, the listless look.

  “Jaydee,” he said into the night, “I been a cranky, stubborn-headed old fool. The why of it ain’t no matter to a young man like you. You’ve a Ma to love you and a Grandma, and some day a girl, but . . . ”

  Jaydee caught the hurt in the old man’s voice. “But what?” he asked gently.

  “Well . . . it’s just . . . I got no one. No family at all. No kinfolk anywheres that I know of. Before Black Gold began racin’ to fame, my world was flat as a prairie. Then all of a sudden I seemed to be livin’ for the first time. For oncet I seemed to be kinda important.”

  He paused and the sigh that escaped him sounded big and lonely. Buster leaped through the partition, jumped up on his cot, and lay close, his muzzle fitting snugly in the old man’s shoulder.

  “I guess,” Webb went on, “I figgered my world’d go all dead and empty again if Black Gold stopped racing.”

  Jaydee tried to comfort him. “It’ll only be part of a season.” But the man interrupted.

  “I been a fool, boy,” he repeated in misery. “Sacrificin’ him for the likes of me.” He got up, shuffling across the stall in his nightshirt. “The shock of all you said must’ve jounced the truth into me.” He put his hand on Jaydee’s shoulder and shook it gently. “All right! I’ll take him to the Blue Grass country. I’ll rest him. Then he can have his operation, and come spring, the three of us’ll start off again with nothing but wins. Eh, boy?”

  25. Without a Backward Glance

  NEXT MORNING Jaydee came to Black Gold’s stall dressed in his good suit. He had with him a fistful of redtop clover which he had cut with his pocketknife along the roadside.

  “I’m going far away,” he whispered as he offered a tuft of clover on the flat of his hand. “But I’ll be back soon—in the spring, that is. Meantime I got to work to earn my keep, and you can eat and play and get sleek again, and have your operation. Then we’ll be thundering down the homestretch again, with the wind singin’ in our ears.”

  Suddenly he could talk no more. He had to go. Quietly he slid under the door straps, picked up his bag and grasped Webb’s gnarled old hand. With a look and a nod for the Chief, he turned and ran down the shed row, Buster at his heels. When Buster stopped at the end of the row and sat down on his stub of a tail, Jaydee knew the good-by’s had been said.

  He knew, too, that his big dream had been fulfilled, but already a new one was taking its place. Black Gold would have the greatest comeback in the history of the turf.

  • • •

  Up in Canada the fall wore itself out. Sugar maples turned to gold in the dark October woods, then showered their leaves for the wind to scatter.

  As winning jockey of the Kentucky Derby, Jaydee was much sought after, particularly in training matters now. Owners liked the way he handled horses. The very young ones he sometimes schooled without even mounting them. He drove them around the ring, his voice spurring or coaxing as the need arose.

  He was riding some good horses, too. He won the King’s Plate at Woodbine in Toronto. But after the race, when he gave the shining trophy to Marjorie Heffering, she read his mind. “Even the good horses seem big and bumbling alongside Black Gold, don’t they?”

  Winter came on, and the work never let up. Jaydee was glad of it, glad with a kind of fierce gladness. But all the while he kept wondering about Black Gold. What of the operation? Was it painful? When had it been? Was it successful? As the days went their slow way, he grew more and more impatient. In February he wrote a card to Old Man Webb, but got no answer. He had really expected none.

  By April he could control his impatience no longer. The time clock in his mind said, “You must go. Now.” And he went.

  It was already spring in Kentucky—dogwood and redbud blooming on the mountainsides, cardinals staking out their claims in song, bluegrass rippling in the wind. But as the train pulled into Lexington, Jaydee was hardly aware of the signs of spring. Like an eager colt at the barrier, he was first out of the train. In th
e station washroom he quickly changed from his suit to the old work clothes.

  A white-haired gentleman looked on in amusement, his nose twitching like a rabbit’s. “You’ve something to do with horses,” he laughed. “Mind if I ask why you’re changing here?”

  “I’m going to see Black Gold. I want to help him remember me,” Jaydee grinned.

  “Black Gold!” the man’s face showed recognition and astonishment. “Why, he’s on my neighbor’s place. I live up the road only a little piece yonder. I’ll give you a lift, if you like.”

  They drove between green pastures criss-crossed with white fences, saw mares and foals grazing in the sun. To Jaydee the whole countryside looked so green and rain-washed that he grew doubly impatient to see what the springy turf had done for his horse.

  He was suddenly alive, every fiber of him vibrating with strong feelings. Almost before the car stopped, he was out of it, barely thanking the driver. He had a need to run, to find Black Gold at once, to see, to see! He ran up the lane, whipping past the stable office, and out of breath reached at last a small paddock. There a lone black horse stood grazing. Jaydee stopped dead still. Was it, or was it not, Black Gold? Perhaps it was some younger stallion, some two-year-old who had never known the hard work of the track, who had never felt the lead weights in his saddle. Perhaps it was another of Black Toney’s colts.

  Look further, Jaydee. There’s a bigger paddock up there on the knoll. No, wait! The muscled, shining stallion is coming your way. Wait! See the wind lifting his forelock? The white mark is there.

  “Hey, young feller, want to gallop him?” came a rough, familiar voice.

  Jaydee’s laughter rang out over the hills. “Do I!” he shouted.

  And now the old man and Jaydee embracing like father and son, and Black Gold nudging them with his muzzle.

  On went the bridle, the eager horse reaching to take the bit. On went the saddle. Up went Jaydee as if he were twelve, not twenty. Away at a brisk walk went Black Gold out onto the exercise ring.