The Black Stallion's Blood Bay Colt (18 page)

But he'd be coming back to Coronet now, early in August, just as he'd planned. Yet for a different reason. Jimmy Creech couldn't go on racing this season, even if he wanted to, not after a spill like that. Tom wondered where it would all lead, and what Jimmy would do about the blood bay colt. Not so long ago, when Jimmy was in bad health and in need of money, he almost sold the Queen before her foal came. Tom didn't want to think of what Jimmy might possibly do now. Jimmy wouldn't, couldn't sell Bonfire! Or could he?

Tom wasn't certain of anything that Jimmy Creech might—or might not—do.

Two weeks later Jimmy returned to Coronet, his head swathed high with bandages, his face very pale. George helped him from the van, but Jimmy pushed his hands away. “No need for that,” he said brusquely; then he greeted Tom as though nothing at all had happened.

The boy tried to smile but couldn't, not while looking into Jimmy's thin, drawn face and the eyes that burned hot within black, sunken pits.

Jimmy turned away. “Just a cut, that's all I have, Tom,” he said angrily. “I've had 'em before, lots of 'em. And I'll have more before I'm through. Don't look so scared. Just a lot of bandages, I tell you.” And with that he walked into the shed, mumbling, “The colt … I want to see the colt.”

Tom stayed behind with George. “How bad is it, George?” he asked.

“Just a cut like he says,” George returned, “—but a bad one. He's lucky. He coulda been killed, easy.” George turned toward the shed. “It's his stomach
I'm worried about more. We got to get him to the doctor again.”

George was walking toward the shed when Tom stopped him. “We ought to get Symbol out of the van first, shouldn't we?”

“No Symbol in there,” George said quietly. “Sadie's empty.”

“Where is he?”

“Jimmy got rid of him.”

“Sold him?”

George shaded his eyes from the hot sun as he looked at the boy. “No. Jimmy figured on doin' that while he was in the hospital. He needed the money. But then a young farm kid from outside Bedford came to see him. The kid had been around the fair track an' Jimmy knew how much he wanted a trotter to hitch up to an old buggy he had an' drive around the country roads. So Jimmy just ups and gives him Symbol then and there.”

Taking a chaw of tobacco, George shoved it in his mouth. “More'n the money he needed, he'd rather see Symbol get a good home. He knew that anyone who bought Symbol might race him. And he figured, I guess, that Symbol was more than ready to be retired. That's Jimmy, all right, knowin' when it's time for a horse to quit the races, but never realizing he oughta quit, too.”

They had seen Jimmy standing before the colt's stall all during their conversation, but when they walked into the shed, Jimmy turned and went into the tack room.

George stopped to run his hands through Bonfire's black mane. “He ready, Tom?”

The boy nodded. “For anything, George. All Jimmy has to do is to get into the seat and drive him. Bonfire never makes a wrong move. And he knows that it's all business when he's out on the track.”

Inside the tack room, they found Jimmy seated at the table, holding his head between his hands.

“The cut bother you?” George asked.

“No … just thinking,” Jimmy returned. He rose to move nervously to the door and back. “When I remember how Lunceford fouled me up on that turn, it turns my stomach,” he said bitterly. “I was going to win that race, and the five-hundred-dollar purse would have pulled me out of a hole. Now I'm back here without hardly enough to keep the colt in grain, let alone race him next year. And all because a fair-haired boy of the night raceways took a day off and spent it at a fair for the laughs he could get out of it—laughs and a bit of sun! They oughta stay where they belong,” he added, bellowing. “If they want the raceways they ought to stay there … and keep their dirty driving there and not bring it to the fairs!” Jimmy's face was flushed with rage.

“Sit down, Jimmy!” It was George, and his voice was angry and no longer that of a friend.

Both Jimmy and Tom turned to him, and the paleness returned to Jimmy's face while he listened to George's hard words, spoken with neither pause nor sympathy.

“I been listening to you long enough. Now listen to
me. I saw what happened on that turn. I was there, right when and where it happened. You pulled into Lunceford, Jimmy. I don't even think you know it, but you did. And maybe the same thing happened that day at Reading when you and Ray O'Neil hooked wheels. I don't know about that. I was too far away then. But I know what happened at Bedford. You tried to force Lunceford closer to the rail so you could get by. You knew Symbol didn't have the finish to go around him. But Lunceford didn't give way, an' you hooked wheels, and you got the worst of it again, just like at Reading. Only this time you pretty near got killed with those horses coming up behind an' just missin' you. You were lucky, and you might not be so lucky again. You fouled Lunceford, Jimmy, and if the judges didn't see it, I did.”

George paused then, and his voice was a little softer as he added, “An' like I said, you don't even realize you did it. That's the pity of it, Jimmy. And it's the dangerous part of it, too. You don't even know how reckless you are. You got no business racing in that shape.”

Jimmy said nothing when George had finished. He sat in his chair, hurt and beaten. Tom bit his lip and turned away. He couldn't look at Jimmy now; it took too much out of him.

The room was quiet for a long while. Then Tom heard Jimmy speak and the weak, shaking voice didn't seem to be Jimmy's at all.

“Y–You mean I pulled into him, George? I fouled Lunceford? He didn't pull over on me? You saw it? You're sure?”

“I'm sure,” George said. “I know.” George's voice
was gentler now. “I wish that it wasn't true. But it is, and I have to tell you, because you can't go on this way, Jimmy.”

Jimmy Creech said no more, and Tom only turned away from the window when George spoke again.

“You want to get better, don't you Jimmy? You want to drive the colt, don't you? Tom said Bonfire's ready for anything you want to do with him.”

“You know I do,” Jimmy said weakly. “If I could have just one good horse … to see him—” He stopped, his gaze fixed on the table. “But it's no go, George,” he added. “It takes money to feed and race him. And I haven't much left.”

“But I've a little more,” George said. “We can do anything we want if you just stop worryin' about it.”

“And I have a hundred dollars in my savings account,” Tom said. “It's yours, Jimmy.”

“I don't want to take—” the man started to say. But George stopped him, his voice firm again.

“The colt is ours as much as yours. We're not giving
you
anything. We're thinkin' of the colt, aren't we, Tom?”

The boy nodded while Jimmy said, “Yes, he belongs to both of you … as much as he does to me.”

“Then if he's ours we share responsibility with you,” George said quickly. “And none of us are goin' to do any more worryin' about anything. You're going to get better, Jimmy. From now on you're listening to Tom and me jus' like we have to listen to you about training the colt. And I'm sayin' that you're going to see Doc Morton with me tomorrow. We're goin' to get that list of food you should eat an' the medicine. You're goin'
to listen to us, Jimmy. We're taking over, startin' now. Spit out that gum you're chewin'. You know you shouldn't be doing it.”

A flush rose quickly to Jimmy's face, but he removed the gum from his mouth and threw it in a pail. “Okay, George,” he said quietly. “We'll try it your way from now on.”

The following day Jimmy obediently accompanied George to the office of Dr. Morton in Pittsburgh. And late that afternoon, George returned to the stables alone.

“I sent him home early,” George said, seeing the startled look on Tom's face.

“What'd the doctor say?”

“He said the X-rays of his stomach showed that Jimmy needed complete rest, either in a hospital or at home.”

“But Jimmy wouldn't listen?”

“No, nothin' the doc said would keep Jimmy away from here for a good long time like the doc wanted. And I couldn't ask him to do that either. But he was scared, so he said he'd stay home a few days each week. And that was more'n I expected to hear Jimmy say.”

“Jimmy must be scared,” Tom said. “He really must be.”

This was even more evident during the weeks that followed, for when Jimmy came to the stables he let Tom do all the work with the colt, and was content to tell him what to do with Bonfire and to watch them. His admiration for the colt and Tom's handling him, together with the strict diet and less work, were responsible for
Jimmy's better health. He had stomach pains but his attacks were less severe and at longer intervals.

A week before school opened, Jimmy told Tom to sit behind Bonfire.

“It's time to start going with him,” Jimmy said, turning over the lines to Tom. “But just jog him. Nothing more.”

“But, Jimmy, it's his first time. Don't you want to—”

“You mean you're afraid of what he might do, Tom?”

“Oh, no, Jimmy,” the boy returned quickly. “I know him too well for that. He won't make a wrong move. It's just that … well, I mean … it'll be so good to sit behind him, to be the very first one. You should—”

Jimmy shielded the softness that came to his eyes by sweeping his hand over the small bandage which now was the only evidence of his accident. “Sure, it'll be good,” he said with forced harshness. “That's why I want you to be behind him. He's yours as much as mine … maybe even more. You're both learnin' together and I'll be happy if I can do a good job on each of you.” Going to Bonfire's head, he added quickly, “Get goin' now an' I'll be watching. Make it two miles at a slow jog. We'll start him easy an' later work up to six miles. We'll concentrate on building up his wind and stamina now and go for speed in the spring.”

Tom took his seat. He said nothing to Jimmy, and spoke only to Bonfire through the long lines.

“You set, Tom?” Jimmy asked impatiently.

The boy moved his head in agreement; then Jimmy released the colt and Bonfire moved onto the track at Tom's unspoken command.

He took him the wrong way around the track, the same as he'd always done, well knowing that the only time they'd turn him the right way around would be for a speed-workout. Bonfire would then know that turning meant racing and all-out effort.

Tom felt the colt's surprise when the lines told him that he could move out of his walk for the first time. His strides lengthened and they were low, even and effortless. There was no indication that having Tom in the seat was any different from pulling an empty one; it was as though he had expected to pull the boy's extra weight in time, and this was the time.

Bonfire was eager to go faster, but Tom kept him at the jog which Jimmy had ordered. They came around the first lap and passed George and Jimmy. George called and nodded his head to Tom in approval. But Jimmy had eyes only for the colt and his every movement.

Tom sat back a little more comfortably in his seat and gloried in the feeling of riding behind his colt. He thought of the day Bonfire had been foaled; he remembered the days that followed, his handling him at the farm, the tight halter, the hours spent together in the pasture, the Queen, Uncle Wilmer and finally Coronet again and Bonfire's weaning. There were so many wonderful things to remember—all leading to this moment! Yet there was so much more to come, too. With his colt, Tom looked forward to all that was ahead.

Bonfire was starting his last half-mile when Tom saw Miss Elsie come onto the track with her Princess Guy.

The colt snorted but kept to a jog at Tom's command.
Yet the distance between filly and colt lessened rapidly until Tom was opposite Miss Elsie; then she let Princess Guy out a little more and the two yearlings went along as a team.

“How's Jimmy this morning?” Miss Elsie called.

“He's feeling better, thanks.”

“Anything I can do?” she asked when they entered the backstretch.

Tom was comparing the action of her filly to his colt, but he turned to Miss Elsie and said, “You've done enough. George and I appreciate it very much.”

Pulling her peaked cap further down over her head, Miss Elsie said, “I haven't done anything, Tom.” She clucked to Princess Guy and started moving away from them.

The colt was impatient to follow and Tom's fingers tapped on the lines before he called out to Miss Elsie's back, “George and I found two hundred more pounds of oats than we paid you for.” But the woman only clucked louder to her filly. “And there was more than an extra ton of hay, too,” Tom shouted.

Miss Elsie pulled rapidly away, and never even turned her head in Tom's direction.

Jimmy and George were still in front of the shed when Tom brought Bonfire off the track.

Jimmy's eyes were only for the colt as he said quietly, “He's all I could ask. He's
it
for us.”

George smiled. “Just like the black filly with the white stockings is
it
for Miss Elsie?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, without taking his eyes from Bonfire, “about the same, I guess. Nobody ‘round here ever saw the like of these two yearlings. Nobody.
What's inside of 'em will come out in time; then we'll know more.”

They took Bonfire into the shed and were removing the harness from his sweated body when Tom asked, “Then you think we'll have him ready in time to race next season?”

Jimmy said, “We'll see, Tom. I think so now, but I don't want to rush him any. He looks like he'll take the work, though. He's big and ready.”