Twenty-Four
ALL that month of July Rosalind showed fast in her preparation for the Hambletonian. Like some prima donna who smiles on her prop man, she let Gibson help in the tuning up. Handling easy as you please, she let him take her two trips around the track, warming her up, limbering her up, getting her ready. Then his father would mount the sulky, and her muscles would quicken and she would gather herself and the two would set sail, effortlessly, like wind runneling along the grass.
The railbirds, holding watches on them, began to hum like a hive of bees.
“Something must’ve happened to my second hand!”
“I was about to say the same thing!”
“That filly must be part bird!”
“Now if I could find one like that I’d buy her on the spot.”
“Why, she’s having as much fun as Ben himself!”
• • •
By the end of July the railbirds were not alone in their thinking. The entire harness world had become aware of Rosalind. Here was a filly that had won the Junior Kentucky Futurity, the Good Time Stake, the Rainy Day Sweepstakes, the three-year-old Inaugural. A filly that had started seven times and won seven times!
Now, just two weeks before the great race, there was only one start left in her final preparation. The National at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, was called the dress rehearsal of the Hambletonian. History had made a glib phrase about it and had rammed it down the throats of horsemen everywhere. Win at Old Orchard, win the Hambletonian.
And on the night after the National had been run off, history flaunted the words. On that night stunned horsemen read the headlines.
LASATER TAKES THE NATIONAL
LASATER, PILOTED BY SEP PALIN, BEATS ROSALIND
LASATER WINS BY A LENGTH AND A HALF
ROSALIND BOWS TO ED LASATER
Men at microphones tossed questions light and easy over the air, not knowing that in a car on the way to Goshen a man and a boy were listening, trying not to, as if the listening would admit the doubt.
Lose at Old Orchard, lose the Great Race?
Rosalind a fallen prodigy?
Rosalind a morning-glory?
The words came through the air into the car as it sped along in the dark. They broke in brittle fragments about the man and the boy.
For days afterward the smile was gone from Ben White’s face, and the weather creases seemed etched deeper. Gibson tried to comfort him. Over graham crackers and milk in the stable office, he spoke confidently. “We’ll change that old battle cry, Dad, to ‘Lose at Old Orchard, win the Hambletonian.’ ”
Mr. White tried his smile. “Rosalind seems to be sharp right now,” he said. “Went a good trip this morning. You saw for yourself.” He paused a moment, then went on, not wanting to build false hope. “But, Son, that Ed Lasater’s tough. He’s got a mark of two-two and a quarter now against Rosalind’s two-three. Fact is,” he added, breaking a graham cracker for Bear, “he’s already equaled Greyhound’s time in the Hambletonian last year. And he’ll be piloted again by Sep Palin who drove Greyhound.”
Gibson spoke half laughing, yet half serious. “At Old Orchard was the one time I forgot the rabbit’s foot Mike gave me.”
“Pooh!” answered Mr. White. “Who believes in good luck pieces?” Then his eyes twinkled. “But don’t let me catch you without that rabbit’s foot, come Hambletonian Day!”
• • •
Friends, relatives, acquaintances discussed Rosalind’s chances, weighing them this way and that. Some were confident, with no mark of doubt between their eyes. Others spoke but could not look at Gibson. Even the Whites’ friend, Governor Hoffman of New Jersey, tried to prepare the boy for Rosalind’s possible defeat. He sat on the fence rail alongside him one day, stop watch in hand. “For sentiment, I’m picking Rosalind,” he said, then hesitated a long time, “but a lion’s apt to cross her path in Ed Lasater.”
Twenty-Five
GOSHEN! August twelfth! Hambletonian Day!
The chugging of a train woke Gibson, throbbing in his head. The Erie, that was it. The same railroad that went through Chester. On this same road William Rysdyk had shipped his colt to the Union Course. Sharply awake now, Gibson held his watch to the light. It was long past six. Eight hours between this moment and the moment when the horses would parade to the post.
This was the uneasy time. The time of thinking.
“Ed Lasater’s tough.”
“Ed Lasater’s the horse to beat.”
“Lasater tied Greyhound’s time in the Hambletonian!”
“Lose at Old Orchard, lose the Hambletonian.”
“A lion’s apt to cross her path in Ed Lasater.”
“Ed Lasater’s driver is good. He piloted Greyhound last year. Remember, Gib?”
“Morning-glory. Morning-glory. Morning-glory.”
Words said yesterday, last week, the week before, kept probing like a dentist’s pick, getting closer and closer to the nerve.
Gibson shook the thoughts out of his head. He got up, dressed quickly. “I just better not forget this!” he told himself as he took the furry little rabbit’s paw out of the trousers he had worn yesterday and slid it into his pocket. Then he tiptoed past closed doors and out of the spacious house where he and his parents were staying.
The leaves on the old elm trees in the quiet street were barely stirring. No wind to slow the time, he thought as he walked to the restaurant where the drivers ate. But the drivers had eaten and were gone. Now the place was filled with tourists who had come to see the-most famous race of the trotting turf. Whole families of them. Children swiveling on the counter stools, fretting to see the horses. Fathers and grandfathers who looked as if they had once driven horses of their own.
Gibson sat up at the counter, ordering little, eating little, forgetting he had seven and a half hours of waiting.
When he came out on the street again, a bright sun hit him full in the face. The track will be fast, he thought, walking quickly to get to it, through the crowd, across the town square, past the ivy-covered churches.
At the entrance to Good Time Park a friendly officer with more chins than he needed stopped Gibson. “No one allowed in this early,” he said, aiming his finger as if it were a gun. Then he spied Gibson’s badge with the word Owner on it. “Say!” he said, unbelieving, “you’re not young Gibby White, are you?”
Gibson nodded, anxious to get inside, but the police officer grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. “If your filly can beat that Lasater, she’ll be Number One on my hit parade. Get along with you,” he winked, pushing him gently through the gate. “And the best of luck to you.”
Good Time Park was a buzz of activity. Tractors rattling by, harrowing and scraping the clay mile. Striped tents popping up like puffballs after a rain. Ladies in aprons decorating sawhorse tables to be filled with food.
“Gib!” One of the grooms spoke excitedly as he spied the boy. “The buckle on Rosalind’s girth is got to be sewed. Your dad give me the keys to his car, and I got to drive over to a harness-maker in Montgomery and get it stitched. He says you’re to come along and see the man does a good job.”
Half an hour to Montgomery. An endless wait at the harness-maker’s. The buckle sewed. Then errands not mentioned before. Little errands, but time-takers all. Lamb’s wool and sponges to buy and salt refills. An owner to see.
It was late morning when all was done and they were back at Good Time Park. At the Ben White stable, men stood huddled around every stall but Rosalind’s. Hers was empty. Without anyone’s noticing him, Gibson went on out toward the track, where the drivers were warming up their entries for the big race. Like any railbird he perched on the fence, his eyes sifting and sorting the horses, then pouncing on the one he sought. He found her quickly. There was no missing her free action. No boots of any kind. No head pole. No side pole. No breast collar. Only the two-minute harness to match the two-minute mind. With a smile to himself he began liking her all over again, forgetting he had ever heard t
he name Ed Lasater.
Stride by stride he watched Rosalind, trying to make believe this warm-up was no different from the others.
“Say, Bud,” a young man sitting next to him asked, “how d’you tell the trotters from the pacers?”
“It’s easy,” Gibson answered. “The trotter’s diagonal feet work in unison, but the pacer strikes out with both legs of one side at the same time.”
“Oh. That’s what makes ’em roll, huh?”
“Sure. That’s why the pacers are called side-wheelers.”
Yes, everything the same. Questions the same. And out on the track the same harrow scratching the clay and the same float smoothing it and the horses pulling out around them with the same unconcern.
Yes, everything the same. And yet it was not the same at all! A feeling of something about to happen hovered over and around Good Time Park. You could sense it. You could almost see it in the air, like heat waves rising.
A hand darted between Gibson and the man on the rail beside him. It was Guy Heasley’s hand bringing letters and a telegram, and Guy Heasley’s voice speaking. “Knew I’d find you here. Track’s going to be lightning fast, ain’t it?” Then he was gone without an answer.
Gibson slit open the telegram. It was addressed to Rosalind and read:
ROUGH WEATHER DELAYING TAKEOFF. KNOW YOU WON’T BE GROUNDED BUT WILL FLY AWAY TO VICTORY. MY BEST TO YOUR OWNER AND TRAINER.
DOC MILLS
There were letters too from Mike in Wisconsin and Beaver and Grubber in Norfolk. Gibson read them in the midst of the crowd with overtones of excitement all about him.
“We’ll be tuned in,” they said, “yelling for the driver in the black-and-white silks and the filly with the two white feet.”
“Hey! Don’t forget to hang onto my rabbit’s foot!” Beaver underlined in black slashes.
At noon Gibson’s mother came to the office of the stable with a picnic hamper filled with sandwiches and fried chicken and a thermos of cold milk. Gibson sat on the trunk, trying to eat, but the chicken that usually tasted so good had no flavor at all. It was strange to be in the busyness but not of it. To sit on the outer rim again, watching. For a moment he thought of the days when he had jogged Tony, and a kind of longing passed over him. At least then he had had something to do.
Clem McCarthy, the radio announcer, came in, talking and laughing with Mr. Reynolds. They accepted plates of food from Mrs. White. Suddenly Clem spied Gibson and put down his sandwich half eaten. “Gib! Will you help me this afternoon?”
“Who? Me? But what could I do?”
“You can help identify the horses and drivers. I’m all set up on the roof of the grandstand with some big telescope binocs and a loud-speaker. Will you be my spotter?”
“You mean you really need someone?”
Clem nodded vigorously. “You’ve grown up with these horses. You know their sires and dams, their trainers and drivers. You’ve got names at your fingertips. You’re my man!”
Gibson’s face lighted. At last he had something to do! “Sure I’ll come.” He picked up a drumstick and ate it with zest.
His mother smiled happily as she set a glass of milk beside him. He turned to her now. “There’s a big ladder goes from the back of the grandstand up to the roof,” he said. “You could make it up there, too, if you want.”
Mrs. White looked pleased. “I’d like to, only it happens that your grandmother and Mrs. Palin and I have box seats. But really half of me will be on the roof with you and half will be with your father up behind Rosalind.”
Mr. White came out of the dressing room now, splendid in his new racing silks with the creases still in them. He shook hands with Clem McCarthy.
Gibson waited to speak to his father alone, but two little girls in pigtails came shyly into the office and tugged at his jacket.
“Will you have to whip Rosalind in the race?” one asked timidly.
Mr. White spoke carefully. “When my son and I train a horse, we believe he gets to know what we want and tries to give us his best every time. A good horse doesn’t have to be whipped. Rosalind will be just as anxious to be out in front as we are to have her. I’m sure she would suffer great shame if she were whipped for doing her best. Wouldn’t you, little ladies?”
Satisfied, the girls nodded their pigtails and skipped out, eager to relay the words.
At last Gibson and his father were alone, but now that the chance had come, all the boy could say was, “Rosalind—?”
And all the father could do was nod. Neither had any words.
Twenty-Six
THE platform atop the roof smelled of freshly cut pine, and the sun drew out little gummy beads of pitch that stuck to Gibson’s shoes. He wondered why he even noticed this when below him the grandstand was filling and overflowing to the rails. And beyond the rails Good Time Park spread out like some giant kite—the track itself the frame, the grassy infield, tissue-paper green. The roads to the park were black with cars. Miles of cars winding in the sun, worming down out of the darker green hills.
“How do you like the aerial view!” Clem McCarthy announced to Gibson rather than asked. He was all over the platform at once, testing connections, trying out his microphone, wielding the binoculars, tuning up for the begin.
For just a moment he perched on the rail of the platform and glanced at the script he drew from his pocket. “Say, Gib, how do you pronounce this driver’s name? I always forget if it’s Pay-lin or Pah-leen?”
“You pronounce it Pay-lin,” Gibson answered quickly, eager to be of use.
Clem McCarthy nodded. Then his eyes swept the scene, gathering it into himself, distilling it for his listeners. Now he was bringing the microphone to his lips, talking into it, purring into it as if it were the ear of a beloved friend.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, from Goshen, New York.”
A battery of loud-speakers trumpeted the words with their in-held excitement.
“Post time,” the voice rapped out, “is half an hour away but already the largest gathering in Hambletonian history has entered Good Time Park. Forty thousand lovers of the harness horse are milling about, waiting tensely. Five hundred horse celebrities are quartered here in the stables. Ten are now being harnessed for today’s Hambletonian. One of the ten will win two out of three heats, and in the winning a new star will shine in the trotting firmament.”
Gibson became part of the listening audience, forgot himself.
“Whoever,” the voice ticked on, “thrills to the trot, to the pageantry of the turf, to the performance of a champion, is here today to pay homage to Rysdyk’s Hambletonian. He, my friends, was the greatest of all progenitors of the trotting horse—the great-granddaddy of today’s entries. This race is run every year in his honor.”
A brush of wind picked up the flag over the infield and ribboned it to a cloud.
Again the voice with the excitement all boxed in. “The day is right. Warm but not too warm. Just enough breeze to send the colors rippling.
“The scene below us, ladies and gentlemen, could be a county fair. The church ladies are selling the last of their delicious fried chicken, corn on the cob, and homemade apple pie from their sawhorse tables under little mushroom tents. At least, they look like mushrooms from my crow’s-nest here atop the grandstand. And part of every admission dollar taken in today, ladies and gentlemen, goes to the Goshen Hospital.”
He crammed his script into his pocket, living the scene instead. “Today this quiet little land o’ Goshen is a mecca. From country lanes, from city sidewalks, the crowd—” His sentence broke off in the middle.
Now the words rocketed. “The field is coming out on the track!”
Gibson looked at his watch. The waiting was over. This was it! Like a kaleidoscope the colors came. The silks of the drivers—purple, green, orange, scarlet, and one in sober black. But all the colors dimmed against the polished gleam of Rosalind.
“The entries,” the voice quickened, “have drawn the following p
ositions: Hollyrood Hermes in first place, Brownie Hanover in second, Gaiety Mite third, Recovery fourth, Pinero fifth, Clova in sixth . . .” The voice gathered speed like a plane racing its engines. “In seventh position Rosalind, owned by Gibson White, driver Ben Franklin White. Ladies and gentlemen, Gibson is standing right here beside the mike. He’s going to help make individual horses out of the pack for you.”
The voice never seemed to stop for breath. “In the second tier, behind the number one horse, is Ruth M Mac in eighth place, driver Tom Berry. Number nine, Peter Song behind Brownie Hanover. Number ten, Ed Lasater behind Gaiety Mite. Now they’re going to score for the word ‘Go.’ ”
Gibson only half listened. With heart and eyes he saw the field pass the judges’ tower until they were a hundred yards beyond it. He saw them turn, saw the horses maneuvering into the positions they had drawn.
“Come on slowly!” It was the starter, Steve Phillips, cautioning from the track.
The lineup came at him, squaring off into a trot as they neared. “Stop! Go back!” Clem’s voice cracked as two horses burst ahead of the number one horse and Steve Phillips clanged the bell.
Back they all went for another try.
Gibson hung onto the platform rail. “Don’t let her wear herself out!” he prayed.
Again the field came at Steve Phillips. Again his caution, “Come on slowly!”
“Once more they’re scoring for the word,” shouted Clem McCarthy. “They may make it this time . . . Oh, no!” he cried in unison with the gong as one horse broke from his trot and leaped ahead of the pole horse.
A third try.
Fear caught at Gibson. The horses would surely be worn out before they took the word. Never Rosalind’s fault, but taking something out of her just the same. He chafed at the feeling of being far away. He wanted to be down there among them, as if his just being there would bring order.
A groom with a bicycle pump came running out on the track. “Gib,” whispered Clem McCarthy, “whose tire is flat?”