That night Jimmy had his bad attack, and he stayed at home resting the remainder of the week while Tom worked the blood bay colt.
HARD FISTS
14
While Jimmy was home in bed, George told Tom, “I know Jimmy must sound awfully bitter to you. He’s sick, but y’got to remember he’s sincere about ’most everything he says. He’s sick to his stomach with that ulcer an’ sick to his head when he realizes what’s happening to his sport—our sport,” George added quietly.
It was early morning and they were cleaning Bonfire after a long workout. “Wipe his nostrils clean, Tom,” George said. Going to the colt’s tail and lifting it, he sponged the sweated hindlegs.
Tom was working on Bonfire’s small head and couldn’t see George. But the man’s voice came easily to him.
“You got to remember, too, Tom,” George went on, “that Jimmy and I were brought up in the old days. To sit behind a fast horse and to set out for town in a buggy was like some guy today ridin’ around in a blue convertible. On the way to town, we’d never let anyone pass us—not if we could help it. That’s how harness racin’ started, just tryin’ to get to town with your horse before another guy. We lived for our horses and we still do, Jimmy ’specially. I don’t do anything but help him. But I understand all right how Jimmy feels.”
Tom ran his sponge down Bonfire’s neck, and now he could see George. The colt’s tail was hanging over the man’s bald, bared head while he went on cleaning the horse.
“I guess I’m jus’ more adaptable than Jimmy is,” George continued thoughtfully. “Maybe you can call it that. Anyway, what I mean is I seem to be able to accept a lot of things that Jimmy can’t. He’s too mad to accept any change in harness racing. Lots of what Jimmy Creech says about night racing, the raceways an’ even the Philip Cox Clothing Company may be true. Don’t you forget that,” he added emphatically.
“But there are other things Jimmy should remember, an’ he won’t. The way I see it, harness racin’ has to have its progress jus’ like everything else in this world today. It’s getting big because a lot of new folks are learning what a grand sport it is. You wouldn’t have raceways if a lot of people didn’t want to see our horses go. Our sport don’t belong only to the farmer and country folks—not no more, it don’t. City people who never saw a fair now can watch our horses go at a raceway track … and that’s good in many ways. But Jimmy can’t see it. Not for the life of him, he can’t.”
George came around to the other side of the colt and looked over Bonfire’s back at Tom. He took a chew of tobacco before continuing.
“It’s good because it means that a lot more people all over the country are becoming interested in our sport. It means bigger purses than you’ll ever get at most fairs. Jimmy in his best years at the fairs never made much more than enough to pay his feed bills and have a little left over. An’ that’s not right, Tom. Jimmy says it’s all sport with him and that’s the only way it should be. But I say it’s his lifework too, an’ he should have more to show for it after fifty years of it than he does.” George’s voice rose so high that he swallowed a little tobacco juice. He coughed and then was quiet for a moment while Tom threw the white cooling blanket over Bonfire.
George followed when the boy led Bonfire outside into the cool November morning. While they walked the colt, George continued.
“And don’t forget, Tom, that with more people interested in our sport it means more and better horses, too, because the competition is a lot keener than it was, and that always means improvement. But it doesn’t mean,” he added quickly, “that the little guy like Jimmy Creech is bein’ shoved out of the picture. With Jimmy’s horse sense he’s got just as much chance of breeding a champion as any guy with money to burn. Look at Bonfire—there’s your answer to that. An’ look at Miss Elsie, with all her money, just waitin’ and waitin’ year after year for the good colt she wants.”
They turned Bonfire around at the end of the row and walked him back again.
“Maybe this Phillip Cox won’t do anything with that forty-eight-thousand-dollar yearling, either,” George said. “An’ then again maybe he will. It’s a gamble for him jus’ like it is for the rest of us—Miss Elsie, Jimmy and hundreds of others—whether we’re gettin’ ready for the raceways or the fairs. You jus’ never know when the good colt will come along.”
George seemed to have finished, so Tom spoke for the first time. “But do you think Jimmy is right about what he said of this Phillip Cox, that he’ll only use Silver Knight to publicize his clothing company?”
“Maybe so, maybe not, Tom. Maybe Jimmy’s only half right. Phillip Cox may like horses all right an’ just figures that if Silver Knight comes along and races well he’ll get a little extra publicity for his company. I don’t know. After all, Silver Knight might not even get to the races. A lot of high-priced yearlings don’t.”
“I know, George,” Tom said thoughtfully. “But I certainly agree with Jimmy that a person should be in this sport because he loves it and not because his company might get some free advertising out of it.”
“I do, too, Tom, and I’m hopin’ with Jimmy Creech that folks don’t lose track of the fairs with all this new popularity of the night raceways.” George paused, then said with deep sincerity, “I only wish more people would come to our fairs. They’d get the feel of the horses then just as we do. You can’t get that feelin’ at any night raceway.”
“How do you know, George? Have you ever been to a night raceway?”
“No, but I know it’s not the same as watching ’em go at a fair. I just know it.”
When Jimmy returned to the track the following week, he looked a little pale but was in better spirits than Tom thought he’d be. That was Jimmy, all right, just as George said—up one moment, down the next. Jimmy never mentioned Phillip Cox and his high-priced gray yearling; in fact, he seemed to have forgotten all about them. Besides, there were other yearlings to think about now. He watched Miss Elsie work her black filly faster and harder.
“She’s it for Miss Elsie, all right,” he told Tom. “Miss Elsie can turn that filly off an’ on just like you do with the colt. But they’re different. That filly don’t even seem to be trying, but she’s flyin’, Tom. While with our colt—”
“He just makes you dizzy watching him,” Tom finished for Jimmy. “You know something is happening when he sprints.”
Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. Two different kinds of yearlings to watch, but each havin’ a world of speed.” He stopped, then added, “But Miss Elsie is bringing her filly along fast—too fast for me. I like to give them more time to grow than Miss Elsie does.”
During the rest of November, Jimmy redoubled his efforts to teach Tom everything he could about driving in a race. Tom listened long and hard to Jimmy’s instructions, and when he was alone with Bonfire, either in the stable or on the track, he went over and over all the lessons Jimmy was teaching him. There was a lot to learn, too much to absorb even in a few months or a few years. As Jimmy said, “It takes long years of practice and experience, Tom. Even I’m still learning. Something new is always coming up when you’re in a tight spot.”
But there were fundamental lessons, and these Tom concentrated upon and learned quickly, for they were based on natural instinct and knowing your horse. His skill in handling the lines behind Bonfire increased under Jimmy’s careful eye. His hands, wrists, arms and back developed and were strong. He learned to rate the colt’s speed, taking him a quarter of a mile in the time Jimmy wanted; and never did he carry a stopwatch. He listened long to Jimmy’s talks on track strategy during a race, and when he was alone with Bonfire on the track he pictured other horses racing against them. With the colt only jogging, he visualized all kinds of tight racing situations and then tried to get out of them. He took his colt up behind the imaginary lead horse, yet kept his eye warily on those coming up behind. And when he knew he might be pocketed by them, he pulled Bonfire out and made his drive for the wire. There
were times when he let the colt set the pace and other times when he came up from behind and around. In his mind, he tried everything Jimmy told him he might expect in a race; and he repeated them over and over again until he was racing Bonfire even while he slept.
Jimmy and George watched him with the colt and nodded their heads in approval. Everything was going well again, and everyone was happy. Then it happened.
The first day in December they watched the huge red-and-white horse van drive down the road and stop at the next shed. Jimmy, George and Tom saw the lettering on the van at the same time. It was such large lettering that they had no trouble reading it:
COX CLOTHING COMPANY STABLES
“Phillip Cox,” George muttered. “What’s he doin’ here?”
Jimmy said nothing, but when Tom turned to look at him he saw that every bit of color had been drained from his thin face. Yet Jimmy never left the doorway of their shed while the van was being unloaded and four yearlings, including the valuable Silver Knight, were taken into the shed. Jimmy’s eyes blazed with anger as he watched everything.
He saw Miss Elsie and the other drivers at Coronet gather around during the unloading. He saw the long, low, blue convertible come down the row and stop behind the van. Miss Elsie went to meet the tall, middle-aged man wearing an open camel’s hair coat and a brown hat. He saw Miss Elsie smile at the man and shake his hand. He said nothing when George mentioned that “Probably that guy is Phillip Cox. Looks like what you’d expect of a clothing manufacturer.”
As he watched the man take his hat off to Miss Elsie, he noticed that his hair was dark and heavy, with no trace of gray. He saw them go over to the big colt with the tossing gray head. He knew that was Silver Knight, just as George and Tom did.
The groom pulled back the fine white blanket with the red borders. The lettering across it read, “Cox Clothing Company.” Miss Elsie stepped back to get a better look at Silver Knight; then they covered the colt again and all followed him into the shed.
It was only then that Jimmy Creech spoke, and he never turned to Tom or George as he said, “Goin’ home for a little while. Stomach.”
They let him go without a word, knowing that nothing they could say would help. When his car had gone down the road, George said with more bitterness in his voice than Tom had ever heard before, “It’s not enough that Phillip Cox is here. He had to go an’ pick Jimmy’s racing colors, too.”
Tom glanced at Jimmy Creech’s worn red-and-white blanket hanging in the sun and nodded sadly.
A short while later, the blue convertible left with Mr. Cox at the wheel.
“That’s the blue convertible I told you about some time ago,” George said, “—the kind Jimmy and me never knew.” Then he saw Miss Elsie walking alone toward the track. “I’ll find out what it’s all about,” he said, leaving Tom.
He was back in a few minutes.
“Miss Elsie said that Phil Cox’s father was a friend of her father’s,” George said. “He needed a place to keep his colts until he goes to Florida for training January first. He couldn’t get away from his business before then.”
“He’ll only be here a month, then,” Tom said thoughtfully. “Maybe it’ll be all right, George. Maybe it will. A month isn’t very long.”
“It depends on Jimmy,” George said. “It all depends on how he takes Cox’s being here at all.”
Tom learned how very long a month can be when you begin dreading each day and the next—for thirty-one days. Jimmy seldom talked and he just withdrew into his hard, embittered shell. Tom and George pleaded with him to stay home, but he came every day as though attracted despite himself to the shed next door with its newly painted red-and-white tack trunks, its gleaming sulkies and soft black sets of harness. Always the fine white blankets with their bold red lettering, “Cox Clothing Company,” would be hanging on the lines to air, to wave in the breeze as though to taunt Jimmy Creech still more.
Jimmy walked by Cox’s shed once a day to look through the open doors and see the colts’ nameplates, lettered black on golden brass, hanging above the stall doors. Yet he never said a word to anyone who worked for Phillip Cox—even to his trainer or the grooms, who were friendly and nodded to him when he walked past.
Phillip Cox seldom came to the stables and for that Tom and George were grateful.
Each morning they would stand beside the track to watch Cox’s trainer work his colts, for they had been broken before arriving at Coronet. When the gray colt swept by, Jimmy would never ask Tom what he thought of him; it was as though Jimmy’s whole being was now completely absorbed by his bitterness for Phillip Cox and his kind.
Jimmy’s face became more haggard than Tom had ever seen it, and he lost weight until he was nothing but skin and bones. Tom didn’t think Jimmy could get any thinner or look worse. But Jimmy did both, and Tom was the cause of it.
Early one morning, two weeks after the arrival of Phillip Cox, Jimmy reached the track in time to see Tom leaving the shed next door. His eyes blazed in anger, yet he said nothing to the boy and turned away from him.
“I only wanted to see Silver Knight close,” Tom called after him. “That’s all I did, Jimmy!”
But after that Jimmy ignored Tom completely, and when he had anything to say to him he would direct his remarks to George. Moreover, Jimmy took over all the work with the blood bay colt, and Tom didn’t drive any more. It was then, too, that Jimmy started chewing gum again and worked hard from early morning until dark. The stomach pains came again, both at the track and at home. But Jimmy kept working.
It was Saturday and the day before Christmas when Phillip Cox arrived at the track with another yearling he’d bought. A few hours later Cox and his trainer took the new dark bay colt, wearing bridle, harness and lines, but pulling no cart, onto the track.
There had been no snow and the weather was still mild, so George and Tom stood outside their shed while Jimmy sat in the tack room. They could see his face pressed hard against the closed window, watching the new colt as intently as they were.
George said, “That’s the baby they’ve been expectin’. He hasn’t had much breaking, and they’re aimin’ on doing it before going to Florida, I guess.”
Tom watched while Cox held the long lines behind the colt and his trainer had the bridle. Anyone could see that the dark bay was nervous and fidgety. He didn’t quite know what was expected of him.
The colt stopped, refusing to go forward, and Tom said, “They shouldn’t rush him. He doesn’t know what it’s all about yet.”
Phillip Cox snapped the whip in his hand but did not touch the colt.
George muttered, “I heard Cox say he’d worked with a lot of colts. You’d never know it to look at him now.”
Phillip Cox snapped the whip again, but the sound of it only made the colt more nervous and he shifted uneasily without moving forward.
“Why doesn’t the trainer take the lines?” Tom asked. “He ought to know how to go about it better than Cox.”
“He does,” George returned. “But Cox is his boss, an’ maybe the guy don’t want to lose his job.”
The dark bay colt half-reared; his trainer brought him down and started talking to him and stroking him. But Phillip Cox only snapped his whip again, and more sweat broke out on the colt’s body. The trainer turned to Phillip Cox, his eyes worried, but he said nothing to his employer.
The colt reared again, higher this time, and when he came down he felt the sharp sting of the whip on his haunches. Startled, he rose again and his dark body was wet with lathered sweat.
Phillip Cox’s whip was raised again to strike the colt when Tom shouted and ran toward them; behind him he could hear George’s footsteps.
The colt never stopped at the height of his rearing this time; he went over backwards, his fear of the whip causing him to lose his balance. When he went down he stayed down, and felt the cut of the whip—once, twice—on his hindquarters.
Tom threw himself on Phillip Cox’s back. But even as he did
he felt the man being torn from his arms, and Tom landed heavily on the ground. Rolling, he turned over quickly to find that Jimmy Creech was clawing and tearing with maniacal fury at the tall, heavy body of Phillip Cox.
There was nothing fair about Jimmy’s tactics. He lunged, gouged and kicked Cox, who sought to get hold of his crazed opponent. Jimmy had him down and together they rolled on the hard ground of the track. For two or three minutes no one stopped them, and then they all moved upon the fighting mass of arms and legs. When they got them apart, both faces were bloody and torn. They pulled them away from each other and half-carried them to their sheds.
George and Tom got Jimmy into the tack room and set his battered, beaten body down on the cot. But his eyes still blazed and he made several attempts to get to his feet before lying back. After a while he opened his eyes again and found Tom watching him. He smiled grimly and nodded his head. “Did it, Tom,” he mumbled through swollen lips. “And I’d do it again. He’s a—”
“He’ll be all right,” George said quietly, bringing a basin of hot water. “He got no more than he gave Cox. An’ Jimmy’s body is hard … hard as they come.”
But a little later, Jimmy’s face became agonized in pain. Quickly Tom went to him. “What hurts, Jimmy? What is it?”
The words were hard in coming, and Jimmy fought to make himself heard, “Stomach, Tom. My stomach. Doctor.”