第 33 页

So that was when they thought of a horse: to condense the wagon- or buggy-load of uncohered fragments of leather into one entity which could be sold in a lump, and—if the white man worked fast enough and didn’t haggle over base dollars—without too much delay. That is, the white man, not Bobo, believed that Bobo was going to steal a horse for him. Only, Bobo knew, if he didn’t steal the horse, he could see the end of everything—job, liberty, all—when next Monday morning (the crisis had reached its crux last Saturday, the same day Boon and I—and Ned—left Jefferson in the automobile) came. And the reason for the crisis at this particular moment, what made it so desperate, was that there was a horse of Mr van Tosch’s so available for safe stealing that it might almost have been planted for that purpose. This of course was Lightning (I mean, Coppermine) himself, who at the moment was in a sales stable less than half a mile away, where, as Mr van Tosch’s known groom (it was Bobo who had delivered the horse to the sales stable in the first place) Bobo could go and get him at any time for no more trouble than putting a halter on him and leading him away. Which by itself might have been tolerable. The trouble was, the white man knew it—a horse bred and trained for running, but which would not run, and which in consequence was in such bad repute with Mr van Tosch and Mr Clapp, the trainer, that it was at the sales stable waiting for the first to come along who would make an offer for it; in further consequence of which, Bobo could go and remove it and it would very likely not even be reported to Mr van Tosch unless he happened to inquire; in still further consequence of which, Bobo had until tomorrow morning (Monday) to do something about it, or else.

That was the situation when Ned left us in front of Miss Reba’s Sunday afternoon and walked around the corner to Beale Street and entered the first blind tiger he came to and found Bobo trying to outface his doom through the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Grandfather said:

“So that’s what it was. Now I’m beginning to understand. A nigger Saturday night. Bobo already drunk, and your tongue hanging out all the way from Jefferson to get to the first saloon you could reach—” and stopped and said, pounced almost: “Wait. That’s wrong. It wasn’t even Saturday. You got to Memphis Sunday evening,” and Ned sitting there, quite still, the empty glass in his hand. He said,

“With my people, Saturday night runs over into Sunday.”

“And into Monday morning too,” Colonel Linscomb said. “You wake up Monday morning, sick, with a hangover, filthy in a filthy jail, and lie there until some white man comes and pays your fine and takes you straight back to the cotton field or whatever it is and puts you back to work without even giving you time to eat breakfast. And you sweat it out there, and maybe by sundown you feel you are not really going to die; and the next day, and the day after that, and after that, until it’s Saturday again and you can put down the plow or the hoe and go back as fast as you can to that stinking jail cell on Monday morning. Why do you do it? I dont know.”

“You cant know,” Ned said. “You’re the wrong color. If you could just be a nigger one Saturday night, you wouldn’t never want to be a white man again as long as you live.”

“All right,” Grandfather said. “Go on.” —So Bobo told Ned of his predicament: the horse less than half a mile away, practically asking to be stolen; and the white man who knew it and who had given Bobo an ultimatum measurable now in mere hours— “All right,” Grandfather said. “Now get to my automobile.”

“We’re already to it,” Ned said. They—he and Bobo—went to the stable to look at the horse. “And soon as I laid eyes on him, I minded that mule I used to own.” And Bobo, like me, was too young actually to remember the mule; but, also like me, he had grown up with its legend. “So we decided to go to that white man and tell him something had happened and Bobo couldn’t get that horse outen that stable for him like Bobo thought he could, but we could get him a automobile in place of it. —Now, wait,” he told Grandfather quickly. “We knowed as good as you that that automobile would be safe at least long enough for us to finish. Maybe in thirty or forty years you can stand on a Jefferson street corner and count a dozen automobiles before sundown, but you cant yet. Maybe then you can steal a automobile and find somebody to buy it that wont worry you with a lot of how-come and who and why. But you cant now. So for a man that looked like I imagined he looked (I hadn’t never seen him yet) to travel around trying to sell a automobile quick and private, would be about as hard as selling a elephant quick and private. You never had no trouble locating where it was at and getting your hand on it, once you and Mr van Tosch got started, did you?”

“Go on,” Grandfather said. Ned did.

“Then the white man would ask what automobile? and Bobo would let me tend to that; and then the white man would maybe ask what I’m doing in it nohow, and then Bobo would tell him that I want that horse because I know how to make it run; that we already got a match race waiting Tuesday, and if the white man wanted, he could come along too and win enough on the horse to pay back three or four times them hundred and thirteen dollars, and then he wouldn’t even have to worry with the automobile if he didn’t want to. Because he would be the kind of a white man that done already had enough experience to know what would sell easy and what would be a embarrassment to get caught with. So that’s what we were gonter do until yawl come and ruint it: let that white man just watch the first heat without betting yes or no, which he would likely do, and see Lightning lose it like he always done, which the white man would a heard all about too, by now; then we would say Nemmine, just wait to the next heat, and then bet him the horse against the automobile on that one without needing to remind him that when Lightning got beat this time, he would own him too.” They—Grandfather and Colonel Linscomb and Mr van Tosch—looked at Ned. I wont try to describe their expressions. I cant. “Then yawl come and ruint it,” Ned said.

“I see,” Mr van Tosch said. “It was all just to save Bobo. Suppose you had failed to make Coppermine run, and lost him too. What about Bobo then?”

“I made him run,” Ned said. “You seen it.”

“But just suppose, for the sake of the argument,” Mr van Tosch said.

“That would a been Bobo’s lookout,” Ned said. “It wasn’t me advised him to give up Missippi cotton farming and take up Memphis frolicking and gambling for a living in place of it.”

“But I thought Mr Priest said he’s your cousin,” Mr van Tosch said.

“Everybody got kinfolks that aint got no more sense than Bobo,” Ned said.

“Well,” Mr van Tosch said.

“Let’s all have a toddy,” Colonel Linscomb said briskly. He got up and mixed and passed them. “You too,” he told Ned. Ned brought his glass and Colonel Linscomb poured. This time when Ned set the untasted glass on the mantel, nobody said anything.

“Yes,” Mr van Tosch said. Then he said: “Well, Priest, you’ve got your automobile. And I’ve got my horse. And maybe I frightened that damn scoundrel enough to stay clear of my stable hands anyway.” They sat there. “What shall I do about Bobo?” They sat there. “I’m asking you,” Mr van Tosch said to Ned.

“Keep him,” Ned said. “Folks—boys and young men anyhow—in my people dont convince easy—”

“Why just Negroes?” Mr van Tosch said.

“Maybe he means McCaslins,” Colonel Linscomb said.

“That’s right,” Ned said. “McCaslins and niggers both act like the mixtry of the other just makes it worse. Right now I’m talking about young folks, even if this one is a nigger McCaslin. Maybe they dont hear good. Anyhow, they got to learn for themselves that roguishness dont pay. Maybe Bobo learnt it this time. Aint that easier for you than having to break in a new one?”

“Yes,” Mr van Tosch said. They sat there. “Yes,” Mr van Tosch said again. “So I’ll either have to buy Ned, or sell you Coppermine.” They sat there. “Can you make him run again, Ned?”

“I made him run that time,” Ned said.

“I said, again,” Mr van Tosch said. They sat there. “Priest,” Mr van Tosch said, “do you believe he can do it again?”

“Yes,” Grandfather said.

“How much do you believe it?” They sat there.

“Are you addressing me as a banker or a what?” Grandfather said.

“Call it a perfectly normal and natural northwest Mississippi countryman taking his perfectly normal and natural God-given and bill-of-rights-defended sabbatical among the fleshpots of southwestern Tennessee,” Colonel Linscomb said.

“All right,” Mr van Tosch said. “I’ll bet you Coppermine against Ned’s secret, one heat of one mile. If Ned can make Coppermine beat that black of Linscomb’s again, I get the secret and Coppermine is yours. If Coppermine loses, I dont want your secret and you take or leave Coppermine for five hundred dollars—”

“That is, if he loses, I can have Coppermine for five hundred dollars, or if I pay you five hundred dollars, I dont have to take him,” Grandfather said.

“Right,” Mr van Tosch said. “And to give you a chance to hedge, I will bet you two dollars to one that Ned cant make him run again.” They sat there.

“So I’ve either got to win that horse or buy him in spite of anything I can do,” Grandfather said.

“Or maybe you didn’t have a youth,” Mr van Tosch said. “But try to remember one. You’re among friends here; try for a little while not to be a banker. Try.” They sat there.

“Two-fifty,” Grandfather said.

“Five,” Mr van Tosch said.

“Three-fifty,” Grandfather said.

“Five,” Mr van Tosch said.

“Four-and-a-quarter,” Grandfather said.

“Five,” Mr van Tosch said.

“Four-fifty,” Grandfather said.

“Four-ninety-five,” Mr van Tosch said.

“Done,” Grandfather said.

“Done,” Mr van Tosch said.

So for the fourth time McWillie on Acheron and I on Lightning (I mean Coppermine) skittered and jockeyed behind that taut little frail jute string. McWillie wasn’t speaking to me at all now; he was frightened and outraged, baffled and determined; he knew that something had happened yesterday which should not have happened; which in a sense should not have happened to anyone, certainly not to a nineteen-year-old boy who was simply trying to win what he had thought was a simple horse race: no holds barred, of course, but at least a mutual agreement that nobody would resort to necromancy. We had not drawn for position this time. We—McWillie and I—had been offered the privilege, but Ned said at once: “Nemmine this time. McWillie needs to feel better after yesterday, so let him have the pole where he can start feeling better now.” Which, from rage or chivalry, I didn’t know which, McWillie refused, bringing us to what appeared insoluble impasse, until the official—the pending homicide one—solved it quick by saying,

“Here, you boys, if you aim to run this race, get on up behind that-ere bagging twine where you belong.” Nor had Ned gone through his preliminary incantation or ritual of rubbing Lightning’s muzzle. I dont say, forgot to; Ned didn’t forget things. So obviously I hadn’t been watching, noticing closely enough; anyway, it was too late now. Nor had he given me any last-minute instructions this time either; but then, what was there for him to say? And last night Mr van Tosch and Colonel Linscomb and Grandfather had agreed that, since this was a private running, almost you might say a grudge match, effort should be made and all concerned cautioned to keep it private. Which would have been as easy to do in Parsham as to keep tomorrow’s weather private and restricted to Colonel Linscomb’s pasture, since—a community composed of one winter-resort hotel and two stores and a cattle chute and depot at a railroad intersection and the churches and schools and scattered farmhouses of a remote countryside—any news, let alone word of any horse race, not to mention a repeat between these two horses, spread across Parsham as instantaneously as weather does. So they were here today too, including the night-telegraphist judge who really should sleep sometimes: not as many as yesterday, but a considerable more than Grandfather and Mr van Tosch had given the impression of wanting—the stained hats, the tobacco, the tieless shirts and overalls—when somebody hollered Go! and the string snatched away and we were off.

We were off, McWillie as usual two strides out before Lightning seemed to notice we had started, and pulled quickly and obediently up until he could more or less lay his cheek against McWillie’s knee (in case he wanted to), near turn, back stretch, mine and McWillie’s juxtaposition altering, closing and opening with that dreamlike and unhurried quality probably quite familiar to people who fly aeroplanes in close formation; far turn and into the stretch for the first lap, I by simple rote whipping Lightning onward about one stride before he would remember to begin to look for Ned; I took one quick raking glance at the faces along the rail looking for Ned’s and Lightning ran that whole stretch not watching where he was going at all but scanning the rush of faces for Ned’s, likewise in vain; near turn again, the back stretch again and into the far turn, the home stretch; I was already swinging Lightning out toward the outside rail where (Acheron might be beating us but at least he wouldn’t obstruct our view) he could see. But if he had seen Ned this time, he didn’t tell me. Nor could I tell him, Look! Look yonder! There he is! because Ned wasn’t there: only the vacant track beyond the taut line of the wire as fragile-looking as a filtered or maybe attenuated moonbeam, McWillie whipping furiously now and Lightning responding like a charm, exactly one neck back; if Acheron had known any way to run sixty miles an hour, we would too—one neck back; if Acheron had decided to stop ten feet before the wire, so would we—one neck back. But he didn’t. We went on, still paired but staggered a little, as though bolted together; the wire flicked overhead, McWillie and I speaking again now—that is, he was, yelling back at me in a kind of cannibal glee: “Yah-yah-yah, yah-yah-yah,” slowing also but not stopping, going straight on (I suppose) to the stable; he and Acheron certainly deserved to. I turned Lightning and walked back. Ned was trotting toward us, Grandfather behind him though not trotting; our sycophants and adulators of yesterday had abandoned us; Caesar was not Caesar now.

“Come on,” Ned said, taking the bit, rapid but calm: only impatient, almost inattentive. “Hand—”

“What happened?” Grandfather said. “What the devil happened?”

“Nothing,” Ned said. “I never had no sour dean for him this time, and he knowed it. Didn’t I tell you this horse got sense?” Then to me: “There’s Bobo over yonder waiting. Hand this plug back to him so he can take it on to Memphis. We’re going home tonight.”

“But wait,” I said. “Wait.”

“Forget this horse,” Ned said. “We dont want him. Boss has got his automobile back and all he lost was four hundred and ninety-six dollars and it’s worth four hundred and ninety-six dollars not to own this horse. Because what in the world would we do with him, supposing they was to quit making them stinking little fishes? Let Mr van Man have him back; maybe some day Coppermine will tell him and Bobo what happened here yesterday.”