‘That’s right,’ said ’Isra.
‘Let’s go then!’
’Isra kicked his horse and turned the rein towards the foot of the steep ridge which stood between him and the crowd of villagers, his villagers, who waited at the ground by the store. The horse speeded from a trot to a canter and cut firmly and confidently into the slow gradient away from the school. Eddy Rivette set off in pursuit, surprised at the speed with which the horse was gaining ground. He saw ’Isra choose the same cattle track which he himself had used nightly for visits to the store. ’Isra had been watching him, he realized. Any advantage that Eddy had from knowing the most economical route across the ridge was lost now that ’Isra had chosen it for himself. It would be impossible to pass, too, on that track. It was too narrow and its borders too treacherous for the delicate ankles of a man. Used to adapting his tactics to the dictates of the pack in the point-to-points and marathons that he had run in Canada, Eddy Rivette saw that the race was lost by his usual route. The horse had the advantage of speed on the flat and the advantage of being first and unpassable on the steep track. He would not be able to pass ’Isra until they reached the gentle gradient at the tree before the store and, by then, the horse’s speed would make her the winner. He had to beat them on the hill or lose the race.
He made his mind up quickly, full-heartedly. When he reached the spot where the flatness of the school’s half-valley turned abruptly upwards away from the loose stones and thorns into the erosions and cattle paths of the ridge, instead of following the horse and ’Isra, now sixty metres ahead and twenty metres above, Eddy Rivette turned at right angles. He paced out along the wide dry track, which rounded the foot of the ridge with scarcely a change of height before it reached the next valley, the valley of the village and the store. There it joined the broad sandy stream bed, the dead river of the valley, and climbed imperceptibly towards the single tree, the store and the waiting villagers. It was the long way round, perhaps twice the distance of the ridge route, but there wasn’t an obstacle nor even a difficult stretch in the whole track. The obstacle was just one of distance. Eddy opened out his pace. It developed easily and his wind was with him. This was easy, plain sailing, after the difficulties that he had tamed daily on the cattle tracks of the ridge, the constant watching and skipping and allowing for hazards and the jarring of hard heels into an aching stomach, the creeping heartbeats waiting to pain him to a standstill. No, this was easy. He could forget those problems and just let his speed stretch with his step, his mind free to calculate the distance and tell himself again and again that it could not be done.
’Isra did not turn to look behind, to see the schoolteacher running along the flat floor of the valley. It was bad luck to look behind. He fixed his eye on the summit of the ridge and rode happily, knowing that he was leading and that the schoolteacher, wherever he was, was behind. But he was careful not to tire his horse. She must be fresh enough to finish strongly, like a victor. ‘Let the horse be slow enough to step firmly,’ he told himself, ‘but fast enough to arrive in time, like when I rode across the mountains to bring the helicopter to the mayor.’ ’Isra reached the flat ledge of soily stone a few yards below the summit of the ridge where he had to turn the horse through a tight passage of rock to take the track to the top. The horse paused for a footing and ’Isra let himself glance at the track below. No sign of the teacher. Perhaps he was running in one of the deep gulleys and would appear in a moment. He listened. No, not a sound. He would have heard the slapping soles of the foreigner’s shoes if he had been moving on that hillside, but not a sound and not a sign.
’Isra looked along the ridge to either side, fearing that the teacher had taken a new, quicker route. Still no movement. ’Isra laughed. ‘He is resting,’ he said aloud, to the horse and the hills. ‘He is tired and he is resting. We have won this race.’ He spurred the horse up the last few metres of track and let himself enjoy both the pleasure of reaching the top and of having won midway through the race.
‘He is resting,’ he thought. ‘Or perhaps he has fallen and is lying in the stones with his ankles twisted. We will send a horse to bring him down. I myself will ride to bring him down on the back of my horse.’
And when ’Isra, the rider of the village, reached the summit of the ridge he was laughing to himself.
At the village store old Loti and the villagers were waiting, their eyes crannied against the evening light silhouetting the hills before them. Loti and the old men knew which spot on the ridge to watch, the spot where the teacher had crossed each evening. They knew where the leader of the race would appear briefly before disappearing into the slip of an erosion gulley and then come in view again, lower down the hill where the track flattened. And though the villagers were watching the ridge too, it was their ears which were nervous, waiting for the old men to cry out ‘Here he comes. It is…’ and then the name of the man who led. They formed the two possible shapes on the still ridge, the runner or the horse, its tail frisky with victory.
And then Loti called, just one word, ’Isra, and they saw him there, the man of their village, winning on the ridge. A cry went up from the villagers, carrying across the evening to ’Isra. They saw him spur his horse and start to descend the track into the deep gulley, ferociously. ‘He should stay calm,’ the old men thought. ‘He is in the lead.’ But they did not know what ’Isra had seen jogging along the dry valley floor firmly and resolutely towards the village and the store. The schoolteacher had taken the long valley route and was running strongly on the obstacle-free road while he, ’Isra-kone, had still to take care amongst the treacherous descents, though he and his horse were nearer, much nearer, to the store.
’Isra’s descent brought him to the valley track twenty metres ahead of the schoolteacher. He lost a metre only turning the horse onto it and urging her to the new course. But the last scrambled descent from the ridge after ’Isra had spotted the schoolteacher had unnerved her and she settled badly. Eddy Rivette, however, had not changed his pace. He had kept his steady step from the moment that he had decided not to challenge ’Isra on the ridge route but follow the contours of the valley. His steadiness kept him behind the horse and he knew from experience that the race depended on the sprint. But when and how? A fast one now to take the lead and keep it with stamina? Or leave it till the end and take it at the post? Or split it in two? Two half sprints — the first to worry the horse and the rider, the second to pass them. Yes, by far the best tactic and the safest one, not taking things too early or leaving them too late. Eddy Rivette went forward on his toes and opened his pace. He closed the gap between him and the horse but it had tired him and he was glad to tuck in behind ’Isra and let the animal do the work for the fifty metres before the final bend at the single tree towards the store. He had meant it as half his sprint but he realized that he had no more race in him, that that sprint was all that was left and that now, at best, he could hang on behind the horse, drawn in to her flanks, and come in level at least with the horse’s tail though a saddle’s length behind ’Isra. Eddy Rivette knew the race for him was lost, but ’Isra did not know it was won. The sight of the schoolteacher easing across the flat valley had worried him but he had thought he was safe when he reached the track, ahead. But the schoolteacher had closed that gap in moments and with the speed of a young dog and was pressing him close, running at the horse’s speed and drawing tighter and tighter into the movement of the mare. They must go faster, faster, before the teacher ran like that again and ate up the metres and ’Isra’s fame in the village. His knees were sharp in the horse’s side and his toes were fierce. Go, horse, he said, go go. And he was fierce with the white mare, nagging her across those last few metres. The schoolteacher, with hardly a breath finding space in his lungs, hung on in the wake of warm air between the animal and its dust.