’Isra was a quiet man, though a great talker when he chose, who had few certainties. He did not trust the weather or his cattle or the life of his horse whom he loved. When the weather was fine and his stock was healthy and he woke in the morning to find the horse bright-eyed and vigorous, then he let himself enjoy that day. But he did not expect it to hold for the next day. He expected only what he could see approaching with his own eye, and (since the night darkness blocked his vision) his anticipations ended each day at sunset.
He had known, since the first swollen stomach of his boyhood, what it was to sit watchful at night beneath the stars. That was the extent of his mysticism. For the rest, he was happy while he had maize and fulfilled while he was popular in the village. In the two years since his ride across the mountains to bring the helicopter, he had allowed a small certainty into his life, that his comings and goings were commented on. That as he rode down from the lands the old men at the store nodded and smiled with affection and said, ‘There’s young ’Isra with his horse. What’s he up to?’ and called, ‘Go well, ’Isra. Where are you riding?’ Or, ‘From where are you come?’
When the old men stopped calling and nodding and commenting they did not like him any less. It was just that their interests were elsewhere, fixed a little to the right of the wide erosion gulley on the ridge above the village where the teacher appeared each evening for an instant before disappearing and appearing again, jogging doggedly towards them and their gossip at the store.
’Isra watched his rival with the old men for a season until his own fame had eroded away and not even the men of his brotherhood turned to admire him and his white mare or whisper his name. Their eyes were not for one of their own whom they loved and trusted and understood but for the foreigner for whom they cared nothing, but who came faster and faster each day from the ridge below the sunset and who seemed to tell them something about man and their mountains which they had never guessed — that men were like hares who could bounce across the black-studded basalt earth around which they had stumbled for centuries until the horse had come.
’Isra missed his fame for a season until he saw how he and his horse could regain it, bringing the attention of the villagers once again back to his entries and exits and his fine horsemanship and storytelling. Not planning ahead further than that day, ’Isra timed the meeting with his rival for the evening.
He told old Loti. ‘Me and the teacher are going to race tonight from the school to the store. Will you be there? Don’t let anybody miss the race.’
Neither he nor old Loti nor the other gossips at the store doubted for an instant that ’Isra and his mare would beat the teacher. The horse was born to the mountains. But they looked forward to the contest. It would be interesting to see what the foreigner and his bony legs could do against the mountain and the horse.
The word soon spread through the village that ’Isra would race the teacher. But the last man to hear was the teacher himself. It was Sunday and the school was closed. He sat at the door of his house and ran his fingers across the ripple soles of his shoes. Still good. Good perhaps for another month or so … and then it wouldn’t matter. His ‘term’ would be over and he would be back in Canada and running on track again. He’d need harder soles there. These ripples were good for the dry sloping hills which surrounded the school, for turning sharply on the thorny goat-ways and the rubble of the yearly erosion — but not for ‘track’. Another month or so … and he’d have needed new running shoes, the thatch on the staff house would have to be replaced, new boys would be coming to the school. And he’d be in Montreal with his colour slides and a lifelong commitment to this seventh and shabby continent, to the village in the next valley. Melvyn John Murphy was coming. His replacement. From Detroit, Michigan — motor city. He’d already written to the American and told him about the place, the school, the trick the sunlight had of flecking the aloes long after the light in the valleys had gone. He hoped that Melvyn John Murphy would respect the place like he had, would give what he had (though not quite as much) and take what was offered. They had their own ways, these people. Brashness would not be welcome.
He thought all this and decided that he would miss his running across the hills into the village. He decided, too, that he would preserve his sense of loss, even when his memory was faint and when his body and pace had got used once again to the flat white-lined cinder tracks and the soft spring-time training runs across the campus of Joliette College and along the lip of the river where girls sat with their bicycles on the grass. Somehow it was more noble and more worldly amongst the slipping soils and half-chewed thorns to pad pad pad along, nearly always dry, nearly always warm, always alone and with no competition, no other runners but yourself to run against.
He would preserve the loss of that.
The wind was dropping now as it did the hour before dusk. He pulled the ripples on and tied them tight and double so they would not loosen or snag on the low dry bushes. He turned his socks close down over his shoes so that his shins were exposed and could be cut on the sharp twigs and coarse grass of the track. It was good to scratch and draw blood in that safe place.
When he stood he saw ’Isra-kone standing next to his tough white mare at the edge of the school compound. Eddy Rivette walked over and greeted his visitor.
‘Did you come to see me?’
’Isra nodded.
‘What is it? To do with the school?’
‘No, running. I want to race with you to the store.’
Eddy Rivette was half-pleased. It was good that one of the villagers should want to run with him, but this man was not dressed for running nor built for it. It was strange, that — for the man’s decision to come to him at the school seemed firm and old but his appearance was that of a man who wanted to run on impulse, whatever he wore and despite his build.
‘I go fast,’ said Eddy discouragingly
‘My horse goes faster!’
‘Your horse? You want to race me on your horse? Not running?’
‘No, riding on my horse!’
They both laughed at the thought of ’Isra running. This was to be more of a contest because ’Isra was a fine rider and his horse was strong and used to the hills and the ways across them.
‘Why do you want to run against me? Must the loser give something?’
‘No,’ said ’Isra. ‘It is for the race only.’
‘Okay. When?’ asked Eddy.
‘Now,’ said ’Isra.
AND THAT WAS how the Great Race between the schoolteacher and the horseman began — a simple challenge brought to the school compound by a small uneasy man with a horse to another small man, a runner from Canada. Not a brother. Not a man from the villages amongst the hills, but a stranger with a stranger’s ways. ‘When?’ asked the one. ‘Now,’ answered the other. And so the race waited a few moments to begin, for the two men to understand the race, that it was two different strengths that were being matched.
‘When you kick your horse I will start running,’ said Eddy Rivette. ’Isra nodded. ‘It’s the first to the store, is that it?’ ’Isra nodded again. ‘We can go any way we want, just get there first?’