Except when he didn't, Kidstuff said.
Yeah. And now Alice can't hardly get him to gallop.
Maggie looked at the horse's delicately modelled head, which seemed, more than ever, small and charming, with huge, alert, artless eyes, fringed with sentimental lashes. It's embarrassing, like any minute now he's gonna ask when the birthday party starts or can he hang up his Christmas stocking, she said. Like he used to be tragic and beautiful, now he's cute.
You wait till he come back from running his first race after six months off, he'll wish the world was made outa cotton. He ain't gone be cute then, Ed said.
If he runs, Deucey said.
There came along a good race for Little Spinoza, a good race, that is, for him to lose, for the race was too high-priced, too far and too soon for the horse to win, but at least they could be sure that no one would want Spinoza at that price. A 5000-dollar claimer was a princely race at the Mound, where 6000 was the highest price tag an animal could wear (to go higher you sent a horse to the Races, but the traffic generally was headed the other way), and Little Spinoza was no longer a prince. He was a Speculation grandson, but he was common, a bad-acting six-year-old who was more trouble than his little bit of run could pay for, who had not raced in half a year, who had changed hands not long ago from the leading trainer at the Mound to a half crazed old lady gyp who won races now and then with the reanimated dead. And the owners, who were they? There was room in the chart in the Telegraph for only two names under Own.- I owned a dozen horses before, Deucey said, what do I care? So it was Salters Edward II amp; Koderer M. Medicine Ed and that girl. Racetrackers snickered or shook their heads. The distance, a mile, was at least an eighth and maybe even a quarter of a mile too long for Little Spinoza to keep up his speed, if he had any speed. Still, it was time. Little Spinoza needed a race, a race to harden his muscles and prove his spirit, if he had any spirit, a race to get him ready for a race, but also a kind of crystal ball of a race so the three of them, old Deucey, and Maggie, and Medicine Ed, could see what type of misery they had in front of them.
Earlie was hot as a pistol at Two-Tie's last night, so I asked him quick while he was raking in a pot, and he said yes.
That's fine, Ed commented.
Are you sure we can get Earlie Beaufait? Maggie asked. What does the leading rider at the meeting want with the likes of us, she was thinking.
He's doing me a favor, Deucey said, and that ain't good, but he's the best they got in this dump.
Earlie so big this year he don't even show up at Joe Dale's barn till he good and ready. They hot at him too, what I hear.
They felt better to have a jockey if Joe Dale Bigg was mad at him too.
I hope you all know what you're doing, Maggie said. I mean it. I can't tell anything about jockeys from looking at them. Not their age. Not what they're thinking. Not their morals and not their good will towards men.
Hell's bells, nobody knows what a jock is thinking, Deucey said. Their brains are so hot-wired, what with speed and the hot box and flipping the Saturday night smorgasbord at the Polky Dot Cafe, they don't know what they think.
Earlie out of Loosiana.
What does that mean?
He's Cajun or something out the backwoods, Deucey said, what's the difference? I watched him all year. The midget is strong in his hands, smart on the track and brave as a bobcat. He's busy, though. Can't see Spinny till Friday. Alice'll have to get him ready.
In fact the jockey came by Friday noon to look at the horse. He was shorter than Maggie, a very little man in pressed slacks and a spotless canary yellow windbreaker, with the collar turned up high and wrap-around shades. He had a deeply lined brown face, a tight, taciturn upper lip and a shiny pompadour on top like the painted hair on a doll. He stared at Spinoza in the shadow of the stall for some time and then said: Say, this the hoss that kick in Biggy's headlights?
Shucks. Biggy was born with his head kicked in. The horse just scratched him a little on top of that, Deucey said.
I punish the horse if he act bad on me, the jockey said.
Fair enough, Deucey said. He's been easy as kiss my hand over here. A little too easy, if you wanna know.
I find the run in the horse, Earlie said, if he has any run.
Just remember he has to run again, Deucey said. We ain't trying to win this time out. We just want to find out how much horse is there and what he wants to do without letting it show.
Okay. I don't let him win. But I make him work.
I don't think that work ethic stuff is going down so good with Little Spinoza, Maggie said when the jockey's hard little fist of an ass in its knife-pressed chinos turned the corner.
Somebody got to get serious with the horse, Deucey said. This ain't the 4-H Club Rodeo at the Pocahontas County Fair.
…
Friday evening, Little Spinoza stood dreaming with his feet in a bucket of ice. Deucey, a towel marked COMMERCIAL HOTEL, GRAND ISLAND, NEBR. over her shoulder, was feeling all around his ankle.
Anything? Maggie asked.
Cold as a flounder. It's big but no bigger'n it ever was. He's got no excuses that I can tell. That don't mean he'll run.
Then all of a sudden the midnight blue Sedan de Ville with the starry silver hard-top was taking up the whole dirt road between shedrows. The driver's side window dropped into the door beneath it with a noise like a bumblebee. They couldn't help it, they both looked up.
Deucey, said a hoarse voice, fatty yet reproachful, a kind of masculine gravy with metal shavings in it.
Hello, Joe Dale, Deucey said. Maggie squinted at him. In a heavy-fleshed way, he was handsome, she thought, felt her cheeks warm and registered her own incipient interest with something like despair. He was a Byronic libertine type in the face, clean shaven, with blue shadows modelling his plushy red lips, and thick black groves crowning the temples behind an evenly receding hairline. He didn't look old enough, or crude enough, to have a great grown bully of a son like Biggy.
Hey, Deucey, he said. I'd like to know what kinda joke this is, with the girl groom and the spook. You tryna make a monkey outa me or what?
Crude enough after all, Maggie thought.
Excuse me?
What's with the girl and the colored groom in the owner's column for my horse?
You don't expect me to ruin my own good name with the horse, do you? Deucey said.
You don't think Little Spinoza's gonna run good?
It ain't impossible, Deucey said. Sumpm might fall into his feed bucket between now and then, who knows? This is horse racing.
You got my boy up on him, I see.
Maybe Earlie can tell me what's wrong with the horse.
Deucey, I told you. You didn't have to put nothing down on the deal until he showed you what he could do.
That's not how I do business.
Joe Dale Bigg shrugged. I want you to have your money back. Hold on, I got it right here-He leaned into the car, reaching for the roll under his buttock.
It ain't my money. Not anymore it ain't.
Don't gimme that, Deucey.
I ain't giving you anything, Deucey said. And I ain't taking anything from you either. I got the foaling papers. You're out of it.
Have you been thinking about that good deal I offered you? Joe Dale Bigg said patiently.
No I haven't, Deucey said.
Well, I think you better. I'm looking out for your business even if you ain't. Is this the girl?