Little Spinoza drew post position number eight in a eight-horse race, but this time that high number work to his good. This way Little Spinoza automatically be the last to load in the gate instead of a problem case, getting the starters nervous and mad until they might do something in anger that could hurt the horse, or worse, wake him up. And anyhow Alice Nuzum been with Little Spinoza in the gate three times already since that bad race and say he is cured.
Lord put me wise. Alice Nuzum say she going to sing Little Spinoza to sleep, and that is exactly what she do.
Them three are standing in the gap for the post parade when Alice and Little Spinoza tack by, them all three look at each other and they mouths fall open and they close them again. Deucey yanks the stiffened handkerchief out from under her flask and wipes her head. The frizzly hair girl laughs kind of funny-time behind her hand. Deep in his pocket Medicine Ed rubs a red flannel bag between dog finger and thumb. For they have heard Alice singing, it ain't a big voice but pointy and sharp as a stick: By and by, when the morning comes. All-l-l-l the saints…
Why, it is a song his mother used to sing in church, one he knew long ago. All the saints gone to gathering home. And maybe it is his imagination, but he think Little Spinoza is listening. The horse go along last in line, faraway in his face but collected. His ears prick up tall, quivering-and there is Alice high up on his back with her little bony knees pointed in, hypmotizing him with her small steely voice. Alice lean into his neck in them raggedy silver silks which Deucey bought for four bits from somebody stable that was busting up. Medicine Ed had to pin them together behind her neck with a bandage pin. He never hear no announcement, so many minutes to post time. He hear his mother's voice from the wings of New Life Baptist Church in Cambray, not a little metal threadwire like Alice's, but big as a house:
In the land of perfect day when the mist has rolled away We will understand it better by and by.
Then he ain't hear nothing. His mother's voice was all around him. He didn't recall looking at no tote board, but yet and still he knew when the numbers stand at 35, then fall to 22, back up to 25, and 22, and all of a sudden down to 12. And then the horses were at the gate, and in the gate, each by each. He saw Little Spinoza step into the eight slot civil as you please, like a man walk in a cloak room to ask for his hat.
Then they break, and it was all eight of them in a line. Yes, Little Spinoza was right with the others, on top of his feet, his feet drumming in that cold sand, his head stretching forward, but then Medicine Ed get that draggyfied, sunken feeling that him and Deucey and the frizzly hair girl be the only ones looking. The onliest ones looking where Little Spinoza be at, that is, for where he was, it wasn't no other horses to see. Then they was all together in one small sinking boat, him and Deucey and the frizzly girl and Alice and Little Spinoza. That's how far back Little Spinoza was running.
They hadn't no strength even to shout his name. Trouble cotton up they lungs. Disappointment sit heavy on they heads. They can just about lift they chin and watch. It was no way in the world that horse could make it back in this race. That Alice Nuzum so far off in her rating until she have to be thinking of getting there yesday. Or maybe tomorrow. Not today. Medicine Ed look up front. It's a whole nuther race gone on up there, the four horse trying to open it up in front, the one horse stalking him two lengths back on the rail and the three horse dogging the one horse at his elbow. And the rest of the field knotted up on the inside five, six lengths back, like soup greens hanging off a long spoon. But even if you want to lose Little Spinoza in this pack, you can't. He is lollergagging along ten lengths back of the others, dead last.
Medicine Ed is gone to be not two-fifty but four-fifty in the hole with Two-Tie. And Two-Tie himself will take a beating in the race. Medicine Ed will look like a damn fool, more than what he already do, and on top of that, his good credit gone. Just when he want to drop his head in his hands for shame, Medicine Ed hear the words: We will understand it better by and by.
And that's when Little Spinoza start to make his move. Alice climb up some way on his neck and take hold but she don't use no stick. They have got just three-eighths of a mile to go and they don't even look at that mess on the inside. In their hurryment they go round. And they it is again, gobbling up ground like a black steam shovel-here come Little Spinoza and Alice flying up the stretch. Here come the Speculation grandson flat out, sailing around the six and seven horse and sliding up between the five and the two like a black polish cloth in a mahogany hand, opening, closing, opening out again, inside the four horse, who done faded out of it, and the three horse, who make one last push but it ain't enough, and swooping up on Ink Spot whose boy look round at the wire but it is too late.
Only Deucey yelled a little. Medicine Ed done lost his voice. He bowed his head for the beauty of it and because it come from his dead mother. Also the frizzly head girl ain't squeal nor holler. Her eyes was wide and shining and she sink her fingers into his bony arm behind the elbow and squeeze so hard it hurt. I can't believe I saw that, she say, it was so… great. For once he almost like her hungry ignorance, which at least it wasn't small or mean. After all she Two-Tie's blood kin. The three of them head for the winner's circle, floating on they cloud through the people towards the gap, just believing they luck, kicking through dead tickets and grease-pearled pizza plates, hardly moving they feet.
Man takes his picture. Then they waiting to see what Little Spinoza will pay. In that cloud, Medicine Ed ready to feel free. He wished Gus Zeno was alive to see him. Or Charles Philpott. He wished anybody was alive to see him. The young fool was away up north somewheres, seeing about a horse-he hinted it was a owner in the works. The young fool had been let in. In a winking, sporting way he had rode ten dollars on Little Spinoza, but he didn't have no faith.
Only, when Medicine Ed caught Joe Dale Bigg standing yonder outside the winner's circle, he come down to earth with a thump. For Ed could see it: Joe Dale believed. Joe Dale believed, and it was worse than the other white boss disbelieving that them three were able. Joe Dale Bigg believed more than it was there to believe in. He believed it have all been one big plan, and which was to make him look like a fool.
Joe Dale Bigg was a half bald man with a big forehead. Just now the forehead glow blue white and push out round and damp in front like a boiled egg. His thick hair stand out a little crumped from his head. His dark eyes were watching them three. His arms was folded across his chest like a judge. Medicine Ed remembered to taken the little red flannel bag between his fingers and softly rub. He knew he couldn't do nothing for Deucey. Her trouble was coming. He knew the frizzly hair girl must suffer too. But he would be safe. Inside his pocket piece used to be anvil dust and a thumbnail of blue Getaway Goofer Powder, dressed with a drop of Jockey Club fast luck oil he order in from Lucky Heart Curios, Memphis, Tennessee. Every dimestore cunjure in South Carolina had the same. But now it's a strong Leave Alone powder in there too. He has the scooped-up going-away tracks of all three of them white bosses at the Mound who like to scheme and get in your bidness, and can't be satisfied, and want it back, what anymany little bit of anything you finally lay hold of. This speckle stuff give him keepaway power over the stallman, Suitcase Smithers, and Racing Secretary Chenille, and the leading trainer, Joe Dale Bigg. And just in case, his boss Tommy is in there too.
Medicine Ed taken the red flannel bag between his fingers and rub. He said: In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, I ask you to take all the bad luck off me and make it go on them who tryna take from me, what I done rightly win, put the harm on them and let it go back to the Devil where it come from. And he rubbed and listened to them clicking softly together in this strong Leave Alone powder, the carefully parched manly parts of Little Spinoza, smoked down to the size of marbles, over a dry wood fire.