It was then that Jimmy Creech went home to stay.
LET THE SPEED COME!
15
Dr. Morton told George and Tom that Jimmy wouldn’t get well unless he stayed home in bed and had nursing care. Only with complete rest, strict medical treatment, and freedom from worry of all kind could he be helped; if Jimmy didn’t follow instructions the ulcer would get worse.
The practical nurse Dr. Morton sent came to live in Jimmy’s small, white-frame house on the outskirts of Coronet. If Jimmy wondered where they’d get the money to pay for her services, he never asked. He only sought relief from the severe and frequent pains that racked his stomach and twisted his face in agony. It wasn’t until early spring that any great amount of relief came to him, it was only then that he asked about the blood bay colt.
Tom’s eyes turned from the racing pictures, which were the only things that relieved the bareness of the walls of Jimmy’s bachelor quarters, to look at the small, flat body beneath the bedsheets.
“Bonfire’s a natural, Jimmy,” the boy said. “He has all the speed we expected from him. I brushed him a quarter in thirty-three seconds this morning.”
George moved across the room to Jimmy’s bedside. “But Tom held him in all the way,” he said. “We never let him go faster than that ’cause we didn’t think you’d want us to.”
“No,” Jimmy said in a weak voice, “that’s fast enough for him now. I don’t want to rush him. Let the speed come to him. Don’t force him. It’ll come.”
“I’ve brushed him up to a half-mile, too,” Tom said, “but without pushing him. Then I hold him down for the last half. But he wants to go, Jimmy,” he added eagerly. “He really does.”
“That’s good, Tom,” Jimmy said, his eyes lightening a little. “He knows what it’s all about. He’s got the will to win. And that’s what I was hoping for when I bred the Queen to the Black. The Queen didn’t have that. The Black gave it to the colt.” He paused for a moment, resting. The nurse, a small gray-haired woman, stood near the door and watched Jimmy with concern. But Jimmy wasn’t through talking.
“Keep the colt down, Tom,” he said. “Remember that … no rushing him. Go along just as you have.” Jimmy turned his head toward the doorway. “Mrs. Davis, leave us alone for a moment, please.”
The nurse nodded; but her eyes pleaded with George and Tom not to stay too long.
Jimmy waited until the door closed behind Mrs. Davis. “Where’s the money coming from to pay her?” he asked.
“We got it,” George said quickly. “Don’t worry about it. I’m the business end of this outfit.” He smiled for Jimmy’s benefit. “She doesn’t charge much. She needed a home, an’ you’re givin’ her that.”
“But—” Jimmy began, only to be silenced by Tom.
“When you put all our money together, it makes more than you think,” the boy said. “As George said, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“But how long will it last?” Jimmy asked, his sunken eyes upon them. “How can we manage to race the colt, to pay for feed, equipment, even gas for the van?”
“I’ve fixed up the sulky and all the harness, everything,” George said. “We don’t need to buy a thing. It’s all like new.”
“And the colt will make money for us, Jimmy,” Tom said. “Once he gets going everything will be all right.”
“I hope so, Tom,” Jimmy smiled weakly; then he closed his eyes and they thought he was asleep until he said, “It’s been a long time, a very long time … since I had a good one.”
Leaning over him, George said, “You’ll be driving him, Jimmy. The doc said you’re getting better fast. Just do everything he says an’ don’t worry about a thing. Then you’ll be up behind the colt soon.”
“Sure, George,” Jimmy mumbled; but he didn’t open his eyes.
George lifted his bald head away from Jimmy. When he and Tom left the room there were tears in their eyes.
As usual, early the next morning before school, Tom had Bonfire out on the track. The sun felt good on his back and he knew the red colt liked it too, for Bonfire neighed repeatedly while Tom jogged him the wrong way around the track, loosening him up.
Through the lines he talked to his colt, telling him to bide his time. That’s the way Jimmy wants it, he told him. Get your legs and body so strong and hard that no racing will ever bother them. Let the speed come slow and easy, Bonfire. We have time … all the time in the world.
But each time Tom jogged Bonfire past the shed which Phillip Cox and his high-priced yearling had occupied, he said to himself, “It’s not fair … somehow it isn’t fair.” And for the first time he felt the embitterment that Jimmy Creech had lived with so very long.
“Jimmy doesn’t have all the time in the world at all,” he told the colt. “You and I have time, but he doesn’t. We’ve got to speed things up for him. He needs you, Bonfire … not the money you’ll make for him, but the satisfaction you’ll give him. Jimmy wants to know that he’s still an important part of his sport. He wants to know that it still requires understanding and knowledge of horses to make a champion, rather than how much money you’ve got in the bank. Let’s go, Bonfire!”
Turning the colt around, Tom opened him up. Long, muscled legs moved with the power and precision of a mighty machine. So fast was Bonfire’s sprint that in a matter of a few yards Tom, as always, felt that the wheels of his sulky would leave the ground. Bonfire’s strides were far-reaching and came with the swiftness of wings. Yet the blood bay colt never pulled on the bit, and drove down the stretch well within himself, waiting for the signal Tom might give him this time.
They swept by the quarter pole, then the half, and Tom, his face flushed with the velocity of Bonfire’s speed, let him go. He touched the lines and the colt responded with a burst of extreme swiftness that took the boy’s breath away. The colt’s black tail swept hard against his face and he heard himself shouting, “Fast for Jimmy, Bonfire! Fast for Jimmy!”
Then Jimmy Creech was with him.
“Don’t rush him, Tom. Remember, don’t rush him.”
The boy’s fingers moved along the lines again; the colt responded immediately, and slowed down. Tom brought him down to a jog, then turned him around.
Miss Elsie came onto the track while Tom was still jogging Bonfire. She drove her black filly up beside Bonfire, then said to Tom, “He’s more sweated than you usually have him, Tom. Working him harder?”
“Just a little,” Tom admitted. “Jimmy says …”
Miss Elsie smiled, and her large teeth were startling white in the sun. “Jimmy never would work a colt as hard as he should be worked, Tom,” she said, “especially this colt; he’s ready for it.”
Tom said only, “Jimmy’s the boss.”
“How is he, Tom? Any better? I dropped in on him last week. He didn’t look very well.”
“He’s a little better,” Tom said quietly.
“If there’s anything I can do, Tom …” Miss Elsie paused and glanced away. “Well, you know how I feel about Jimmy. We need men like him.”
“Thanks, Miss Elsie. But we’ll get along all right. And you’ve been kind about giving us the feed and the hay.”
“That’s nothing, Tom,” she said quickly; then, changing the subject, she said, “I’ve got Princess Guy down to a very fast mile. She’s more than ready for the fairs.”
“Bonfire will be ready, too,” Tom said a little defiantly as though in justification of Jimmy’s training methods. “What fairs are you going to, Miss Elsie?”
“I’m going out to Ohio, Tom,” she returned. “That’s where I went with Mr. Guy.” Her eyes shone with eagerness, but she said no more. That she had raced Mr. Guy in Ohio ten years ago was all the explanation necessary as to why she chose Ohio fairs in preference to those held in her own state.
Tom watched her pull away, singing to the black filly with the white stockings. She was almost out of hearing distance when she called back, “The Ohio fairs first, then I’ll decide where we go from
there.” And it seemed to Tom that Miss Elsie’s words were meant only for herself.
Bonfire neighed after the filly and tossed his head. Tom turned him in the direction of the shed, where George was waiting for them.
If Miss Elsie stuck to her plans to go to the Ohio fairs, Bonfire and Princess Guy wouldn’t meet on the track during the coming season. In many ways Tom was sorry, for he had all the confidence in the world that his colt could beat any other two-year-old in the country. Yet he’d never let him out all the way.
George was holding two letters in his hand when Tom reached him with Bonfire. “They’re for you,” George said, taking the colt. “Postman was just here.”
Taking the letters, Tom said, “One’s from the Association; the other’s from Uncle Wilmer.” He opened the first and held the certificate up for George to see.
“Your license to drive,” George said, squinting his eyes in the sun. “It’s good it’s come, Tom.” He turned away to lead the colt into the shed before adding sadly, “Maybe we’ll be needin’ it this season. Maybe we will.”
Tom knew full well what he meant, for he and George had discussed his racing Bonfire in case Jimmy didn’t get better in time to go out. And just now, with only a few weeks to go until the first fair, it didn’t look as though Jimmy would be ready.
“Maybe it’s just as well he don’t go out—even if he does get better,” George had said when they’d filed for Tom’s driver’s license. “It might not do him any good, even with the colt. And this time Jimmy has to get completely well, the doc says—or be an invalid the rest of his life.”
Tom walked behind the colt while George took him inside. He looked long and hard at the license, for it meant he could drive his colt in the races. And while he knew the joy it would be to begin his lifework the same time that Bonfire started his, he realized the responsibility that would go with it, for they’d be racing for Jimmy. He knew too the danger he would face with no racing experience behind him or his colt. They were both untried.
George said, “I’ll take care of the colt. Get goin’ to school or you’ll be late again.”
But Tom opened Uncle Wilmer’s letter and read it aloud to George.
“The Queen’s in good shape, all right,” Uncle Wilmer wrote. “Been on grass for a couple of months now. Never looked better. Your aunt and me are sorry to hear Jimmy’s been so sick and ain’t better by now. You see he gets good care. Ain’t no better man around than Jimmy. He should have been a farmer. Then he wouldn’t get sick like he does.
“Glad the colt’s coming along like I said he would. You race him, Tom, if Jimmy ain’t in shape. You can do it all right. That colt knows you better’n anybody in the world. He’ll go for you. I believe it.
“And you come to Reading in September! I want to see that colt go. Beat them all, he will. You come. You remember us to Jimmy and George. Your Uncle Wilmer.”
When Tom had finished reading he put the letter away.
“Do you think we’ll make the Reading Fair, George?” he asked, helping to remove the harness from the colt.
“I don’t know,” George said, reaching for the sponges. “The money’s going faster’n I let Jimmy know. And Reading’s a long time off, Tom—September. A lot can happen before September.” He brought the wet sponge down on Bonfire’s sweated neck and added, “Depends on the colt, Tom. It all depends on him.”
Tom stooped to pick up the other sponge in the water pail, but George stopped him.
“You get goin’ like I said,” the man told him. “You only got a couple more weeks ’fore school closes. Then your work will really start. Race drivin’ is no cinch.”
Tom left for school, realizing that what George had said was true.
The days passed, school closed for Tom, and Miss Elsie left with her black filly for the Ohio fairs. It was time for Bonfire to leave too for his first race, and George and Tom knew that Jimmy Creech wasn’t going along with them.
“There’s a little improvement in his condition,” Dr. Morton told them. “But he’s still worrying about his financial problems and that’s keeping him back more than anything else. I don’t know what we can do for him. I mentioned that as an old friend there’d be no bill from me, and I told him that Mrs. Davis is more than glad to have a home. She’s a widow, you know, and a little too old to get many jobs. She’s just right for Jimmy. Yet he worries about paying all of us in spite of what I tell him.”
“Jimmy don’t want anybody to give him somethin’ for nothin’,” George said. “That’s been Jimmy’s trouble all along, never wanting a favor from nobody.”
Then Tom said, “It’ll be different when he has his own money—and the colt will make it for him. That and being so proud of Bonfire will do it for Jimmy.”
George said, “I hope so, Tom. But it won’t be easy. Nothin’s easy these days.”
“We don’t expect it to be easy,” Tom replied.
He and George packed for their departure from Coronet. The leather, black and well polished, was put into Jimmy’s battered but newly painted red-and-white tack trunks, along with the pails, brushes, sponges, rolls of bandages and cotton. The last things to be packed were Jimmy’s faded but clean red-and-white silks. On top of old Sadie, the van, was the training cart, heavier and not so narrow as the racing sulky which rode in front of it. Both were covered with a tarpaulin to protect them from sun and rain. The inside of the van was well bedded down with straw for Bonfire.
Before loading the blood bay colt, Tom and George went to see Jimmy. Mrs. Davis met them at the door and she said angrily to George, “You left that racing magazine behind you last time. He’s been reading it and I can’t get it away from him!”
When they entered Jimmy’s bedroom he waved the copy of Hoof Beats at them, his face red from his excitement and exertion. Tom and George saw that it was an old issue—one that had come back in March.
“Did you see this?” Jimmy sputtered, opening the page. “Let me read you this. It’s from Florida, where Cox and his kind go because they can’t stand a little cold!” Then Jimmy turned to the magazine and read aloud: “Phillip Cox’s gray colt, Silver Knight, set a new track and season record for colts in training here when the two-year-old stepped the mile in 2:17 with a final quarter in 31 seconds, sensational time for a colt of this age and at this time of year. Mr. Cox bought Silver Knight as a yearling at the Harrisburg Sales last November for the record price of $48,000. But it seems now that this price was not too much to pay for a colt possessing the speed Silver Knight is showing so early. Obviously Mr. Cox knew what he was doing when he bid $48,000 for this gray colt.”
Jimmy struggled to sit upright in bed, and it only served to weaken him more. George pushed him back against the pillow. “Take it easy, Jimmy,” he said. “You’ll make yourself worse.”
But Jimmy wouldn’t stop talking. “Cox doesn’t know a good colt from a tuxedo,” he shouted as loud as he could. “Working a colt that fast in March! Nobody in his right mind—”
Mrs. Davis grabbed the magazine from Jimmy’s waving hand but he caught her and took the magazine angrily from her. “I ain’t through with it,” he bellowed. “Not yet I’m not!” His fumbling hands turned the pages, then he held up a picture for them to see. “Look at this, Tom,” he said, directing his attention to the boy. “It’s the immortal Greyhound, the fastest horse that ever pulled a sulky. Take a good look at him! Look at his hoofs! They’re painted red, Tom! Red! They’ve put red nail polish on those hoofs that set about every record in the book! You know why?” Jimmy paused a moment, breathing heavily, and then he said sarcastically, “He’s too old to race any more so they’re going to have him give exhibitions at the night raceways! They’re going to make him pretty as a picture and let him go up and down before the grandstand. He’s going to be seen by city people so they paint his hoofs red so they’ll like him better.” Then Jimmy shouted louder than he had in months. “As if it wasn’t enough just to see this great horse! What do they think they’re doing, pu
tting red paint on those hoofs like they’d paint up an old woman before she goes on the stage? Bah! I’m sick of it all!”
Only then was Jimmy through talking and content to lay his head back on the pillow. Mrs. Davis took the magazine from his hand.
Their faces grim, Tom and George stood there a long while. Jimmy’s breathing became more regular and finally he slept.
George touched Tom’s arm. “We better go,” he whispered.
“Leave him?” Tom’s gaze never left Jimmy.
“We can’t do anything for him here,” George said. “Maybe we can at the fairs. I’ll let the doc know where we’ll be all the time. He’ll let us know.”
Tom turned to Mrs. Davis. “When he wakes up, tell him we’re on our way. Tell him that George, the colt and I will be racing for him. And we’ll do our best, all of us.”
Then they left for the Washington County Fair.
BONFIRE’S FIRST RACE
16
Awaiting the first race at Washington County Fair, Tom and George sat in their rickety canvas chairs in front of Bonfire’s stall. Behind them the blood bay colt pushed his head over the stall’s half-door and stretched to nuzzle Tom’s hair. Turning to him, the boy fondled Bonfire’s red-braided black forelock.
All they had to do now was to wait. In an hour’s time their race would be called. He had worked the colt early that morning, and then he and George had rubbed him down well. After that had come his mid-morning feed, oats mixed with a little bran. No hay … not until after the race. And no more grain until afterwards too. Wearing the worn white sheet with the red borders, Bonfire had nothing more to do until the call came. He would just wait—as they were doing.
George said, “The crowd’s startin’ to come.”
The stables were just off the first turn and Tom could see the people moving leisurely through the fair’s main entrance. The grounds were much smaller than at the Reading Fair. But the atmosphere was the same; there were the mooing of cattle, the snorts of hogs, and above it all the shrill crowing and clucking from the poultry sheds just a short distance away. But the majority of the people passed the exhibits by just now, to walk in front of the small, wooden grandstand and continue on toward the stables to see the horses.