Рита Браун - Probable Claws

“They’re off,” Ewing enthused.

Shadows definitely was off. He stood up on his hind legs, then rocked down on his forelegs, letting out one hell of a buck, then lurched forward with such a leap the crowd marveled that the slender jockey, a ginger-haired white boy, could stick. Stick he did and it was a terrific race. Shadows slowly catching up to Orb, who had a long stride. The two rode next to each other, the jockeys intent on the finish line. Sweat covered Shadows’s flanks, a hot horse in all respects. Orb, more businesslike, kept up his steady pace, focused on the finish line. He began to pull away slightly, which forced the ginger-haired young man to use the whip. Shadows paid little attention until he crossed the finish line a nose behind Orb. Then he turned around, tried to bite the boy. After that display of pique, he bucked, snorted, shook his head. A fellow couldn’t get him to walk back. Another fellow, this one from the Finster barn, rode out on a calm older gelding, reached over, grabbed the reins. Next to his buddy, the hot horse calmed a bit.

“If he hadn’t bucked, we would have won,” the jockey bitterly complained.

“Right.”

Catherine hurried back to the paddock.

Piglet, truly enormous bone in his mouth, glanced up.

“Now, there’s a treasure,” she joked, hoping to lighten the tension.

Charles, there to help if needed, praised his corgi. “Could have brought the beast down himself.”

“True.” The intrepid dog dropped the bone.

Catherine studied this relic for a moment. “Where did he get it?”

Charles pointed to a large pile of rocks and other debris down near the river, where it had been dumped as the course was handpicked then rolled consistently over the last month until the races.

Reynaldo, saddled up, watched everybody and everything.

John gave Jeddie a leg up.

Catherine took Reynaldo by the bridle as John walked on the other side. Ralston walked Reynaldo’s pasture mate, Sweetpea. Both Sweetpea and Catherine calmed Reynaldo. She was one of the few people who could ride him, but once her pregnancy showed she stopped. However, Catherine, at the barn every day, talked to him, watched Jeddie exercise him, and never forgot carrots, little treats.

No one spoke. Once at the starting line they waited a moment or two for Black Knight to come up.

“Jeddie,” Catherine softly said as she stroked Reynaldo’s neck. “You’ll do well.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he simply said as Catherine and Ralston stepped back. John reached for the bridle until Black Knight was alongside. Then he stepped back, too.

The rope pulled up and William snarled at Jeddie, “I’m gonna leave you in the dirt, boy.”

Jeddie didn’t reply.

The rope dropped and the two handsome horses took off, riders actually relaxed, in charge.

The crowd watched as this was the big race, the race on which two outstanding reputations hinged. They roared.

Stride for stride the two blew through the first quarter mile. Still stride for stride at the half mile, William switched his whip to his right hand. Jeddie was on his right and he lashed out, hitting Jeddie across the face full force. Blood from the leather edge cut into his cheeks. William struck again and again, then rode into Jeddie, not as dangerous as it might be since the horses were stride for stride. Still, legs could become entangled. Thank God they did not, but with the force of a twelve-hundred-pound animal on his legs, blood in his eyes, Jeddie tried to fend off the whip with his left hand. One more blow, one more push, and he rolled off on Reynaldo’s right side. That stunned people. So did the fact that Reynaldo stopped, put his head down to touch Jeddie, who curled up in pain. The crowd screamed in fury. Maureen, standing in her carriage, Jeffrey alongside of her, could barely breathe.

“What is going on?”

“I don’t know, my love, but it isn’t good. I’ll attend to it.” Jeffrey climbed down from the carriage as did DoRe.

Barker O. also climbed down from the Garth carriage. Catherine and John were already running out onto the course. Yancy and Sam Udall hurried out from the other side.

Black Knight crossed the finish line. William kept going. John, also out on the course to bring in Yancy’s horse and knock the devil out of William stopped, looked at the receding figure in wonderment. Then he turned to go back to his wife.

Catherine, kneeling down as John took Reynaldo’s reins over his head, held her hand to Jeddie’s forehead.

“I could kill him,” she said.

Smiling through his pain, Jeddie replied, “Let me.”

“Can you stand?” She put her arm under his back as Charles reached them to do the same on the young man’s other side.

Jeddie stood. The crowd cheered. He winced, hand going to his left collarbone.

The doctor reached them. “Let’s walk back to the paddock. You must be made of iron, young man. How you survived that without as many broken bones as dominoes, I will never know.”

Sam and Yancy now reached them. Sam had never seen Catherine.

Yancy, shocked, stammered, “Oh, I do hope you don’t think I would promote such vile behavior.”

She shook her head. “Yancy, you are above such things.”

Sam couldn’t speak and this wasn’t the time for introductions. He beheld a goddess. Oh, yes, he wanted to sleep with Deborah, to perhaps make a large financial arrangement with Georgina to keep her as his mistress, but for this woman, at first sight, he felt something he had never felt in his life. Sam was in love.

The two race promoters stood in the middle of the course while Jeddie was helped back to the paddock. Catherine led Reynaldo, who kept reaching with his nose to touch the rider he loved almost as much as he loved Catherine.

Back at the paddock, the doctor told Jeddie to sit on a tack trunk. Ewing, Barker O., Charles, Rachel, and John stood by him as Ralston and Catherine quickly untacked Reynaldo.

“Wipe him down, Ralston. I must see to Jeddie.”

She stepped over to see the doctor check Jeddie’s ribs as Rachel held a hand towel to his bleeding face.

“No broken ribs, broken arms.” The middle-aged Richmond doctor felt Jeddie all over then touched his collarbone to a small yelp. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m fine.”

“Jeddie, listen to the doctor,” Catherine, worry on her face, ordered him.

Rachel asked the competent man, “What must we do or what must he do?”

“The collarbone is a slender bone. I’ll make him a sling and he must keep his arm in it. No lifting anything. No reaching or using this arm.” He stared at Jeddie. “If you move the bone, which I am going to set, it will heal crooked. You’ll never have full use of it again, and the lump will show through your skin. Do you want to keep riding?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then do as I say.” He looked at John. “Will you hold him steady in his seat. This will hurt.”

The doctor extended Jeddie’s arm then pulled until the bone snapped back into place.

“Dear God,” Jeddie gasped, sweat now pouring from his forehead.

“That’s the worst. Now I’m going to cut off your good colorful shirt and I’ll bind you up. Then I’ll put you in a sling. When you go to bed at night you can take off the sling, but you must sleep on your back.”

Rachel, hands folded, as Charles put his arm around her waist while Piglet sat by Charles’s feet with his prize, asked, “Doctor, what will keep him from rolling onto his side? Won’t that push the bone out of place?”

“Yes. He’s either got to sleep sitting up or sleep lying flat on his back.”