Paulette Jiles - Stormy Weather

“Ross, don’t hit him,” said the jockey. “Come on, don’t hit him.” His red and navy-blue silks shone in the dulled sunlight.

Ross said, “The son of a bitch is going to qualify or I’ll shoot him and drag him out to the pasture for the coyotes.”

“He’ll rear,” said the jockey. “He’ll bash my brains out in this gate.”

At the end of the line of gates an old man stepped up on a steel ladder and laid his hand on a heavy metal lever. When he pulled it down it would throw all the gates open. The other horses heard the ringing footsteps and began to dance. Smoky threw his head from side to side against the bit and slavered at the horses on both sides of him. He did not understand about the noise of the man’s footsteps.

Ross Everett watched the old man place himself on the top rung and pull the lever. All the gates clanged open and he brought the belt and buckle down on Smoky Joe’s rear end with all his strength. The dark stallion bolted straight out of the open gate and left a length of daylight between himself and Soldier Boy. Smoky Joe ran toward the magic, otherworldly feeling that would overcome him in a short distance, where the other horses would fall behind him and disappear, shamed. Tenths of seconds splintered and broke up into fragments like sparks from cedar fires, they floated in his wake and burnt the eyes and nostrils of his enemies.

He had never had such clean ground underfoot, it was as level and unmarked as the first day of the world and he broke through the invisible line of the photo finish beam so far ahead of the others that the track steward lost sight of him.

The track steward saw only the horses bunched up five lengths behind Smoky and declared the foremost among them the winner. This was a horse from San Angelo named Yellow Buck. A man stood at the rail with a stopwatch held high in one hand and facing the steward. He was yelling. It was the banker from Abilene with the yellow bow tie and a derby who had wanted to buy Smoky. A lot of people were yelling and Jeanine scrambled up to stand on her bleacher seat to look at the time. The electric clock said 22.9. Smoky Joe was pitching his way around the unused far side of the track, trying to throw his jockey into the rails. Another man raced up the bleacher steps toward the steward’s tower.

“Where do we go?” asked Jeanine. She was hurrying down the steps behind Innis as fast as she could in her high heels. “Will he get a plate?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Innis. “Listen.”

The steward had so many men yelling at him to check the film that when he did and realized Smoky had been five lengths ahead, he simply threw the film out the observation post window and somebody caught it and carried it to Ross Everett.

“Does he want me to autograph it?” Everett said. He laughed and handed it to a boy and gave the boy a dime and said to carry it back to the steward and tell him to make a copy for Everett. The PA system coughed and said there was a correction, that Smoky Joe Hancock had won in 22.9 seconds. There were low whistles. Smoky had won on two different bets; he had broken 23 seconds and he’d daylighted Soldier Boy out of the gate.

Innis took off his hat and brushed it, set it back on his head.

“I’ve got to lead him into the winner’s circle, Miss Jeanine.”

“Oh good for you!” Jeanine said. Innis was clearing his throat and tucking in his shirt. This was to be his first public appearance other than reciting Kipling’s “Tommy” at the end-of-the-year school program. She said, “Go look for your dad. I’ll go this way.”

Innis said Yes, ma’am and went around the end of the bleachers toward the place where they were unsaddling the horses. Jeanine walked quickly back toward the jockeys’ rooms and saw Tom Baker standing with the man in the yellow bow tie. Baker shook his head ruefully and opened his wallet and handed her two ten-dollar bills. A jockey slouched by, near to fainting with heat and anorexia, carrying his saddlecloth and racing saddle.

The King ranch man lifted his hat. “Do I get a kiss? Loser’s privilege.”

“In your dreams,” said Jeanine and jammed the money in her purse. They lifted their hats again and watched her walk away. One of them sang Hold tight, baby, hold tight.

She walked quickly toward the winner’s circle. She stepped through old dried horse manure; the twenty dollars meant luxuries for herself. Her mother’s oil money had paid all the back taxes, and she had bought an electric fan for the kitchen and a kerosene refrigerator. The sweaty wadded bills in her hand could now be spent on a bathtub and perfumed soap. She had to figure out how to tell her mother she came by it.

In the winner’s circle Jeanine turned in the wind in her new summer dress. She held out her hand to Smoky Joe. He was staring around, looking for other horses, the lowly geldings, a stallion to challenge, the sweet and lovely mares. Jeanine patted him on the neck and laughed with delight. He was the brave horse that lived in a trash yard, the thin underfed horse that ran his heart out on the brush tracks, and she did not remember the hard times but only his springing step and his courage and his bright, irrepressible gallantry. She said, “Ain’t you a rocket?”

Innis held up the championship silver plate and a man took his picture with his face glowing in the hot air. Ross put his hand on Jeanine’s shoulder and said, “Another one, please. Send me a copy and the bill.”

The sparkling silver plate ran its reflection of the intense sun across the crowd. Ross stood beside her wearing a summer jacket and tie, lace-up cordovan shoes and his good Stetson. She felt his hand on her elbow, it steadied her. The brim of her hat made flying motions in the breeze. It was a breeze that seemed to come out of the mouth of a furnace.

“Dad?”

“Yes.” Ross turned to his son and when he did his full attention was on the boy. He faced his son in a direct manner with his hands clasped behind his back, and in the intense sun his face was dark under the shadow of his hat.

“Do you want me to load him?” Innis stood holding the halter line, and his hand was on Smoky’s shoulder. He was an undersize replica of his father and he could not stop smiling in the joy of a clean win and a silver plate.

“No, not right now. Get him back in the stall.” He reached out to take the boy’s hat from his head and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Go stick your head in the horse tank, son. You’re overheated.” The boy’s face was alight with unspoiled pleasure. Ross put his son’s hat back on his head and tapped the crown. “You and Jugs take him to a stall. Y’all are staying the night here. It would be too dark by the time you got him home. Me and Jeanine are going on. I have to get her back.” He turned to Jeanine. “Word gets around,” he said.

“It was only a ten-dollar bet,” she said. She kept her voice low. “It’s bathtub money.” She smiled up at him and thought of a bathtub full of cool water.

“You were ruined for a normal life.”

“No I wasn’t!” She fanned herself with the race program. “I’m more normal than anybody. More than Mayme.”

He nodded. “The purse was two thousand.”

“Oh my God, you didn’t tell me!”

“It would have been too nerve-wracking,” he said. “My nerves were wracked enough as it was.” He took off his hat and wiped his forehead and put it back on. “Let’s get you a cold drink and get home.”

They waded through the hot sand toward the run-out, and she took hold of his arm to keep her balance. She was proud of him and proud to be seen with him. From the perspective of Baker and the man from the King ranch, who were both lounging in the shade of the run-out, she and Ross would seem to be wavering in the heat distortion. Her hand on his coat sleeve for balance, shifting closer and then slipping away, unsure, her hat shimmering in planes, holding on to his sleeve with an iron grip.