C. Morgan - The Sport of Kings

Pure instinct caused Allmon to grab the man by his wiry arm and haul him hard round. Hellsmouth stirred sidewise as Allmon took stock of the man’s face: hard as a train with a tough jutting jaw like a grille. Lips curled churlish and coy under deep-set eyes with mini-Hells spangling in their depths. All muscle and barely more, he was eight feet packed into four, his sharp body sinewed by starvation and the sweat box.

“So intimate?” the jock snarled. “You don’t even know my name, soldier.”

“Get out,” said Allmon.

The man jerked back his arm. “Oh, you don’t get to tell Jimmy Winkfield to get out, no sirree. You don’t tell Isaac or Oliver to skedaddle!”

Someone tossed over a stall: “Don’t listen to that fucker, Allmon!”

The jock tossed right back: “Hush, vile and greasy interloper! You stink of river water and queso !”

From over the stall: “Listen, asshole—”

“Coital sludge! Slander not this ancient tongue! I am presently engaged in the business of horseflesh and perhaps other flesh, and your intrusion is an unforgivable offense!”

The little man whirled back to Allmon, his hard eyes aflirt as he thrust out rough rider’s hands. “Reuben Bedford Walker,” he said. “The Third, mind you. Not the first, a pederast, nor the second, a wife beater, in fact none of the priors, but in all likelihood the last. Until men grow pussies. Which, Lord have mercy, they might! It’s a fabulous new age. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Allmon Shaughnessy.”

Without a clear course of action, because the man’s voice was a wily wend of place and time, threading old centuries up through the chinks and fissures of newer ones, his words swift in one ear and then tangling in the disordered avenues of the other, Allmon took the hand up automatically, but it turned soft as a silk scarf caressing his inner wrist even as he was saying, “Where’d you get my name?”

Reuben grinned. “Don’t be so modest, little Almond. Everyone knows the prison kid with the good hands and the sorrowful face. Carrying a burden of mysterious origins! Nigh on a horse whisperer, they say, an old island conjurer, got the Nawlins voodoo touch, one of those old ’tation niggras — a natural! Where do you come from, and where have you been? We all want to know. You’re a curiosity, my man!”

As he pattered, the jock, dressed only in his silk breeches and a white tank, was squeezing past Allmon toward Hellsmouth, inspecting, mean dreaming, and counting coins.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” said Allmon.

In his finest Tom, Reuben drawled, “Me and dis hoss here, we gone cut us a fine caper, Lawdy yes! I jess been beggin’ ole Massah Snyder, lemme leg up dis pony! And now I gone do it! So liff a poor niggra, son.”

Shapes were shifting in the man’s mouth. Allmon could only stare at him in alarm and distaste.

“Did you hear me, young man?” said the jock with a voice fresh, level, and boss. “Offer your superior a lift.”

“You fucking kidding me?” said Allmon, incredulous. “She broke the leg on her last jock in the gate at—”

“I am perfectly aware of Señor Alano’s miscalculations, believe you me.” Reuben’s voice devolved to hiss, “Now toss, Hoss.”

If he’d looked a grown man, Allmon would have bristled. If there’d been actual physical threat behind the words, he would have fought. But as it was, he knew this was the jock who’d missed the morning breeze because of a delay at the Los Angeles aiport. Not sure what else to do, he lifted the man onto Hellsmouth as if he were no more than a sack of cornmeal.

Now it was Hellsmouth’s turn to object. The two-year-old was already expert at shedding riders with a lightning-strike hump and dump. Now, true to form, she bristled and jumped like a goat, but the jock went nowhere at all, stuck like glue. When she went to rear, Allmon’s hands were quick at her mouth and her neck at the withers. Bracing the wide brain pan, he caught and calmed her, though her mouth continued to work suspiciously, snarling.

The jock leaned into those pinned-back ears. “Hush, my sweet little horseypie,” he whispered in a voice like chiffon, “you’re gonna win big for this here jock, or I’ll cut your throat cheek to jowl.”

Allmon reached up and dragged off the man who weighed no more than a girl, delivered him hard to his feet in the straw. “Get the fuck off my horse.”

“Your horse?” Reuben flickered his spiky lashes in astonishment, his hands on his bony hips. “ Your horse? Don’t forget, Almond Joy, that three people make the money around here — Henry Forge, Mack Snyder … and Yours Truly. Your horse, my ass.” He reached out and pointed at Allmon’s face. “Mind your tongue, young man, saddle up in an hour, and let old Reuben show you how the doing gets done.”

* * *

Champagne Stakes, Belmont, October 2005, cloud-churning sky over an Indian summer, Mack marching at Allmon’s side, his lips blanched white with game-day strain, his cheeks ruddled as ever. The will to win rendered the man a permanent blustercuss, and Allmon had learned quickly to wrap himself back up in a shroud of silence. It was easy. He was cold, permanently cold since the day he left Forge Run Farm. He marveled at how easy it was to look like a statue again, one that didn’t look left or right. Except this statue had a mind, and it poked at him, whispering, She must be having that baby any minute. Your baby.

The day, the race, the horse. Hellsmouth was dancing up on her hoof tips, cresting her neck into a fulminating wave as she approached the other mounts in the emerald-green saddling paddock. “You got nothing,” Allmon muttered at them under his breath, knocking his mind into place. It was easy; the horses were an astonishment. Among the antic fillies and nerve-addled colts, there was charm and brio, founting talent and flaming speed. Skulls carved neat by nature, legs bred bold by owners, hides like autumn leaves. Here was the bay Wagnerian bass, the Carl Lewis sprinter, Sarah Bernhardt so divine, Solomon’s gold, and Tesio’s dream. But, listen, as sure as I write this, with Hell’s perfect limbs and her big motor, they were just whistling in the dark.

Diminutive even among his coevals, Reuben was ready and waiting, turning this way and that with his crop in his hand, a tightly muscled bundle of expectation, bright and beady-eyed as any peacock. But he ceased all motion when Hellsmouth appeared, his gaze trained on his mount with an unearthly concentration, mean mirth all absent.

Allmon couldn’t help himself. He said with a terse, dismissive gesture, “This new jock, I don’t like him.”

Mack said, “If I had to like any of you sombitches, I wouldn’t be in this line of work.” He pointed at Reuben. “That’s the best rider you’ll ever see on the skin of a horse, and don’t you forget it.” He raised a hand to the paddock judge, then stepped to Reuben, over whom he towered at five-ten, and, with one hand to Hell’s withers and his other slicing the air like a tomahawk, said: “Now do exactly how I said. Let her flop around out of the gate, that’s how she goes. She likes to eyeball ass for a bit. You can hit her around the curve, but don’t crop till you’re solid. DO NOT CROP UNTIL YOU’RE SOLID, REUBEN. You got a rocket here, a classic deep closer, understand me? Not until you’re solid.”

Reuben nodded once, his lips a firm line. Allmon saw none of the mean mirth he’d detected there earlier.

“Riders up!” The marching stopped, followed by a flurry of activity around each mount. Mack cupped his hands and tossed the jock onto Hell’s back, where he landed with practiced ease, hands snapping up the reins and gleaming boots cocked acey-deucey. Mack said, “I wish to hell you’d got up here for a morning gallop. She’s a handful. Tricky.”