Chapter Thirty-eight
The rest of the hangees seemed to crawl out of the woodwork, their reputations unblemished, and a few of them climbed the little stair to the gallows, and peered around, looking into the trap, and studying the dangling ropes. They were a smiley lot.
But there were another event scheduled for Hanging Day, namely a half-mile match race, so folks were drifting across town, stopping in the saloons along the way to fortify themselves for the great event. Hanging Day sure was big business in Doubtful, and I thought maybe we should schedule some regular hangings so the shopkeepers could profit. A hanging cost the county some, but the sales made up for it.
People didn’t know what to make of me. One old cob off the ranches told me I should’ve hanged the sonofabitch.
“You ever been in a good bar fight?” I asked.
“More times than I got fingers.”
He had eight left, so I thought he’d brawled maybe ten times.
“Well, how come you ain’t hanged yet?” I asked.
“Because I’m smarter than Big Nose,” he said.
“Well, if you need hanging, just drop in and I’ll arrange it,” I said.
“I don’t know how you got to be sheriff,” he said. What a fine day. The hangings had put everyone in a festive mood. The ladies wore straw hats loaded with silk flowers. The gents broke out the arm garters and brushed their derbies. The crowd had shifted back and forth from courthouse square to the racetrack, and now the good people of Doubtful were standing around the track, which consisted of four red flags on poles, forming a rectangle. A breeze flapped the flags, and lifted the oppressive heat away. That was the track. The match race would be run outside of the poles. I supposed it was half a mile; someone with a better brain than mine had figured it out.
The start and finish line were one and the same, a white chalk strip on the clay.
There was Limp, duded up in a silk stovepipe and tails, his handsome nag, Robert E. Lee, groomed until he shone, with the mane done up in small braids. The Swede jockey stood impassively in his royal purple silks, chewing Bull Durham and watching the crowd. The horse sure had gathered a lot of attention; there were cowboys, businessmen, a few ladies, some children who had to be shooed away. The horse yawned, baring green-stained incisors, and settled into its usual boredom. Some of the bettors found clues in it. The horse lacked fire, and would lose.
The bookie had a big chalkboard, and was offering bets on both nags, with Robert E. Lee the slight favorite. Bet a dollar, make a dollar and a half if the horse won. Pretty slim pickings, but the bookie was collecting cash and handing out chits. I had the feeling that the bookmaker didn’t care which nag won; he had his butt covered.
There was a smaller crowd around Ulysses Grant, the other horse, a dappled gray that had a little Arab in him, if I was any judge. He had the dished Arab head, anyway. He was lighter and leaner than Robert E. Lee, and his owner, Milo Drogovich, was holding him quietly. The man had a small ranch on the far edge of the county, almost in high country, on a mountain creek, and no one knew much about him. I sure didn’t. I had no idea he raised running horses. This nag, a gelding, stood quietly, while the jockey, Drogovich’s son Piers, stood nervously. The boy wasn’t wearing silks, but did have a loose white shirt of coarse cotton and carried a small black riding crop.
“I didn’t know you raised runners,” I said to Drogovich.
“I didn’t, either. It’s just an accident. The boy was running him one day, and I was watching, and I thought, this is a runner. So we worked him. He’s the only runner I’ve ever owned.”
A lot of people were listening, and some were even taking notes. What Drogovich was saying, that this was his first attempt to run a horse, immediately cooled a lot of people. I could almost sense the switch to Limp’s nag, even though Grant was the local challenger.
“Mind if I look at his hooves?” a rancher named Garvey asked.
“Have a look,” the owner said.
Garvey expertly lifted each hoof, looked at the shoe and the frog, and set it down. He said nothing, simply wandered off. I thought the horse was well shod, but I’m not in the racing racket, and if Critter can walk without a limp, I’m usually satisfied that the blacksmith shoed him well enough. Racehorses they shoe special, and I don’t know a thing about it.
It got to be race time, hot and dry, and the same judges, Doc Harrison, King Glad, and Cronk, got lined up, one either side of the line, and one on a stool, looking down in. The jockeys walked and trotted their nags once around the loop, and then lined up at the chalk line. It got real intense there, with half the people in Puma County crowded close. The starter, Bo Windy, got his revolver ready and waited for them jockeys to get lined up, and this time he didn’t delay. He squeezed off a shot, and away they went. It was a good start, no one broke too soon, and that pair of nags, bay and dappled gray, hunkered low and clattered down the track, turned at the first pole, the gray wider and faster, the bay slower for a moment and cutting sharp, and then they were running the next piece, and curving around for the third, with the gray edging half a length ahead, and gaining ground.
The crowd was real quiet, and even the clatter of hooves was muffled.
Sweat was foaming around the flanks of the bay, and along the stifle, but I didn’t see any stress in the Drogovich horse. They thundered around the final turn, the jockeys low and using their crops, and the dappled gray pulled ahead and crossed the chalk a length out front. The crowd hooted, this time at Limp, whose first two horses had lost to locals, and it sure pleased the winners to collect from the bookmaker. Limp headed over to Drogovich, shook his hand, and the rancher was a hundred dollars ahead, collecting the match money.
The horses trotted in, while the crowds collected around the gray, admiring it, appreciating its sleek body, barely sweated up compared the wet, heaving bay.
“That fella Limp, he thinks he knows nags, but he don’t,” said one cowboy, a little loudly.
This sure was a fine moment for Doubtful. A professional match horseman had gotten whipped twice. It was the perfect end of the Hanging Day, and the whole town was celebrating.
“Now wait, gents, is anyone going to match my miler, Jefferson Davis?” Limp asked.
A lot of folks stared at one another. Ranch horses weren’t known for long-distance running, and were largely bred to maneuver cattle. Still, there was Limp, with some losers in his string, and another day of racing if anyone wanted to challenge him.
That’s when the stranger stepped up. Young feller, with down at the heels boots, raggedy shirt, skinny, a big Adam’s apple, and a stubble of blond beard on him.
“I guess I got here just in time,” he said.
I suddenly was aware that he was leading a sorrel horse, with no markings on him, plain as horses get but long and built on thoroughbred lines. They wouldn’t call him sorrel back East; that was a local way to describe a chestnut. It sure was a common color.
“You looking for a match?” the lad asked.
“Well,” said Limp, “I’m looking, but I’m not sure you’d want to match that horse against mine. I’ve got to tell you, my horse has walked away with more match meets than I can count.”
“I got a nice runner here,” the youth said. “He’s proved out. I’ve got a pasture with some stumps in it, and I run him around a big circle in there. My friends all say this boy’s a runner for sure. And he likes a long run, too.”
“Has he ever been in competition?” Limp asked.
“Well, I matched him up with other horses on the ranch, and around there. And he done real good.”
“Where you from, fella?” Limp asked.
“Medicine Bow County, next to here,” he said. “I’m Elmer Skruggs.”
“Well, Elmer, I don’t think you’d want to risk a hundred dollars of match money. That’s a lot for a cowboy.”
“Well, me and my friends, we got a hundred together.”
“You’ll just lose it, boy. This horse, Jefferson Davis, is the fastest streak of lightning in the West, and he’s good for a lot more than a mile, too. I can run him one and a half or two, and he’s just getting warmed up. You better think on it, boy. I wouldn’t want to take a hundred out of your hands like this. You bring me an experienced nag, with a record, and a reputation, and we’ll talk business. A hundred’s a lot of money.”
Skruggs looked disappointed. “I come a long way to race this pup here. Across one county and half across another. All on foot, too.”
By now the two were collecting a crowd. There were plenty of local boys eyeing the new horse they’d never seen, and shaking their heads. These cowboys knew horseflesh and knew a runner when they saw one. And this nag wasn’t making a dent in their thinking.
The rube from the next county just swallowed hard, making his Adam’s apple bobble, and he looked about ready to shed a tear. “I come a long way,” he said. “I come to race.”
“I don’t like easy pickings, boy. You season him, and bring him around next year, and I’ll meet you here and we’ll have a regular run for the money.”
“You mind if I just give him a little run around this here track you got set up? I’d sure like to show you how this sorrel runs.”
“What’s his name?”
“His name is Jones. You get a plain horse, you want to give him a regular name. You wouldn’t want to call this sorrel horse Lord Fauntleroy,” Skruggs said.
“Sure, we’ll all watch Jones,” Limp said. “That’ll cap the day, all right.”
Skruggs brightened. “Oh, this is what we wanted,” he said. “I’ll just put a regular saddle on him, not a racing pad, and we’ll do a loop.”
What was it about that hayseed? He seemed to glow. It didn’t make sense, some fair-haired kid off some ranch, with light shining out of him. I’m a regular man, and don’t have any mystical notions, but this boy just seemed to be a sun all to himself, and there was no explaining it, least not by me. Why are a few people like that?
He brushed down his sorrel, tossed an old saddle blanket on, and tightened up the beat-up old saddle, and climbed on. The only thing I noticed was that the sorrel shivered, like it was awaiting something, its flesh twitching and jerking. He led the horse to the makeshift track, while a lot of people studied him, and walked the horse, then trotted him, and finally settled the sorrel into a rocking chair lope, the easiest gait for most horses, and that old sorrel kind of settled into a run, and did the oval twice, and somehow even at that relaxed lope, gave the impression nothing could pass him by.
That was all. Elmer Skruggs reined Jones to a halt, and sat there, waiting. Limp looked him over, and made a decision:
“Boy, you want a match race, you got one. Put up a hundred, and we’ll run tomorrow.”