breathing it) the same air not a thousand feet from the race track and not much more than a tenth of that in minutes from the race itself—when I actually realized not only how Lightning's and my fate were now one, but that the two of us together carried that of the rest of us too, certainly Boon's and Ned's, since on us.depended under what conditions they could go back home, or indeed if they could go back home—a mystical condition which a boy of only eleven should not really be called to shoulder. Which is perhaps why I noticed nothing, or anyway missed what I did see: only that Lycurgus handed Lightning's lead rope to Uncle Parsham and came and took our bridle and Ned said, 'You get that message to him all right?' and Lycurgus said Yes sir, and Ned said to me, 'Whyn't you go and take Lightning offen Uncle Possum so he wont have to get up?' and I did so, leaving Ned and Lycurgus standing quite close together at the buggy; and that not long before Ned came on to us, leaving Lycurgus to take the mule out of the buggy and loop the lines and traces up and tie the mule beside its mate and come on to us, where Ned was now squatting beside Uncle Parsham. He said: 'Tell again about them two races last winter. You said nothing happened. What kind of nothing?'

'Ah,' Uncle Parsham said. 'It was a three-heat race just like this one, only they never run but two of them. By that time there wasn't no need to run the third one. Or maybe somebody got tired.'

'Tired reached into his hind pocket, maybe,' Ned said.

'Maybe,' Uncle Parsham said. 'The first time, your horse run too soon, and the second time he run too late. Or maybe it was the whip whipped too soon the first time and not soon enough the second. Anyhow, at the first lick your horse jumped out in front, a good length, and stayed there all the way around the first lap, even after the whipping had done run out, like it does with a horse or a man either: he can take just so much whipping and after that it aint no more than spitting on him. They they came into the home stretch and it was like your horse saw that empty track in front of him and said to himself, This aint polite; I'm a stranger here, and dropped back just enough to lay his head more or less on Colonel Linscomb's boy's knee, and kept it there until somebody told him he could stop. And the next time your horse started out like he still thought he hadn't finished that first heat, his head all courteous and polite about opposite Colonel Linscomb's boy's knee, on into the back turn of the last lap, where that Memphis boy hit him the first lick, not late enough this time, because all that full-length jump done this time was to show him that empty track again.'

'Not too late to scare McWillie,' Lycurgus said.

'Skeer him how much?' Ned said.

'Enough,' Lycurgus said. Ned squatted there. He must have got a little sleep last night, even with the hounds treeing Otis every now and then. He didn't look it too much though.

'All right,' he said to me. 'You and Lycurgus just stroll up yonder to that stable awhile. All you're doing is taking your natural look at the horse you gonter ride against this evening. For the rest of it, let Lycurgus do the talking, and dont look behind you on the way back.' I didn't even ask him why. He wouldn't have told me. It was not far: past the neat half-mile track with its white-painted rails that it would be nice to be rich too, on to the barns, the stable that if Cousin Zack had one like it out at McCaslin,

Cousin Louisa would probably have them living in it. There was nobody in sight. I dont know what I had expected: maybe still more of the overalled and tieless aficionados squatting and chewing tobacco along the wall as we had seen them in the dining room at breakfast. Maybe it was too early yet: which, I now realised, was probably exactly why Ned had sent us; we—Lycurgus— lounging into the hallway which—the stable—was as big as our dedicated-to-a-little-profit livery one in Jefferson and a good deal cleaner—a tack room oa one side and what must have been an office on the other, just like ours; a Negro stableman cleaning a stall at the rear and a youth who for size and age and color might have been Lycur-gus's twin, lounging on a bale of hay against the wall, who said to Lycurgus: 'Hidy, son. Looking for a horse?'

'Hidy, son,' Lycurgus said. 'Looking for two. We thought maybe the other one might be here too.'

'You mean Mr van Torch aint even come yet?'

'He aint coming a-tall,' Lycurgus said. 'Some other folks running Coppermine this time. Whitefolks named Mr Boon Hogganbeck. This white boy gonter ride him. This is McWillie,' he told me. McWillie looked at me a minute. Then he went back to the office door and opened it and said something inside and stood back while a white man ('Trainer,' Lycurgus murmured. 'Name Mr Walter') came out and said,

'Morning, Lycurgus. Where you folks keeping that horse hid, anyway? You aint ringing in a sleeper on us, are you?'

'No sir,' Lycurgus said. 'I reckon he aint come out from town yet. We thought they might have sent him out here. So we come to look.'

'You walked all the way here from Possum's?'

'No sir,' Lycurgus said. 'We rid the mules.'

'Where'd you tie them? I cant even see them. Maybe you painted them with some of that invisible paint you put on that horse when you took him out of that boxcar yesterday morning.'

'No sir,' Lycurgus said. 'We just rid as far as the pasture and turned them loose. We walked the balance of the way.'

'Well, anyway, vou come to see a horse, so we wont disappoint you. Bring him out, McWillie, where you can look at him.'

'Look at his face for a change,' McWillie said. 'Folks on that Coppermine been looking at Akron's hind end all winter, but aint none of them seen his face yet.'

'Then at least this boy can start out knowing what he looks like in front. What's your name, son?' I told him. 'You aint from around here.'

'No sir. Jefferson, Mississippi.'

'He travelling with Mr Hogganbeck that's running Coppermine now,' Lycurgus said.

'Oh,' Mr Walter said. 'Mr Hogganbeck buy him?'

'I dont know, sir,' Lycurgus said. 'Mr Hogganbeck's running him.' McWillie brought the horse out; he and Mr Walter stripped off the blanket. He was black, bigger than Lightning but very nervous; he came out showing eye- white; every time anybody moved or spoke near him his ears went back and he stood on the point of one hind foot as though ready to lash out with it, Mr Walter and McWillie both talking, murmuring at him but both of them always watching him.

'All right,' Mr. Walter said. 'Give him a drink and put him back up.' We followed him toward the front. 'Dont let

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