“Nothing,” Johnny muttered.
One burly farmboy looked like something, though, his thick legs still pumping tirelessly as he flashed across the finish line a quarter lap ahead of the second finisher.
The straw-haired official stepped forward and droned through his megaphone, “THE WINNER . . . SILAS ALSTON OF SYCAMORE TOWNSHIP!” Scattered applause sounded in the stands. We sat silently. A small-time, dismal affair, I thought. It was hard to see how winning this could take Johnny or anybody else very far.
“THE WINNING TIME . . . A TWO-MILE RECORD FOR HAMILTON COUNTY . . . SEVEN MINUTES, THIRTY SECONDS!”
“I’d’ve beat that,” Johnny said.
“You sure?” I said, thinking it would take half a dozen of his spindly shanks to form one of the winner’s tree-trunk legs.
“He would’ve!” Timmy said loyally.
“For a certainty,” added Cait.
I had an inspiration. “Johnny, why not race him in a special heat?”
“They won’t do it” His mouth bent downward. “You’re wasting your time, Sam.”
I got up. “Well, let’s see.”
“You again,” the official said. “What now?”
“How about he takes on the winner in a special race?”
He shook his head wearily.
“Nothing officially connected with the county,” I persisted. “Just an exhibition.”
He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. The sweatband had flattened his pale hair in a wet oval. He put his megaphone down. “Look,” he said, “it’s done. The winner don’t need to race, he already won. ’Sides that, he’d be a mite tired to do it again.” He regarded me sourly. “And ’sides that, you don’t seem to understand the nature of things here. Suppose the nigger raced—presuming a white man’d go on the same track with him, which he wouldn’t—and he happened to win. You think it’d do him good? You think folks wouldn’t resent one of theirs shown up by a nigger? You don’t picture trouble?”
“Stop calling him a nigger,” I said. “His name’s John.”
A grimace of irritation passed over his face. “Suppose your . . . boy loses. Well, that’s what everybody figures should happen anyway, see? Either way no good can come out of it.”
“Nice of you to consider everybody’s feelings,” I said. “Well, then, how about a special exhibition, just him against the clock?”
“He’s welcome to use the track. After hours. But you’re touched if you think folks’d come out to watch a nigger wheel around in circles by himself.”
I’d had my limit. I shot a hand out and clutched his shirt, yanking him so close that I felt his gasp of tobacco breath on my face. “Next time you call him a nigger, I’m going to slap your fucking head.”
Eyes large, he gulped and managed, “All right.”
I released my hold. “Now, let’s go on considering possibilities.”
He smoothed his crumpled shirt. When he looked up again, something in his face had changed; a hint of calculation leavened his wariness.
“Why is it you think your nig—think the boy’s so hot? He don’t look like any great shakes.”
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know how good he is. I just want him to get his chance to ride today. Here. In front of people. With you announcing it.” I paused. “I’ve got money to argue he is pretty damn good, though, if that’s what’s called for.”
“Wouldn’t hurt none,” he said carefully. “Tell you what. I’m willing to match my trotter again’ him, five miles to his three. Full harness rig. Hundred dollars each to make a purse. Oughta draw a fair crowd.”
“I’ll check,” I said. “We might have a deal.”
“In fairness I should mention that my mare’s never lost. Nobody hereabouts’ll go against her anymore.”
“Right.”
I put the proposition to Johnny.
“No!” exclaimed Cait. “Samuel, how could you even think of it? Compete with an animal!”
Somewhere in my mind a memory was sparked: a reproduction of a slave-auction poster advertising the raffle of a horse and a woman, each to become the chattel of some lucky winner. “It’s the best I could do.” Suddenly I didn’t feel so good about it.
“I want to,” said Johnny.
“You sure?”
“Wow!” said Timmy.
Johnny said, “But I’ll go two miles ’stead of three, same distance as the county race. Show them I’d’ve won, see?”
“That’s a point.”
“Tell him I’ll do two miles against anything over that for his rig.”
“You may end up with worse than he’s already offered.”
“I’ll ride.” He gripped my arm, and his yellow eyes burned into mine. “I’ll beat anything on legs or wheels today, Sam. You could bet the sky on it!”
Probably what I’ll have to do, I thought.
The official licked his lips and looked thoughtful when I proposed that Johnny ride two miles against his horse’s three and a half. “Shorter distance could work against me,” he said cautiously. “Three and a quarter?”
“Three-eighths.”
“How about a third?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“You got yourself a match.”
I thought I detected a trace of smugness. “But,” I went on, “I want to raise the bet to five hundred—”
“That,” he said, grinning pleasantly, “strikes me as a sporting—”
“—against your thousand.”
His grin slackened. “That’s a stiff amount.”
“Your mare’s never lost, remember?”
Considering it, he said, “You got it with you?”
I nodded.
“It’ll take a spell to get mine in cash,” he said. “But I think I can raise it from friends right here. Race in two hours?”
“Fine.”
“Nigger’s gonna race Brad Hoge’s prize mare!”
We heard it spread over the fairgrounds. People gravitated toward the track. Cait and Timmy and I walked the other way, killing time. We viewed turbine waterwheels in Mechanics’ Hall, eyed prize food displays—Mohawk potatoes, firestone peaches, canned white cherries—and Jersey cattle and black Spanish chickens.
Cait led us into Fine Arts Hall. There, despite Timmy’s overt disinterest, we saw prizewinners in an astonishing range of categories: best “fancy” painting, best decorated cake, best collection of insects, best woolen mittens. At the ladies’ exhibit we chatted with an exuberant seventy-six-year-old whose rag rugs had clobbered the competition. We viewed the latest sewing machines. I carried Timmy on my shoulders.
We returned to the track as Johnny finished his warm-ups. There was scattered talk of betting, but nobody seemed willing
