Reivers, The - William Faulkner [100]
"And that's exactly what you want to do this first heat: just keep him in the middle of the track and keep him going and then dont bother him. Dont bother nohow; we gonter lose this first heat anyway and get shut of it—"
"Lose it?" Boon said. "What the hell—"
"Do you want to run this horse race, or do you want me to?" Ned asked him.
"AH right," Boon said. "But, God damn it—" Then he said: "You said that damn boy—"
"Lemme ask you another way then," Ned said. "Do you want to run this horse race and lemme go hunt for that tooth?"
"Here they come," Sam said. "We aint got time now. Gimme your foot." He threw me up. So we didn't have time, for Ned to instruct me further or for anything else. But we didn't need it; our victory in the first heat (we didn't win it; it was only a dividend which paid off later) was not due to me or even to Lightning, but to Ned and McWillie; I didn't even really know what was happening until afterward. Because of my (indubitable) size and (more than indubitable) inexperience, not to mention the unmanageable state toward which the other horse was now well on his way, it was stipulated and agreed that we should be led up to the wire by grooms, and there released at the word Go. Which we did (or were), Lightning behaving as he always did when Ned was near enough for him to nuzzle at his coat or hand, Acheron behaving as (I assumed, having seen him but that once) he always did when anyone was near his head, skittering, bouncing, snatching the groom this way and that but gradually working up to the wire; it would be any moment now; it seemed to me that I actually saw the marshal-murderer fill his lungs to holler Go! when I dont know what happened, I mean the sequence: Ned said suddenly:
"Set tight," and my head, arms, shoulders and all, snapped; I dont know what it was he used—awl, ice pick, or maybe just a nail in his palm, the spring, the leap; the voice not hollering Go! because it never had, hollering instead:
"Stop! Stop! Whoa! Whoa!" which we—Lightning and me—did, to see Acheron's groom still on his knees where Acheron had flung him, and Acheron and McWillie already at top speed going into the first turn, McWillie sawing back on him, wrenching Acheron's whole neck sideways. But he already had the bit, the marshal and three or four spectators cutting across the ring to try to stop him in the back stretch, though they might as well have been hollering at Sam's cannonball limited between two flag stops. But McWillie had slowed him now, though it was now a matter of mere choice: whether to come on around the track or turn and go back, the distance being equal, McWillie (or maybe it was Acheron) choosing the former, Ned murmuring-rapidly at my knee now:
"Anyhow, we got one extra half a mile on him. This time you'll have to do it yourself because them judges gon-ter—" They were; they were already approaching. Ned said: "Just remember. This un dont matter nohow—" Then they did: disqualified him. Though they had seen nothing: only that he had released Lightning's head before the word Go. So this time I had a volunteer from the crowd to hold Lightning's head, McWillie glaring at me while Acheron skittered and plunged under him while the groom gradually worked him back toward position. And this time the palm went to McWillie. You see what I mean? Even if Non-virtue knew nothing about backcoun-try horse racing, she didn't need to: all necessary was to supply me with Sam, to gain that extra furtherance in evil by some primeval and insentient process like osmosis or maybe simple juxtaposition. I didn't even wait for Lightning to come in to the bridle, I didn't know why: I brought the bit back to him and (with no little, in fact considerable, help from the volunteer who was mine and Lightning's individual starter) held so, fixed; and sure enough, I saw the soles of Acheron's groom's feet and Acheron himself already two leaps on his next circuit of the track, Lightning and me still motionless. But McWillie was on him this time, before he reached