Reivers, The - William Faulkner [51]
But not Ned's mule. Father said it ran like a horse, but without the horse's frantic frenzy, the starts and falterings and the frightened heartbreaking bursts of speed. It ran a race like a job: it sprang into what it had already calculated would be the exact necessary speed at Ned's touch (or voice or whatever his signal was) and that speed never altered until it crossed the finish line and Ned stopped it. And nobody, not even Father—who was Ned's, well, not groom exactly but rather his second and betting agent— knew just what Ned did to it. Naturally the legend of that grew and mounted (doing no harm to their stable either) also. I mean, of just what magic Ned had found or invented to make the mule run completely unlike any known mule. But they—we—never learned what it was, nor did anybody else ever ride as its jockey, even after Ned began to put on years and weight, until the mule died, unbeaten at twenty-two years of age; its grave (any number of Edmondses have certainly shown it to you) is out there at McCaslin now.
That's what Ned meant and Boon knew it, and Ned knew he knew it. They stared at each other. "This aint that mule," Boon said. "This is a horse."
"This horse got the same kind of sense that mule had," Ned said. "He aint got as much of it but it's the same kind." They stared at each other. Then Boon said,
"Let's go look at him." Minnie lighted a lamp. With Boon carrying it, we all went out to the back porch and into the yard, Minnie and Miss Corrie and Miss Reba too. The moon was just getting up now and we could see a little. The horse was tied beneath a locust tree in the corner. Its eyes glowed, then flashed away; it snorted and we could hear one nervous foot.
"You ladies kindly stand back a minute, please," Ned said. "He aint used to much society yet." We stopped, Boon holding the lamp high; the eyes glowed coldly and nervously again as Ned walked toward it, talking to it until he could touch its shoulder, stroking it, still talking to it until he had the halter in his hand. "Now, dont run that lamp at him," he told Boon. "Just walk up and hold the light where the ladies can see a horse if they wants to. And when I says horse, I means horse. Not them plugs they calls horses back yonder in Jefferson."
"Stop talking and bring him out where we can see him," Boon said.
"You're looking at him now," Ned said. "Hold the lamp up." Nevertheless he brought the horse out and moved him a little. Oh yes, I remember him: a 'three-year-old three-quarters-bred (at least, maybe more: I wasn't expert enough to tell) chestnut gelding, not large, not even sixteen hands, but with the long neck for balance and the laid-back shoulders for speed and the big hocks for drive (and, according to Ned, Ned McCaslin for heart and will). So that even at only eleven, I believe I was thinking exactly what Boon proved a moment later that he was. He looked at the horse. Then he looked at Ned. But when he spoke his voice was no more than a murmur:
"This horse is—"
"Wait," Miss Corrie said. That's right. I hadn't even noticed Otis. That was something else about him: when you noticed him, it was just a second before it would have been too late. But that was still not what was wrong about him.
"God, yes," Miss Reba said. I tell you, women are wonderful. "Get out of here," she told Otis.
"Go in the house, Otis," Miss Corrie said.
"You bet," Otis said. "Come on, Lucius."
"No," Miss Corrie said. "Just you. Go on now. You can go up to your room now."
"It's early yet," Otis said. "I aint sleepy neither."
"I aint going to tell you twice," Miss Reba said. Boon waited until Otis was in the house. We all did, Boon holding the lamp high so its light fell mostly on his and Ned's faces, speaking again in that heatless monotone, he and Ned both:
"This horse is stolen," Boon murmured.
"What would you call that automobile?" Ned murmured.
Yes, wonderful; Miss Reba's tone was no more than Boon's