Reivers, The - William Faulkner [77]
I did so and flung the switch backward; the leap again but I had him now since it only took one rein, the outside one, to keep him on the course, going good now, around the first turn and I was ready for him this time when he would see Ned, on through the back stretch still going, into and around the last turn, still going, Ned standing now about twenty yards beyond where our finish line would be, speaking just exactly loud enough for Lightning to hear him and just exactly as he had spoken to him in the boxcar door last night—and I didn't need the switch now; I wouldn't have had time to use it if I had had it and I thought until then that I had ridden at least one horse that I called hot anyway: a half-bred colt of Cousin Zack's with Morgan on the bottom: but nothing like this, this burst, surge, as if until now we had been dragging a rope with a chunk of wood at the end of it behind us and Ned's voice had cut the rope: "Come on, son. I got it."
So we were standing there, Lightning's muzzle buried to the nostrils in Ned's hand, though all I could smell now was horse-reek and all I could see was the handful of grass which Lightning was eating; Ned himself saying "Hee hee hee" so gentle and quiet that I whispered too:
"What?" I said. "What?" But Boon didn't whisper, coming up.
"I'll be God damned. What the hell did you tell him?"
"Nothing," Ned said. "Just if he want his supper, to come on and get it." And not Butch either: bold, confident, unconvinceable, without scruple or pity.
"Well, well," he said. He didn't draw Lightning's head up out of Ned's hand: he jerked it up, then rammed the bit home when Lightning started back.
"Lemme do it," Ned said quickly. "What you want to find out?"
"Any time I need help handling horses around here, I'll holler," Butch said. "And not for you. I'll save you to holler for down in Missippi." He lifted Lightning's lip and looked at his gums, then at his eyes. "Dont you know it's against the law to dope a horse for a race? Maybe you folks down there in them swamps aint heard about it, but it's so."
"We got horse doctors in Missippi though," Ned said. "Send for one of them to come and see if he been doped."
"Sure, sure," Butch said. "Only, why did you give it to him a day ahead of the race? to see if it would work?"
"That's right," Ned said. "If I give him nothing. Which I aint. Which if you knows horses, you already knows."
"Sure, sure," Butch said again. "I don't interfere with no man's business secrets—providing they work. Is this horse going to run like that again tomorrow? I dont mean once: I mean three times."
"He dont need to do it but twice," Ned said. "All right," Butch said. "Twice. Is he?"
"Ask Mr Hogganbeck there if he hadn't better do it twice," Ned said.
"I aint asking Mr Sugar Boy," Butch said. "I'm asking you,
"I can make him do it twice," Ned said. "Fair enough," Butch said. "In fact, if all you got is three more doses, I wouldn't even risk but twice. Then if he misses the second one, you can use the last one to get back to Missippi on."
"I done thought of that too," Ned said. "Walk him back to the barn," he said to me. "Cool him out. Then we'll bath him."
Butch watched that too, some of it. We went back to the barn and untacked and Lycurgus brought a bucket and a rag and Lycurgus washed him down and dried him with crokersacks before stalling and feeding him—or had started to. Because Butch said, "Here, boy, run to the house and set the water bucket and some sugar on the front gallery. Me and Mr Sugar Boy are going to have a toddy." Though Lycurgus didn't move until Uncle Par-sham said, "Go." He went then, Boon and Butch following. Uncle Parsham stood at the door of the stable, watching them (Butch, that is)—a lean dramatic old man all black-and-white: