The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [107]
He ignored this last.
"Well, there’s all kinds of folks in Lawrence, and when the races are going, I don’t ask questions. But if you trade with me and go over there to that clump of trees, nobody’s there and you can see good. I hate this mule, anyway. He trots like he’s falling to pieces."
"I’m determined not to reward you, Frank."
"Come on, cousin. You an’t never seen nothing like it. And you haven’t ever seen anything like it, either. I went along with you when you wanted to swim the river."
"The footing is snowy. What if Jeremiah hurts himself?"
"Jeremiah is a cat, Lidie. He an’t going to hurt himself."
My misgivings as I watched Frank ride Jeremiah back to the group of men and horses smoking and steaming in the cold air were agonizing. My mind raced to all sorts of tragic endings, but most often to the image of Jeremiah slipping in the snow and breaking a leg, the rider falling off and being killed, and myself having to relate all of these events to Thomas, who should have been after the mail by now but couldn’t be, because I had both the mule and Jeremiah with me, and Charles and Louisa’s one horse wouldn’t pull the wagon with the other mules. So to top it all off, I was letting my husband, the most responsible and judicious of men, fall more deeply into the wrong with every passing minute. I stationed myself under the rattling branches of a clump of trees as Frank and Jeremiah came up to the group of men—or rather, were joined by men who saw him approach. The race was arranged in a trice. The chestnut mare had by this time cooled out and rested—she was walking around with a blanket and someone’s coat over her back and neck. These they pulled off, while Frank jumped down and approached one of the men, who promptly took the reins and mounted Jeremiah. Jeremiah stood up alertly now, and I could see him, even from a distance, lift his head and snort. After that, he side-stepped under the new rider and arched over his bit. I might have said he did know what he was about to do.
The air was crystal clear—K.T. clear, we always said, the sort of air that lets you see all the way to the curve of the horizon in the distance. I saw men lead the horses to the starting line. I saw the breath of the horses plume out of their nostrils in the cold. I heard the laughter of the bettors, and shouts—"This’ll be a good one!" "Go, mare!"—then the report of the starter’s pistol. The mare stood between me and Jeremiah for a moment, then Jeremiah leapt out from behind her, already stretched and flying. The mare was no laggard, though. She ran as if her nose were glued to his haunches, for many strides matching him leap for leap, bound for bound. Her ears were pinned to her head. Jeremiah, on the other hand, ran with his ears pricked forward. They came around the wide curve, and his body seemed to elongate and lower a bit, as if he had made up his mind to buckle down to his work.
Seconds later, they swept past me, her nose still beside his haunch, her ears still pinned, but because I was now on his side, I could see his tail streaming out like smoke against the snow. He did run as if made for it, his back legs stepping well ahead of his front legs, and yet everything effortless and graceful as a breeze riffling through prairie grasses. They came to the finish line and crossed it. From my angle, it looked as if the mare had gained a foot or two. It was a close race. My heart was throbbing in my head and throat, and I was as warm as I’d been since summer. I threw off my shawl and laid it across the mule’s withers.
As with the earlier race, I could see the men shouting, exclaiming, exchanging money. Once again, the mare was unruly and hard to handle, tired as she must have been. Jeremiah broke to a smart trot, then settled. Frank