Garrison, in the blue and gold of the Desha stable, his mouth drawn across his face like a taut wire, sat hunched high on The Rogue"s neck.
He looked as lean and dangerous as his mount. His seat was recognized instantly, before even his face could be discerned.
A murmur, increasing rapidly to a roar, swung out from every foot of s.p.a.ce. Some one cried "Garrison!" And "Garrison! Garrison! Garrison!"
was caught up and flung back like the spume of sea from the surf-lashed coast.
He knew the value of that hail, and how only one year ago his name had been spewed from out those selfsame laudatory mouths with venom and contempt. He knew his public. Adversity had been a mighty master. The public--they who live in the present, not the past. They who swear by triumph, achievement; not effort. They who have no memory for the deeds that have been done unless they vouch for future conquests. The public--fickle as woman, weak as infancy, gullible as credulity, mighty as fate. Yes, Garrison knew it, and deep down in his heart, though he showed it not, he gloried in the welcome accorded him. He had not been forgotten.
But he had no false hopes, illusions. His had been the welcome vouchsafed the veteran who is hopelessly facing his last fight. They, perhaps, admired his grit, his optimism; admired while they pitied. But how many, how many, really thought he was there to win? How many thought he could win?
He knew, and his heart did not quicken nor his pulse increase so much as a beat. He was cool, implacable, and dangerous as a rattler waiting for the opportune moment to spring. He looked neither to right nor left. He was deaf, impervious. He was there to win. That only.
And he would win? Why not? What were the odds of ten to one? What was the opinion, the judgment of man? What was anything compared with what he was fighting for? What horse, what jockey among them all was backed by what he was backed with? What impulse, what stimulant, what overmastering, driving necessity had they compared with his? And The Rogue knew what was expected of him that day.
It was only as Garrison was pa.s.sing the grand stand during the preliminary warming-up process that his nerve faltered. He glanced up--he was compelled to. A pair of eyes were drawing his. He glanced up--there was "Cottonton"; "Cottonton" and Sue Desha. The girl"s hands were tightly clenched in her lap, her head thrown forward; her eyes obliterating s.p.a.ce; eating into his own. How long he looked into those eyes he did not know. The major, his wife, Drake--all were shut out. He only saw those eyes. And as he looked he saw that the eyes understood at last; understood all. He remembered lifting his cap. That was all.
"They"re off! They"re off!" That great, magic cry; fingering at the heart, tingling the blood. Signal for a roar from every throat; for the stretching of every neck to the dislocating point; for prayers, imprecations, adjurations--the entire stock of nature"s sentiment factory. Sentiment, unbridled, unleashed, unchecked. Pa.s.sion given a kick and sent hurtling without let or hindrance.
The barrier was down. They were off. Off in a smother of spume and dust.
Off for the short seven furlongs eating up less than a minute and a half of time. All this preparation, all the preliminaries, the whetting of appet.i.tes to razor edge, the tilts with fortune, the defiance of fate, the moil and toil and tribulations of months--all brought to a head, focused on this minute and a half. All, all for one minute and a half!
It had been a clean break from the barrier. But in a flash Emetic was away first, hugging the rail. Swallow, taking her pace with all McGloin"s nerve and skill, had caught her before she had traveled half a dozen yards. Emetic flung dirt hard, but Swallow hung on, using her as a wind-shield. She was using the pacemaker"s "going."
The track was in surprisingly good condition, but there were streaks of damp, lumpy track throughout the long back and home-stretch. This favored The Rogue; told against the fast sprinters Swallow and Emetic.
After the two-yard gap left by the leaders came a bunch of four, with The Rogue in the center.
"Pocketed already!" yelled some derisively. Garrison never heeded.
Emetic was the fastest sprinter there that day; a sprinter, not a stayer. There is a lot of luck in a handicap. If a sprinter with a light weight up can get away first, she may never be headed till the finish.
But it had been a clear break, and Swallow had caught on.
The pace was heart-breaking; murderous; terrific. Emetic"s rider had taken a chance and lost it; lost it when McGloin caught him. Swallow was a better stayer; as fast as a sprinter. But if Emetic could not spread-eagle the field, she could set a pace that would try the stamina and lungs of Pegasus. And she did. First furlong in thirteen seconds.
Record for the Aqueduct. A record sent flying to flinders. My! that was going some. Quarter-mile in twenty-four flat. Another record wiped out.
What a pace!
A great cry went up. Could Emetic hold out? Could she stay, after all?
Could she do what she had never done before? Swallow"s backers began to blanch. Why, why was McGloin pressing so hard? Why? why? Emetic must tire. Must, must, must. Why would McGloin insist on taking that pace? It was a mistake, a mistake. The race had twisted his brain. The fight for leadership had biased his judgment. If he was not careful that lean, hungry-looking horse, with Garrison up, would swing out from the bunch, fresh, unkilled by pace-following, and beat him to a froth. . . .
There, there! Look at that! Look at that! G.o.d! how Garrison is riding!
Riding as he never rode before. Has he come back? Look at him. . . . I told you so. I told you so. There comes that black fiend across--It"s a foul! No, no. He"s clear. He"s clear. There he goes. He"s clear. He"s slipped the bunch, skinned a leader"s nose, jammed against the rail.
Look how he"s hugging it! Look! He"s hugging McGloin"s heels. He"s waiting, waiting. . . . There, there! It"s Emetic. See, she"s wet from head to hock. She is, she is! She"s tiring; tiring fast. . . . See!
. . . McGloin, McGloin, McGloin! You"re riding, boy, riding. Good work.
Snappy work. You"ve got Emetic dead to rights. You were all right in following her pace. I knew you were. I knew she would tire. Only two furlongs--What? What"s that? . . . Garrison? That plug Rogue? . . . Oh, Red, Red! . . . Beat him, Red, beat him! It"s only a bluff. He"s not in your cla.s.s. He can"t hang on. . . . Beat him, Red, beat him! Don"t let a has-been put it all over you! . . . Ride, you cripple, ride! . . . What?
Can"t you shake him off? . . . Slug him! . . . Watch out! He"s trying for the rail. Crowd him, crowd him! . . . What"s the matter with you?
. . . Where"s your nerve? You can"t shake him off! Beat him down the stretch! He"s fresh. He wasn"t the fool to follow pace, like you. . . .
What"s the matter with you? He"s crowding you--look out, there! Jam him!
. . . He"s pushing you hard. . . . Neck and neck, you fool. That black fiend can"t be stopped. . . . Use the whip! Red, use the whip! It"s all you"ve left. Slug her, slug her! That"s it, that"s it! Slug speed into her. Only a furlong to go. . . . Come on, Red, come on! . . .
Here they come, in a smother of dust. Neck and neck down the stretch.
The red and white of the Morgan stable; the blue and gold of the Desha.
It"s Swallow. No, no, it"s The Rogue. Back and forth, back and forth stormed the rival names. The field was pandemonium. "Cottonton" was a ma.s.s of frantic arms, raucous voices, white faces. Drake, his pudgy hands whanging about like semaph.o.r.e-signals in distress, was blowing his lungs out: "Come on, kid come on! You"ve got him now! He can"t last!
Come on, come on!--for my sake, for your sake, for anybody"s sake, but only come!"
Game Swallow"s eyes had a blue film over them. The heart-breaking pace-following had told. Red"s error of judgment had told. The "little less" had told. A frenzied howl went up. "Garrison! Garrison! Garrison!"
The name that had once meant so much now meant--everything. For in a swirl of dust and general undiluted Hades, the horses had stormed past the judges" stand. The great Carter was lost and won.
Swallow, with a thin streamer of blood threading its way from her nostrils, was a beaten horse; a game, plucky, beaten favorite. It was all over. Already The Rogue"s number had been posted. It was all over; all over. The finish of a heart-breaking fight; the establishing of a new record for the Aqueduct. And a name had been replaced in its former high niche. The has-been had come back.
And "Cottonton," led by a white-faced girl and a big, apoplectic turfman, were forgetting dignity, decorum, and conventionality as hand in hand they stormed through the surging eruption of humanity fighting to get a chance at little Billy Garrison"s hand.
And as, saddle on shoulder, he stood on the weighing-scales and caught sight of the oncoming hosts of "Cottonton" and read what the girl"s eyes held, then, indeed, he knew all that his finish had earned him--the beginning of a new life with a new name; the beginning of one that the lesson he had learned, backed by the great love that had come to him, would make--paradise. And his one unuttered prayer was: "Dear G.o.d, make me worthy, make me worthy of them--all!"
Aftermath was a blur to "Garrison." Great happiness can obscure, befog like great sorrow. And there are some things that touch the heart too vitally to admit of a.n.a.lyzation. But long afterward, when time, mighty adjuster of the human soul, had given to events their true proportions, that meeting with "Cottonton" loomed up in all its greatness, all its infinite appeal to the emotions, all its appeal to what is highest and worthiest in man. In silence, before all that little world, Sue Desha had put her arms about his neck. In silence he had clasped the major"s hand. In silence he had turned to his aunt; and what he read in her misty eyes, read in the eyes of all, even the shrewd, kindly eyes of Drake the Silent and in the slap from his congratulatory paw, was all that man could ask; more than man could deserve.
Afterward the entire party, including Jimmie Drake, who was regarded as the grand master of Cottonton by this time, took train for New York.
Regarding the environment, it was somewhat like a former ride "Garrison"
had taken; regarding the atmosphere, it was as different as hope from despair. Now Sue was seated by his side, her eyes never once leaving his face. She was not ordinarily one to whom words were ungenerous, but now she could not talk. She could only look and look, as if her happiness would vanish before his eyes. "Garrison" was thinking, thinking of many things. Somehow, words were unkind to him, too; somehow, they seemed quite unnecessary.
"Do you remember this time a year ago?" he asked gravely at length. "It was the first time I saw you. Then it was purgatory to exist, now it is heaven to live. It must be a dream. Why is it that those who deserve least, invariably are given most? Is it the charity of Heaven, or--what?" He turned and looked into her eyes. She smuggled her hand across to his.
"You," she exclaimed, a caressing, indolent inflection in her soft voice. "You." That "you" is a peculiar characteristic caress of the Southerner. Its meaning is infinite. "I"m too happy to a.n.a.lyze," she confided, her eyes growing dark. "And it is not the charity of Heaven, but the charity of--man."
"You mustn"t say that," he whispered. "It is you, not me. It is you who are all and I nothing. It is you."
She shook her head, smiling. There was an air of seductive luxury about her. She kept her eyes unwaveringly on his. "You," she said again.
"And there"s old Jimmie Drake," added "Garrison" musingly, at length, a light in his eyes. He nodded up the aisle where the turfman was entertaining the major and his wife. "There"s a man, Sue, dear. A man whose friendship is not a thing of condition nor circ.u.mstance. I will always strive to earn, keep it as I will strive to be worthy of your love. I know what it cost Drake to scratch Speedaway. I will not, cannot forget. We owe everything to him, dear; everything."
"I know," said the girl, nodding. "And I, we owe everything to him. He is sort of revered down home like a Messiah, or something like that.
You don"t know those days of complete misery and utter hopelessness, and what his coming meant. He seemed like a great big sun bursting through a cyclone. I think he understands that there is, and always will be, a very big, warm place in Cottonton"s heart for him. At least, we-all have told him often enough. He"s coming down home with us now--with you."
He turned and looked steadily into her great eyes. His hand went out to meet hers.
"You," whispered the girl again.