Man of the Family by Ralph Moody Page B

right up close to his ears, and started to talk to him. I didn’t really talk to him, either. I just kept saying, over and over, “Come on, come on, come on.” I said it right in time with the beat of his hoofs, at first. Then I started saying it just a little bit faster. I didn’t yell, but just said it easy—the way Hi always talked to a horse.
    Clear around the curve at the end of the track the bay kept about three feet in front of us. Then I yelled, “GO, SKY!” and hit him with the end of the lines. He did go, too. I pulled his head over easy—just enough to let us by on the outside of the bay—and all the time I kept on saying, “Come on, come on, come on.” The quarter mile was just barely long enough for us. We didn’t win by more than a nose.
    I guess I shouldn’t have been so greedy, but I never stopped to think how it was going to make the other fellows feel to have Sky beat the horse they were betting on, especially when Sky wasn’t even registered for the race. But I could see it on their faces when I brought him back to the gate. Fred Aultland looked as glum as a cold fried egg, and most of the other fellows didn’t look much better. Hi was the only one that was excited. He slapped his leg and yelled to me, “By doggies, Little Britches, I thought you was goin’ to get your own head acrost the finish line in front of old Sky’s. What the hell was you sayin’ to that horse?”
    Everybody was blaming Tom for letting Sky beat the bay, and Ted Ebberts said he could have run faster than that in his long winter drawers. Tom didn’t seem to be mad at me, but he was mad at all the rest of them. He slammed his whip down into the dust and hollered, “You’re all so damn smart, why don’t one of you hombres try it? I’ll bet five dollars there ain’t one of you can make the bay outrun that blue.”
    Hi was the one that took him up on it. But he made it that Tom had to ride Sky High and let me ride the bay. At first Tom said that wouldn’t be fair, because I only weighed seventy-two pounds and was riding bareback, while he and his saddle weighed better than a hundred and fifty. In the end he did bet, though, because the fellows began to josh him.
    I never felt so much mixed up in a race as I did in that one. I wanted Sky to beat the bay again, to show he was a better horse, but I wanted to win, too. More than anything I wanted to win because Hi had bet five dollars on me. And it wasn’t a fair race. Tom was so mad he started giving Sky the whip right from the jump and, of course, he threw him all out of stride. Fred’s bay won by at least four lengths.
    We had fiddled around so long, getting ready for the second run, that a lot of people had come onto the fairgrounds. And every one of them was right down in front of the grandstand to see the finish. I was sure our fellows were all going to feel good again after we beat Tom and Sky as much as we did, but they seemed to feel worse than they did the first time. Jerry Alder kicked up a cloud of dust with his boot heel, and groaned, “Now ain’t that a dish o’ sour beans! First, when there ain’t nobody ’round, the little devil makes our dark horse look so bad it scares the bejazis out’n us, and now, when half the doggone county’s hangin’ over the rail, he makes him look so good we’ll never get a bet.” He kicked another cloud of dust toward Hi, and howled, “Who-the-hell’s bright idea was this, anyhow?”

10
    The Match Race
    I NEVER felt much worse than I did when Jerry hollered at Hi. It seemed as if I’d gummed everything up for everybody, and I wished I’d never come to the fairgrounds at all. But the fellows weren’t really mad at me. And Hi was smart. As soon as Fred Aultland had taken the bay’s bridle, Hi picked me off his back. And he picked me just like you’d pick an apple.