Homestretch (10 page)

Dag didn't wait for any kind of answer. He just walked away from me like he pulled all the strings and I was his little puppet. So I turned my head from side to side, looking all around me with both of my eyes wide open, just to prove to myself it wasn't true.

Later, El Diablo jogged another of Dag's horses alongside the one I was on.

“Thanks for letting me borrow those boots,” I said, feeling out his mood. “Sorry I disgraced them like that.”

“Pray that's your biggest mistake—falling off horse. That's nothing,” El Diablo said. “At least you see ground coming. I fall so far I let you know when I hit bottom.”

Then El Diablo broke his horse into a full gallop, leaving me behind.

With the sun beating down on my face, all I could hear in my head was Tammie screaming at Dag after Rose of Sharon's last race, “You can't train a horse to do
that
!”

I didn't know if Dag had pumped her full of one of those magic milk shakes that day she'd won or not. I just knew that I'd be riding her now, and it was going to be my ass on the line.

After the horses got put away that morning, I saw that there was no webbing up in front of Rose of Sharon's stall. That she was filling her stomach just a few hours before she was going to run.

I remembered how it wasn't that way the last time she'd raced.

But I'd learned my lesson and wasn't about to say anything to Dag over it. And I saw Nacho grimace as Paolo tossed another scoop of feed into her bucket.

“Gas, I got a big surprise coming,” Tammie said when I saw her walking through the courtyard later. “I just can't say what it is yet.”

“Is that some kind of tease?” I asked.

“If that's what you want it to be,” she said, winking. “It's
really my grandpa's business, so I can't tell. But I'll let you know right after your ride. I promise.”

That wink of hers carried me through the early part of the afternoon.

There was a small patch of flowers out in front of the dorms. Most of them were bent over pretty bad from all that rain the day before. Back in Texas we didn't have any dirt surrounding our apartment, just a concrete sidewalk. But Mom always brought seedlings home from her job in the hothouse and planted them in our window box.

“Flowers can grow anywhere. All they need is a fighting chance—a little sun, water, and somebody to look after them,” Mom would say.

I almost picked one of those flowers on my way over to the racetrack. Then I realized it wouldn't be there anymore when I got back.

Rose of Sharon was entered in the seventh race, and I didn't want to spend any more time trapped inside that jockeys' room than I had to. So I started walking over from the dorms just a few minutes before the third race was supposed to be run.

Dag trained a horse in the third race, one that Rafael groomed.

When I got there, I could hear the track announcer's voice echoing through the grandstand. The field was already racing down the backstretch, heading into the far turn. Rafael was cheering for his horse by the finish line, with Nacho and Anibal on either side of him, cheering too.

That's when part of the crowd let out an
“OOOHH!”

Dag's horse had broken down, dropping far behind the others until he slowed to a dead stop.

I heard a man cursing as he ripped up a thick stack of betting tickets.

“God damn it!” the man yelled, before tossing them into the air like confetti.

Rafael tugged hard at the empty lead he was holding from both ends, and I heard that leather strap pop between his hands.

The jockey had jumped off and was holding that injured horse by the bridle. Even with the rest of the runners roaring through the stretch, Rafael tried to jump the rail to get there. But Nacho and Anibal held him back until the race was over.

Then the three of them went sprinting up the homestretch toward Rafael's horse.

My heart told me to follow them, but my weight wouldn't shift. It was like my brain had talked my feet into believing
they were nailed to the concrete. It had been one week since I left home, and now I wasn't sure who I was or what to feel.

Was that really supposed to be me, chasing after beaners on an Arkansas racetrack to help? Maybe Dad was somewhere right now chasing their kind through the streets with a stick.

I looked over at Dag, who hadn't moved a muscle except to get on his cell phone. That convinced me to hop the rail. And when my feet sank into that soft, damp earth, I swear they started running on their own.

By the time I got to Nacho and his brothers, a horse ambulance was already there.

Rafael had his arms wrapped around his horse's head.

“Eee-sy ba-by,” he said with tears in his eyes. “No move. Eee-sy.”

Both Anibal and Nacho had a hand on Rafael's shoulder.

The horse's right rear ankle was dangling from its leg, six inches off the ground, like a bag of crushed ice.

The racetrack vets put up a blue screen to hide that sight from the crowd.

“No can save?” Rafael asked the vets, without getting an answer.

Then one of the vets took a needle out of a black bag and gave that horse an injection.

I didn't know how much time the horse had left. But without Rafael there it probably wouldn't have been worth living.

Inside of a minute that injured horse had collapsed dead to the ground.

I looked at Rafael's face, and except for myself over the last five months, I'd never felt more sorry for anyone in my life.

The four of us walked back toward the finish line together without saying a word. We didn't have to. That empty lead strap slung over Rafael's shoulder said enough.

I turned back around at the sound of an engine and saw a tractor shoving that horse's lifeless body into the ambulance.

That picture stuck hard in the pit of my stomach. “I'm sorry,” somebody from the crowd told Dag, who just nodded his head politely.

Only, nothing had really touched
him
.

I SIGNED INTO THE
jockeys' room for the clerk and stepped onto the main scale. The needle behind the glass swung up slowly and then jerked back again, settling into one spot. I'd gained a whole pound from the day before and was up to 106. But I didn't feel like I had any more weight to me.

Then I passed through the swinging doors, heading toward my locker, when a rider named Samuel cut me off.

“My horse breaks from the starting gate right next to yours today, and I want you to know something,” he said with breath that reeked like ammonia. “Don't get in my way on the track, or I'll hurt you. I got a family to support. I don't need to be looking over my shoulder for a bug who can't control a horse.”

I stepped back, nearly gagging from his breath. I could almost see his tongue pushing through his paper-thin teeth.

“You see these fingers? I've broken every one,” Samuel kept on, with his anger building and his voice getting louder. “Broke my right kneecap, ribs, elbows—both of them. And the point of
this
collarbone was sticking through the skin one time a quarter of an inch. That was a badge of honor no one else here could match. But I'm forty-three now, and these bones are too brittle to take much more. God forbid I get hurt because of you. God forbid!”

That's when a kid around my age, and nearly six inches taller, came through the doors waving a magazine.

“Pop, look at this new model XL with the blacked-out windows and titanium rims,” he said, excited.

But Samuel blew, slapping him hard in the back of the head.

“What did I tell you about interrupting?” he ripped into the kid. “I'm talking business here. The business that puts food on the table for you.”

The kid cowered away and said, “I'm sorry, Pop. I'm sorry.”

I could almost feel myself standing in that kid's shoes.

Then Samuel turned back to me, but Parker rushed in between us, pushing me toward my locker.

“He'll keep clear of you on the track,” Parker told Samuel in a soft voice, like he was trying to calm a crazy man. “Don't worry. You just go about your business now.”

“What's eating him? And his breath?” I asked Parker at my locker.

“Yeah, ‘eatin's' the right word,” he answered low. “Just be thankful you're not
his
son. How many times I seen that boy get smacked for no reason, I can't count.”

I raised my eyes to see Samuel still lecturing his son in the corner.

“Samuel's got trouble holding his food down. A few of the riders in here do. His emotions are tied up tighter than a knot from all the vomiting he has to do to make his riding weight,” Parker said. “That's why his breath smells like that, from all the stomach acids that come up with his food. It eats away at the teeth, too. That's why they wanted to shove that submarine sandwich up your ass yesterday. Some of the jocks in here would kill to be able to eat like you and not pack on the pounds.”

“Well, somebody should stop him from smacking his kid,” I said.

“That's for the clerk or another jock or his own valet to do—not me, and especially not you. Truth is you're as far on the bottom ‘round here as it gets,” said Parker, shoving a white towel at me. “Now, go hit the steam room and drop that pound you picked up. You're listed to ride at a hundred and eight
pounds today. You need to be three pounds lighter than that to make up for the saddle and things.”

I stripped down to my shorts and headed for the steam room with that towel draped across my shoulders, covering the bruise I'd got from El Diablo. On the way I passed by Samuel and his son, who were looking at that car magazine together. The kid was smiling like everything was all right now. But I wondered how many cracks would have been showing if I could have seen his feelings on the inside.

I opened the door to the steam room, getting hit with a wave of heat that nearly knocked me flat. I stepped through the foggy steam and saw Gillette and Castro. They were both sitting there naked on the wooden benches, with their towels spread out beneath them.

“This room's for
men
, not bugs,” said Gillette, chewing on ice chips from a plastic cup.

“That's right. You're not even man enough to lose those shorts,” cackled Castro. “Probably needs to hide all his shortcomings.”

So I took them off without saying a word and sat on my towel too.

“How'd you like that mud bath yesterday, bug?” asked Gillette, rattling his ice.

“Wasn't what I planned,” I answered, with the sweat starting to pour out of me.

“Well, you better get used to it,” said Castro. “From what I seen of your skills, you and the ground are gonna become good friends.”

I was really starting to wilt in that heat when I saw the outline of Dad's face coming through a cloud of steam. Then the rest of his body came. He was sitting there naked, right next to them, with a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

Every part of me tensed up at the sight of him.

“So how much weight you need to lose, bug?” asked Castro.

“One pound,” I answered in a shaky voice.

“Must be that
diet
catching up to you,” said Gillette. “Not that you'll last at this game, but when you get a little older, you'll see how hard it is to keep the fat off—to keep that wolf from your door.”

Then I heard Dad begin to howl at Gillette.

AAAAWWWOOOOOOO!

“But you'll never win a race. Not one that's run on the upand-up,” Gillette said. “You got ‘loser' written all over you. It's probably in your genes.”

Dad balled up a fist and pounded at his chest like Tarzan.
And I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of every thump.

“Gi-am-banco? I'll bet he comes from some trailer-park trash,” said Castro. “The kind that hates Mexicans like me ‘cause we outwork them.”

Dad's face turned so angry, like he was ready to rip Castro a new one.

Then Dad smashed that bottle on the seat.

Castro was still talking. But his words were just a jumble to me as Dad stood up over him.

I dug my fingernails on both hands into the damp wood.

I'm not sure how it happened, but Dad must have turned all that anger inside himself, swallowing it whole, because I watched him turn the jagged edges of that bottle toward his own throat.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Stop it!”

“Hey! Lower your voice, kid!” demanded Gillette. “People will think we're puttin' a beatin' on you in here!”

I wiped the stinging sweat from my eyes, and suddenly Dad was gone. I didn't know where that scene had come from—probably my own mind. I just knew it shook me to see. And it felt so real I couldn't turn away or close my eyes to it, like a truth I had to accept.

Gillette and Castro wrapped towels around their waists, getting up to leave, as Parker's black face appeared in the door's glass window.

I followed right behind them—I wouldn't stay in there by myself for a second.

I was still shaking over that vision of Dad as Parker shined my riding boots and laid out my silks on a hanger. Dag didn't own Rose of Sharon. Someone else did. Their silks were white with a big red heart on the front that was almost the width of my chest.

I put on my protective vest and those silks, and I strapped on my riding helmet. Then I took the whip and cracked myself once in the chest and head just to prove I couldn't feel a thing and nothing could get to me.

That's when I heard somebody playing a horn from the other side of those swinging doors. I stepped through, and it was the track bugler, wearing his fancy red coat and black top hat.

“What do you want to hear, kid?” he asked. “I know a million songs.”

“Anything pretty,” I answered.

“Yeah, everybody likes pretty,” he said. “You know this one?”

Then he pushed his lips together and played.