Then the horses is mincing past, Jimmie about as big as a good-sized pea, and then the barrier is in, and it is Beeknight in No. 6, and everything gets quiet with a little murmur running through it like a breeze with a lid on it, and you can hear the popcorn peddlers real plain, and then there is that swelling cry, "THEY'RE OFF!" But it chokes in the middle and there is a surge for the fence and the stands rise up and cranes their necks and Happy says, "My God!" and I near falls over the veranda rail because Beeknight is pawing the air and kicking and acting in general like he is a prize exhibition at a rodeo and for all them shenanigans he does not go nowheres. It is like he is trying to kick his way through a wall or something. Jimmie is stuck closer than a plaster, but not for long. Beeknight gives a lunge and Jimmie goes over, and a sort of a soft, gusty sound goes up from the crowd like a thousand breaths has been let out at once.
By the time Jimmie has hit the ground, they is taking Beeknight out and do you know that confounded horse is as calm as a June morning? Jimmie gets out under his own power.
Yeah. You see it coming, kick loose and roll with the fall and it does not no more than scrape off the top fuzz.
It seems like a hour at least has gone past, but it cannot be no more than a handful of seconds because it is all clear when the field moves into the stretch.
Happy and me look at each other.
Happy says, "Wow."
I says, "It looks like somebody is going to get a bird."
"Yeah," Happy says, "a Bronx one."
"No," I says, "a yellow one with feathers what sings," and I go on down to stand on the edge of the crowd what is surrounding Jimmie and listen to what is being said.
What is being said is all the same color and cut equal. Howinever, I am positive that Jimmie did not do no pull. He is white as death and keeps shaking his head like there is lead shot in it and he is listening to it rattle. He keeps saying, "I cannot understand it, I cannot understand it," over and over. No, he did not do no pull. Spencer Tracy cannot act that good and Jimmie Winkie is not no Spencer Tracy.
I mosey on off and am popping my knuckles and thinking when it comes over the announcing system that Winkie is not hurt none and will be up in the third as scheduled.
But this does not take place, as before the third, Gus Wever comes up to me and he is pale and his Adam's apple is riding up and down on his collar and he says, "Jacks, I got something for you to do."
"Shoot," I says.
"I want you should break the news to Winkie."
"What news?" I says. "They is not going to disqualify him for falling off a horse, I hopes."
"No," Gus says. "Word has just came that his sister has met with a accident."
I says, "Ditsy," or I tries to, but it sticks in my throat and, some way, I finds I am grabbing hold of Gus and there is guys endeavoring to pull us apart thinking we is having a altercation.
"Leave go," Gus says, shrugging them off—he is a big guy—"I am asking Jacks, peaceful, if he will tell Winkie his sister has met with a fatal accident. He is a friend of Winkie and if your sister is dead, it is better it comes from a friend. That is all I am asking. I, myself, cannot do it."
So I does it.
When we gets there everything is confusion. There is people everywhere and a important-acting guy is asking the maid questions, only this does not do no good as she is setting in a chair having hysterics. And there is other men down on their knees examining the floor and blowing powder on the doorknobs and there is a doctor putting his stuff away in a little black bag.
And there is Ditsy.
It does not look like Ditsy. It does not look human even. It is just a smashed-in, crumpled-up thing what is wearing Ditsy's clothes, and it has blood all over.
It reminds me of the way Tod Beemis looks when he is drug out and laid on a shutter after he is caught in a stall with a crazy stallion. Kind of ... kind of ... trampled-looking. It makes me feel kind of numblike, like maybe I has got a scream in me that has froze solid before it can get out.
The important-acting guy, by now, has saw us and advances forward.
"The maid, here," he says, "says she left Miss Winkie setting by the window and holding a bridle in her lap. Mooning over it kind of, she says. She goes downstairs, the maid does, and she has not no more'n got good and down when she hears a racket and she runs back up fast as she can and it is like this. We has not touched nothing. This," he, says pointing to a scruffed-looking place on the rug, "I guess is where she fell down and got up again, and this"—pointing to a spot where the plaster has been gouged out of the wall—"this here is where whoever done it must of swung and missed—and, from the evidence, whoever must of done it was strong as a horse. And this here is the bridle she was holding, which looks as if it was tore out of her hands and—" He pauses and squints at Jimmie. "Hey," he says, "you do not look like no coroner, who are you?"
"He is her brother," I says, and my voice seems to come from some far-off place and does not seem to belong to me at all.
"Oh," the man says embarrassed. "I am sorry, buddy. I did not know about you being related to the deceased. I am mighty sorry."
Jimmie does not answer. He is looking at the bridle like it is Lazarus arose from the dead and it is plain he is going to keel over.
He puts out his hand, as if he is in a trance, and takes the bridle from the man.
"It is all right," I says, "it is his bridle. Leave him have it. I will take him out of here." Which I do as they bring in a wicker basket and set it down by this thing on the floor around which they draws a white chalk mark before ... before they—
Guess I must be coming down with a cold. Yeah. Sure I will have another one. Just to wet my whistle. I seems to be kind of dried up like. Talking too much, I guess. There is times, though, when you has got to get it out of your system—the cold, I mean. Yeah. Well, here's to nothing, mister. If you got nothing, you got nothing to lose and, even if you does, it stands to advantage.
What did who win after what? Oh, Winkie. He does not win no more. And does not lose no more. Because he does not ride no more. No, I mean no more. Never. You see, he ... he bumped hisself off. I took it for granted you knew.
Yeah. Yeah. It was one of them things. After Ditsy—why, he kind of went haywire. I tried talking to him. Thought if he got to riding again it would take his mind off what it was brooding on. No, no, they never did catch whoever done it. I wish theyhadof. If I could of got just within reaching distance—
No, Jimmie would not pay no attention to me. He would just set there staring straight ahead and sometimes he would look at me like he could see clean through my backbone and out the other side.
"Do not bother none, Jacks," he would say. "You do not understand. It was my fault. I should of knowed."
And I would say, "Do not be like that. Them ... them kind of accidents is figured out statistical. You could not of knowed in a million years."
"I was wrong. I was the one who had the blind abscess. Not Ditsy," he would say. Morose, see. Only I thought he would snap out of it, eventual. But he does not. When he snaps, he snaps the other way.
I remember the night that he done it. I set up with him until midnight talking up Parvalu, which Colonel Crandall wanted him to ride in the Bay Shore. I says, "Look here, Jimmie, if you will just get out and mix around some, you will be O. K." And I says, "Do not forget what you always said: 'You can shake grief or sorrow, you can bury remorse—but you can't never lose the feel o' a horse.'"
"Yeah," he says, and he looks at me for the first time like he really sees me. "Yeah," he says, straightening up, "you can shake grief or sorrow, you can bury remorse ... bury remorse—"
"But you can't never lose the feel o' a horse," I finishes for him.
"Yeah," he says—slow. "Yeah, that is it."
So I goes home brightened up, thinking I has at last got him squared around and the next morning—it is in the papers.
They was two thoroughbreds, them two was. Yessir, two thoroughbreds that, some way, got boxed on a inside turn.
What's that? Bridle? Oh, that. I had it buried with Jimmie. He had made a will leaving everything he possessed to me. Can you beat it? That is the kind of guy he was. Yeah. Oh, I could of kept it if I had of had a mind to, but bridles is cheap and he had set such a store by that one that it did not seem right to keep it. Besides, I could not ever of used it and kept my mind on what I was doing. He ... he hung hisself with it, see. He was out of his head with grief, that is all. He did not think. Jimmie was not no coward to take the easy way out. I know that. But I could not of had it around me just the same. So I buried it with him. Holding the reins in his hand. I think he would of liked it if he could of knowed.
Well, bottoms up. I got to be going.
Thanks, brother, and the same to you. It has been a pleasure. No, I do not reckon you will be seeing me in no papers, unless it is the funny papers. Did I not tell you? Horses has got a habit of slowing down when I am up on them. Like they has got a dead weight swinging on the bridle holding them back. They calls me Jinx. Yeah. Jinx Jackson.
Well, so long, buddy.
THE END.