GARRISON'S FINISH.
It was April 16. Month of budding life; month of hope; month of spring
when all the world is young again; when the heart thaws out after its
long winter frigidity. It was the day of the opening of the Eastern
racing season; the day of the Carter Handicap.
Though not one of the “classics,” the Carter annually draws an
attendance of over ten thousand; ten thousand enthusiasts who have not
had a chance to see the ponies run since the last autumn race; those who
had been unable to follow them on the Southern circuit. Women of every
walk of life; all sorts and conditions of men. Enthusiasts glad to be
out in the life-giving sunshine of April; panting for excitement;
full to the mouth with volatile joy; throwing off the shackles of the
business treadmill; discarding care with the ubiquitous umbrella and
winter flannels; taking fortune boldly by the hand; returning to first
principles; living for the moment; for the trial of skill, endurance,
and strength; staking enough in the balances to bring a fillip to the
heart and the blood to the cheek.
It was a typical American crowd; long-suffering, giving and
taking--principally giving--good-humored, just. All morning it came in a
seemingly endless chain; uncoupling link by link, only to weld together
again. All morning long, ferries, trolleys, trains were jammed with the
race-mad throng. Coming by devious ways, for divers reasons; coming from
all quarters by every medium; centering at last at the Queen's County
Jockey Club.
And never before in the history of the Aqueduct track had so thoroughly
a representative body of racegoers assembled at an opening day. Never
before had Long Island lent sitting and standing room to so impressive
a gathering of talent, money, and family. Every one interested in the
various phases of the turf was there, but even they only formed a small
portion of the attendance.
Rumors floated from paddock to stand and back again. The air was
surcharged with these wireless messages, bearing no signature nor
guarantee of authenticity. And borne on the crest of all these rumors
was one--great, paramount. Garrison, the former great Garrison, had come
back. He was to ride; ride the winner of the last Carter, the winner of
a fluke race.
The world had not forgotten. They remembered The Rogue's last race. They
remembered Garrison's last race. The wise ones said that The Rogue could
not possibly win. This time there could be no fluke, for the great Red
McGloin was up on the favorite. The Rogue would be shown in his true
colors--a second-rater.
Speculation was rife. This Carter Handicap presented many, many features
that kept the crowd at fever-heat. Garrison had come back. Garrison
had been reinstated. Garrison was up on a mount he had been accused of
permitting to win last year. Those who wield the muck-rake for the sake
of general filth, not in the name of justice, shook their heads and
lifted high hands to Heaven. It looked bad. Why should Garrison be
riding for Colonel Desha? Why had Jimmie Drake transferred him at the
eleventh hour? Why had Drake scratched Speedaway? Why had Major Calvert
scratched Dixie? The latter was an outsider, but they had heard great
things of her.
“Cooked,” said the muck-rakers wisely, and, thinking it was a show-down
for the favorite, stacked every cent they had on Swallow. No long shots
for them.
And some there were who cursed Drake and Major Calvert; cursed long
and intelligently--those who had bet on Speedaway and Dixie, bet on the
play-or-pay basis, and now that the mounts were scratched, they had been
bitten. It was entirely wrong to tempt Fortune, and then have her turn
on you. She should always be down on the “other fellow”--not you.
And then there were those, and many, who did not question, who were glad
to know that Garrison had come back on any terms. They had liked him for
himself. They were the weak-kneed variety who are stanch in prosperity;
who go with the world; coincide with the world's verdict. The world had
said Garrison was crooked. If they had not agreed, they had not denied.
If Garrison now had been reinstated, then the world said he was honest.
They agreed now--loudly; adding the old shibboleth of the moral coward:
“I told you so.” But still they doubted that he had “come back.” A
has-been can never come back.
The conservative element backed Morgan's Swallow. Red McGloin was up,
and he was proven class. He had stepped into Garrison's niche of fame.
He was the popular idol now. And, as Garrison had once warned him, he
was already beginning to pay the price. The philosophy of the exercise
boy had changed to the philosophy of the idol; the idol who cannot
be pulled down. And he had suffered. He had gone through part of what
Garrison had gone through, but he also had experienced what the latter's
inherent cleanliness had kept him from.
Temptation had come Red's way; come strong without reservation. Red,
with the hunger of the long-denied, with the unrestricted appetite of
the intellectually low, had not discriminated. And he had suffered. His
trainer had watched him carefully, but youth must have its fling, and
youth had flung farther than watching wisdom reckoned.
Red had not gone back. He was young yet. But the first flush of his
manhood had gone; the cream had been stolen. His nerve was just a
little less than it had been; his eye and hand a little less steady;
his judgment a little less sound; his initiative, daring, a little less
paramount. And races have been won and lost, and will be won and lost,
when that “little Less” is the deciding breath that tips the scale.
But he had no misgivings. Was he not the idol? Was he not up on Swallow,
the favorite? Swallow, with the odds--two to one--on. He knew Garrison
was to ride The Rogue. What did that matter? The Rogue was ten to one
against. The Rogue was a fluke horse. Garrison was a has-been. The track
says a has-been can never come back. Of course Garrison had been to the
dogs during the past year--what down-and-out jockey has not gone
there? And if Drake had transferred him to Desha, it was a case of good
riddance. Drake was famous for his eccentric humor. But he was a sound
judge of horse-flesh. No doubt he knew what a small chance Speedaway
had against Swallow, and he had scratched advisedly; playing the Morgan
entry instead.
In the grand stand sat three people wearing a blue and gold ribbon--the
Desha colors. Occasionally they were reinforced by a big man, who
circulated between them and the paddock. The latter was Jimmie Drake.
The others were “Cottonton,” as the turfman called them. They were Major
and Mrs. Calvert and Sue Desha.
Colonel Desha was not there. He was eating his heart out back home. The
nerve he had been living on had suddenly snapped at the eleventh hour.
He was denied watching the race he had paid so much in every way to
enter. The doctors had forbidden his leaving. His heart could not stand
the excitement; his constitution could not meet the long journey North.
And so alone, propped up in bed, he waited; waited, counting off each
minute; more excited, wrought up, than if he had been at the track.
It had been arranged that in the event of The Rogue winning, the good
news should be telegraphed to the colonel the moment the gelding flashed
past the judges' stand. He had insisted on that and on his daughter
being present. Some member of the family must be there to back The Rogue
in his game fight. And so Sue, in company with the major and his wife,
had gone.
She had taken little interest in the race. She knew what it meant, no
one knew better than she, but somehow she had no room left for care to
occupy. She was apathetic, listless; a striking contrast to the major
and his wife, who could hardly repress their feelings. They knew what
she would find at the Aqueduct track--find the world. She did not.
All she knew was that Drake, whom she liked for his rough, patent
manhood, had very kindly offered the services of his jockey; a jockey
whom he had faith in. Who that jockey was, she did not know, nor
overmuch care. A greater sorrow had obliterated her racing passion;
had even ridden roughshod over the fear of financial ruin. Her mind was
numb.
For days succeeding Drake's statement to her that Garrison was not
married she waited for some word from him. Drake had explained how
Garrison had thought he was married. He had explained all that. She
could never forget the joy that had swamped her on hearing it; even as
she could never forget the succeeding days of waiting misery; waiting,
waiting, waiting for some word. He had been proven honest, proven Major
Calvert's nephew, proven free. What more could he ask? Then why had he
not come, written?
She could not believe he no longer cared. She could not believe that;
rather, she would not. She gaged his heart by her own. Hers was the
woman's portion--inaction. She must still wait, wait, wait. Still she
must eat her heart out. Hers was the woman's portion. And if he did not
come, if he did not write--even in imagination she could never complete
the alternative. She must live in hope; live in hope, in faith, in
trust, or not at all.
Colonel Desha's enforced absence overcame the one difficulty Major
Calvert and Jimmie Drake had acknowledged might prematurely explode
their hidden identity mine. The colonel, exercising his owner's
prerogative, would have fussed about The Rogue until the last minute.
Of course he would have interviewed Garrison, giving him riding
instructions, etc. Now Drake assumed the right by proxy, and Sue, after
one eager-whispered word to The Rogue, had assumed her position in the
grand stand.
Garrison was up-stairs in the jockey's quarters of the new paddock
structure, the lower part of which is reserved for the clerical force,
and so she had not seen him. But presently the word that Garrison was
to ride flew everywhere, and Sue heard it. She turned slowly to Drake,
standing at her elbow, his eyes on the paddock.
“Is it true that a jockey called Garrison is to ride to-day?” she asked,
a strange light in her eyes. What that name meant to her!
“Why, yes, I believe so, Miss Desha,” replied Drake, delightfully
innocent. “Why?”
“Oh,” she said slowly. “How--how queer! I mean--isn't it queer that
two people should have the same name? I suppose this one copied it;
imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. I hope he does the name
justice. Do you know him? He is a good rider? What horse is he up on?”
Drake, wisely enough, chose the last question. “A ten-to-one shot,” he
replied illuminatingly. “Perhaps you'll bet on him, Miss Desha, eh? It's
what we call a hunch--coincidence or anything like that. Shall I place a
bet for you?”
The girl's eyes kindled strangely. Then she hesitated.
“But--but I can't bet against The Rogue. It would not be loyal.”
Mrs. Calvert laughed softly.
“There are exceptions, dear.” In a low aside she added: “Haven't you
that much faith in the name of Garrison? There, I know you have. I would
be ashamed to tell you how much the major and I have up on that name.
And you know I never bet, as a rule. It is very wrong.”
And so Sue, the blood in her cheeks, handed all her available cash to
Drake to place on the name of Garrison. She would pretend it was the
original. Just pretend.
“Here they come,” yelled Drake, echoed by the rippling shout of the
crowd.
The girl rose, white-faced; striving to pick out the blue and gold of
the Desha stable.
And here they came, the thirteen starters; thirteen finished examples of
God and man's handicraft. Speed, endurance, skill, nerve, grit--all
were there. Horse and rider trained to the second. Bone, muscle, sinew,
class. And foremost of the string came Swallow, the favorite, Red
McGloin, confidently smiling, sitting with the conscious ease of the
idol who has carried off the past year's Brooklyn Handicap.
Good horses there were; good and true. There were Black Knight and
Scapegrace, Rightful and Happy Lad, Bean Eater and Emetic--the latter
the great sprinter who was bracketed with Swallow on the book-maker's
sheets. Mares, fillies, geldings--every offering of horse-flesh above
three years. All striving for the glory and honor of winning this
great sprint handicap. The monetary value was the lesser virtue. Eight
thousand dollars for the first horse; fifteen hundred for the second;
five hundred for the third. All striving to be at least placed within
the money--placed for the honor and glory and standing.
Last of all came The Rogue, black, lean, dangerous. Trained for the
fight of his life from muzzle to clean-cut hoofs. Those hoofs had been
cared for more carefully than the hands of any queen; packed every
day in the soft, velvety red clay brought all the way from the Potomac
River.
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
space. 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 passing 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 space; 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. Passion 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
appetites 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! God! 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 class. 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 mass of frantic arms, raucous voices, white faces. Drake, his pudgy
hands whanging about like semaphore-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 God, 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 analyzation. 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 analyze,” 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 circumstance. 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.