Gabriel's Horses Page 5

  “Oh, you’ll see him again. I’ll make sure of it. I ’spect he’s going to Camp Nelson for training before the army lets him loose on those Rebels. The camp’s a long walk, but I’ll take you there one day.”

  “Promise?” I dry my cheeks on my sleeve.

  “Promise.”

  The promise makes me feel a speck better. “But, Jackson, why’d he leave me and Ma? Why’d he enlist?”

  Jackson shrugs. Pulling his cap over his eyes, he slides down on the feed sacks. “He’s got reasons. Your ma will tell you.”

  I blow out my breath. Pa’s in the army. I picture the colored soldiers standing up to those white men, and pride slowly replaces my sorrow. Sure, I’m plum mad Pa didn’t say goodbye, but next time I see him, he’ll be wearing blue and fighting for freedom.

  Suddenly exhaustion hits me, and my eyes drift shut. Beside me, Jackson begins to snore. Curling up on the sacks, I dream about my first trip to Lexington: One Arm, city streets, Union soldiers, licorice twists, Pa enlisting.

  Then I dream about the wind on my cheeks as Tenpenny and I race down the homestretch and cross the finish line. Ma will be so proud of me that her sadness about Pa will wash away.

  ***

  It’s night by the time we arrive home, and I finish bedding down Tenpenny. I can barely put one foot in front of the other, but I finally make it back to our cabin. After the city, it seems tiny. Our home ain’t fancy like a Lexington hotel, but Pa’s job as trainer affords us better quarters than the field hands. We’ve two rooms and our own privy. Ma and Pa have a feather-stuffed mattress, and I have a bed to myself.

  Ma lights a candle, and shadows dance on the whitewashed plank walls. She sits me down on a stool in the bedroom and smoothes ointment on my blistered hands. She cocks her head, listening closely as I tell the tale of my trip.

  “One Arm and his raiders had his sights on Penny, Ma, but I was fixing to get away.” My voice rises. “There’s no way I’d let a renegade take my horse.”

  Ma glances worriedly at the cabin’s shut door. “Hush now. Don’t talk of One Arm. News has it that this morning he passed Woodville by. Next time the farm might not be so lucky.”

  “Next time One Arm might not be so lucky. He might come face to face with a colored soldier like Pa. You should have seen those white men at the racetrack turn tail and run from Private Campbell and Corporal Blue.” I shake my head. “I never thought I’d see the day. I can’t wait until I enlist and fight alongside Pa.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t you be getting any bold ideas.” Ma wraps a strip of clean rag round my palm and knots it. “Your pa leaving is hard enough.”

  “No ma’am. I ain’t ready yet. But I reckon I will one day soon. First I gotta win some more races. Might be by that time Pa will have stripes like Corporal Blue. And he’ll have his own company. You’ll be so proud.”

  Ma sighs like proud ain’t what she’s thinking about. She picks up my other hand. “I just pray your pa stays safe. Now, tell me ’bout the race.”

  Happily, I tell her the whole story, from the time Jackson pretended to hurt his arm to the end. “When I spied that grandstand, I hunkered on Tenpenny’s neck, made a kissing noise, and whoosh, he flew like the wind across the finish line lengths ahead! Why, you should have seen me struttin’ to that judges’ stand.”

  She laughs. “That’s some tale, Gabriel Alexander. It’s good Jackson told me the real story.”

  “Well, maybe Penny didn’t exactly whoosh like the wind.” Grinning, I tip my chin high. “I bet you and Annabelle even read ’bout me in the Lexington Observer.”

  Smiling in the flickering candlelight, Ma holds my bandaged hands in hers. “Your pa always says you have the gift, Gabriel. Use it smart. Your pa’s skill with horses brought him to Woodville Farm, where life’s been good to us.”

  “Then why’d he enlist, Ma?” Angry, I pull my hands from her grasp and jump off the stool. Suddenly, missing Pa gets the better of being proud of him. “He should be here training horses. He should be here with us.”

  Rising from the bed, Ma sets the ointment on her dresser. When she turns toward me, tears shine in her eyes. “Your pa did it for us, Gabriel. You know he’s been saving money to buy our freedom. When he heard the Yankees were paying three hundred dollars to every man who enlisted in the Union army, he jumped at the chance.”

  She dabs her eyes with the edge of her apron, then lays her palm below her apron ties. “Gabriel. I’m going to have a baby.”

  My jaw falls slack. “A baby?”

  Ma’s eyes gleam. “Yes. Before your pa left, he added the three-hundred-dollar enlistment fee to the money he’s saved training horses. Gabriel, he bought my freedom from Master Giles. Now this child I’m carrying will be born free!”

  Free! The word rings like music in my ears. I hug her round her waist. Then I rear back, embarrassed. A winning jockey doesn’t hug his mama, especially when she’s with child. “I forgive Pa then. Now you don’t have to take orders from no one.”

  “Mister Giles will still be my boss. But he says he’ll pay me wages to care for Mistress Jane.”

  I frown. “Why you want to keep taking care of her? You could go off and work in some fancy Lexington store. Sell flowery hats.”

  “That sounds like a fine dream, and maybe one day I will. For now, Mistress Jane needs me, and I need the wages. Together your pa and I will save up for your freedom.”

  “If I enlist like Pa, I can be free tomorrow.”

  Ma’s smile hardens into a frown. “No, Gabriel. You’re too young to enlist. And if I have my way, you’ll never be a soldier. I won’t have both my men gone. I won’t have you both shot by Rebel soldiers.”

  “But I want to be free now, Ma. Like you and Pa.”

  “Then stay here and jockey horses for Master Giles.” Ma places her hands on my shoulders. “Save your winnings. Horses helped buy my freedom and the freedom of this new babe, and one day, Gabriel, they’ll buy your freedom, too.”

  Chapter Seven

  Aristo’s stall stinks. Leaning on the handle of my pitchfork, I stare at the piles of manure and sloppy wet straw. For the past two days it’s rained, and the horses have been shut up in the barn. This morning, when the sun poked through the clouds, Jase, Tandy, and me hurriedly turned the horses out. Now we got all these dirty stalls to clean.

  “Seven days ago, I was a winning jockey. Today I’m pitchin’ manure,” I mutter as I fork up a heavy mat of straw. I toss it into the wheelbarrow, barely missing Jackson, who prances backward like a sissy.

  “Boy, don’t be getting my britches messy.” Scowling, he swats at his pants legs. He’s wearing his new cap and a wool vest. A watch chain hangs from the vest pocket and a stalk of straw dangles from the side of his mouth.

  I snort. “You getting as prissy as Annabelle. Weren’t that long ago you was cleaning stalls.”

  “Yup, now I’m a fancy-riding free man.”

  A year ago, Jackson used purse winnings to buy his freedom from Master Giles. Now, if he pleases, he can ride for other Thoroughbred owners in the area.

  Jackson reaches back and pulls a rolled-up newspaper from his waistband. “Last Saturday’s race is written up in here. Annabelle read it to me. There’s lots ’bout Tenpenny.”

  “There is?” Eyes wide, I lean on the handle of the pitchfork.

  Mister Winston Giles’s colt Tenpenny leads down the stretch with no sign of tiring, Jackson recites from memory.

  “What’d they write ’bout me?” I grin, picturing Annabelle’s surprised expression when she read my name.

  “Well . . .” Jackson spits out the stalk of straw.

  Hanging my head, I start pitching manure again.

  “Gabriel,” Jackson says, “reporters don’t write my name, and I’ve been winning for two years. Reporters write ‘Mister Giles’s colored rider’ or ‘the darky rider.’” He points the rolled-up paper at me. “Gotta head north if I want folks to read ‘Jackson’ in the paper.”

  “That ain’t
fair,” I grumble.

  “Well, I ain’t lettin’ it get to me, and you shouldn’t either. You keep riding as good as you did last Saturday, and maybe one day, when the Yankees free the blacks, they’ll write both our names.”

  That cheers me a speck. “You reckon I’ll be racing more horses for Master Giles?”

  “Ain’t Mister Giles put you on more horses this week?”

  I nod. “I’ve been galloping Captain Conrad and Savannah, and yesterday I started Penny back to work.”

  Crossing his arms, Jackson grins slyly. “Sounds like Mister Giles is getting his horses ready for another big meet in Lexington. Sounds like he might let you jockey one of them.”

  “He is? He might? When? Where?”

  Jackson chuckles. “Kentucky Association track is having a meet two Saturdays from now. Mister Giles is talking about taking a herd of horses. I’m contracted to ride some for Major Wiley, so I can’t ride them all.”

  “I’ll ride!” I prop the pitchfork against the wall, all thoughts of stall mucking banished from my mind. “And this time I’ll have a pair of gloves and riding boots.”

  Jackson arches one brow. “You’d best get in good with the new trainer before you start making big plans.”

  I know Jackson’s right. Just yesterday, Master Giles rode over to the Midway depot to pick up the man he hired from the North to replace Pa. But I’m not worried about making a good impression on the new trainer. “I will,” I tell Jackson. “He’ll think I’m the finest rider in Kentucky. ’Cept for you,” I add with a laugh.

  “Get him to put you on Tenpenny again. If you win, Mister Giles might even slip you some purse money. So think on that, Gabriel.” Smacking the paper against his palm, he saunters down the barn aisle.

  I don’t have to think on it long. Purse money means freedom!

  Then I scowl, wondering what good freedom would do me. Freedom sure ain’t changed Ma’s life. She’s still fetching and doing for Mistress Jane like before. And didn’t Corporal Blue say the colored soldiers are digging latrines and chopping wood for the white soldiers? Free jockeys like Jackson don’t even get their names in the papers. The reporters write Tenpenny’s name and he’s only won one race. Jackson’s won more than I can count.

  Sighing, I pick up the pitchfork. Freedom sure is all jangled up. When I look at it one way, freedom don’t seem so powerful. Yet then I look another way, why, it’s everything powerful.

  “New trainer’s comin’! New trainer’s comin’!” Jase thumps on the side of the stall as he runs down the aisle.

  Dropping the pitchfork again, I jump over the wheelbarrow handles and run after him. The carriage is rumbling up the drive past the Main House. Jase, Tandy, and me watch from the doorway of the barn. Jase is little like me. He exercises the quieter horses, but one day he’ll jockey, too. Tandy’s already too heavy, but he’s good with the two-year-olds and shines them up real pretty.

  Across the way, Cato and the other workers appear in the doorway of the carriage and riding horse barn, and Oliver and his men line up in front of the mare and foal barn. Everyone knows no one can take Pa’s place, but we’re all wondering about the new trainer.

  Renny halts the carriage in the area in front of the three barns. A white boy’s sitting on the driver’s seat next to him. The boy is older than me by a few years, but hard life is etched in his face. Renny jumps down and opens the carriage door, and Master Giles climbs out, followed by a whip-thin man with a bushy moustache.

  “You think that’s him?” Jase whispers.

  Tandy nods. “I ’spect so. But who’s dat white boy with Renny?”

  The boy jumps from the carriage seat, and Master Giles waves us over. Me, Jase, Tandy, and the others walk toward them, and Master introduces the new man. “This is Mister Newcastle, Woodville’s new trainer. He has many years of experience, and in my absence, you’ll follow his orders.”

  Walking back and forth in front of us, Mister Newcastle inspects us like we’re cattle. Then he stops beside Master and says real loud, “I’ve never worked with slaves before, but I’ve heard they’re lazy and need a firm hand.”

  “The men and boys under you are hardworking and talented. Cato and Oliver handle the workers in the other barns. You won’t have any problem.” Master gestures for the white boy to step forward. “And this is Danny Flanagan, Mister Newcastle’s jockey. He’s all the way from Ireland to ride our horses.”

  My jaw drops. Jockey? Woodville doesn’t need a jockey. Jackson and me ride Master’s horses!

  I glance over my shoulder. Jackson is standing in the doorway of the training barn, half-hidden by the shadows. But I know he’s heard. He’s furiously wiggling a stalk of straw in his mouth, and his eyes are cold beneath his cap. Abruptly he vanishes into the barn.

  I turn back to stare at the boy. Only now I realize Flanagan isn’t a boy. He’s a man, but stunted like corn in a dry summer. A scar slices one reddish brow, and disdain fills his ghost-pale eyes.

  Panic grips my innards. A minute ago, I was dreaming about racing and freedom. But now an Irish jockey’s come to Woodville Farm, and those dreams seem as far away as my pa.

  ***

  In the middle of the fenced circle, Aristo shakes his head at me. Spinning, he paws the ground. I laugh at his meanness ’cause I know he’s only playing.

  I cluck and he trots off, circling me. No lines hold him; I keep him trotting with my voice. Pa’s idea. “Teach him to trust you on the ground, and he’ll trust you on his back.”

  Since Newcastle, the new trainer, came three days ago, I miss my pa with a heavy sorrow.

  “Whoa, ’Risto.” The colt walks over and nuzzles my pocket for a sugar lump. I hold out one in my palm, and while he crunches it, I watch Flanagan gallop Arrow on Master’s grassy track. He rides upright with long stirrups, and he’s hauling on the reins.

  I grit my teeth. Arrow’s throwing his head, trying to get away from Flanagan’s harsh hands. Yesterday, the man galloped Sympathy, and the poor filly’s mouth was bruised from his rough handling. I shake my head. If Pa was here, he’d have Flanagan cleaning stalls, not riding. How can Master not see that his horses don’t like the new jockey’s ways?

  Ever since Flanagan showed up, Jackson’s been gone. For the past three days, he’s been riding horses at the neighboring farm. Newcastle has Flanagan galloping all Woodville’s horses, which means the Irish jockey, not me, will be riding in the Lexington races.

  Feels like a stone in my craw.

  “Be glad that man ain’t on your back,” I tell Aristo as I walk over to the fence. The colt follows happily until I pull a saddle off the rail. Then he skitters away.

  I roll my eyes. Aristo’s a devil when it comes to the saddle and girth. Every day I rub him with all sorts of rags and blankets. I flap them in his face and under his belly, and he stands like a plow horse. But show that colt a saddle and—

  “Boy! You, colored boy.”

  I tense. Newcastle’s outside the fence, calling me like I’m a dog with no name. Aristo bolts to the farthest corner. He doesn’t like the new trainer either.

  Slowly I face Newcastle, keeping my gaze on my toes so he can’t accuse me of sassing him. “Yes sir.”

  “Who told you to work that colt in here?”

  “Master Giles, sir. He gave me freedom to train Aristo.”

  “Well, Master Giles isn’t here this morning, so you best follow my orders. Put a halter and rope on that colt and bring him into the barn.”

  “Yes sir.” Newcastle leaves, and I dare raise my eyes. I let out a shaky breath, afraid for Aristo. Yesterday, when Newcastle tried to go into Aristo’s stall, the colt struck at him. Newcastle has hard ways with horses, and now that Master’s gone, I fear the colt’s going to pay.

  I halter Aristo, taking my time. When I lead the colt into the barn, Newcastle’s in the middle of the aisle, whip in hand. I stop in my tracks.

  “Put him in his stall,” Newcastle commands.

  I can’t move. Or speak.
The sight of that whip has tied my tongue.

  He whacks the handle on his palm, and Aristo slides backwards.

  “Sir,” I croak, “this colt don’t need the lash.”

  “The colt needs the whip. Tried to strike me yesterday. Pain will teach him respect.”

  “But, sir, pain will only—”

  Newcastle points the whip handle at me. “Defy my orders and the lash will find your back.”

  A shiver shakes me to the core. I can’t disobey a white boss. But I can’t lead Aristo toward a beating. “If you want to beat the horse, you put him in his stall!” I holler, flinging the rope at Newcastle. Then I turn and fly like a coward down the aisle.

  “Come back here!” Newcastle bellows, but I run faster—out the door, around the corner, and into the hay barn—where I dive into last year’s mound of hay, fingers plugging my ears so I don’t have to hear the crack of the whip.

  Chapter Eight

  Gabriel!” someone calls loudly, and Jackson walks into the barn. I burrow further into the hay, ashamed of my tears.

  He comes to the edge of the pile. “Boy, you skedaddled out of the barn so fast I thought you’d be in Lexington by now.”

  “When it’s dark, I will run to Lexington,” I declare. “To find Pa.”

  He squats. “Only with you gone, Newcastle will beat Aristo every day.”

  “He’ll beat him anyway. I can’t stop him. Why doesn’t Master Giles send him packing?”

  “’Cause Master don’t see Newcastle’s mean side. That new trainer is smart enough to hide it from his boss. And I can’t tell Mister Giles what I don’t see. Someone else will have to tell him what’s going on.”

  “Master won’t listen to me. But he would listen to you. Why’d you leave?” I accuse, eager to blame someone else. “Why you over at Major Wiley’s ridin’ his horses?”

  I hear a sigh. “I gotta earn a livin’.” Then he adds in a softer voice, “And it might be I ain’t as brave as you.”

  I sniffle. Hay tickles my nose. “I ain’t brave. Least not brave enough to face Newcastle.” I peer through the stalks at Jackson.