Homestretch (6 page)

We both broke our horses fast from the starting gate and were running neck and neck going into the first turn.

I took my eyes off the screen for a second, just to look over at her.

Even with her teeth clenched and lower lip curled up as she tried to leave me in her dust, I thought she was the sexiest girl I'd ever seen. And every part of me was screaming out for her.

Tammie got ahead of me coming off the turn, starting down the backstretch. I began pumping my arms quicker, trying to catch up. Then, heading into the far turn, I pulled almost even with her again.

As we raced into the homestretch, there was just one other horse in front of us.

“Let me show you what it takes,” she said, breathing harder. “You just have to want it bad enough.”

“That's me,” I said.

She was rocking furiously in the saddle and so was I. We both zipped past that horse in the lead like it was standing still. I was pumping away on instinct, without a clear thought in my mind.

Then, with a hundred yards to go, Tammie went to the fake whip, slapping at her horse's right side. She brushed my shoulder by accident with its long cellophane straps, and that sent a chill down my spine.

I could see the finish line and
had
to get there first. I pushed with all my might, harder and harder, and in the final stride I let out an
“Aaggghhhh”
as I shoved my horse's long neck forward.

Bells went off on my side of the game. And I watched a bead of sweat drip down Tammie's cheek to the corner of her mouth.

On the video screen a beauty queen came rushing out of the crowd and draped a blanket of red roses across my horse.

“Well?” I asked, still panting.

“Can't believe you won, Gas,” she answered. “Last summer
I did this a dozen times with my boyfriend, and he didn't beat me once.”

That word “boyfriend” stuck in my chest, like Tammie had just slammed me with a claw hammer.

“But he'd never been on a racehorse in his life. Not like you have,” she said. “Anyway, I haven't seen him since he went back to school in September—almost a year now.”

That's when I knew I had to find a way to get back on a horse for
real
.

The people who worked at the hothouse with Mom made a five-foot cross out of purple flowers for her funeral. Right down the center of it, in yellow roses, they spelled out her name:
M-A-R-I-A
.

The morning after she was buried, I got up early and went to the cemetery alone, while Dad slept off the whiskey he'd drunk. There wasn't anything to mark her grave yet, just a rectangle of soft brown dirt where the grass was missing. The wind had scattered most of the flowers we'd left, and even that big cross was down on its side. But I stood it back up where a headstone should be, shoving the cross's metal stand deep into the ground so it couldn't get blown over again.

It was the tallest marker of any grave there, and you could
see it from all the way down the hill and outside the wrought-iron fence.

I'd closed my eyes and smelled those roses.

It was just like having some part of Mom there with me.

I visited her for nine days straight and even started dragging a garden hose over from a workers' station to spray those roses with water. But after the first week they were all wilting. Then the wind stripped lots of petals away, and I could see the Styrofoam skeleton of that cross underneath.

I took one of those roses home, pressing it between the pages of Mom's Bible, right at the start of her favorite story, about Adam and Eve.

Only, Dad was pissed off when he realized where I'd been going.

“You think she loved you more than me? That why you go there by yourself?” asked Dad, smelling of alcohol. “We're family, you and me. You don't do that to family. Cut me out that way.”

A few hours later, when he was much drunker, Dad took a swing at me. That was the first time he ever hit me, and it was the first and last time I ever swung back.

I wound up my arm, pulling it back as far as it could go.

Then I closed my eyes and let my fist fly.

“Is that all you got, Gas?” he said. “What? She never taught you how to fight? You went to her for everything
else
.”

“Don't say that!” I screamed as his arms swallowed up my punches.

Hitting him didn't make me feel any better. It made me feel even smaller and weaker.

When it was over, I had a mouse under my right eye that turned black and blue by morning. I felt so bad over what Dad had said that I didn't go back to the cemetery for two days.

But the next time I went, that cross was gone.

The groundskeepers must have thought it was garbage, because I found it sitting upside down in one of their green trash bins, snapped in two.

In my heart I blamed Dad for that.

Tammie's grandpa had a filly entered a few races down the line, so she started back toward his barn to help get her ready.

“Rose of Sharon's running in that same race. It looks like she's in way over her head today. But you can never tell with Dag and his bag of tricks,” she said, walking away. “Hey, maybe we can have a rematch, me and you, out on the track in the morning sometime, exercising horses.”

“It'll just turn out the same,” I said, wondering how long I could pretend I knew how to ride. “With me winning.”

“You wish,” Tammie said.

After that I headed back to Dag's barn, thinking I could help bring Rose of Sharon over to the racetrack and see some more of Tammie when she got there with her grandpa's filly.

But when I came up on the barn, Paolo was in front of the only open door with both arms folded across his chest, like he was standing guard. And Nacho was sitting outside on top of a turned-over bucket, waiting with an empty lead shank in his hands.

“Gringo,”
said Paolo in a harsh voice. “Why you here? No work for you now.”

I glanced over at Nacho, but he looked lost sitting there, like he didn't know why he wasn't inside the barn.

“Just thought I could do something,” I said. “Help out.”

“Oh, you a big help, little man,” Paolo snorted. “The boss very busy inside. Prerace inspection. No one allowed in.”

A few minutes later Dag came into the doorway, giving Paolo a big thumbs-up.

“Está preparada,”
Paolo told Nacho, who went into Rose of Sharon's stall and attached the lead shank to her bridle for the walk over to the front side.

Only, Rose of Sharon wasn't the same easygoing filly anymore. She was suddenly a bundle of energy, and Nacho had to wrestle with her every step of the way to the track. He kept trying to calm her down, stroking Rose of Sharon's head and whispering to her in Spanish.

I couldn't tell if she was just pumped up because she knew she was going to race, or if something else was going on.

There was a walking ring in the paddock, just off the grandstand, where the crowd gathered to see the horses get saddled. Tammie took one look at Rose of Sharon and shook her head.

“See that odds board, Gas?” she said. “Rose of Sharon should be at least ten to one in this race. But she's only three to one. Guess why? ‘Cause Dag's probably got a bundle of money down on this one. Just look at her on the walking ring, ready to explode. She's been milk-shaked for sure.”

“What does that mean—'milk-shaked'?” I asked.

“A milk shake's a mix of baking soda and Gatorade. The sugar gives a horse a burst of energy, and the sodium fights off muscle fatigue so they keep running. A trainer or somebody sticks a long tube into a horse's nose, right down into the stomach, and pumps it in. Only, nobody really knows how much to give a horse. How much will make it run faster, and
how much will make it sick. Because that's what horses do. They don't puke things up like people. They just get sick.”

“Then, how come the track doesn't catch him at it, like they did El Diablo fixing races?” I asked.

“Because by the time a horse gets to the test barn after the race, all that stuff's been burned up out of its system. That's why. There's a special test for high levels of carbon dioxide left over from the baking soda. But they don't give that one at Pennington. It costs too much,” she said, getting more aggravated with every word. “Honest trainers can't compete with crooks like Dag. That's what happened to most of my grandpa's horses. Their owners moved them over to Dag's barn so their horses could be with a
winner
.”

I watched Tammie's grandpa go over every inch of their filly, stretching out her front legs one at a time and making sure everything was right with her before he tacked on the saddle.

Dag never even looked at Rose of Sharon. He spent the whole time in the paddock schmoozing with her owners and giving instructions to the jockey—a hawk-nosed guy named Gillette—while Paolo put the saddle on her.

In the race Rose of Sharon shot right out of the starting gate for the lead. But she had company as another filly pressed her all the way, making her run hard.

“The field moves for the far turn, and a speed duel starts to percolate on the front end,” called the track announcer.

The crowd gasped when the time for the first quarter mile was posted.

“Twenty-one and three-fifths seconds! That's way too fast!” screamed some guy with a fistful of betting tickets. “She's cooked!”

But at the head of the homestretch Gillette shook the reins at Rose of Sharon, who spurted clear. Then I saw Cap's filly, flying up fast on the outside.

“There's an eighth of a mile to go, and here comes My Heavenly Sign, a fresh challenger for Rose of Sharon, who's had to run hard the whole way. Now it's My Heavenly Sign right at the throatlatch of Rose of Sharon,” called the announcer.

Tammie was jumping up and down, screaming, “Come on, baby! Come on!”

I would have bet my life that Cap's filly was going to run right on by, and probably everybody else in that grandstand would have too. Except maybe for Dag.

“Seventy yards to go, and the resilient Rose of Sharon's got another gear,” said the announcer. “She pulls away from My Heavenly Sign. They come under the wire, and it's going to be Rose of Sharon, who would NOT BE DENIED!”

“You can't train a horse to do
that
!” shouted Tammie as she stormed past Dag.

Then Paolo went over to Nacho, slipping an arm around his shoulder.

“La chica es bonita, pero muy loca en la cabeza,”
Paolo said, twirling a finger at his right temple.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING
Dag was standing out in front of his barn screaming for Nacho.

“Today, kid! Let's go! Where's Bad Boy Rising?” boomed Dag, beside a pair of horses ready to head down to the racetrack.

El Diablo was perched on one of them, smirking.

“Ahora, estúpido!”
Paolo barked toward the barn.

That's when Nacho brought out Bad Boy Rising, without a saddle or an exercise rider.

“What the hell? Where's that new rider I hired? I'll fire his worthless ass,” Dag hissed.

“Don't know,” said Paolo. “Saw him in the cantina last night with a bottle of tequila and
una blanca fea
.”

“We'll have to work out Bad Boy with the next set of horses,” Dag said, shaking his head.

“Not me,” warned El Diablo. “I don't get on wack jobs. He's got no talent and too many screws loose.”

I knew this was my chance to jump over all those beaners at the barn, and impress Tammie, too. I was scared to death of Bad Boy Rising, but I couldn't let it slip by.

“I'll ride,” I said, pulling up every ounce of courage I had.

Paolo burst out laughing over that, but El Diablo grilled the shit out of me with a stare, like I'd just shown him up.

Dag hesitated for a few seconds before he said, “Ya know what? You got two minutes to get a saddle, a protective vest, and a helmet from the equipment room. Then if you can get on that beast, you can ride him.”

After I got ready, Nacho gave me a leg up onto Bad Boy's back.

“Vaya con Dios,”
he whispered.

I knew that meant “Go with God” from the times I'd heard Mom singing an old song with those same words:

Vaya con Dios
, my darling,
Vaya con Dios
, my love.

I probably only got Bad Boy Rising to the racetrack because that's where he wanted to go anyway.

Then I guided him through the open gap in the rail, which was lined by an ambulance on each side—one with a trailer attached to the back for the horses, and a human one for jockeys.

“The three of you, jog your horses over to the half-mile pole, and then let 'em break running to the wire together,” Dag called out to us.

Just then Tammie came galloping past, her ponytail flying in the breeze and the whip sticking out of the back pocket of her blue jeans.

As I caught her eye, Tammie smiled and smooched to her horse, “Mcch, mcch.”

“Think you can be a rider ‘cause you short and skinny?” cracked El Diablo on our way over to that pole. “Takes more than that,
pequeño
. Lot more.”

My heart was already beating a mile a minute by the time I turned Bad Boy Rising loose. He started sprinting at full speed, sandwiched between those other two horses. His head was shooting straight back like a piston, right at mine.

I was just trying to keep my balance, praying to hold on.

El Diablo was riding to my outside.

Coming off the turn, he leaned in and hollered, “Yahhh!”

Bad Boy spooked and nearly ran out from underneath me.

But I had a death grip on a handful of his mane, and I
stayed in the saddle. When we flashed past the wire, I pulled back on the reins as hard as I could. But Bad Boy Rising only stopped running when
he
was ready to quit.