He met Tom Westfeld for the first time a few minutes before the race in the saddling area. Carl wore Westfeld’s green-and-gold silks, a green cap-cover over his helmet and a set of goggles strapped just above the bill of the cap. He held his whip in his right hand. On his left bicep he wore a leather patch marked with a 4. Henry Forrest stood close to Westfeld and said, “Here he is,” as if Westfeld would not be able to tell.
“Good to see you, Carl.” Westfeld leaned down as if Carl were a dwarf. “I’m Tom.”
“Hi, Tom.” Carl nodded to Forrest and his eyes went out to the walking ring, where Big Zip paraded with the other horses. Their coats were showroom, their muscles seemingly formed from liquid metal. Carl didn’t feel like speaking. For a moment, he didn’t feel like riding. There were clouds, but the sky brought a handsome blue-gray light to things.
“Are you having a good trip?” Westfeld said.
Carl turned to him. He had both of his hands behind his back now. “Yes.”
Westfeld watched Carl for another moment. Then he looked to Forrest and smiled.
“Get going early,” Forrest said, and to this Carl offered a single nod. The trainer’s expression surprised him, though. There was a spark in Forrest’s eyes. Okay, we’re full of shit and we know it. Now show everyone.
Two stalls down from the Big Zip contingent, a man with a microphone interviewed the connections of the number-2 horse, a man and a woman who continually nodded their heads. This was the man Carl had seen on the in-house feed in the jocks’ room yesterday. Another man carried a video camera on his shoulder, taping the whole thing.
Westfeld stood erect, but there was a looseness to his frame. He was slender and toothy and tan. He wore light-looking clothes and his hair was windblown. He might have just come from a tennis match or be heading out to play in one. The three men were quiet for a time and they each had turned to watch Big Zip walk in the saddling ring. “No matter how it turns out, I thank you for coming,” Westfeld said. “We had to try something.”
“I know.” Carl spoke quietly, without turning, and was not certain either man heard him.
The man holding the microphone walked up to Westfeld and Carl. Henry Forrest had slipped away. “This is Tom West-feld and his rider,” the man said with a nod to the camera.
“Hello, Anthony,” Westfeld said. The men shook hands. “This is Carl Arvo. We brought him in to ride today.”
“Hello, Carl,” the man with the microphone said.
“Hello,” Carl said.
“How are you going to ride your horse today?”
Carl rubbed his hand across his mouth. “He’s going to ride Big Zip like he’s the best horse in the race,” Westfeld said. “That’s why we brought him out here.” He glanced down at Carl and gave him another grin and a pat on the back.
Carl began to speak.
“Thanks,” said the man with the microphone. “Well, it’s about time for the post parade. So, let’s toss it back upstairs to Donna and Roy.” He watched the camera, waited for the man to lower it. The man held the microphone at his hip and turned his shoulders in Westfeld’s direction. “Good luck, fellas.”
Finally, the paddock judge called, “Riders, go to your horses!”
Relief washed over Carl as he finally sat atop Big Zip. The whole trip out west felt important to him again.
The horses, their riders now on their backs, paraded one last time around the walking ring. Out on the track waiting for them was a cluster of outriders seated atop their horses. Tab sat on a sweet-potato-colored quarter horse with a thick blond mane. When Carl guided Big Zip onto the track, Tab moved forward on his horse and reached for Big Zip’s bridle. They joined the post parade and the horses walked in order of post position in front of the stands. Carl didn’t look to the stands one time; he didn’t care about that. Tab said, “The rail has been playing dead all day. Javarez, on the 3-horse inside you, might be pushing hard to get out of there early, so beware. Hey, how you doin’ over there?”
“I’m gonna keep Big Zip a few paths out all the way around,” Carl said. “He liked it that way last fall anyway.”
“Perfect. Look, when we get under the finish line, I’ll cut you loose.”
“Thank you.”
Once they were free from Tab, Big Zip went into an easy gallop. Carl crouched in the saddle, as if he were about to spring into action himself. He let the horse travel this way around the clubhouse turn. He tightened up on the reins after they went another furlong down the backstretch. The horse felt light under him, and Carl wished he could live the rest of his life just like this. He didn’t need to know how it all would turn out. The horses were headed in a line for the starting gate.
Tab rode alongside Carl again. “Kick ass, man,” he said. “I guess we’d love to see it.”
“You’ll look smart either way,” Carl said.
“Huh.”
Carl and Big Zip left Tab behind again. The horses for the race moved into the gate one by one. Javarez was in the stall next to him and he barked something in Carl’s direction. Carl wanted to grin but he knew it was best not to react at all. He tugged the goggles down over his eyes. He was on a speed horse on a dry racetrack that with the sun baking smelled a bit like burning rubber. A few seconds into the race, Carl felt, his nerves would not be an issue—he was confident of that.
The starting bell rang; the field of horses sailed forward like a line of sprung arrows. Carl tried to ride. His balance seemed precarious, as if he were in the cockpit of a nosediving airplane. He closed his eyes and let Big Zip vault him forward. It was not a riding strategy. He heard a rider behind him yell out and Carl opened his eyes to find he was pinned by foes on either side of him. Tab was right, Javarez on the 3 was shouting and tossing his reins and hanging everything on getting to the front. Carl yanked on the reins. It would amounted to suicide to match strides early with any horse going all out like that, but Big Zip wanted to sprint, so Carl went with his horse and kept himself low, tried to make the lead. The horse to his outside fell back by half a length, but no farther than that.
The horses neared the turn and Javarez on the 3 took back, vanished like he’d found a trap door. He’d suckered them into a hot pace. Carl grabbed the moment, loosened the reins and they began to pull away. It was too early in the race, but Big Zip burned to be in charge. They hit the turn three lengths in front. Big Zip’s ears were pricked and Carl allowed his eyes to find the stands in the distance. Easy, he thought—we’re a part of this. Midway on the turn, he felt Big Zip slow just a tick, and he said “Easy” out loud. He loosened his hold, shook his wrists, let the horse feel all the give in the reins. Big Zip turned into the homestretch with a lead, but Carl could feel a wave of runners gathering in back of him. Big Zip was wilting, but he was trying, and Carl didn’t want to ask the horse to switch leads until a furlong out. He could hear the race caller’s voice, thought he could detect astonishment in it, but he couldn’t make out anything else. Carl and Big Zip had an empty stretch and a huge sky before them. Carl stroked his arms forward and back on the horse’s neck, he moved them with the stride of the horse.
Moments into the stretch a rival horse and rider appeared alongside Carl. They arrived so suddenly that Carl spooked. His weight shifted and Big Zip ducked in one path. The other rider had his hands in his horse’s mane, his whip stuck straight up from his hands like an antenna. More horses were coming—that’s how this jock was riding. This was the race, Big Zip couldn’t let this horse pass them and Carl brought out his whip. He wanted to show it first, save the one stroke for a few strides from the line. He showed Big Zip the stick and the horse lunged forward, gave a grunt. Carl meant to tuck the whip away, just ride like crazy for another hundred yards. Then he saw the whip was gone. He was not holding it any longer.
“Yah!” he let out, bumped his boots on the sides of the horse. Big Zip veered out one lane, then another, and they brushed the rival at their side. The rider let out a “Yo! Yo!” and Carl grabbed the reins. The other horse and its rider jolted sideways and then that rider banged his boots to his horse’s sides and they took off, opened up a quick lead on Big Zip. Other horses were gaining, arriving to Carl’s right, and the race was over now. Big Zip flamed out, his racing heart had disintegrated. Carl couldn’t keep riding. It felt as if he had swallowed an apple whole and he couldn’t catch his breath. Carl felt as if he might collapse, might be the first jockey ever to die while still on the back of a running horse. The world had gone silent and he was passing from it; he couldn’t tell anything else. All he felt was panic. He closed his eyes again.
The rhythm of the horse’s stride brought him back. Carl opened his eyes, saw his hands moving atop the horse’s mane as he rode the horse to the finish. He couldn’t hear anything, but he had caught his air and told himself to breathe slowly. He pulled away the goggles. All the horses had passed them, each and every one of them—even the runner that fucker Javarez was on. It was never easy to ride out the final yards when you were in this spot and Carl had learned a long time ago there was only one way to do it and that was professionally. You kept your horse together and you kept it running. The public saw pulled up horses as horses in distress. Riders who didn’t give them their money’s worth. It seemed to take a long time to get to the finish line and when they did, Carl stood in the saddle and tried to feel nonchalant. He hadn’t had to get involved in a wild speed duel early, but this was how Big Zip had run. The horse had done its best. It was not about confidence.
Carl thought what he would say to Henry Forrest. We were confident. It felt wonderful. And we still finished last. The whole thing had been a grotesque experiment, Carl Arvo at Balboa Park.
In the gallop out, he caught up with the others, and one rider yelled after him in Spanish. He kept yelling and Carl turned to say something, found himself wanting to know more of that language. He faced ahead again, eased Big Zip down to a walk. Everything had been made clear from the outset. He was their final hope with Big Zip. The horse was all right under him, walking soundly, but he was not good enough for California. “Man, you’re beautiful,” Carl said aloud, his voice thick. He didn’t care that no one else heard him.
In front of the stands again, Carl dismounted, pulled away the saddle and carried it over to the weigh-out stand. The groom held Big Zip by a leather shank and then they began the walk up the homestretch. Everything had gone silent. Carl did the weigh-out, then held forward the saddle for the valet, a tall man with a thick mustache and curly, cotton-white hair. Henry Forrest stood out on the track by himself, and Carl knew he had to walk over there. He tugged at the Velcro band with the number 4 as he did. Forrest stood with his hands on his hips. Carl set his goggles above the brim of the cap cover. “I didn’t save anything,” he said, as he arrived in front of the trainer.
“Dropped your whip,” Forrest said.
Carl felt the urge to apologize, but he knew better. That would be the worst. “He felt great under me,” he said.
“There wasn’t anything you could do,” Forrest said. He said this after watching Carl for a moment. Carl hoped he didn’t look like he needed someone to say such a thing. He swallowed and Forrest said, “Doesn’t belong out here. That has been obvious for a while now.”
It was not the worst thing he could have said.
Carl murmured, “Give me another chance, please.”
“What?” Forrest said.
“I guess so,” Carl said instead.