The Black Stallion

bad one. He's lucky. He coulda been killed, easy." George turned toward the shed. "It's his stomach I'm worried about more. We got to get him to the doctor again."
    George was walking toward the shed when Tom stopped him. "We ought to get Symbol out of the van first, shouldn't we?"
    "No Symbol in there," George said quietly. "Sadie's empty."
    "Where is he?"
    "Jimmy got rid of him."
    "Sold him?"
    George shaded his eyes from the hot sun as he looked at the boy. "No. Jimmy figured on doin' that while he was in the hospital. He needed the money. But then a young farm kid from outside Bedford came to see him. The kid had been around the fair track an' Jimmy knew how much he wanted a trotter to hitch up to an old buggy he had an' drive around the country roads. So Jimmy just ups and gives him Symbol then and there."
    Taking a chaw of tobacco, George shoved it in his mouth. "More'n the money he needed, he'd rather see Symbol get a good home. He knew that anyone who bought Symbol might race him. And he figured, I guess, that Symbol was more than ready to be retired. That's Jimmy, all right, knowin' when it's time for a horse to quit the races, but never realizing he oughta quit, too."
    They had seen Jimmy standing before the colt's stall all during their conversation, but when they walked into the shed, Jimmy turned and went into the tack room.
    George stopped to run his hands through Bonfire's black mane. "He ready, Tom?"
    The boy nodded. "For anything, George. All Jimmy has to do is to get into the seat and drive him. Bonfire never makes a wrong move. And he knows that it's all business when he's out on the track."
    Inside the tack room, they found Jimmy seated at the table, holding his head between his hands.
    "The cut bother you?" George asked.
    "No… just thinking," Jimmy returned. He rose to move nervously to the door and back. "When I remember how Lunceford fouled me up on that turn, it turns my stomach," he said bitterly. "I was going to win that race, and the five-hundred-dollar purse would have pulled me out of a hole. Now I'm back here without hardly enough to keep the colt in grain, let alone race him next year. And all because a fair-haired boy of the night raceways took a day off and spent it at a fair for the laughs he could get out of it—laughs and a bit of sun! They oughta stay where they belong," he added, bellowing. "If they want the raceways they ought to stay there… and keep their dirty driving there and not bring it to the fairs!" Jimmy's face was flushed with rage.
    "Sit down, Jimmy!" It was George, and his voice was angry and no longer that of a friend.
    Both Jimmy and Tom turned to him, and the paleness returned to Jimmy's face while he listened to George's hard words, spoken with neither pause nor sympathy.
    "I been listening to you long enough. Now listen to me. I saw what happened on that turn. I was there, right when and where it happened. You pulled into Lunceford, Jimmy. I don't even think you know it, but you did. And maybe the same thing happened that day at Reading when you and Ray O'Neil hooked wheels. I don't know about that. I was too far away then. But I know what happened at Bedford. You tried to force Lunceford closer to the rail so you could get by. You knew Symbol didn't have the finish to go around him. But Lunceford didn't give way, an' you hooked wheels, and you got the worst of it again, just like at Reading. Only this time you pretty near got killed with those horses coming up behind an' just missin' you. You were lucky, and you might not be so lucky again. You fouled Lunceford, Jimmy, and if the judges didn't see it, I did."
    George paused then, and his voice was a little softer as he added, "An' like I said, you don't even realize you did it. That's the pity of it, Jimmy. And it's the dangerous part of it, too. You don't even know how reckless you are. You got no business racing in that shape."
    Jimmy said nothing when George had finished. He sat in his chair, hurt and beaten. Tom bit his lip and turned away. He couldn't look at Jimmy now; it took too much out of him.
    The room was quiet for a long while. Then Tom heard Jimmy speak and the weak, shaking voice didn't seem to be Jimmy's at all.
    "Y-You mean I pulled into him, George? I fouled Lunceford? He didn't pull over on me? You saw it? You're sure?"
    "I'm sure," George said. "I know." George's voice was gentler now. "I wish that it wasn't true. But it is, and I have to tell you, because you can't go on this way,