Amazing Gray
a novel by
James J. Antonio
Copyright 2010 James Antonio
This is a book of fiction. All characters are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to anyone, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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CHAPTER ONE
I like watching horses race, especially thoroughbreds. The fastest ones have hearts as big as mountains. The slowest have little wee hearts the size of a dime. But they all have hearts and they all love to run to one degree or another. I'm going to go back a few years now and tell you about a thoroughbred that I once owned. Her name was Amazing Gray. And she sure had a big heart, mountain-size. I'm going to tell you about my grandpa, too. You see, Gray brought him back to life sort of, made him young again. Everything is so clear it's like it's happening all over again, right now....
When we got Sally into her corral that day after checking her water supply and her salt lick, I happened to notice that some of her fence was knocked down. It was at the other end, a way from where we were standing. “Look, grandpa!” I cried.
My grandpa saw what I was pointing at and I thought his eyes would burn right in their sockets.
He took off his cowboy hat and wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve. “Son of a gun,” he said almost whispering. “Son of a gun.... I wonder how I never noticed it before, boy?”
I know now that the fencing had been broken for a long time. My grandpa had lost interest in the farm and hadn't bothered to fix it. Grandpa told me to go and fill Sally's water bucket and come back, in the meantime he would go look things over. It was the summer that I turned ten and it was the first day I was at work for my grandpa. He had a farm, but not the kind you grow things on. He had a horse farm, and the horses he kept were thoroughbreds—fiery race horses. Filling the bucket in the stable, I never thought there was anything serious about a broken fence. But then I was kind of young to suspect anything, even if Gray Book's corral was right next door to Sally's. When I got back to the corral, my grandpa was in the next one, Gray Book's, and he called for me to come and have a look. I hooked the water bucket on the fence and ran down to join him near the trees.
“Darn,” he said. He was angry and I could see it. At first, I thought it was because now he was going to have to fix two corrals as some of Gray Book's fencing was smashed too. It looked like one or both of the horses had kicked at the boards and broken them. They wouldn't have been too hard to break, I didn't think; I mean they were old, termite-infested, and wet-rotten. Grandpa shook his head and waved his fist at the stable yonder. “Darn you, Gray Book! I should've known I couldn't put a crazy stallion like you next to that flirty girl, Sally!”
Grandpa didn't say a word to me, he just hurried toward the stable and I followed. I knew he was real angry so I didn't ask him any questions. I was so naive that I didn't realize why Gray Book had so much to do with all of this; it sounded like he was more to blame than Sally Stevens was. When my grandpa emerged from the stable with Gray Book, the horse was resisting him and grandpa was cussing and pulling for all he was worth. I stepped to the side and grandpa stopped. He looked at me, his wide mouth pursed tight and the shiny skin over his nose and cheekbones red with anger. He was a big man with a full head of gray hair combed right back and a determined look about him. “I know what you're thinking, boy,” he said. “It's not just the fences I'm in such a stir about. It's Gray Book. He knows better. And it's Sally, too. But Gray Book likely had more to do with it than her.”
My grandpa sent me into the house to fetch some rope and told me to meet him back in Gray Book's corral. When I got to the house, my grandma wanted to know what the rope was for. Soon as I told her, she shook her head and said, “I sure hope it hasn't happened. It would be the very last thing he wanted, Sally having a foal.” Grandma got me the rope and I left the house with my thoughts in a whirl. When I got to Gray Book's corral, grandpa took the rope and I watched him hem in both corrals where they were broken. He did it real fast, like a pro. “There, Mark,” he said. “That ought to keep them away from each other.”
I swallowed down a tight throat. “Grandpa, is Sally going to have a foal?”
My grandpa shook his head and looked at the spotted pony in the next corral. “I hope not, boy. Darn, I hope not.” I had to ask him why he was so angry. He stared at me with his sharp eyes and then he smiled. “You're young, boy. Of course you wouldn't know. I've been planning on selling most of the horses. Too much for me to do at my age and besides, my thoroughs could have a better life than I'm giving 'em here. They should be at a track with a trainer, Mark, but I just can't be bothered no more. And now, well if there's another horse on the way, I've another one to look out for and it ain't going to have much of a life here.”
Contrary to what my grandpa wanted, I found myself hoping with all my heart that Sally was in foal. It would be a perfect chance to dream through the next couple of years that maybe, just maybe, the horse'd be a good one.
That afternoon in the stable, my grandpa turned to me and really surprised me. He said, “You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to let you have Sally Steven's foal—if she's going to have one—and the thorough'll be all yours to do what you want with.”
I felt my heart pick up speed and my ears began to go thump-thump. My legs and my arms—my whole body even—got a little weak. Having my own baby thoroughbred to care for and maybe to race—golly! That was something to look forward to! There I was, just ten years old and a horse owner, with the possibility of owning a real champion! I fell against my grandpa and hugged him hard as I could. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” I cried, my words muffled in his shirt. “You're the greatest person in the whole wide world!”
I worked with my head in the clouds the rest of the day with grandpa there to help. All I could think of was the thorougbred I might get. Wow! We gave all the horses their food so when they came back in from outside they'd have what they needed: maize, barley, bran, oats, linseed, and all that. We put hay in the rope racks and blocks of salt down and gave them fresh water. I thought about my foal, only my foal. I was very excited about it. Then my grandpa went into the house and left me alone. I walked outside and watched the horses grazing. They were real busy at it. Their long necks were lowered to the ground. I looked at the sky but it wasn't dark enough yet to rain, or I didn't think so anyway, and in a few places beams of sun were shining through. I took the two spotted ponies for a little walk around their corral, then saddled Gray Book for a big ride.
He was just fifteen and a half hands high, gray Book was, a bulky kind of thorough, and I jumped up on him like I was on springs. I walked him out to the pasture, then rode him fast all the way across the meadow to the woods. The wind was in my eyes and my hair and it was a great thrill. Gray Book, the father of my little foal—if Sally was in a motherly way!
When my mom came to get me later in the afternoon, I had to tell her right away. I burst out with, “Sally's going to have a foal! It's mine, mom! Golly, the foal's going to be all mine because grandpa said and he said I could do whatever I wanted with it! Because it's going to be all mine!”
I don't think my mom believed what I said because she looked at my grandma and then my grandpa for some kind of confirmation. “Yes, that's right, Helen,” my grandma said.
Grandpa said, “Yup, the boy's got a chance to be the owner of a champ!”
On the way home in the car, my mom sure seemed glad that my grandpa was going to give me a horse. “Now, you ought to be real thankful, Mark,” she said. “My, my, it's a wonderful present and I can't believe that a boy your age is going to have his own thoroughbred. And what are you going to call the horse, dear? Have you decided yet?”
I said, “No, mom, I haven't.”
Almost at that moment, drops of rain began to fall on the windshield. I was thinking about Sally Stevens; maybe she wasn't going to have a foal at all.
CHAPTER TWO