Chapter IV — Only One (3)

    “Oh,” says Mercer, “so he’s been a good friend of yours, has he? All right, then. I’m going to tell you a secret. Do you remember the day I met you and the gals in the car? Well, a couple of days later, Daley was feeling pretty good about something and he asked me how I liked his gal? So I told him she looked good. So he says, ‘I’m going to marry that gal,’ he says. He says, ‘She likes me and her sister and brother-in-law is encouraging it along,’ he says. ‘They know I’ve got a little money and they’re making a play for me. They’re a couple of rats and I’m the cheese. They’re going to make a meal off of me. They think they are,’ he says. ‘But the brother-in-law’s a smart Aleck that thinks he’s a wise cracker. He’d be a clown in a circus, only that’s work. And his wife’s fishing for a sucker with her sister for bait. Well, the gal’s a pip and I’m going to marry her,’ he says, ‘but as soon as we’re married, it’s good-by, family-in-law! Me and them is going to be perfect strangers. They think they’ll have free board and lodging at my house,’ he says, ‘but they won’t get no meal unless they come to the back door for it, and when they feel sleepy they can make up a lower for themself on my cement porch.’ That’s the kind of a friend of yours this baby is,” says Mercer.
    I didn’t say nothing and he went on.
    “He’s your friend as long as he can use you,” he says. “He’s been my friend since I signed to ride for him, that is, up till he found out I was stealing his gal. Then he shot my chances for a bull’s-eye by telling her about a little trouble I had, five or six years ago. I and a girl went to a party down in Louisville and I seen another guy wink at her and I asked him what he meant by it and he said he had St. Vitus’ dance. So I pulled the iron and knocked off a couple of his toes, to cure him. I was in eleven months and that’s what Daley told Kate about. And of course he made her promise to not tell, but she wrote me a good-by note and spilled it. That’s the kind of a pal he is.
    “After I got out I worked for Bradley, and when Bradley turned me loose, he give me a $10,000 contract.”
    “He told us twenty,” I said.
    “Sure he did,” says Mercer. “He always talks double. When he gets up after a tough night, both his heads aches. And if he ever has a baby he’ll invite you over to see the twins. But anyway, what he pays me ain’t enough and after to-morrow I’m through riding. What’s ten or fifteen thousand a year when you can’t drink nothing and you starve to death for the fear you’ll pick up an ounce! Listen,” he says. “I got a brother down in Oklahoma that’s in the oil lease game. He cleaned up $25,000 last year and he wants me to go in with him. And with what I’ve saved up and what I’m going to win to-morrow, I should worry if we don’t make nothing in the next two years.”
    “How are you going to win to-morrow?” I said. “The price’ll be a joke.”
    “The price on who?” says Mercer.
    “Only One,” I said.
    He give a silly laugh and didn’t say nothing for a minute. Then he asked if Daley done the betting for I and the two gals. I told him he had did it at first, but now I was doing it.
    “Well,” he says, “you do it to-morrow, see? That little lady called me a jail-bird, but I don’t want her to lose her money.”
    So I asked him what he meant and he asked me for the tenth or eleventh time if I could keep a secret. He made me hold up my hand and swear I wouldn’t crack what he was going to tell me.
    “Now,” he says, “what’s the name of the horse I’m riding to-morrow?”
    “Only One,” I said.
    “That ain’t all of it,” said Mercer. “His name to-morrow is Only One Left. See? Only One Left.”
    “Do you mean he’s going to get left at the post?” I says.
    “You’re a Ouija board!” says Mercer. “Your name is Ouija and the horse’s name is Only One Left. And listen,” he says. “Everything but three horses is going to be scratched out of this race and we’ll open at about 1 to 3 and back up to 1 to 5. And Daley’s going to bet his right eye. But they’s a horse in the race named Sap and that’s the horse my two thousand smackers is going down on. And you’re a sap, too, if you don’t string along with me.”
    “Suppose you can’t hold Only One?”
    “Get the name right,” said Mercer. “Only One Left. And don’t worry about me not handling him. He thinks I’m Billy Sunday and everything I say he believes. Do you remember the other day when I beat Streak of Lightning? Well, the way I done that was whispering in One’s ear, coming down the stretch. I says to him, ‘One,’ I says, ‘this Lightning hoss has been spilling it round that your father’s grandmother was a zebra. Make a bum out of him!’ That’s what I whispered to him and he got sore and went past Lightning like he was standing still. And to-morrow, just before we’re supposed to go, I’ll say to him, ‘One, we’re back at Jamaica. You’re facing the wrong way.’ And when Sap and the other dog starts, we’ll be headed towards Rhode Island and in no hurry to get there.”
    “Mercer,” I said, “I don’t suppose they’s any use talking to you, but after all, you’re under contract to give Daley the best you’ve got and it don’t look to me just like you was treating him square.”
    “Listen!” he says. “Him and square don’t rhyme. And besides, I won’t be under contract to nobody by this time to-morrow. So you save your sermon for your own parish.”
    I don’t know if you’ll think I done right or not. Or I don’t care. But what was the sense of me tipping off a guy that had said them sweet things about I and Ella? And even if I don’t want a sister-in-law of mine running round with a guy that’s got a jail record, still Daley squealing on him was rotten dope. And besides, I don’t never like to break a promise, especially to a guy that shoots a man’s toes off just for having St. Vitus’ dance.
    Well, anyway, the third race was over and the Merrick Handicap was next, and just like Mercer had said, they all quit but our horse and Sap and a ten-ton truck named Honor Bright. He was 20 to 1 and Sap was 6. Only One was 1 to 3 and Daley hopped on him with fifteen thousand men. Before post time the price was 1 to 5 and 1 to 6.
    Daley was off his nut all afternoon and didn’t object when I said I’d place the gals’ money and save him the trouble. Kate and Ella had figured out what they had win up to date. It was about $1,200 and Daley told them to bet it all.
    “You’ll only make $400 between you,” he says, “but it’s a cinch.”
    “And four hundred’s pretty good interest on $1,200,” says Kate. “About ten per cent., ain’t it?”
    I left them and went downstairs. I wrote out a card for a hundred smackers on Sap. Then my feet caught cold and I didn’t turn it in. I walked down towards the paddock and got there just as the boys was getting ready to parade. I seen Mercer and you wouldn’t of never knew he’d fell off the wagon.
    Daley was down there, too, and I heard him say: “Well, Sid, how about you?”
    “Never better,” says Mercer. “If I don’t win this one I’ll quit riding.”
    Then he seen me and smiled.
    I chased back to the clubhouse, making up my mind on the way. I decided to not bet a nickel for the gals on anything. If Mercer was crossing me, I’d give Ella and Kate their $400 like they had win it, and say nothing. Personally, I was going to turn in the card I’d wrote on Sap. That was my idear when I got to Joe Meyer. But all of a sudden I had the hunch that Mercer was going through; they wasn’t a chance in the world for him to weaken. I left Meyer’s stand and went to a bookie named Haynes, who I’d bet with before.
    Sap had went up to 8 to 1, and instead of a hundred smackers I bet a thousand.
    He finished ahead by three len’ths, probably the most surprised horse in history. Honor Bright got the place, but only by a hair. Only One, after being detained for some reason another, come faster at the end than any horse ever run before. And Mercer give him an unmerciful walloping, pretending to himself, probably, that the hoss was its master.
    We come back to our table. The gals sunk down in their chairs. Ella was blubbering and Kate was as white as a ghost. Daley finally joined us, looking like he’d had a stroke. He asked for a drink and I give him my flask.
    “I can’t understand it!” he says. “I don’t know what happened!”
    “You don’t!” hollered Kate. “I’ll tell you what happened. You stole our money! Twelve hundred dollars! You cheat!”
    “Oh, shut your fool mouth!” says Daley.
    And another Romance was knocked for a row of sour apple trees.
    Kate brought the mail in the dining room Monday morning. They was a letter for her and one for me. She read hers and they was a couple of tears in her eyes.
    “Mercer’s quit riding,” she says. “This is a farewell note. He’s going to Oklahoma.”
    Ella picked up my envelope.
    “Who’s this from?” she says.
    “Give it here,” I said, and took it away from her. “It’s just the statement from Haynes, the bookie.”
    “Well, open it up,” she said.
    “What for?” said I. “You know how much you lose, don’t you?”
    “He might of made a mistake, mightn’t he?” she says.
    So I opened up the envelope and there was the check for $8,000.
    “Gosh!” I said. “It looks like it was me that made the mistake!” And I laid the check down where her and Kate could see it. They screamed and I caught Ella just as she was falling off the chair.
    “What does this mean?” says Kate.
    “Well,” I said, “I guess I was kind of rattled Saturday, and when I come to make my bet I got balled up and wrote down Sap. And I must of went crazy and played him for a thousand men.”
    “But where’s our statement, mine and Sis’?” says Ella.
    “That’s my mistake again,” I said. “I wrote out your ticket, but I must of forgot to turn it in.”
    They jumped up and come at me, and before I could duck I was kissed from both sides at once.
    “O Sis!” yelps the Mrs. “Just think! We didn’t lose our twelve hundred! We didn’t lose nothing at all. We win eight thousand dollars!”
    “Try and get it!” I says.