Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger GARRISON'S FINISH, A ROMANCE OF THE RACE-COURSE by W. B. M. Ferguson CHAPTER I. A SHATTERED IDOL. As he made his way out of the paddock Garrison carefully tilted his bag of Durham into the curved rice-paper held between nicotine-stained finger and thumb, then deftly rolled his âsmokeâ with the thumb and forefinger, while tying the bag with practised right hand and even white teeth. Once his reputation had been as spotless as those teeth. He smiled cynically as he shouldered his way through the slowly moving crowd--that kaleidoscope of the humanities which congregate but do not blend; which coagulate wherever the trial of science, speed, and stamina serves as an excuse for putting fortune to the test. It was a cynical crowd, a quiet crowd, a sullen crowd. Those who had won, through sheer luck, bottled their joy until they could give it vent in a safer atmosphere--one not so resentful. For it had been a hard day for the field. The favorite beaten in the stretch, choked off, outside the money---- Garrison gasped as the rushing simulacra of the Carter Handicap surged to his beating brain; that brain at bursting pressure. It had recorded so many things--recorded faithfully so many, many things he would give anything to forget. He was choking, smothering--smothering with shame, hopelessness, despair. He must get away; get away to breathe, to think; get away out of it all; get away anywhere--oblivion. To the jibes, the sneers flung at him, the innuendos, the open insults, and worst of all, the sad looks of those few friends who gave their friendship without conditions, he was not indifferent, though he seemed so. God knows how he felt it at all. And all the more so because he had once been so high. Now his fall was so low, so pitifully low; so contemptible, so complete. He knew what the action of the Jockey Club would be. The stewards would do only one thing. His license would be revoked. To-day had seen his finish. This, the ten-thousand dollar Carter Handicap, had seen his final slump to the bottom of the scale. Worse. It had seen him a pauper, ostracized; an unclean thing in the mouth of friend and foe alike. The sporting world was through with him at last. And when the sporting world is through-- Again Garrison laughed harshly, puffing at his cigarette, dragging its fumes into his lungs in a fierce desire to finish his physical cataclysm with his moral. Yes, it had been his last chance. He, the popular idol, had been going lower and lower in the scale, but the sporting world had been loyal, as it always is to âclass.â He had been âclass,â and they had stuck to him. Then when he began to go back--No; worse. Not that. They said he had gone crooked. That was it. Crooked as Doyers Street, they said; throwing every race; standing in with his owner to trim the bookies, and they couldn't stand for that. Sport was sport. But they had been loyal. They had warned, implored, begged. What was the use soaking a pile by dirty work? Why not ride straight--ride as he could, as he did, as it had been bred in him to? Any money, any honor was his. Instead-- Garrison, stung to madness by retrospect, humped his way through the crowd at the gates of the Aqueduct. There was not a friendly eye in that crowd. He stuffed his ears with indifference. He would not bear their remarks as they recognized him. He summoned all his nerve to look them in the face unflinchingly--that nerve that had been frayed to ribbons. And then he heard quick footsteps behind him; a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder, and he was twisted about like a chip. It was his stable owner, his face flushed with passion and drink. Waterbury was stingy of cash, but not of words. âI've looked for you,â he whipped out venomously, his large hands ravenous for something to rend. âNow I've caught you. Who was in with you on that dirty deal? Answer, you cur! Spit it out before the crowd. Was it me? Was it me?â he reiterated in a frenzy, taking a step forward for each word, his bad grammar coming equally to the fore. The crowd surged back. Owner and jockey were face to face. âWhen thieves fall out!â they thought; and they waited for the fun. Something was due them. It came in a flash. Waterbury shot out his big fist, and little Garrison thumped on the turf with a bang, a thin streamer of blood threading its way down his gray-white face. âYou miserable little whelp!â howled his owner. âYou've dishonored me. You threw that race, damn you! That's what I get for giving you a chance when you couldn't get a mount anywhere.â His long pent-up venom was unleashed. âYou threw it. You've tried to make me party to your dirty work--me, me, me!â--he thumped his heaving chest. âBut you can't heap your filth on me. I'm done with you. You're a thief, a cur--â âHold on,â cut in Garrison. He had risen slowly, and was dabbing furtively at his nose with a silk red-and-blue handkerchief--the Waterbury colors. âJust a minute,â he added, striving to keep his voice from sliding the scale. He was horribly calm, but his gray eyes were quivering as was his lip. âI didn't throw it. I--I didn't throw it. I was sick. I--I've been sick. I--I----â Then, for he was only a boy with a man's burdens, his lip began to quiver pitifully; his voice shrilled out and his words came tumbling forth like lava; striving to make up by passion and reiteration what they lacked in logic and coherency. âI'm not a thief. I'm not. I'm honest. I don't know how it happened. Everything became a blur in the stretch. You--you've called me a liar, Mr. Waterbury. You've called me a thief. You struck me. I know you can lick me,â he shrilled. âI'm dishonored--down and out. I know you can lick me, but, by the Lord, you'll do it here and now! You'll fight me. I don't like you. I never liked you. I don't like your face. I don't like your hat, and here's your damn colors in your face.â He fiercely crumpled the silk handkerchief and pushed it swiftly into Waterbury's glowering eye. Instantly there was a mix-up. The crowd was blood-hungry. They had paid for sport of some kind. There would be no crooked work in this deal. Lustfully they watched. Then the inequality of the boy and the man was at length borne in on them, and it roused their stagnant sense of fair play. Garrison, a small hell let loose, had risen from the turf for the third time! His face was a smear of blood, venom, and all the bandit passions. Waterbury, the gentleman in him soaked by the taint of a foisted dishonor and his fighting blood roused, waited with clenched fists. As Garrison hopped in for the fourth time, the older man feinted quickly, and then swung right and left savagely. The blows were caught on the thick arm of a tan box-coat. A big hand was placed over Waterbury's face and he was given a shove backward. He staggered for a ridiculously long time, and then, after an unnecessary waste of minutes, sat down. The tan overcoat stood over him. It was Jimmy Drake, and the chameleonlike crowd applauded. Jimmy was a popular book-maker with educated fists. The crowd surged closer. It looked as if the fight might change from bantam-heavy to heavy-heavy. And the odds were on Drake. âIf yeh want to fight kids,â said the book-maker, in his slow, drawling voice, âwait till they're grown up. Mebbe then yeh'll change your mind.â Waterbury was on his feet now. He let loose some vitriolic verbiage, using Drake as the objective-point. He told him to mind his own business, or that he would make it hot for him. He told him that Garrison was a thief and cur; and that he would have no book-maker and tout-- âHold on,â said Drake. âYou're gettin' too flossy right there. When you call me a tout you're exceedin' the speed limit.â He had an uncomfortable steady blue eye and a face like a snow-shovel. âI stepped in here not to argue morals, but to see fair play. If Billy Garrison's done dirt--and I admit it looks close like it--I'll bet that your stable, either trainer or owner, shared the mud-pie, all right--â âI've stood enough of those slurs,â cried Waterbury, in a frenzy. âYou lie.â Instantly Drake's large face stiffened like cement, and his overcoat was on the ground. âThat's a fighting word where I come from,â he said grimly. But before Drake could square the insult a crowd of Waterbury's friends swirled up in an auto, and half a dozen peacemakers, mutual acquaintances, together with two somnambulistic policemen, managed to preserve the remains of the badly shattered peace. Drake sullenly resumed his coat, and Waterbury was driven off, leaving a back draft of impolite adjectives and vague threats against everybody. The crowd drifted away. It was a fitting finish for the scotched Carter Handicap. Meanwhile, Garrison, taking advantage of the switching of the lime-light from himself to Drake, had dodged to oblivion in the crowd. âI guess I don't forget Jimmy Drake,â he mused grimly to himself. âHe's straight cotton. The only one who didn't give me the double-cross out and out. Bud, Bud!â he declared to himself, âthis is sure the wind-up. You've struck bed-rock and the tide's coming in--hard. You're all to the weeds. Buck up, buck up,â he growled savagely, in fierce contempt. âWhat're you dripping about?â He had caught a tear burning its way to his eyes--eyes that had never blinked under Waterbury's savage blows. âWhat if you are ruled off! What if you are called a liar and crook; thrown the game to soak a pile? What if you couldn't get a clotheshorse to run in a potato-race? Buck up, buck up, and plug your cotton pipe. They say you're a crook. Well, be one. Show 'em you don't care a damn. You're down and out, anyway. What's honesty, anyway, but whether you got the goods or ain't? Shake the bunch. Get out before you're kicked out. Open a pool-room like all the has-beens and trim the suckers right, left, and down the middle. Money's the whole thing. Get it. Don't mind how you do, but just get it. You'll be honest enough for ten men then. Anyway, there's no one cares a curse how you pan out--â He stopped, and his face slowly relaxed. The hard, vindictive look slowly faded from his narrowed eyes. âSis,â he said softly. âSis--I was going without saying good-by. Forgive me.â He swung on his heel, and with hunched shoulders made his way back to Aqueduct. Waterbury's training-quarters were adjacent, and, after lurking furtively about like some hunted animal, Garrison summoned all his nerve and walked boldly in. The only stable-boy about was one with a twisted mouth and flaming red hair, which he was always curling; a remarkably thin youth he was, addicted to green sweaters and sentimental songs. He was singing one now in a key entirely original with himself. âRed'sâ characteristic was that when happy he wore a face like a tomb-stone. When sad, the sentimental songs were always in evidence. âHello, Red!â said Garrison gruffly. He had been Red's idol once. He was quite prepared now, however, to see the other side of the curtain. He was no longer an idol to any one. âHello!â returned Red non-committally. âWhere's Crimmins?â âIn there.â Red nodded to the left where were situated the stalls. âGettin' Sis ready for the Belmont opening.â âRiding for him now?â âYeh. Promised a mount in th' next run-off. 'Bout time, I guess.â There was silence. Garrison pictured to himself the time when he had won his first mount. How long ago that was! Time is reckoned by events, not years. How glorious the future had seemed! He slowly seated himself on a box by the side of Red and laid a hand on the other's thin leg. âKid,â he said, and his voice quivered, âyou know I wish you luck. It's a great game--the greatest game in the world, if you play it right.â He blundered to silence as his own condition surged over him. Red was knocking out his shabby heels against the box in an agony of confusion. Then he grew emboldened by the other's dejected mien. âNo, I'd never throw no race,â he said judicially. âIt don't pay--â âRed,â broke in Garrison harshly, âyou don't believe I threw that race? Honest, I'm square. Why, I was up on Sis--Sis whom I love, Red--honest, I was sure of the race. Dead sure. I hadn't much money, but I played every cent I had on her. I lost more than any one. I lost--everything. See,â he ran on feverishly, glad of the opportunity to vindicate himself, if only to a stable-boy. âI guess the stewards will let the race stand, even if Waterbury does kick. Rogue won square enough.â âYeh, because yeh choked Sis off in th' stretch. She could ha' slept home a winner, an' yeh know it, Billy,â said Red, with sullen regret. There was a time when he never would have dared to call Garrison by his Christian name. Disgrace is a great leveler. Red grew more conscious of his own rectitude. âI ain't knockin' yeh, Billy,â he continued, speaking slowly, to lengthen the pleasure of thus monopolizing the pulpit. âWhat have I to say? Yeh can ride rings round any jockey in the States--at least, yeh could.â And then, like his kind, Red having nothing to say, proceeded to say it. âBut it weren't your first thrown race, Billy. Yeh know that. I know how yeh doped it out. I know we ain't got much time to make a pile if we keep at th' game. Makin' weight makes yeh a lunger. We all die of th' hurry-up stunt. An' yeh're all right to your owner so long's yeh make good. After that it's twenty-three, forty-six, double time for yours. I know what th' game is when you've hit th' top of th' pile. It's a fast mob, an' yeh got to keep up with th' band-wagon. You're makin' money fast and spendin' it faster. Yeh think it'll never stop comin' your way. Yeh dip into everythin'. Then yeh wake up some day without your pants, and yeh breeze about to make th' coin again. There's a lot of wise eggs handin' out crooked advice--they take the coin and you th' big stick. Yeh know, neither Crimmins or the Old Man was in on your deals, but yeh had it all framed up with outside guys. Yeh bled the field to soak a pile. See, Bill,â he finished eloquently, âit weren't your first race.â âI know, I know,â said Garrison grimly. âCut it out. You don't understand, and it's no good talking. When you have reached the top of the pile, Red, you'll travel with as fast a mob as I did. But I never threw a race in my life. That's on the level. Somehow I always get blind dizzy in the stretch, and it passed when I crossed the post. I never knew when it was coming on. I felt all right other times. I had to make the coin, as you say, for I lived up to every cent I made. No, I never threw a race--Yes, you can smile, Red,â he finished savagely. âSmile if your face wants stretching. But that's straight. Maybe I've gone back. Maybe I'm all in. Maybe I'm a crook. But there'll come a time, it may be one year, it may be a hundred, when I'll come back--clean. I'll make good, and if you're on the track, Red, I'll show you that Garrison can ride a harder, straighter race than you or any one. This isn't my finish. There's a new deal coming to me, and I'm going to see that I get it.â Without heeding Red's pessimistic reply. Garrison turned on his heel and entered the stall where Sis, the Carter Handicap favorite, was being boxed for the coming Belmont opening. Crimmins, the trainer, looked up sharply as Garrison entered. He was a small, hard man, with a face like an ice-pick and eyes devoid of pupils, which fact gave him a stony, blank expression. In fact, he had been likened once, by Jimmy Drake, to a needle with two very sharp eyes, and the simile was merited. But he was an excellent flesh handler; and Waterbury, an old ex-bookie, knew what he was about when he appointed him head of the stable. âHello, Dan!â said Garrison, in the same tone he had used to greet Red. He and the trainer had been thick, but it was a question whether that thickness would still be there. Garrison, alone in the world since he had run away from his home years ago, had no owner as most jockeys have, and Crimmins had filled the position of mentor. In fact, he had trained him, though Garrison's riding ability was not a foreign graft, but had been bred in the bone. âHello!â echoed Crimmins, coming forward. His manner was cordial, and Garrison's frozen heart warmed. âOf course you'll quit the game,â ran on the trainer, after an exchange of commonalities. âYou're queered for good. You couldn't get a mount anywhere. I ain't saying anything about your pulling Sis, 'cause there ain't no use now. But you've got me and Mr. Waterbury in trouble. It looked as if we were in on the deal. I should be sore on you, Garrison, but I can't be. And why? Because Dan Crimmins has a heart, and when he likes a man he likes him even if murder should come 'atween. Dan Crimmins ain't a welcher. You've done me as dirty a deal as one man could hand another, but instead of getting hunk, what does Dan Crimmins do? Why, he agitates his brain thinking of a way for you to make a good living, Bud. That's Dan Crimmins' way.â Garrison was silent. He did not try to vindicate himself. He had given that up as hopeless. He was thinking, oblivious to Crimmins' eulogy. âYeh,â continued the upright trainer; âthat's Dan Crimmins' way. And after much agitating of my brain I've hit on a good money-making scheme for you, Bud.â âEh?â asked Garrison. âYeh.â And the trainer lowered his voice. âI know a man that's goin' to buck the pool-rooms in New York. He needs a chap who knows the ropes--one like you--and I gave him your name. I thought it would come in handy. I saw your finish a long way off. This fellah's in the Western Union; an operator with the pool-room lines. You can run the game. It's easy. See, he holds back the returns, tipping you the winners, and you skin round and lay the bets before he loosens up on the returns. It's easy money; easy and sure.â Again Garrison was silent. But now a smile was on his face. He had been asking himself what was the use of honesty. âWhat d'you say?â asked Crimmins, his head on one side, his small eyes calculating. The smile was still twisting Garrison's lip. âI was going to light out, anyway,â he answered slowly. âI'll answer you when I say good-by to Sis.â âAll right. She's over there.â The handlers fell back in silence as Garrison approached the filly. He was softly humming the music-hall song, âGood-by, Sis.â With all his faults, the handlers to a man liked Garrison. They knew how he had professed to love the filly, and now they sensed that he would prefer to say his farewell without an audience. Sis whinnied as Garrison raised her small head and looked steadily into her soft, dark eyes. âSis,â he said slowly, âit's good-by. We've been pals, you and I; pals since you were first foaled. You're the only girl I have; the only sweetheart I have; the only one to say good-by to me. Do you care?â The filly nuzzled at his shoulder. âI've done you dirt to-day,â continued the boy a little unsteadily. âIt was your race from the start. You know it; I know it. I can't explain now, Sis, how it came about. But I didn't go to do it. I didn't, girlie. You understand, don't you? I'll square that deal some day, Sis. I'll come back and square it. Don't forget me. I won't forget you--I can't. You don't think me a crook, Sis? Say you don't. Say it,â he pleaded fiercely, raising her head. The filly understood. She lipped his face, whinnying lovingly. In a moment Garrison's nerve had been swept away, and, arms flung about the dark, arched neck, he was sobbing his heart out on the glossy coat; sobbing like a little child. How long he stayed there, the filly nuzzling him like a mother, he did not know. It seemed as if he had reached sanctuary after an aeon of chaos. He had found love, understanding in a beast of the field. Where his fellow man had withheld, the filly had given her all and questioned not. For Sis, by Rex out of Reine, two-year filly, blooded stock, was a thoroughbred. And a thoroughbred, be he man, beast, or bird, does not welch on his hand. A stranger only in prosperity; a chum in adversity. He does not question; he gives. âWell,â said Crimmins, as Garrison slowly emerged from the stall, âyou take the partin' pretty next your skin. What's your answer to the game I spoke of? Mulled it over? It don't take much thinking, I guess.â He was paring his mourning fringed nails with great indifference. âNo, it doesn't take much thinking, Dan,â agreed Garrison slowly, his eyes narrowed. âI'll rot first before I touch it.â âYes?â The trainer raised his thick eyebrows and lowered his thin voice. âKind of tony, ain't yeh? Beggars can't be choosers.â âThey needn't be crooks, Dan. I know you meant it all right enough,â said Garrison bitterly. âYou think I'm crooked, and that I'd take anything--anything; dirt of any kind, so long's there's money under it.â âAw, sneeze!â said Crimmins savagely. Then he checked himself. âIt ain't my game. I only knew the man. There's nothing in it for me. Suit yourself;â and he shrugged his shoulders. âIt ain't Crimmins' way to hump his services on any man. Take it or leave it.â âYou wanted me to go crooked, Dan,â said Garrison steadily. âWas it friendship--â âHuh! Wanted you to go crooked?â flashed the trainer with a sneer. âWhat are y' talking about? Ain't yeh a welcher now? Ain't yeh crooked--hair, teeth, an' skin?â âYou mean that, Dan?â Garrison's face was white. âYou've trained me, and yet you, too, believe I was in on those lost races? You know I lost every cent on Sis--â âIt ain't one race, it's six,â snorted Crimmins. âIt's Crimmins' way to agitate his brain for a friend, but it ain't his way to be a plumb fool. You can't shoot that bull con into me, Bud. I know you. I give you an offer, friend and friend. You turn it down and 'cuse me of making you play crooked. I'm done with you. It ain't Crimmins' way.â Billy Garrison eyed his former trainer and mentor steadily for a long time. His lip was quivering. âDamn your way!â he said hoarsely at length, and turned on his heel. His hands were deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched as he swung out of the stable. He was humming over and over the old music-hall favorite, âGood-by, Sisâ--humming in a desperate effort to keep his nerve. Billy Garrison had touched bottom in the depths. CHAPTER II. THE HEAVY HAND OF FATE. Garrison left Long Island for New York that night. When you are hard hit the soul suffers a reflex-action. It recoils to its native soil. New York was Garrison's home. He was a product of its sporting soil. He loved the Great White Way. But he had drunk in the smell, the intoxication of the track with his mother's milk. She had been from the South; the land of straight women, straight men, straight living, straight riding. She had brought blood--good, clean blood--to the Garrison-Loring entente cordiale--a polite definition of a huge mistake. From his mother Garrison had inherited his cool head, steady eye, and the intuitive hands that could compel horse-flesh like a magnet. From her he had inherited a peculiar recklessness and swift daring. From his father--well, Garrison never liked to talk about his father. His mother was a memory; his father a blank. He was a good-looking, bad-living sprig of a straight family-tree. He had met his wife at the New Orleans track, where her father, an amateur horse-owner, had two entries. And she had loved him. There is good in every one. Perhaps she had discovered it in Garrison's father where no one else had. Her family threw her off--at least, when she came North with her husband, she gradually dropped out of her home circle; dropped of her own volition. Perhaps she was afraid that the good she had first discovered in her husband had been seen through a magnifying-glass. Her life with Garrison was a constant whirlwind of changing scene and fortune--the perpetual merry--or sorry--go-round of a book-maker; going from track to track, and from bad to worse. His friends said he was unlucky; his enemies, that the only honest thing in him was his cough. He had incipient consumption. So Mrs. Garrison's life, such as it was, had been lived in a trunk--when it wasn't held for hotel bills--but she had lived out her mistake gamely. When the boy came--Billy--she thought Heaven had smiled upon her at last. But it was only hell. Garrison loved his wife, for love is not a quality possessed only by the virtuous. Sometimes the worst man can love the most--in his selfish way. And Garrison resented the arrival of Billy. He resented sharing his wife's affection with the boy. In time he came to hate his son. Billy's education was chiefly constitutional. There wasn't the money to pay for his education for any length of time. His mother had to fight for it piecemeal. So he took his education in capsules; receiving a dose in one city and jumping to another for the next, according as a track opened. He knew his father never cared for him, though his mother tried her best to gloze over the indifference of her husband. But Billy understood and resented it. He and his mother loved in secret. When she died, her mistake lived out to the best of her ability, young Garrison promptly ran away from his circulating home. He knew nothing of his father's people; nothing of his mother's. He was a young derelict; his inherent sense of honor and an instinctive desire for cleanliness kept him off the rocks. The years between the time he left home and the period when he won his first mount on the track, his natural birthright, Billy Garrison often told himself he would never care to look back upon. He was young, and he did not know that years of privation, of hardship, of semi-starvation--but with an insistent ambition goading one on--are not years to eliminate in retrospect. They are years to reverence. He did not know that prosperity, not adversity, is the supreme test. And when the supreme test came; when the goal was attained, and the golden sun of wealth, fame, and honor beamed down upon him, little Billy Garrison was found wanting. He was swamped by the flood. He went the way of many a better, older, wiser man--the easy, rose-strewn way, big and broad and scented, that ends in a bottomless abyss filled with bitter tears and nauseating regrets; the abyss called, âIt might have been.â Where he had formerly shunned vice by reason of adversity and poverty making it appear so naked, revolting, unclean, foreign to his state, prosperity had now decked it out in her most sensuous, alluring garments. Red's moral diatribe had been correct. Garrison had followed the band-wagon to the finish, never asking where it might lead; never caring. He had youth, reputation, money--he could never overdraw that account. And so the modern pied piper played, and little Garrison blindly danced to the music with the other fools; danced on and on until he was swallowed up in the mountain. Then he awoke too late, as they all awake; awoke to find that his vigor had been sapped by early suppers and late breakfasts; his finances depleted by slow horses and fast women; his nerve frayed to ribbons by gambling. And then had come that awful morning when he first commenced to cough. Would he, could he, ever forget it? Billy Garrison huddled down now in the roaring train as he thought of it. It was always before him, a demoniacal obsession--that morning when he coughed, and a bright speck of arterial blood stood out like a tardy danger-signal against the white of his handkerchief; it was leering at him, saying: âI have been here always, but you have chosen to be blind.â Consumption--the jockey's Old Man of the Sea--had arrived at last. He had inherited the seeds from his father; he had assiduously cultivated them by making weight against all laws of nature; by living against laws of God and man. Now they had been punished as they always are. Nature had struck, struck hard. That had been the first warning, and Garrison did not heed it. Instead of quitting the game, taking what little assets he had managed to save from the holocaust, and living quietly, striving for a cure, he kicked over the traces. The music of the pied piper was still in his ears; twisting his brain. He gritted his teeth. He would not give in. He would show that he was master. He would fight this insidious vitality vampire; fight and conquer. Besides, he had to make money. The thought of going back to a pittance a year sickened him. That pittance had once been a fortune to him. But his appetite had not been gorged, satiated; rather, it had the resilience of crass youth; jumping the higher with every indulgence. It increased in ratio with his income. He had no one to guide him; no one to compel advice with a whip, if necessary. He knew it all. So he kept his curse secret. He would pile up one more fortune, retain it this time, and then retire. But nature had balked. The account--youth, reputation, money--was overthrown at last. Came a day when in the paddock Dan Crimmins had seen that fleck of arterial blood on the handkerchief. Then Dan shared the secret. He commenced to doctor Garrison. Before every race the jockey had a drug. But despite it he rode worse than an exercise-boy; rode despicably. The Carter Handicap had finished his deal. And with it Garrison had lost his reputation. He had done many things in his mad years of prosperity--the mistakes, the faults of youth. But Billy Garrison was right when he said he was square. He never threw a race in his life. Horseflesh, the âgame,â was sacred to him. He had gone wild, but never crooked. But the world now said otherwise, and it is only the knave, the saint, and the fool who never heed what the world says. And so at twenty-two, when the average young man is leaving college for the real taste of life, little Garrison had drained it to the dregs; the lees tasted bitter in his mouth. For obvious reasons Garrison had not chosen his usual haven, the smoking-car, on the train. It was filled to overflowing from the Aqueduct track, and he knew that his name would be mentioned frequently and in no complimentary manner. His soul had been stripped bare, sensitive to a breath. It would writhe under the mild compassion of a former admirer as much as it would under the open jibes of his enemies. He had plenty of enemies. Every âis,â âhas-been,â âwould-be,â âwill-beâ has enemies. It is well they have. Nothing is lost in nature. Enemies make you; not your friends. Garrison had selected a car next to the smoker and occupied a seat at the forward end, his back to the engine. His hands were deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his eyes staring straight ahead under the brim of his slouch-hat. His eyes were looking inward, not outward; they did not see his surroundings; they were looking in on the ruin of his life. The present, the future, did not exist; only the past lived--lived with all the animalism of a rank growth. He was too far in the depths to even think of reerecting his life's structure. His cough was troubling him; his brain throbbing, throbbing. Then, imperceptibly, as Garrison's staring, blank eyes slowly turned from within to without, occasioned by a violent jolt of the train, something flashed across their retina; they became focused, and a message was wired to his brain. Instantly his eyes dropped, and he fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat. He found he had been staring into a pair of slate-gray eyes; staring long, rudely, without knowing it. Their owner was occupying a seat three removed down the aisle. As he was seated with his back to the engine, he was thus confronting them. She was a young girl with indefinite hair, white skin coated with tan, and a very steady gaze. She would always be remembered for her eyes. Garrison instantly decided that they were beautiful. He furtively peered up from under his hat. She was still looking at him fixedly without the slightest embarrassment. Garrison was not susceptible to the eternal feminine. He was old with a boy's face. Yet he found himself taking snap-shots at the girl opposite. She was reading now. Unwittingly he tried to criticize every feature. He could not. It was true that they were far from being regular; her nose went up like her short upper lip; her chin and under lip said that she had a temper and a will of her own. He noted also that she had a mole under her left eye. But one always returned from the facial peregrinations to her eyes. After a long stare Garrison caught himself wishing that he could kiss those eyes. That threw him into a panic. âBe sad, be sad,â he advised himself gruffly. âWhat right have you to think? You're rude to stare, even if she is a queen. She wouldn't wipe her boots on you.â Having convinced himself that he should not think, Garrison promptly proceeded to speculate. How tall was she? He likened her flexible figure to Sis. Sis was his criterion. Then, for the brain is a queer actor, playing clown when it should play tragedian, Garrison discovered that he was wishing that the girl would not be taller than his own five feet two. âAs if it mattered a curse,â he laughed contemptuously. His eyes were transferred to the door. It had opened, and with the puff of following wind there came a crowd of men, emerging like specters from the blue haze of the smoker. They had evidently been âsmoked out.â Some of them were sober. Garrison half-lowered his head as the crowd entered. He did not wish to be recognized. The men, laughing noisily, crowded into what seats were unoccupied. There was one man more than the available space, and he started to occupy the half-vacant seat beside the girl with the slate-colored eyes. He was slightly more than fat, and the process of making four feet go into two was well under way when the girl spoke. âPardon me, this seat is reserved.â âDon't look like it,â said Behemoth. âBut I say it is. Isn't that enough?â âFull house; no reserved seats,â observed the man placidly, squeezing in. The girl flashed a look at him and then was silent. A spot of red was showing through the tan on her cheek; Garrison was watching her under his hat-brim. He saw the spot on her cheeks slowly grow and her eyes commence to harden. He saw that she was being annoyed surreptitiously and quietly. Behemoth was a Strephon, and he thought that he had found his Chloe. Garrison pulled his hat well down over his face, rose negligently, and entered the next car. He waited there a moment and then returned. He swung down the aisle. As he approached the girl he saw her draw back. Strephon's foot was deliberately pressing Chloe's. Garrison avoided a scene for the girl's sake. He tapped the man on the shoulder. âPardon me. My seat, if you please. I left it for the smoker.â The man looked up, met Garrison's cold, steady eyes, rose awkwardly, muttered something about not knowing it was reserved, and squeezed in with two of his companions farther down the aisle. Garrison sat down without glancing at the girl. He became absorbed in the morning paper--twelve hours old. Silence ensued. The girl had understood the fabrication instantly. She waited, her antagonism roused, to see whether Garrison would try to take advantage of his courtesy. When he was entirely oblivious of her presence she commenced to inspect him covertly out of the corners of her gray eyes. After five minutes she spoke. âThank you,â she said simply. Her voice was soft and throaty. Garrison absently raised his hat and was about to resume the defunct paper when he was interrupted. A hand reached over the back of the seat, and before he had thought of resistance, he was flung violently down the aisle. He heard a great laugh from the Behemoth's friends. He rose slowly, his fighting blood up. Then he became aware that his ejector was not one of the crowd, but a newcomer; a tall man with a fierce white mustache and imperial; dressed in a frock coat and wide, black slouch hat. He was talking. âHow dare you insult my daughter, suh?â he thundered. âBy thunder, suh, I've a good mind to make you smart right proper for your lack of manners, suh! How dare you, suh? You--you contemptible little--little snail, suh! Snail, suh!â And quite satisfied at thus selecting the most fitting word, glaring fiercely and twisting his white mustache and imperial with a very martial air, he seated himself majestically by his daughter. Garrison recognized him. He was Colonel Desha, of Kentucky, whose horse, Rogue, had won the Carter Handicap through Garrison's poor riding of the favorite, Sis. His daughter was expostulating with him, trying to insert the true version of the affair between her father's peppery exclamations of âOccupying my seat!â âI saw him raise his hat to you!â âHow dare he?â âComplain to the management against these outrageous flirts!â âAbominable manners!â etc., etc. Meanwhile Garrison had silently walked into the smoker. He tried to dismiss the incident from his mind, but it stuck; stuck as did the girl's eyes. At the next station a newsboy entered the car. Garrison idly bought a paper. It was full of the Carter Handicap, giving both Crimmins' and Waterbury's version of the affair. Public opinion, it seemed, was with them. They had protested the race. It had been thrown, and Garrison's dishonor now was national. There was a column of double-leaded type on the first page, run in after the making up of the paper's body, and Garrison's bitter eyes negligently scanned it. But at the first word he straightened up as if an electric shock had passed through him. âFavorite for the Carter Handicap Poisoned,â was the great, staring title. The details were meager; brutally meager. They were to the effect that some one had gained access to the Waterbury stable and had fed Sis strychnine. Garrison crumpled up the paper and buried his face in his hands, making no pretense of hiding his misery. She had been more than a horse to him; she had been everything. âSis--Sis,â he whispered over and over again, the tears burning to his eyes, his throat choking: âI didn't get a chance to square the deal. Sis--Sis it was good-by--good-by forever.â CHAPTER III. BEGINNING A NEW LIFE. On arriving at the Thirty-fourth Street ferry Garrison idly boarded a Forty-second Street car, drifting aimlessly with the main body of Long Island passengers going westward to disintegrate, scatter like the fragments of a bursting bomb, at Broadway. A vague sense of proprietorship, the kiss of home, momentarily smoothed out the wrinkles in his soul as the lights of the Great White Way beamed down a welcome upon him. Then it was slowly borne in on him that, though with the crowd, he was not of it. His mother, the great cosmopolitan city, had repudiated him. For Broadway is a place for presents or futures; she has no welcome for pasts. With her, charity begins at home--and stays there. Garrison drifted hither and thither with every cross eddy of humanity, and finally dropped into the steady pulsating, ever-moving tide on the west curb going south--the ever restless tide that never seems to reach the open sea. As he passed one well-known cafÃ© after another his mind carried him back over the waste stretch of âIt might have beenâ to the time when he was their central figure. On every block he met acquaintances who had even toasted him--with his own wine; toasted him as the kingpin. Now they either nodded absently or became suddenly vitally interested in a show-window or the new moon. All sorts and conditions of men comprised that list of former friends, and not one now stepped out and wrung his hand; wrung it as they had only the other day, when they thought he would retrieve his fortunes by pulling off the Carter Handicap. They did not wring it now, for there was nothing to wring out of it. Now he was not only hopelessly down in the muck of poverty, but hopelessly dishonored. And gentlemanly appearing blackguards, who had left all honesty in the cradle, now wouldn't for the world be seen talking on Broadway to little Billy Garrison, the horribly crooked jockey. It wouldn't do at all. First, because their own position was so precarious that a breath would send it tottering. Secondly, because Billy might happen to inconveniently remember all the sums of money he had âloanedâ them time and again. Actual necessity might tend to waken his memory. For they had modernized the proverb into: âA friend in need is a friend to steer clear of.â A lesson in mankind and the making had been coming to Garrison, and in that short walk down Broadway he appreciated it to the uttermost. âThink I had the mange or the plague,â he mused grimly, as a plethoric ex-alderman passed and absent-mindedly forgot to return his bow--an alderman who had been tipped by Garrison in his palmy days to a small fortune. âWhat if I had thrown the race?â he ran on bitterly. âMany a jockey has, and has lived to tell it. No, there's more behind it all than that. I've passed sports who wouldn't turn me down for that. But I suppose Benderâ (the plethoric alderman) âstaked a pot on Sis, she being the favorite and I up. And when he loses he forgets the times I tipped him to win. Poor old Sis!â he added softly, as the fact of her poisoning swept over him. âThe only thing that cared for me--gone! I'm down on my luck--hard. And it's not over yet. I feel it in the air. There's another fall coming to me.â He shivered through sheer nervous exhaustion, though the night was warm for mid-April. He rummaged in his pocket. âOne dollar in bird-seed,â he mused grimly, counting the coins under the violet glare of a neighboring arc light. âAll that's between me and the morgue. Did I ever think it would come to that? Well, I need a bracer. Here goes ten for a drink. Can only afford bar whisky.â He was standing on the corner of Twenty-fifth Street, and unconsciously he turned into the cafÃ© of the Hoffman House. How well he knew its every square inch! It was filled with the usual sporting crowd, and Garrison entered as nonchalantly as if his arrival would merit the same commotion as in the long ago. He no longer cared. His depression had dropped from him. The lights, the atmosphere, the topics of conversation, discussion, caused his blood to flow like lava through his veins. This was home, and all else was forgotten. He was not the discarded jockey, but Billy Garrison, whose name on the turf was one to conjure with. And then, even as he had awakened from his dream on Broadway, he now awoke to an appreciation of the immensity of his fall from grace. He knew fully two-thirds of those present. Some there were who nodded, some kindly, some pityingly. Some there were who cut him dead, deliberately turning their backs or accurately looking through the top of his hat. Billy's square chin went up to a point and his under lip came out. He would not be driven out. He would show them. He was as honest as any there; more honest than many; more foolish than all. He ordered a drink and seated himself by a table, indifferently eyeing the shifting crowd through the fluttering curtain of tobacco-smoke. The staple subject of conversation was the Carter Handicap, and he sensed rather than noted the glances of the crowd as they shifted curiously to him and back again. At first he pretended not to notice them, but after a certain length of time his oblivion was sincere, for retrospect came and claimed him for its own. He was aroused by footsteps behind him; they wavered, stopped, and a large hand was laid on his shoulder. âHello, kid! You here, too?â He looked up quickly, though he knew the voice. It was Jimmy Drake, and he was looking down at him, a queer gleam in his inscrutable eyes. Garrison nodded without speaking. He noticed that the book-maker had not offered to shake hands, and the knowledge stung. The crowd was watching them curiously, and Drake waved off, with a late sporting extra he carried, half a dozen invitations to liquidate. âKid,â he said, lowering his voice, his hand still on Garrison's shoulder, âwhat did you come here for? Why don't you get away? Waterbury may be here any minute.â âWhat's that to me?â spat out Billy venomously. âI'm not afraid of him. No call to be.â Drake considered, the queer look still in his eyes. âDon't get busty, kid. I don't know how you ever come to do it, but it's a serious game, a dirty game, and I guess it may mean jail for you, all right.â âWhat do you mean?â Garrison's pinched face had gone slowly white. A vague premonition of impending further disaster possessed him, amounting almost to an obsession. âWhat do you mean, Jimmy?â he reiterated tensely. Drake was silent, still scrutinizing him. âKid,â he said finally, âI don't like to think it of you--but I know what made you do it. You were sore on Waterbury; sore for losing. You wanted to get hunk on something. But I tell you, kid, there's no deal too rotten for a man who poisons a horse--â âPoisons a horse,â echoed Garrison mechanically. âPoisons a horse. Good Lord, Drake!â he cried fiercely, in a sudden wave of passion and understanding, jumping from his chair, âyou dare to say that I poisoned Sis! You dare--â âNo, I don't. The paper does.â âThe paper lies! Lies, do you hear? Let me see it! Let me see it! Where does it say that? Where, where? Show it to me if you can! Show it to me--â His eyes slowly widened in horror, and his mouth remained agape, as he hastily scanned the contents of an article in big type on the first page. Then the extra dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he mechanically seated himself at the table, his eyes vacant. To his surprise, he was horribly calm. Simply his nerves had snapped; they could torture him no longer by stretching. âIt's not enough to have--have her die, but I must be her poisoner,â he said mechanically. âIt's all circumstantial evidence, or nearly so,â added Drake, shifting from one foot to the other. âYou were the only one who would have a cause to get square. And Crimmins says he gave you permission to see her alone. Even the stable-hands say that. It looks bad, kid. Here, don't
{'title': "Garrison's Finish: A Romance of the Race Course by W. B. M. Ferguson", 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}