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Thomas David Lisk
At the espresso tent erstwhile religionists examined the beef collage and gossiped about the captain and his mule. The estate--no longer a country manor--had rarely been the site of such hilarity. The fashion was for white linen overblouses and, though they were practical-looking on such a warm summer afternoon, to be crisp they had to be starched and ironed, which made everyone long for more than the illusion of servants. The booths were colorful but subdued, for everything seemed to be designed of naturally-dyed fabrics, with not a single shank of metal visible anywhere, and no mechanical noises to compete with the hum of voices and the burring of an occasional bee the talkers waved away casually with their straw hats. It seems the captain, who had actually earned a "tombstone promotion" to major just before he retired, intended to ride his own mule in the point to point heats before the final race around the meadow. The custom was for girls and boys from the poorer families to serve as jockeys and be granted the lion's share of the victory purse. But the captain had his own idea. Not (as someone accused) that he planned to be stingy. On the contrary, he made a larger than usual donation to the purse and volunteered to double whatever he won and distribute it among the other winners. What amused everyone was his claim that he'd never considered racing a competitive activity. "Each one to his own beast, and all that," he said to his sister. "You might as well say there's no point in charity" was her response, which he evidently ignored. Now he was under one of the ancient oaks talking with his trainer and drinking a glass of nutmeg beer. His tattersall vested suit of lightweight wool seemed entirely the wrong thing to wear--if he planned to wear it in the actual races. The vest didn't conceal his portly anterior, but the billowy shirts granted to the other jockeys might have made him look huge. At least his cream panama kept the sun from his already pink cheeks. Likewise the cathedral shaded the fairgrounds, but the shade was more metaphorical than literal. Though they too wanted to enjoy the festivities, the poorer families who were wise enough not to gamble on the races tended to spread their picnics farther from the track and closer to the cathedral. And as long as the sun was high, to profit from the bulkyk shade the building cast one had to be fairly close to the walls. The spire and roof peaks put long lines of shadow as far as the meadow, but the shade was narrow and could be easily passed through during the race. The captain was having fun but he made it clear he wasn't gambling. The race itself was a gamble, of course, but he placed no side bets, not because he lacked confidence in himself or because he adopted a moralistic approach to the race, but because he didn't take any of it very seriously. "The main question is the quality of the escape," he said, winking and raising his glass. "The escape" in local dialect was equivalent to "coming out of the gate," for in these amateur runs there were no gates. A voice coming over the fuzzy public address system beckoned the riders to their places, and in an instant the captain had put his glass down and the grass and was off. The heats were held in the meadow. These point to points were chaos because, although each rider had to get a beast from one point to another, no two riders had the same starting and ending points. Dog jockeys (the smallest children on the largest dogs), reindeer riders (the rider must sit forward on the animal's shoulders to keep the burden off its fragile back) and half again as many nags loped and swerved in nearly every direction until the captain jogged in on his mule, a handsome shoe-colored jack saddled with a shiny oval of leather barely visible under the captain's jostling thighs encased in loose white to match his topsail--a linen overblouse with his number (8) in white on a square of black felt pinned to the back. "Tally ho!" he shouted, and spurred his mule to within an inch of a trot. Mule-like, the animal pushed forward so the other creatures had to go their own ways. While the captain bellowed cheerfully at every child in whose path he loomed, he whacked the mule's rump with his crop, but one could see it was the saddle that bore the force of the blow. In the end, at the other side of the meadow the captain stood up in his stirrups, in a perfectly audible voice declared himself the winner; and, sinking back into his saddle, made a victory lap around the track. That lap took the place of the final race on the meadow and everyone was happy.
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