5
A black mule came up beside Drew as he slowly pulled Shiloh down to a canter. Fenner, a wide grin splitting his beard, bellowed:
"That shore was a race! Need any help, son?"
Drew shook his head, wanting to bring Shiloh under full control at a rate which would quiet the colt before they headed back to the furor about the finish line. And only now did he have time to relish his own excited pride and pleasure.
Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in '64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and love their kind all his years.
Drew would have been content with Shiloh as a mount and a companion, but now he was sure that the colt was more, so much more. This gray was going to be one of the Great Ones, a racer and a sire—to leave his mark in horse[pg 057] history and stamp his own quality on foals throughout miles and years in this southwestern land. Drew licked the grit of dust from his lips, filled his lungs with a deep breath as Shiloh turned under rein pressure.
It was a long time before the Kentuckian was able to separate Shiloh from his ring of new admirers and bring him back to the stable. Drew refused several offers for the colt, some of them so fantastic he could only believe their makers sun-touched or completely carried away by the excitement of the race.
But when he found Don Cazar waiting for him at Kells', he guessed that this was serious.