As the terrified horse shot under the wire Shin reached behind his saddle and tore loose the cords which held the rattles flapping around the animal’s flanks; then he ran his hands through the plaited mane and pulled off the rattles which whirred behind Rattlesnake’s ears, and the horse slowly slackened his speed and stopped, his sides heaving, his breath coming and going like a giant bellows.
When the other horses came in Shin rode slowly back and held up his hand.
“Judges?” he called.
Vinegar Atts nodded his head and waved his hand toward the stable.
When Shin Bone dismounted at the stall Whiffle Boone ran forward with the tears running down her laughing face.
She jerked Shin’s hat from his head, turned it upside down on the ground and filled it with money. Then she threw her arms around the graceful, throbbing, sweating neck of the big sorrel horse.
“We win!” she sobbed. “Bless Gawd! We win!”
All this happened three years ago, and there has never been another race at any Tickfall Negro Fair.
For three years Shin Bone’s wife has been in charge of the restaurant which she bought with her winnings in the last great race. For three years Shin Bone has met every train with a light wagon drawn by a pie-faced, stiff-legged sorrel horse. His owner “wrastles trunks an’ gripsacks fer de white folks.” His horse is as fat as butter, but he runs away every time he hears a rattling sound.