I saw John McGee as soon as we came within sight of the track’s entrance, where all carriages were discharging their passengers. Here, looking more prosperous and fit than I’d ever seen him, handsomely garbed in starched white linen, black broadcloth, and patent-leather boots, and with a full and perfectly trimmed beard as black as coal tar, stood the redoubtable God of Water and Horses, guarding the portal like the three-headed dog of Hades. He truly did seem to own three heads, so busy was he greeting and weeding the crowd. Up to a half-dozen people sought to pass through the gate and into the track proper at any given time and John knew many by name. He kept up a steady monologue:
“Ah, there you are, Mrs. Woolsey, lovely day for the races. . Mr. Travers, your uncle is upstairs. . Hold it there, Dimpy, we’ll have no blacklegs among us today [and with a rough pluck of Dimpy’s sleeve, John sent the man back whence he came]. . And none of yours either, darling [gently turning back a painted doll]. . Ah, we’ll all enjoy ourselves this afternoon, won’t we, Henry?. . And welcome, Mrs. Fitz, how’s your mother?. . You’ve an escort, do ye, Margie, well, so be it, but if I find you with your hands in anybody’s pocket, I’ll whip your hide and put you in rags. . Your cousin’s horse had a splendid workout this morning, Mrs. Riley, and I’d play him in the pool if I was you. . Throw that hoodlum off the premises. .” Etc.
John left the weeding of undesirables in the hands of two burly associates and came to greet us, shook my hand vigorously, gripped Gordon by both shoulders, then kissed Maud’s hand with tender affection.
“Ah, Maudie girl, there’s devilish news.”
“Magdalena?”
“There’s no news of her except she’s a year older. It’s the Warrior. They poisoned him.”
“Noooooo,” groaned Maud, and she collapsed into herself so quickly that I grabbed her arm, fearing a fall.
“They cored an apple, filled it with opium, and fed it to him. But he had the good taste to spit it out, and we don’t think he was hurt.”
“Who did it?”
“Ah, now,” said John, “I wouldn’t accuse anyone. But I have my notions.”
“I want to see him,” said Maud.
“I thought you would.”
And so John took Maud’s hand and led us to his carriage and then across the street to the workout track, where we found Blue Grass Warrior coming off a final lap. The jockey, a Negro lad of about sixteen years, rode him toward us, and when John grabbed the reins the jock dismounted. Maud stroked the horse, which was lathered with sweat.
“Are you all right, baby?” Maud asked the horse, and he dipped his head.
“He’s doin’ fine,” said the jockey.
“I’d horsewhip anybody who’d harm such a beautiful animal,” said Maud.
“It’s dastardly,” said Gordon.
Maud felt easeful after a time, and so we walked toward the stables with the Warrior and watched other horses being readied for performance. The jockeys were about, and the Negro grooms and handlers, and we had close looks at two of the Warrior’s competitors: Tipperary Birdcatcher, newly purchased by Price McGrady after a particularly fruitful month at the faro tables, the Catcher being a gray colt bred in Pennsylvania by the Dwyer brothers, the noted gamblers and horsebreeders; and Comfort, a bay filly owned by Brad and Phoebe Strong of Slingerlands, an Albany suburb, she a former Fitzgibbon (cousin to Gordon) and an enduring shrew.
Both animals looked splendid to my uncritical eye, for I had knowledge of horseflesh only at its most general and practical level, and was wanting in the specifics of Thoroughbreds, this an evaluation that could have applied to my entire life: he knew things in general; his specifics lacked direction.
We bade farewell to the Warrior and, for luck, I stroked the centered white rhomboid above his eyes. John led us then on a brief tour of his racetrack, orienting us to the betting enclosure, where we might make bid on the auction pools, past the several reception rooms and saloons where beverages, viands, and oysters might be had, along the colonnade with its thickening growth of crowds, and up the stairs to the covered galleries, where Obadiah and Magdalena awaited us in their front-row seat at the finish line.
My first response upon seeing Magdalena after a hiatus of fourteen years was that she was an evolutionary figure. Age had wrinkled her, of course, and comfort had broadened her, her posterior in particular. Her bosom remained handsome, a somewhat amplified garden of promise and romp, but there was an organic pursing to her mouth line, and her hands were birdlike in their animation. Yes. A bird was what she had become. Had she always been a bird? Possibly. Once a ravenously sensuous Bird of Paradise; now, with that upward cascade of throat, an aging swan with fluttering eye.
“Oh, good,” she said when we neared her. “Daniel is here. He’s smart about these things. On which horse should we wager, Daniel? Maud’s silly animal or the Canadian?”
“My horse is not silly,” said Maud.
“I know that,” said Magdalena.
“You look splendid,” I said to her. “But I’m sorry to say I can’t counsel you on this.”
“Of course you can’t,” said Magdalena. “You just got here. You haven’t even looked at the program.”
“He certainly ought to look at the program,” Obadiah said.
“That’s none of your business,” said Magdalena. “Let the boy alone. You’ve grown up to be beautiful, Daniel.”
“You’re very kind,” I said.
“One doesn’t say beautiful to a grown man,” said Obadiah.
“Will you shut your mouth and let me talk? Sit down here by me, Daniel,” and I did.
“If you don’t bet on Maud’s horse,” said John, “you’ll be wasting your money.”
“I heard you tell a woman to bet on another horse, down by the gate,” I said.
“Well, you can’t have everybody betting on the same horse,” said John, and he excused himself to attend to the pool betting, pledging to return and inviting us to join him if we felt inclined to gamble, which I did, believing only in Maud’s horse, believing Maud could not lose at anything in the world. John moved off into the crowd, which by the day’s peak moment would number five thousand. Bodies filled every seat, seemingly every square inch of space under the covered and roofless galleries. In the open area within the tall fence the crowd was equally dense, the movement to own space on the rail already having begun, the men’s tall hats a liability for those to their rear. Women in clusters of finery their vertical hats also a bountiful obstruction, and women with opera glasses observing the judge, the grooms, the horses, and other women, elevated the day into a vision of royalty and its court of ladies and their courtiers enthusing at races run solely for their relentless amusement. What exquisite privilege! What exaltation, that these animals exist to give us pleasure!
“Where do you keep your horse?” I asked Maud.
“She keeps it at my stables,” said Obadiah.
“He didn’t ask you,” said Magdalena. “You must learn to keep your mouth shut.”
“I keep him at Obadiah’s stables,” Maud said.
“You see?” said Obadiah.
“It’s very peculiar,” I said.
“Keeping a horse in a stable?” asked Obadiah.
“Will you shut up?” said Magdalena.
“Peculiar that we are all here, and how and why it happened,” I said. “It’s Magdalena’s doing. If you hadn’t died at the bottom of the river, and if you hadn’t accepted Obadiah’s invitation to come to Saratoga, we’d all be somewhere else. Of course it’s possible, even if you’d never crossed the river, that we’d all be here anyway. But that’s a fated way of looking at things.”