Clay answered.
It hit them both hard, but he had to.
“We live the lives of the Slaves.”
The bridge was all they had.
* * *
—
There was the week in mid-January, when it rained up in the mountains, and the Amahnu started to flow. They saw the great sky coming. They stood out on the scaffold, and the heavy wooden falsework, with the splinters of rain around them.
“It could all be washed away.”
Clay was quiet
but certain. “It won’t be.”
He was right.
The water rose only to shin-height.
It was the river in sort-of-training.
Warming up the Amahnu way.
* * *
—
In the city, through March, there was the buildup to the autumn carnival, and this time the Group One was hers.
Cootamundra.
Race Eight on Easter Monday, at Royal Hennessey.
The race was the Jim Pike Plate.
* * *
—
Of course, Clay came home that long weekend, but had done something else, a while earlier:
He’d walked up Poseidon Road, to a key-cutting, shoe-fix, engraving place. It was an old man inside, with a snow-white beard, like Santa Claus wearing overalls. When he looked at the Zippo, he said, “Oh, I remember this.” He shook his head. “Yeah, that’s it—Matador in the fifth. A girl…Strange thing to write on a lighter,” and the headshake turned to a nod. “Real likeable, though.” He gave Clay pen and paper. “Write it clearly. Where do you want it?”
“There are two.”
“Here, give us a look.” He snatched the translucent paper. “Ha!” He’d returned from nod to vigorous headshake. “You kids are bloody mad. You know about Kingston Town?”
Did they know about Kingston Town.
“Maybe,” said Clay, “put Carey Novac in the eighth under the first one, and the other on the other side.”
Santa Claus smiled, then laughed. “Good choice.” But it wasn’t a ho-ho-ho; more of a heh-heh-heh. “Kingston Town can’t win, ay? What’s that s’posed to mean?”
“She’ll know,” said Clay.