Читать книгу Last Grand Adventure - Howard Ph.D West - Страница 7

Norman Talmadge, followed closely by his dog, Rin Tin Tin arrived in camp as soon as he saw that our chores were done and we were relaxing. He accepted one of our wooden camp chairs and sat down with us, straightening his black leather vest and shifting his plug of tobacco to a safe spot deep within his cheek.

He was eager to hear all about what we are doing and so we answered his questions and volunteered some information. But, I could tell that Carol was itching to hear his story. She's always saying, "I know all about us, I want to know about them!” (Meaning the folks that cross our path.) Forgetting that we were the oddity not our visitors. Most people came to learn about us. I liked a little give and listen a lot.

So, I wasn't surprised when she turned things around, and asked Norman to tell us about himself. Norman told a good story, and I know that it's okay with him if I retell it for you.

Norman started out by brushing back his graying hair with one hand and grinning at me, "I'm in the Jockey Hall-of-Fame of 1965," he said, "for winning two important races (one on the east coast and one on the west coast) in one day! Once in New Orleans I won six races out of eight in one day! It was a world’s record then, but since that time it has been matched.

"I never was famous. There have been a great many famous people from Ohio, (that's where I'm from), and I worked for quite a few. I rode for Betty Grable, Desi Arnez, and Dennis Weaver, (who played Chester on Gun smoke): which remind me, Amanda Blake kissed me once! It's not every man that gets a kiss from 'Miss Kitty!’ Jimmy Stewart presented me with this horseshoe shaped, sterling silver ring, with gold leaves on it."

Norman held out his right hand to us so that we could admire the well-crafted ring and then continued. "It was awarded to me in Hollywood Park by the Actors Guild in 1965, the day I made it into the Jockey Hall-of Fame."

"Even when I was in the army in World War II, I couldn't get away from famous people! I served with General Patton in North Africa and helped capture Rommel, the 'Desert Fox'. General Patton would often find an excuse to visit with me. We were both horse soldiers and had much in common. I was one of the last horse soldiers; I served in Company A of the 124th mounted cavalry out of Brownsville, Texas."

Our guest pulled down on his vest again and shifted his plug. "When I was 'called up' I weighed one hundred and ten. I could have lost eleven pounds and avoided the draft by weighing in at ninety-nine pounds. But I am patriotic; I wouldn't even consider doing it and am glad I didn't. As it was, I came out of the service at one hundred and twenty pounds. It may have been the shrapnel I brought home in my body!"

We laughed together and I got up and began to peel some potatoes. Norman saw that I was still listening so he continued, "That shrapnel stayed in me from 1944 until a doctor took it out during the Gulf War. While I was recuperating in the hospital I met General Norman Swartzcroff. 'Stormin' Norman' they called him. My friends there called me 'Little Stormin' Norman!"

Still pushing forward with his list of famous acquaintances Norman said, "I knew Bing Crosby personally. He'd come out to the track every morning and watch his race horses work out. He invited me to his ranch in Elko, Nevada and when I arrived he told me to make myself at home. I stayed there for a month!"

"The old foreman asked me, 'would you like to work a bit?' and I told him, 'I'm no cowboy but I'd like to try.’ Well, we spent a week working on fence lines and then I got to help drive cattle. We drove them forty miles in two days, it was hot and dusty, but, I really enjoyed it. However, I was uses to going in a straight line on the track and when those cutting horses turn; I have seen many a winning Jockey fall off in the dirt"

I dropped the peeled, and diced potatoes into a pot of water peeled the labels off a can of beef in gravy, and a can of whole kernel corn and dropped the denuded cans into the same pot, Norman was watching me.

"The cook on Bing's ranch sure did feed me well," he remembered. "Every morning for breakfast there was a huge platter of steak and eggs. Not exactly the right thing for a jockey who was trying to watch his weight!"

I lit the camp stove and put the pot on to boil. Norman shifted his plug for the third time as I sat back down.

"I learned to ride when I was just a kid," he said. "I was small for my age and I was horse-crazy even then. My parents gave a neighbor permission to take me out of school, a month early every spring, along with his son. He would take us to the racetrack in Columbus, Ohio."

"I started my career right there in Columbus. I was about twelve years old and it was in the thirties. I started out grooming, cleaning stables, and feeding; and then I learned to exercise horses. It seemed like everyone else was starving to death during the Great Depression. The racetrack was the only place you could make a dollar."

"They make riders much quicker now. At that time you had to exercise horses at least three years and then you had to ride a couple of races in front of the steward before he'd give you a license to ride. State law said you had to be sixteen and your folks had to sign, because it's a hazardous occupation."

"I was eager and started my apprenticeship when I turned sixteen in 1939. To lose your apprenticeship and be a full-fledged jockey, you had to ride forty winners. Most boys took a year to do it. One of my friends took two years. I lost my apprenticeship in just eight months! I rode forty winners in just eight months....that was pretty good."

"I started riding in Ohio, in the spring, and in December I got a contract to ride in Florida. That's where I made a name for myself and lost my apprenticeship."

"Ogden Phipps, a wealthy man who owned a great many horses, took me on contract the second year. It almost broke my heart, you see, I had been riding a big two year old, his name was Royal Man, a big chestnut horse. Gorgeous! In January he was classed as a three year old so they entered him in the Kentucky Derby and I was going to ride him!"

"Oh man, I couldn't sleep at night for months! The Kentucky Derby is all I thought about."

Royal Man was one of the favorites. We shipped him to Kentucky. He was working well, with no lameness. Then, about ten days before the Derby the trainer said, "Work him half a mile this morning, and put some air into him!” (That means letting him run for half a mile - working him out.) I didn't agree but you can't say anything to a trainer. That's his business."

"Well, Royal Man hit a bad spot on the track and came back saying 'how-do-you-do,' bobbing on three legs. One of the main bones in his foot was fractured."

"That was it. It was the only chance I ever had to ride in the Kentucky Derby. I moped around for months after that! Most jockeys don't ever get the chance to ride in the Derby."

I got up to poke the cubed potatoes with a fork. They were beginning to get tender. I turned off the flame and sat back down.

"Riding race horses isn't all a bed of roses," Norman explained earnestly, "there are bad things about it. Dangerous and all that...but what used to ruin my day was, sometimes horses go down under you and break a leg and have to be destroyed."

Carol flinched. Norman made an appeal to her, "That's racing for you. Some folks think it's cruel but thoroughbreds are bred to run. They have their usefulness. When one would have to be destroyed, it would ruin my day, and really bring me down. One of the older jockeys told me, 'you'll have to get over that!’ I never could."

Carol nodded understandingly and Norman slicked back his hair. "Racing isn't only hard on horses; it's hard on jockeys too! I've had every bone in my body broken. In a race, nine times out of ten, you won't get hurt when your horse goes down, but if you're anywhere out in front, it's the other horses running over you that do the damage. And they can't help it, they're all bunched up and they're running so fast - you haven't got a chance. That’s how most jockeys get killed. When you're down on the ground there's nothing bigger than a horse coming at you! Every time you go out there on the track you run the chance of not coming back. Maybe you'll get killed, or crippled. I accidentally killed one of my jockey friends. My horse is the one that stepped on him, it couldn't be helped."

Norman spit and then hurried on, "It's mighty hard to keep riding after something like that! You've got to keep the bad incidents out of your thoughts, for once it starts working on your mind, and you’ll lose your courage. Some jockeys start 'hitting the bottle' because of happenings like that, and it puts them on a downhill run. When you get so you have to have a bottle to build up your nerve, you'd better quit! But, like I said, riding race horses isn't all a bed of roses, nothing worthwhile ever is."

There was a pause, and while we sat with Norman quietly contemplating the death of his friend, the sun set over the Funeral Mountains and the whole sky took on the color of a rose. Small yellow alfalfa butterflies continued to rise and fall around the blue blossoms on the plants that give them their name, busily using every shred of daylight to gather nectar.

The ranch hands had gone home for the day, and the alfalfa fields around us were ready to cut. Beyond the fields, stretching as far as the eye could see was the creosote and sagebrush of The Amargosa Desert. It seemed as though the whole world was waiting silently for Norman's story to resume.

Norman broke the silence with a sigh and a comment on the beauty surrounding around us, "If I spend the rest of my life here," he said, "I'll die a happy man!” Then patting his flat stomach with both hands, he declared, "Most folks don't know that to ride race horses you must be physically fit at all times; like a prize-fighter. It's the most strenuous job! You use every muscle in your body to ride a race horse."

"A horse can carry more weight and run faster if you are over his withers. So, you are up in your stirrups, over his withers, and you're helping the horse by picking him up and putting him down. It's tiresome. After a month of vacation and then a race I'd be exhausted from just one race. Physically and mentally it is stressful - the best horses can sometimes lose."

I got up and used a pair of tongs to lift the hot cans out of the potato water. Norman watched me closely, "The last twenty years that I rode I was getting a weight problem," he confessed. "I had to diet and do the steam box for three hours at a time. It makes you weak. One time I lost eight pounds in three hours! On the days I had to sweat off the weight, then race, I'd be trembling when the race was over and staggering around on legs that felt like rubber. I'd hardly be able to unsaddle my horse!"

I drained the water off of the potatoes, using a tin plate as a lid, and then began to mash the potatoes with a fork. Norman spit.

"Now, I can eat anything I want!" he boasted. "I like growing my own vegetable garden. Oh, I love fresh vegetables!” Then, as though the thought of food and diets led to the thought of girls, he changed the subject abruptly.

"There were a number of girl jockeys, for a while, but they are backing off. They just can't take a fall like a man can. If girls had been riding when I started, I would have quit riding. I'd have let my wife ride, and I'd have kept house!"

"I got married when I was twenty-six. I was riding in Omaha, Nebraska and met her at the track. Pretty! She was beautiful! And, she could ride jumping horses, cutting horses and roping horses."

"Two Hollywood scouts wanted her, but, she didn't want any part of the movies. I've never known anyone with such a nice personality. My wife was a great horse-woman, and she was the only lady I have ever loved. Now, at my age even if I met a rich woman, I don't think I'd want any part of it!"

"I lost my wife young. My daughter was just a baby. My girl turned out to be a good girl, though. You know why? I couldn't drag her around from track to track with me, so I took her home to my mother. That's why she turned out good. My mother died three years ago, and my daughter is living in Colorado. She has two boys and a girl. All grown."

"When I get to Heaven I want to see my wife, my Mom and Dad and my Aunt Millie...then all the horses I rode, and the dogs I knew!"

The potatoes were pretty well mashed. I added a big dollop of real butter to them, stirred them a bit and then set them aside. Leaning back in his chair, Norman called his small German shepherd back to him from where she had wandered off toward the burros. He patted her head as she laid it fondly on his knee. "Her name is Rin Tin Tin Number 13," he explained. "Someone dumped her here about three months ago. What kind of person would do that to a young, helpless animal?"

"I'd never do such a thing, and I never was a gambler. Though I've done about everything; smoked, chewed tobacco, and drank whiskey. It's nothing to brag about but I'll be seventy-three in a day or two and I feel good all the time. I rode race horses for a living, until I was fifty-nine (that's old for a jockey) and I loved it."

"My two favorite hobbies are still race horses and girls. They say in Kentucky 'pretty horses and fast women'. I say, 'fast horses and faster women,' I've always liked the girls. Ever since I was that high,” He gestured to the height of his bent knee.

"There wouldn't be much to live for without girls! When I was young I kind of liked the old mares, now that I'm getting old I like the fillies!” Norman grinned and we laughed together.

Carol sent a look my way, saying, 'Please don't let this conversation deteriorate any further.' and Norman must have intercepted the look because, he hastened to add, "It sounds like I'm a dirty old man but I'm not really, and I'm not an atheist either."

I cranked open the hot cans, poured the juice off the corn, and put servings of mashed potatoes, beef, gravy, and corn on three plates. Norman accepted a plate from my hand and reaffirmed his last statement.

"You'll never find a jockey who is an atheist! We all believe in God, because we face death every day. I believe in God and ten years ago I told my friends, 'I'm going to read the Bible. I have to know how all this, (he gestured toward the ripe fields and the rose colored sky) came to be.’ I've read the Bible many times since!"