To The Winner Goes The Guilt
"It was an accident. It was no one's fault." That's what everyone keeps telling me. But, I don't see it that way. And if they tried, really tried, to put themselves in my place, they wouldn't see it that way, either. How could they, when I was the one who made the senseless bet in the first place?
It all started on the sixteenth of July – the day Will Regan surprised his son, Carl, with a chestnut and white paint mare. Most of the boys at Carl's fourteenth birthday party already had horses of their own, gifts from their fathers or mounts earned through hard work and savings. But Carl's father had devoted the past four years to working on the Ponderosa and tending to his sickly wife, leaving his young son to look for odd jobs and, with little guidance, to finding trouble around every corner.
Pa was the first to step in and make an attempt to take Carl under his wing. It's hard to believe, what with Pa's powers of persuasion and all, but try as he did, that attempt failed miserably. Pa didn't give up though, and before he knew it, Carl had complained to his father, and old Mr. Regan threatened to quit. Now, you know Pa. There was no way he was about to let Mr. Regan go. Pa always said he was the best at what he did and besides, with Mrs. Regan being so sick, well, Pa just wouldn't have it. So, Carl was left to his own contrary ways, and Pa was forced to stand back and watch it all happen.
The only good that came out of Pa's confrontation with Mr. Regan was that Mr. Regan decided that Carl needed something to make him feel needed, important – something to care about besides himself, something to fret over besides his dying mother.
So, with Pa's help, Mr. Regan picked out the chestnut and white paint, and asked Pa to hold twenty-five cents a month from his pay until the horse was paid for in full. And at Carl's birthday party, Mr. Regan, smiling larger with his teary eyes than his great, wide grin, presented Carl with his gift, which Carl promptly named Blaze.
Carl changed that day. He worked harder at every job he took on, and he cared for Blaze just as well as Pa taught me and Hoss to care for our horses. Carl changed so much that one day, when I stopped at the Regan's house to deliver one of Hop Sing's rhubarb pies – Mrs. Regan's favorite – I found him on the roof of the barn working side by side with his pa. I'll never forget that day. Not because of what I saw, but because of what my pa did when I told him what I'd seen. Pa looked away, but before he did, I saw tears in his eyes. You see, Pa really likes Mr. Regan, and I reckon knowing that Carl was finally acting like a good son made Pa mighty happy. A son should make a pa proud. He shouldn't make a stupid bet with a friend. Oh, how I wish I hadn't.
About a month after Carl's birthday, I went into Virginia City with Pa. He was busy with some errands in town, and when I saw some of my friends standing at the livery, I joined them to watch Mr. Whitaker shoeing someone's horse. That's when it all started. Mr. Whitaker said something about the horse being one of the fastest he'd ever seen and one thing led to another and before I could think – Pa says I do that too often – I bet Carl two whole dollars that my horse could beat his in a race through Devil's Canyon.
Before I could spit, the other boys were making bets of their own, most of them saying there was no way that Carl's Blaze could beat my Sport, and the very next day, we gathered at the mouth of the canyon to begin the race.
I'm not going to go into the details of the race. When I think of it, my insides get all knotted up and I get so dadburned mad that I want to scream. I will tell you that the day of the race, I thought something might be wrong with Blaze. Now, I'm no veterinarian, but I know when a horse doesn't look right, and Blaze had that look that day. I told Carl what I thought, but he insisted that she was fine, and when the race was over, Sport and I had won, barely, and Carl was angry enough to spit nails. But that wasn't the worst. The worst was that just minutes after the race, just as we were all starting to head back into town, Blaze snorted like I've never heard a horse snort before. She bobbed her head and her eyes got all cloudy. Carl and I went to her right away, but she staggered and wobbled and then she went down, hard.
There was nothing anyone could do. Blaze died with Carl sitting right by her head, talking to her, telling her over and over that she would be alright, even though he knew she was dying, Pa says it wasn't like he was lying to her. Pa says he was soothing her, making her know he loved her. And then she was gone.
Pa says it wasn't anyone's fault. Not mine, not Carl's, and certainly, not Blaze's. Pa says boys race all the time, and so do grown men. But that doesn't make me feel any better. See, Carl wanted to win that race. Not because he wanted the two dollars for himself, but because he wanted it so he could buy his ma a new bonnet for her birthday.
Yeah, that horse changed Carl. Ever since she died, Carl's gone back to his old ways. He's spent a few nights in Sheriff Coffee's jail, and Mr. Regan's always making excuses for the things he's done.
I guess it wasn't my fault, but I still feel bad inside. Pa says that's because I'm a good person, and I don't like to see a friend acting the way Carl's been acting. I think Pa's right.