Continent by Jim Crace Read Free Book Online Page B

nor built for it. It was strange, that – for the man’s decision to come to him at the school seemed firm and old but his appearance was that of a man who wanted to run on impulse, whatever he wore and despite his build.
    ‘I go fast,’ said Eddy discouragingly
    ‘My horse goes faster!’
    ‘Your horse? You want to race me on your horse? Not running?’
    ‘No, riding on my horse!’
    They both laughed at the thought of ’Isra running. This was to be more of a contest because ’Isra was a fine rider and his horse was strong and used to the hills and the ways across them.
    ‘Why do you want to run against me? Must the loser give something?’
    ‘No,’ said ’Isra. ‘It is for the race only.’
    ‘Okay. When?’ asked Eddy.
    ‘Now,’ said ’Isra.
    A ND THAT WAS how the Great Race between the schoolteacher and the horseman began – a simple challenge brought to the school compound by a small uneasy man with a horse to another small man, a runner from Canada. Not a brother. Not a man from the villages amongst the hills, but a stranger with a stranger’s ways. ‘When?’ asked the one. ‘Now,’ answered the other. And so the race waited a few moments to begin, for the two men to understand the race, that it was two different strengths that were being matched.
    ‘When you kick your horse I will start running,’ said Eddy Rivette. ’Isra nodded. ‘It’s the first to the store, is that it?’ ’Isra nodded again. ‘We can go any way we want, just get there first?’
    ‘That’s right,’ said ’Isra.
    ‘Let’s go then!’
    ’Isra kicked his horse and turned the rein towards the foot of the steep ridge which stood between him and the crowd of villagers, his villagers, who waited at the ground by the store. The horse speeded from a trot to a canter and cut firmly and confidently into theslow gradient away from the school. Eddy Rivette set off in pursuit, surprised at the speed with which the horse was gaining ground. He saw ’Isra choose the same cattle track which he himself had used nightly for visits to the store. ’Isra had been watching him, he realized. Any advantage that Eddy had from knowing the most economical route across the ridge was lost now that ’Isra had chosen it for himself. It would be impossible to pass, too, on that track. It was too narrow and its borders too treacherous for the delicate ankles of a man. Used to adapting his tactics to the dictates of the pack in the point-to-points and marathons that he had run in Canada, Eddy Rivette saw that the race was lost by his usual route. The horse had the advantage of speed on the flat and the advantage of being first and unpassable on the steep track. He would not be able to pass ’Isra until they reached the gentle gradient at the tree before the store and, by then, the horse’s speed would make her the winner. He had to beat them on the hill or lose the race.
    He made his mind up quickly, full-heartedly. When he reached the spot where the flatness of the school’s half-valley turned abruptly upwards away from the loose stones and thorns into the erosions and cattle paths of the ridge, instead of following the horse and ’Isra, now sixty metres ahead and twenty metres above, Eddy Rivette turned at right angles. He pacedout along the wide dry track, which rounded the foot of the ridge with scarcely a change of height before it reached the next valley, the valley of the village and the store. There it joined the broad sandy stream bed, the dead river of the valley, and climbed imperceptibly towards the single tree, the store and the waiting villagers. It was the long way round, perhaps twice the distance of the ridge route, but there wasn’t an obstacle nor even a difficult stretch in the whole track. The obstacle was just one of distance. Eddy opened out his pace. It developed easily and his wind was with him. This was easy, plain sailing, after the difficulties that he had tamed daily on the cattle tracks of the ridge, the