Summary

In Chapter 1, as Medicine Ed walked a three-year-old around the grounds of Indian Mound Downs he talked to Deucey Gifford who was walking her horse, Grizzly, about that night’s race. He told her Zeno had trucked in the red horse he was leading just for the race. Both horses were startled by a squawking automobile spring as a car was driven in through the back gate. The stall superintendent, Vernon “Suitcase” Smithers, asked the girl driving the car what she was doing there. The girl, with frizzy pigtails, claimed the horseman for whom she worked had called ahead and had been told there were five stalls free. When Suitcase told her they didn’t have any stalls she offered him a small roll of bills. Deucey commented to the girl that even that money wouldn’t buy her five stalls together...