Part 8

"The Black Tiger is being completely overhauled and repaired," she said. "It will be ready to race again soon. The factory sent a man over to supervise the work. They installed a completely new brake system. The factory man said the car had been dropped on the way over, and that was why the steering knuckle broke and also why the brakes went out. There was just the tiniest rupture in the master cylinder, but with the constant braking during two races the rupture widened and the fluid drained out."

"Gee, I'm glad to hear they found the trouble and the car is being fixed," Woody said.

"We haven't been able to get a driver," Rocky continued. "I'd drive it myself, but it wouldn't be the same thing. They have special races for women, as you know, and to prove its worth the Black Tiger has to be driven in a man's race."

Woody made no reply to this other than to grunt.

"It's the old trouble," Rocky went on. "The car has got the reputation of being a killer. Nobody wants to risk driving it because it's so new. But it isn't a killer at all. I believe what Randy used to say. No cars are killers. New ones may have bugs in them that have to be found out. But that's been true of every car ever designed. Racing finds out the troubles and provides better and safer cars for people to drive.

"Lots of safety features on automobiles today were developed out of experience gained in road racing," she continued. "Four-wheel brakes are one of them. So are rear-vision mirrors and better tires. More people are driving with safety belts on long trips, and that's saving a lot of lives. In the early days of racing, Daddy told me, fly-wheels used to explode and kill drivers. But who ever heard of a flywheel exploding these days? Racing drivers showed how to make better ones. Every time there's an accident on a track, people say that road racing should be banned or that a particular car is a killer. But the automobile industry would not be where it is today if it wasn't for road racing."

Still Woody said nothing. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach because he knew what was coming. The palms of his hands felt moist, and he could feel his heart beating faster. He tried to temporize.

"Why was Randy so interested in the Black Tiger?" he asked.

"Because he said it was way ahead of any other racing car yet designed," Rocky replied. "The factory is planning to put out a small family car based on the Black Tiger engine. It would give about fifty miles to a gallon of gas, could be driven in any climate because the engine is air-cooled. That means no radiator to overheat in summer or freeze in winter. And it would sell for less than a thousand dollars. But all that depends on the Black Tiger being shown to be an efficient engine and chassis design.

"Daddy never said anything to me about it. But I found out through his will that he had put all his savings into the project. He believed in the Black Tiger that much. He used to say he'd spent all his life looking for a perfect automobile and had found it in the Black Tiger. Now his life's work will be wrecked unless we can find someone to drive the Tiger." She looked across at Woody, hesitated, and then said.

"Daddy was very fond of you. He told me that you'd make a great racing driver someday. He said you had a natural flair for it, and the sort of courage that it takes. Woody, I hate to ask you, knowing the reputation the Black Tiger has. I'm only asking because so much of Randy's hopes were tied up in the car. Will you race it--not for me but for him? For all he did for automobile racing and design?"

Woody had his answer ready, but he couldn't get it out. It seemed to him that Randy was nearby and hanging on his answer. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say that he, too, believed the Black Tiger was a man-killer. He wanted to break down and confess that he was scared to death every time he raced a car and that fear, heavy as a shroud, clung to him through every moment of a race. But he could not get the words out of his mouth.

"I'll have to think about it, Rocky," he said feebly.

Rocky brightened immediately. "Woody," she exclaimed, "you're wonderful." And she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

"I haven't said yes," Woody said hurriedly.

"I didn't expect you to answer right away," replied Rocky. "I know you have to talk to your mother and father. But if you explain everything to them, I know they will agree."

"Worm warned me not to race the Tiger," Woody said. Rocky frowned.

"Did he tell you about himself yet?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Daddy always felt bad about Worm," Rocky went on, slowly. "He believed up to the last that all Worm had to do was turn around and face his fear and he would be happy again. He's not happy now, you know. That's why Daddy got him in his pit crew and brought the Black Tiger to his garage for tuning. It wasn't really that he couldn't get the tuning done anywhere else. He thought if he could get Worm back into racing, he would get over his fears. Daddy was always doing things like that for people without their knowing it. He used to say that fear was just a continuing sense of shock. It could be cured, he thought, if faced."

Rocky didn't know how deeply these words affected Woody. He felt that Randy was talking to him; that Randy knew the struggle in his mind and was trying to sort it out for him. He could almost hear the bright, gallant voice, not blaming him but understanding and trying to help him get over his own fears.

"When do you think you'll know whether you can drive the Tiger?" Rocky asked.

"Oh, in about a week," Woody replied.

"Whatever your answer," Rocky said, "I'll always be grateful to you. The others just said no. You at least are willing."

That evening Woody bitterly regretted that he also had not given a flat no to Rocky's request. If he had done so, it would be settled and he would have been saved a lot of mental and emotional turmoil. When he got home he found his father was out of town on business and would not be back for two or three days. Woody would have liked to talk to his father about driving the Black Tiger in the hope that he would be forbidden to race. That would solve the matter by putting the blame for the decision on someone else. Woody didn't feel exactly comfortable at that thought but was looking for a way to escape making the decision himself.

It was no good talking to Worm. Worm would only insist that he refuse to drive the Black Tiger. And Worm was really in the same position in regard to racing as himself. If Tom Wisdom or any of the other drivers he'd met had been around, he would have consulted them for their views. But Woody didn't know where they lived and had no way of finding out.

In the end, desperate for someone to talk his problem over with, Woody took it to Mary Jane. He didn't really think she could help him with it. He already knew her views on road racing. But at least she was someone to talk to. He was too ashamed to unburden himself to Steve.

To his surprise, Mary Jane's reaction was quite different from what he had expected. He told her everything, not sparing his own feelings in any way. Though he blushed while doing so, he confessed that he was scared of racing and had many times missed chances on the track through sheer fear. He said he had been afraid even to talk of his fear and now was in the predicament of being asked to drive the Black Tiger. He confessed that he was mortally afraid of doing it and also afraid of refusing, both because of his reputation and what it might do to his morale.

Mary Jane didn't interrupt once while he was talking. When he had finished, she said:

"Woody Hartford, you're the most mixed-up person I ever met. There's nothing for you to do but drive the Black Tiger. I'm surprised you can't see that yourself."

"What?" cried Woody, amazed.

"Look," Mary Jane continued. "You know how I hated the way you were always spending time and money on Cindy Lou. I still don't see that it's important for one driver to prove he can go faster than another. And I don't see that it's important for people to keep building faster cars. If you were going to drive the Black Tiger just to show that it would go faster than those Ferraris or what-nots, I'd tell you not to be so silly.

"But that's no longer the reason. The reason now is to show that you've got the courage to drive the car even though you're afraid of it. That's a very important reason. It's much more important than all that stuff about developing safer cars and so on.

"You've just got to drive the Black Tiger. That's all there is to it. Otherwise you won't be Woody Hartford any more. And the person I'm interested in is Woody Hartford."

Woody was stunned.

"You really mean you think I should drive it?" he asked.

"Certainly. I wouldn't want to have anything more to do with you if you didn't. If I was afraid of it, I'd drive it. You don't have to win. All you've got to do is try to win and show that you're prepared to take the same chances that other drivers in the race accept.

"I used to say that all your interest in racing and racing cars was juvenile. So it was. All you were interested in then was the speed and the roar of the engines and the glamour. But now it isn't juvenile at all. You're growing up. If you race the Black Tiger, it will show that you've grown up enough to be called a man.

"And," Mary Jane concluded, "when I get married, I want it to be to a _man_, even if he does have to spend the rest of his life in greasy overalls."

16

The biggest opposition to Woody's driving the Black Tiger came from Worm. Woody had thought that both his mother and father would be dead set against it. They did not, indeed, welcome the prospect. Woody decided to tell his father about it when they were alone and again to explain all his reasons fully. When he had finished Mr. Hartford said, "Woody, is this what has been on your mind all the time?"

"More or less," Woody replied.

"I see why you didn't feel you could discuss it with me. In any case, discussion is rather futile. There are some things people just have to decide by themselves and this is one of them. I don't pretend that I like the idea of your driving that car. I wish there was some honorable way out of it. But there isn't. You'd better let me tell your mother, though. I think I can explain the situation better than you.

"This is where being a parent is really tough," he added with a faint smile. "My whole instinct is to forbid you to race--to protect you from danger. But I know that would be the wrong thing to do. Son, promise me that.... Well, I was going to say promise me that you won't take any unnecessary chances. But that would be silly. Promise me that if the car shows any serious defects before the race, you will have sense enough to realize that you don't have to go through with this."

"I promise," said Woody. "The car will be in perfect mechanical condition. Otherwise the deal will be off. I'll go over it myself, and I'll get Worm to help me."

Worm was furious when Woody told him. His face went white, and for a while he was unable to say anything. When he did he called Woody a fool and a lunatic and said he wouldn't have anything to do with the Black Tiger and would not help Woody in any way.

"I'll not be a party tae ye killing yere foolish self," he stormed.

This was a heavy blow. Woody didn't really know enough about the mechanics of racing cars to check the Tiger over thoroughly. He waited for Worm to calm down and then decided to tackle him again.

"Worm," he said, "you don't understand about me and the Black Tiger. I'd like to explain to you."

"There's nae explanation for a mon deciding tae drive a car that's only been in two races and has had an accident each time, other than lunacy," Worm snapped.

"Well, maybe it is lunacy," replied Woody. "But Dad doesn't seem to think so. And neither does Mary Jane."

"Ye mean tae tell me yer father is going tae let ye drive yon man-killer?"

"Yes," said Woody. "Because I explained the reasons to him."

"And what might be yere reasons?" Worm demanded.

"There's only one! I'm afraid. I'm afraid to drive any racing car. I became afraid the first race I was in when I nearly hit a telephone pole, and I've been scared ever since. I was even more scared after the Black Tiger--after Randy was killed in the Black Tiger. And the only way for me to get my courage back is to drive the car in a race. That's all."

When he had finished, Worm's long pale face was a study. He opened his mouth to say something and then snapped it shut without uttering a word. He stared at Woody in silence for several seconds and then walked out of the office where the conversation had taken place. He stayed away for several minutes, just standing outside the garage with his thin hands on his hips and staring at his feet. Then he fished for a cigarette, lit it, took a puff on it, threw it away, and came back into the office.

"Gie me yere hand, laddie," he said. "I'm ashamed of meself. Ye've got more guts than I have, for ye're doing the thing I should have done meself fifteen years ago. If I'd driven in just one more race after that accident, I'd have been a happier mon today. Instead, I've been fifteen years wi' a nightmare. Ah, well. 'Tis never too late tae mend, they say. I'm wi' ye in this. I'll go over yon Black Tiger wi' a fine-tooth comb and a magnet. I'll do more than that. I'll take it out on the desert roads wi' ye and test it meself. I'll corner it and brake it and pour the coal tae it until I've driven oot any bugs there are in it meself, or me name is not William Orville Randolph McNess of Aberdeen.

"Have ye told yon Rocky that ye'll race the car?"

"Not yet," said Woody. "She's in San Diego."

"Weel, get on the phone and tell her noo. Dinna' worry aboot the charges. I'll stand them meself. The Hieland Scots, ye understand, are a generous race of people, and 'tis one of the main faults in them."

When Woody in the next few minutes called Rocky to say he'd drive the Black Tiger for her, she was jubilant. She said she'd bring the car up the very next day so that there would be ample time to check it and test it before the Pebble Beach race, which was the event in which it would be entered.

It was not long before the news that the Tiger was to be raced again reached the sports columns. And Woody found himself a combination of hero and lunatic over night. One Los Angeles evening paper devoted half a page to an article and pictures of the Black Tiger. A reporter interviewed Woody for the story, and the gist of the article was that Woody was prepared to stake his life to show the car was the fastest and safest racing machine ever to come into the country.

Other columnists dredged up stories of other "wonder cars" that had been wrecked and scrapped as unpractical. Woody was asked to lecture at the local high school on racing and road safety and was voted by the Junior Chamber of Commerce as the young citizen most likely to succeed. Some papers tried to draw a likeness between him and some of the old-time racing greats like Barney Oldfield, and all in all, he got more publicity than he ever would have thought likely in his entire life.

Worm was as good as his word both in checking and testing the car. He closed down his garage for a week to devote his time to the Black Tiger. He crawled all over it, with Davie's _Problems and Principles of Internal Combustion Engines_ open on the workbench for ready reference. And then, one Saturday, he and Woody drove the Black Tiger out to a deserted piece of highway in the Mojave desert to give it a thorough road test.

The piece of road selected was an old highway now replaced by a modern four-lane thoroughfare. Because it was old, and therefore full of turns and twists, it was ideal for the purpose, and the Highway Patrol gave permission for the tests to be held.

The Highway Patrol also co-operated in not saying anything about the tests, so Woody and Worm had the strip of road, three miles long, to themselves. They worked out a route, partially on the disused road, partially across a desert track, so they had a rough circle to represent a race track.

"I'll put her through ten laps, laddie, just tae see how she handles," Worm said. "You stay here and time me wi' the stop watch. It's aboot three miles aroond, which is average for race tracks here in California."

Woody nodded, and Worm got into the driver's seat. His white face seemed even whiter, but his thin hands were quite steady as he buckled on his safety belt. Then he put on his crash helmet and adjusted the goggles over his eyes. He squirmed around in the seat, feeling the controls with his feet. He switched on the ignition and fired the Black Tiger up. Woody caught a glimpse of his eyes behind the goggles. They seemed big, and there was a dullness that suggested fear. Worm turned his head slowly and looked full at him. Then he gave Woody a wink, made monstrous by the glass shield of the goggles, took a deep breath, and let out the clutch.

The Black Tiger roared into life and shot down the old asphalt road. Woody grinned. It had been a bigger struggle for Worm, he knew, to drive the Black Tiger, than it would be for him. And Worm had made it.

Worm's first two laps were anything but impressive. He seemed to be driving with such extreme caution that it would not have been difficult to keep up with him in a much less powerful car. But when Worm passed Woody for the third time, he took one hand off the steering wheel, waved, and hit the accelerator. It seemed to Woody as if the Black Tiger was melting in the sun, it disappeared from view so fast. There was a corner about two hundred yards from the starting place, and Worm took this without even skidding his wheels. He reappeared over the top of a hill and plunged down again, the Tiger roaring its enjoyment of the game. As he flashed by again, Woody saw that Worm was driving like Randy used to. He was sitting well back in his seat, almost lolling there. His hands held the steering wheel in a light grip. And there was a smile on his thin face.

Worm did more than ten laps. It was fifteen before he stopped the Black Tiger, unfastened his safety belt, and climbed out of the seat.

"How did I do?" he asked.

"Gee," said Woody, "I was so nervous about you that I forgot to use the stop watch."

"Nervous about me!" exclaimed Worm. "Why, laddie, I was driving cars wi' twice the horsepower of yon Black Tiger before ye were born." But he gave Woody another of his rare winks, and his face was beaming. He looked, in fact, quite young again.

It was now Woody's turn, and he got behind the wheel and fastened his safety belt. "There's nothing wrong wi' her that I can find," said Worm. "She corners better than any car I've ever handled. The main thing is tae get the feel of her. Take her aroond slowly at first till ye know how fast she turns when ye pull the wheel over. Change doon and try tae make her slide on corners. Find oot when she breaks out of a slide. Take it easy at first. We've got all day. Make her do what you want her tae do--not what she wants tae do. That's the whole secret of driving."

Woody looked along the low slim hood in front of him and at the dashboard with its telltale dials. Tachometer. Speedometer. Oil-pressure gauge. Water-temperature gauge. Gas gauge. Each was a separate dial. He slipped the gearshift into low and started off.

His confidence had been restored to some extent by watching Worm, but he took the first two laps slowly, studying the reactions of the car. She seemed all power and eagerness. Corners taken at sixty-five miles an hour on the asphalt didn't bother her. She slipped smoothly in and out of gear but seemed to be constantly straining to go faster.

On the fourth lap of the makeshift course, Woody decided to let the Tiger go all out. He flashed passed Worm, his engine roaring, changed down at the first corner at the bottom of a dip, was around and over the top of a small hill before he realized it, and headed down a quarter mile of straight at the end of which was a right-angle bend onto the desert strip. Woody hit his brakes, changed down again for the bend, then stamped hard on the accelerator. The Black Tiger screamed off the asphalt onto the dirt strip of the desert, broadsided for a second, righted herself, and was off again.

Five laps, and Woody felt that he knew the car. He also felt more sure of himself. There were one or two moments when his old panic threatened to return. But he managed to fight it down. He did well for eight laps going full bore around the course. The Black Tiger was certainly all that Randy had ever said of it. Acceleration in all four gears was instant and powerful. She cornered without any fuss. He never had to fight to get her under control after a full power drift around a bend. One touch of his foot on the accelerator and she came out straight as an arrow.

And yet Woody was conscious of being tense all the time. He couldn't lean back in the seat relaxed like Randy and Worm and become, as they did, part of the engine. There was a tiny spark of uneasiness and distrust in the bottom of his mind all the time.

He was waiting, he knew, for something to go wrong; for the steering to go out or a tire to blow. He couldn't quite trust the Black Tiger--couldn't quite shake out of his mind the thought that it was waiting to spring some unsuspected trap upon him.

When he was through with the trial runs, Worm said, "Weel, laddie, how did she handle?"

"Fine," said Woody. "Fine. I just hope she'll hold together."

They both looked at the sleek black lines of the car. Even in the hot desert sun they seemed menacing.

17

Woody had a bad headache and a strong suspicion that the meager breakfast he had eaten that morning was not going to stay with him very long. He wished he could go away somewhere out of the bright, merciless sunlight and be quietly sick all by himself. It occurred to him that if there was just half a chance of getting away with it, he'd sneak off into the crowd on the other side of the snow fence and disappear among them. But that was impossible. Someone would spot him and he would be brought back again for the sacrifice.

For that's exactly what he felt like--a sacrifice that was about to be offered to a god called the Black Tiger for the edification of a lot of worshipers who called themselves sports-car fans.

Woody was sitting on the grass on one side of the starting area of the Pebble Beach racecourse. Across the track from him was a row of cars facing outward as if they were in a parking lot. Among them was the Black Tiger. They all seemed to be grinning malevolently. The Black Tiger was sixth in line, and there were twenty-two cars in all drawn up for the Le Mans start of the fifth event. That was the race to which he was committed--the race in which he was to be given his chance to recover and demonstrate his courage; the race in which he was to prove that the Black Tiger was, despite its record of accidents, a first-class racing machine.

Woody was glad of one thing. Mary Jane wasn't nearby, nor were his father and mother, nor Rocky, Steve, nor Worm. His mother and dad were somewhere in the mass of spectators with Mary Jane. Rocky, Steve, and Worm were in the pit area forming his pit crew. He was glad they weren't with him, because in their presence he had to keep up a pretense of confidence. And right at that moment he hadn't a hairsbreadth of confidence in his whole body.

It had been tough trying to hide his fears all morning while four other races were run. He had become so nervous with everybody wishing him well and fussing over the car that he could hardly do a simple little thing like adjust his racing mirrors to get a clear view of his rear and two rear fenders.