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.