LITMIR.BIZ

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considerably when he saw that Blue would help.

      “Trailer come off on the down side of a hill and left the road going seventy-five mile an hour,” he went on in his rusty voice. “Passed us up on the right like we was standin’ still. Ol’ Skimpy stared and stared at it and finally he turned to me and said, ‘Well, damn it all to hell, Micah, looky there. That trailer and the horses in it looks just like ours.’”

      He took off his hat and slapped it against his leg, laughing, and stuck out his hand to Blue.

      “Micah Thompson’s the name,” he said.

      Blue shook with him. His gnarled old grip was hard and strong. His faded brown eyes were sharp.

      “Blue Bowman.”

      “Good to meet you, Blue. And mighty good of you to give me a hand. Won’t slow you down for long and then you can get on your way.”

      Blue stepped in between the truck and trailer, then over the hitch so they could both look at it at the same time. He bent to examine it and Micah stepped down on the bumper of the truck. He bounced it. The hitch didn’t come loose. Blue took hold of it and tried it, but it stayed the same.

      A safety chain looped around the shaft. The battered bumper had the requisite two holes to thread it through.

      “Why not use this?” he asked.

      “Couldn’t bend over long enough to hook it up,” Micah said.

      A sharp crack of sound rocked the rig. It jerked Blue’s back straight and his head around. Not a gunshot. The horse.

      The same noise exploded the air again while the trailer shook some more. The horse glared at Blue with one wild eye.

      Blue returned the stare. This was a direct challenge. Personal. He couldn’t help but grin.

      “Thinks he’s King Kong,” Micah said.

      The red roan kicked again, laid his ears back tighter, and twisted his head to snap at the rusted steel bar of the trailer.

      “He might be right,” Blue said.

      The good smell of horse filled up his nostrils. How strange for it to be real and not just a memory.

      Micah laughed.

      “We could run on down to my place and find out,” he said. “I’m betting you’re the man to settle him right down.”

      The horse still had Blue nailed with one talking eye.

      Come on. Try me. I’ll dust you, turn and strike you, too. Break your bones.

      “What makes you think that?” Blue asked.

      He felt Micah’s gaze steady on his face but he didn’t take his eyes off the horse. Beautiful head. Intelligent eye, but not a soft one. Savvy.

      He’d be an interesting way to get horseback, especially for a man who hadn’t stepped up onto a horse in ten years.

      Micah was still looking at Blue instead of the horse. Blue could feel his gaze on his skin. On the braid of his hair. He turned.

      The old man’s heavy-lidded eyes were waiting for him, full of knowing, like an ancient turtle’s. They met his and held.

      “You walk like a horseman,” he said.

      Blue grunted his disbelief.

      Thompson looked at him for another long moment, then he glanced at the horse and chuckled.

      “This here colt’ll fly you over the mountain, Blue,” he said, “but when you get ’im broke and solid, he’ll last you for years. Make a hell of a usin’ horse and babies just like him, too.”

      Blue’s heart thumped.

      “You’re selling?”

      The old cowboy twisted even more wrinkles into his long neck to turn and spit tobacco juice out of the other side of his mouth.

      “Yep. I shore as hell cain’t break him.”

      Blue locked eyes with the horse again.

      “Two-year-old?”

      Micah nodded.

      “Yep. Ain’t never been rode—but not for lack of tryin’. Started him right after Christmas, with the rest of my string.”

      As if to show how tough he was, the horse sat back on the rope and started pulling, hooves scrabbling.

      “Here now! Here! Stop that, you big fool.”

      Micah limped alongside the trailer and took hold to climb up on the fender, which made the horse lunge forward into the rattling bars. His rear feet slid up to his front ones and then, fast and impossible as a magician’s trick, he slipped his forefeet up between his body and the wall and managed to rear, going higher and higher, one leg on each side of the rope that tied his head up short.

      “If he tries to come over the top he’ll break his neck,” Micah yelled. “Keep him in there ’til I can get another rope.”

      But the colt had already started choking, eyes rolling. He twisted his head and his right forefoot slid off the top and lodged in between two of the beat-up bars of the trailer. He jerked sideways and wedged it in tighter.

      “Forget the rope,” Blue called toward the truck, without taking his eyes off the colt. “Come here and hold his head.”

      He broke out in a sweat. Suddenly he wanted this colt freed safely. It was the first time he’d let himself want anything for a long time.

      Micah came back at a lurching run and Blue held out a cautioning hand without looking at him.

      “Easy,” he said. “Easy, now.”

      He was talking to all three of them, but mostly to himself.

      The small, neat hoof had plunged through a wide space between the bent bars, but now the tender ankle was in a much narrower spot, held tight. Blue grunted comfort to the horse as he and Micah moved slowly toward him.

      “It’ll take us both,” Blue said in a soothing tone. “Stand on the fender, hold his head, and get ready to grab the hoof. I’ll spread the bars.”

      The colt trembled with fear so strong Blue could smell it. His eyes rolled white and his nostrils flared. They didn’t have long until he hurt himself bad. No, until he hanged himself.

      “Got yourself in trouble, huh?” Blue murmured to him as he climbed up onto the fender. “Huh?”

      He began a rhythmic “huh, huh, huh,” the old calming sound that mimicked a horse’s own talk, and set his feet as far apart as the space permitted. He glanced sideways as Micah stepped up there, too, and took hold of the halter.

      The roan colt was on the sharp edge of panic. The air was filled with it.

      Blue felt shaky inside. He hadn’t done anything—actually done anything remotely important in too long. But he had to do this now. He took hold of the two bars and put his back into separating them. It was a lot harder than he expected but when he pulled them apart and bent them out at the same time, he could make enough room. Micah grabbed the hoof and turned it, pushed it back into the trailer, gave it back into the roan’s control.

      The colt dropped to the floor and stood, trembling.

      Micah and Blue looked at him, then at each other. Micah grinned and Blue felt an answering grin lift the corners of his mouth. Micah let go of the halter and checked the tie knot. They stepped down to let the colt have a little space.

      “Damned if he didn’t nearly hang his ornery self right here,” Micah said. “I allus say there ain’t no limit to what kind of a fix a hoss can git hisself into.”

      Blue looked at the roan’s shiny hide glistening with the sweat of fear. He knew the feeling.

      “Royally bred

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