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Show /oo me out to curry her and woo her again. More and more she got to be my horse, Henry getting so long-legged that his feet dragged, and so I'd ride along beside him on his big horse, Beauty trotting to keep up. She had a nice trot. Byt I liked to ride the big horses Dixie. too, the buckskin mare^Bs&e, who got to be Beauty's friend, and then Billy D/X»Vs 5dfl, and then mm.' I liked a big horse's superior speed and power, I liked the status of being mounted, but I always came back to Beauty for something more. Of course eventually my shoes dragged too and she got to be Davy's horse, and then sort of retired, but the feeling I had for her remained. Once she adopted a pretty, big-eyed, little heifeijand if we came into their corral Beauty would charge us, ears back and 1, oking mean as hell, a maternal instinct. So the next spring Dad located a Shetland stallion on a farm over near Cedaredge, a long trip in those days, forty miles over graveled roads in those cars, and all we had was the '29 Pontiac. Beauty would practically have fit into the back seat but since we had a two-wheeled trailer we Loaded her in there and took off, out of Delta on a straight stretch Dad really opening it up, going maybe 30. the Pontiac swaying from the sway of the trailer, when there was a 4 sudden lurch and I whipped my head around and no trailer followed us, just on back down the road a big cloud of dust. Already Dad was skidding to a stop and shifting and we were careening back toward the dust with that whine of gears reversed and me feeling sick. I jumped out and the first thing gh through the dust I saw was that trailer turned cross-ways and wheels up with lumber scattered all over the road like it had hit a land mine. Then I saw Beauty, standing there looking at me with indignation on her face. Not a mark on her except a small skinned spot inside her left hock. I took it as a sign that she was charmed to survive forever. We tipped the trailer upright, wired it mostly back together, wired up the hitch and delivered her to her paramour. He was a good-looking stud, black with a white-starred forehead, taller than Beauty and damaed glad to |