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Show A. 212 THE WESTERN HUMANITIES REVIEW "Well, what do you think of her?" said Dad, looking pleased with himself and stroking his thin black mustache. "Oh, she's beautiful!" I said with all the passion and rapture and insipidness of young love, indifferent to the scorn of Henry who at eleven played things strictly cool. She would do, he guessed, and he climbed the pole fence, dropped into the corral and swaggered up to her. I wasn't quite sure what happened next. There was sort of an explosion, in black and white, and then a small, mushroom-shaped cloud of dust, and out of it floated Henry grabbing wildly for the fence with a look on his face anything but cool, like a drowning man making for the raft with right after him a set of teeth like a shark's. He didn't exactly climb that fence; it was more like he was sailing and currents of air floated him up and over and then dropped him. He landed on his butt and bounced back up, mouth agape and staring wide-eyed back into the corral at that thing. And mere she stood, the dust cloud drifting off behind her toward the creek, ears forward, as cool and haughty as a cat who's just finished the cream. Henry got his mouth closed and called her some shockingly vulgar names, which she was naturally aloof to. "Now, Henry," said Dad. "She just needs to learn her manners. A pack of kids been coming around Jensen's place teasing her, throwing rocks and poking her in the flanks with sticks till nobody can get near her. But I figgered you boys could tame her down." "I'll tame her down all right," said Henry grimly, and I knew then I was the one who was going to be loved in return. Dad left her name up to us, my passion prevailed and I named her Beauty, die most obviously trite choice possible, but then young lovers are not notoriously inventive with their endearments. We didn't even consider a special saddle for her, too much money, but Dad cut down an old bridle and had the blacksmidi burn the middle out of the bit and then acetylene-weld it together to make die right width. The next day Henry took it and marched into the corral: she looked at him, he looked at her, and he decided to wait for Dad. Dad came in from the fields, managing to look rakish in a shapeless old sweat-soiled hat which should have been thrown away years ago. "What's the matter, ain't you got that little bitty horse tamed down yet?" he asked. "Once you get diat bridle on her I'll tame her down all right," Henry answered, but with not quite the old swagger. Even with three of us ganged up on her she came at us ears back and teeth bared. When Dad stood his ground she ran for it, twisting and turning as evasively as a weasel, teeth ready and on the odier end a fast left hoof. But Dad had a way with animals. He could go into a stall with a spooked horse and stroke it and whisper in its ear and sweet-talk it right |