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Show 52 licked it, twisted one end, lit it and tossed the match toward Ace. He shied and I pulled him down. Buck pushed his hat back, put one foot up on the barbed wire, an elbow on the fence post, and squinted through his smoke. "That's a nice looking horse, kid. Can he run?" "Hell yes he can run. He's a Morgan. He'd be registered if we registered him." "A Morgan, huh? Out of J. P. Morgan?" "Naw, we got him from old man Lathrop. Up on Ashenfelter Mesa." He puffed, looked Billy over, then came back to Ace. Where his shirt opened at the neck he had golden curly hair and his arms were round and brown and smooth and thick with muscle. I was fifteen and as tall as he was, having started to spurt, but he hardly noticed Davy or me, looking at Ace. "Wish I could of caught that bastard this morning," he said. "I'da sure as hell ridden some of the fat off him." "I guess he needs it." "We better get going," said Davy. "Yeah. The old man's mad as hell. We're supposed to be shocking hay." Buck didn't even answer, dragging on his cigarette and looking at Ace with dreamily half-closed eyes. We were trotting away when suddenly the stallion jumped and damn near ran right out from under me, going top speed before I could get a tight rein on him. After I pulled him down I looked back and there was Buck grinning, teeth white in his brown face, and a spot of white dust on Ace's black rump from the clod he'd thrown. I turned Ace back, Ace dancing and tossing his head for rein, all hot to get home now, but I held him and yelled at Buck: "You stupid son-of-a-bitch! You stupid damn stupe!" Buck reached down for another clod and I whirled Ace and humped it out of there, Billy going with us like he was sucked along. We let them run a |