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Show Dad left her name up to us, my passion prevailed and I named her Beauty. Since a special saddle would have cost too much, we rode her bareback* for a bridle Dad took an old one to the blacksmith, who burned the middle out of the bit and then acetylene-welded it together at the right width. Dad tailored the straps to her head, and one afternoon Henry took the bridle and marched into the corral. Beauty looked him in the eye as if hoping he would come closer, and Henry looked at her and decided to wait. Dad grinnedjf at him: "Ain't you got that little bitty horse tamed down yet?" "Just get that bridle on her and I'll tame her down all right," said Henry, but with some of his swagger gone. Even with us ganged up on her in a corral she came at us with ears back and teeth bared. Davy and I and Henry went the other way, Davy up the fence to the top, where he stayed. Dad stood his ground and she veered off. When he followed her, she ran for it, twisting and turning like a weasel, teeth ready and on the other end a fast left hoof. But Dad had a way with horses. He could walk into a stall with a spooked horse and stroke it and whisper in its ear and sweet-talk it right into some kind of horse-heaven -- I think if he wanted to he could^tallc/a horse onto its backAfeet in the air while he tickled its belly. So when he got her cornered he turned on the charm, giving her the business, seductive as Valentino, holding out his hand as if he held a sugar diamond. She looked down her nose at him, smug as a virgin, as Leery of that hand as if it held the one drink which causes good girls to fall, but intrigued too, and he was just about to touch her when she wheeled around and let him have it with both hooves. He turned quickly to keep her bulls, from kicking him in the geu*«**, then stood there while she kicked the dust out of the seat of his pants. She ran for it; he lunged and threw his arms around her neck and they went galumphing across the corral until he got his heels dug in, holding her by one ear and a hammer-lock on her nose, wrestling with her. |