My better half...One...
"The horse changed my plans."
"Old movies and television shows always gave horses about as much personality as mud drying on a fence post. A collection of backdrops, mindless, obedient beasts of burden, and the occasional cantankerous cretin, but only when the plot called for it of course. Horses are just like any other animal, you have your average ones, your nice pushovers, your mean spirits, the ones who got bit and bite back, and rarely you get a real iconoclast. A being that doesn’t play by the usual rules and manages to get away with it."
"When I said that I rode out of Cochran’s burning mansion complex, I misspoke, I didn’t ride out, we left together. The horse was payment, someone who owed Cochran a great deal left her on his doorstep. Out of his crew I was the only one who knew much about horses and I had to laugh out loud when I saw the scraggly, foul tempered animal that had been left as payment. It cost a pretty penny to get her healthy and even then, as horses go, she was equal parts guard dog, and cornered rat, and over all standoffish as hell. There was never a routine, I didn’t get her used to me, and when we went on a trot around the compound it was never, me taking the horse for a ride. There was intelligence in that horse’s eyes, real smarts, but hurt, a long list of that too. I could relate, maybe that’s why and we came to an understanding so easy."
"Even under the best of circumstances horses don’t just wait around patiently to be man handled by whoever is looking to get from point A to point B. The kid walked up to within about ten paces of my shelter and the horse was already out of her enclosure and up in his grill. She came at him like a bull mastiff, silent, steady, but obviously ready to take things from “hey, how are you today?” to “Oh dear god please make it stop!” Most people with sense would see an animal of that size coming out at them, head flicking, tale slapping and take a hint. This kid was obviously equal parts desperate and stupid."
"The kid walked right up and started reaching his hands out and got the sort of life lesson that teaches you once."
“Son of a bitch! God damned thing just bit me!”
"I looked out the crack in the wall of my little shack and saw the kid backing off, holding his hand and yelling to the girl behind him."
"That was that, the horse did the job for both of us. No free rides for kids with hungry hands and empty stomachs, time to fuck off down the road, right?"
"Nope, none doing."
"The kid got a length of rope off the posts by the enclosure and started fitting himself for a far worse bite or a good dragging, I knew it was time to end the charade as well as my time of welcome loneliness."
"I leaned out of my shelter with my side kick out but not pointed at anyone yet. “I don’t think she’s looking to make new friends, neither am I.”