“I don’t think I can do it,” Mother said limply.

“I know I can’t,” I said emphatically.

“It could be dangerous,” Mother said.

“Don’t be absurd,” Quillet said between puffs. “I’d do it myself, but copy’s piling up, there’s a deadline to meet, I got those back spasms again…” A facial nerve twitched, as if to certify his infirmity. “All you’ve got to do,” he went on bravely…

“No,” said Mother.

That night Quillet sat on his living-room throne surrounded by reams of copy, ensconced in so vast a remoteness that he didn’t even lecture.

“More tea, dear?” Mother asked miserably, her head slightly inclined, her voice flat and dry.

He would not acknowledge her existence with so much as a shake of his stormy head. He had a babyish aptitude for pouting when he felt only fleetingly neglected, but this was an irritant of another dimension: betrayal, a denial of the loyalty he thought due him, and he responded with the aggressive resignation of a martyr. My mother simply sat there, fixed and frozen, the primary target of his silent accusations, until she could stand it no longer.

“I suppose I could do it,” she said. “It’s no more difficult than a thousand other chores I’ve managed…”

“You’ll need some help,” he said bluntly.

What could I do? Suggest that he snap out of his exploitative shit? Tell him to go shit in his Stetson? That I didn’t intend to be in the same county with two horse-beasts innin’ and outin’, ramming each other like jousting battleships? And let my mother, armed with good intentions and ineptitude, go it alone in her eagerness to please the absentee mastermind of the revels?

I looked at her, at her wide, leaky eyes pleading for me not to make trouble, to help her in her travail, wasn’t that what a son was for?

The grassy floor of the pasture was swathed in layers of silent light, and dappled by long, still shadows.

We hovered outside the stable, Mother and I, looking down at the horse van that moved toward us over the mustard-colored road. From the house a hundred yards away drifted the dismal howls and yowls of Lee Roy. Quillet had taken the sensible precaution of locking himself and the dog inside.

“Morning!” Dawnette shouted to Mother, still some distance away, and, as I helped her down from the cab, “How’s your ass?” she asked me. “This here is Sailor,” she added, as if she were introducing the guest of honor. She unloaded the chestnut steed, leading him into a stall. He clopped behind her, docile enough. Mother clopped after them.

“He’s a sweet little guy,” Dawnette said. “Up-headed.”

He didn’t look any such thing to me; Sailor was an iron-hoofed, wind-sucking behemoth. “He’s hammer-headed,” I said, “dish-faced.” Sailor glared at me, aggrieved by my bluntness.

“He’s got good genes,” Dawnette said, and Sailor’s ire subsided somewhat, his family honor upheld by an advocate who knew a hell of a lot more about him than I did. “Your first mare ready?”