E.V. was a springy little man in his late fifties with an exaggerated limp from having his kneecap crushed in a shoeing accident when he was about my age; about fourteen. He climbed the hill in steady jerks, his gray felt hat pointing straight down at the ground and bobbing with his gait. He had an old patched inner tube slung over one shoulder and a thick snow white cotton rope dangled from his left hand with the loose end looped through his horse-hair belt. I always thought he must have washed that rope regular in Ivory to keep it so white. It was the cleanest thing about him. When he got to the top he wasn’t puffing or blowing like you’d think a man his age would be. He just arrived like he’d been air-dropped. “So, Mason, you shipped him off to the killer’s yet?” He grinned at my dad so you could catch a glimpse of his few brown jagged teeth and the tiny gleaming diamonds for eyes that jumped right out at you through hooded slits; like Indian eyes except they were ice blue.

“Waitin’ on you another week I’da cut his head off myself,” my dad said, and there wasn’t that much fun in his voice.

“Apologize, Mason, but I had me a couple errands to run, down in Oakdale.”

“Errands my ass. You were off runnin’ pussy is all.” E.V. gave out with a high shrill squealing that was pure animal glee and me and my dad had to give in to laughing with him although my dad cut it off shorter than I felt was natural. We walked down to the round pen in back of the battered barn where we had the gelding trapped, and when E.V. caught sight of all the torn-down splintered timbers from the horse’s tantrum he started to giggle again.

“Hope that claimer cost more’n them two-by-twelves, Mason.” My dad didn’t laugh this time. His voice came out with a nasty edge to it.

“Time you git done with him he won’t be worth a smooth nickel anyhow.” E.V. winked at me without my dad noticing and in that wink I understood there might be grown men in this world who actually get a spark out of life and somehow manage to dodge the black hole my dad had fallen into. When we reached the round pen E.V. let the inner tube slip off his shoulder to the dry ground, propped one boot up on a rail, and peeked in at the problem horse.

“Stout enough, isn’t he?”

“Stout in his damn mind,” my dad grumbled. E.V. just hunched there for a long while, studying the gelding as he trotted in short nervous circles, blowing snot, tail high and his black-rimmed ears pricked in our direction.