“He’s not all that dumb.” E.V. grinned, keeping his eyes pinned to the horse’s action. “He already suspects we’ve brought an idea for him. Tell you what, son—” He turned to me and as soon as his light eyes fixed on me it was as though a warm hand landed softly on my chest. There was a kindness there that surprised me how much I yearned toward it. “Take this old rubber tube over to that sycamore and wrap it around that big knobby branch. You see that branch?” He pointed to an arm of the huge tree that had always reminded me of human flesh. It was bone white and muscular with red strips of bark swirling down through the deep creases of the trunk like arteries. That tree had always spooked me for some reason, especially when I was little, trailing back through the brushy hills in pitch black. Its whiteness seemed to pop out at me and the very branch E.V. was pointing to was the part that scared me the most. More than once I’d swung a wide circle around it with my old dun mare, making sure it couldn’t spring out and snatch me sideways off the saddle. I was a lot younger then, though, and I gradually talked my mind out of fixing on it that way. “Loop one end through like this here, so it cinches up tight against itself.” E.V. demonstrated the pattern on his outstretched arm, then tossed the inner tube in my direction.

“Better let me handle that,” my dad muttered as he moved in as though to pick up the tube, but E.V. stopped him short.

“Nah, you let him do it, Mason. I’m gonna need you here to keep this gate propped open. He can manage. Tie it up good and high now, son. We want it way above his head.” I took off fast with the tube before my dad had a chance to consider twice. I had a feeling E.V. had just invented the business about needing my dad to prop the gate. I’d seen him maneuver horses through plenty of gates without anyone’s help.