I was so focused on the horse that when a shot sounded behind me, I nearly jumped out of my shoes. King’s head went up and he shifted his feet, but he didn’t run away.

My plan was to just pet King until Ben and Fisherman finished shooting. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that.

I fed him the next carrot and listened to him crunch and tried to ignore the gunshots. King must be used to the noise because it didn’t seem to bother him.

Maybe I could quit school and work at a ranch. Maybe I could work at this ranch and never go home again and never go visit my dad again. Fisherman’s uncle could teach me how to look after the ranch and how to ride King, and I’d be this famous ranch guy, or maybe not even famous. Maybe just a guy who rode around on a nice horse. And maybe Rigmor would want to ride double with me on King.

I felt my face get hot at the thought.

There were no more carrots, and Ben and Fisherman had stopped shooting, so the air seemed extra still and quiet. I was glad they were done. The shooting stressed me out.

I wanted to get a little closer to King, so I climbed through the fence. I was halfway in, one leg inside and the other outside, when I felt him take a little nibble of my hair. That made me laugh and feel sort of proud, somehow.

Once I was inside the fence, I didn’t know what else to do, so I petted his neck and touched his mane. I wanted to feed him something else, so I walked over to a big tin tub. The grass just outside the fence was long and bright green from where water must have spilled. It was just out of his reach. He followed me like a dog while I reached through and picked him grass. He took it from my hand just as nice as he took the carrots. I bet he’d had his eye on that green grass for a long time.

What I really wanted to do was hug him around his neck, which is weird, but somehow I had this idea that if I could do that, everything would be okay, even though we were living in Stony Butte and my dad was hiding out in a treatment center and everyone thought I was a creeper and my mom was sad and my sister was mad and I was afraid all the time.

I stood there, and King dropped his head a little and sniffed my hair. Then I put my arm around his neck and he let me. He smelled like goodness and dirt and grass. If there’s such a thing as horses, the world can’t be all bad, I thought.