When I Watched Him Hang the Horse
| WHEN I WATCHED HIM HANG THE HORSE a short story published in Tin House |
VIEW PDF AND READ THE STORY "The bones weren't scattered around. They were laid out in the pasture as neat and close as the yarn in a sweater. Hit by lightning in the spring and fallen down on the ground so quick it stayed together - I could tell it was a horse right off, just with nothing on it. I came back and put the bones up in a square of bedspread. Dragged the bundle back to outside the house. Sat sorting and polishing, with a small knife tried to get off the dried meat, finally boiled the smaller bones in water when Skinny Jones suddenly show up there quiet at the stove. I was missing two of the four feet in the pot. Hooves, Jones told me, I believe they're called hooves. But I was still missing them. They're probably eaten up by now, he said. I wanted to know what kind of thing would eat the hooves, what kind of thing had teeth or jaws enough to do it, or the sort of hunger to eat a horse's feet. Pig's feet are very tasty, he said, like pickles. |
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