Lime Creek by Joe Henry

Author:Joe Henry [Henry, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-679-60503-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

PASSAGES

When my mare died, Luke says, the day we put my mare down. I hadn’t been able to ride her for over a year because her back had gotten so bad. And Spencer had told me that she would have to be put down someday because eventually the pain would just be too much for her. You could run your hand along her backbone and feel the muscle wince up as you passed over these arthritic edges that had grown there. Until finally she could hardly lie down nor stand back up again. I’d go into her stall and she’d move back and forth from off one foot onto the other trying to find one position of relative neutrality that maybe would hurt her a little less. And so I finally had to admit to myself that leaving her like that was more cruel than the alternative.

Spencer was away on business and I’d gone down to the barn to grain her early one Saturday morning, humping my shoulders up at how cold it was right at the beginning of October. And I remember cutting more corn into her feed for the heat we’d been taught was generated digestively or something, and so I emptied the bucket of it into her trough and then took some of it in my hand as she began to move over to that side of the stall. I put my arm across her withers speaking to her as she nuzzled the grain off my open palm and she nickered deep down in her throat. And I remember watching her great gentle eyes as I spoke to her until it suddenly hit me as if she’d spun around and nailed me, it suddenly hit me as I talked to her eyes just how much pain she was in. And all the while she kept mincing from one foot to the other as she continued to sidle her way over to the grain trough.

So I storm back through the kitchen past Whitney who’s still at the table eating and reading his sportspage, and looking up at me as I’m dialing the phone, he says, What is it? I look in his eyes as the line opens and I say, Stony? And Whitney keeps watching me with his spoon in his bowl as I ask our vet, Stony Walls, if he could come over that morning for my mare. Which was our mother’s horse that she’d raised from a foal. And I say, I think she’s just hurting too bad anymore. And Stony says he’ll be over right around nine o’clock.

I sit down at the table with my own bowl and pour out some of the breakfast food and Whitney asks, What time? I tell him and he buries himself back in his paper while I try to eat, staring out the window as morning comes on bleak and grey. And then Whitney says without looking up, Today? And I answer him without looking back from the window, Today.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.