Marvel and a Wonder Read Online Free PDF Page B

his dark eyes runny with tears.
    The boy hung behind the fence apprehensively, excited by the creature’s presence, but too frightened to get closer.
    Jim, on the other hand, felt a weakness well up in him. He carefully strode over to the animal, slowly raising his hand to the side of its broad neck, and then he began to pat it, in ever-widening circles, the horse breathing huskily, its blue-black eye momentarily lidded by the longest eyelashes Jim had ever seen on an animal. It felt like the horse was the answer to something. He had an ache just then, not in his joints nor his stomach nor his liver, and remembered the place where he had been struck one afternoon when catching sight of the back of his wife Deedee’s knees as she stood on a chair and reached to retrieve a box from the top shelf of the school supply closet where she was teaching. He put his hand over his chest now, wondering if this is what it was like to get hit by lightning.
    “Do we get to keep it?” the boy asked.
    “I don’t know,” Jim said.
    The horse turned before them and snorted. Jim gave an easy smile.
    “But where’s it gonna live?”
    “We’ll see.”
    The boy held out a hand and patted the horse’s flank.
    Later it was decided they would drive to the nearby hamlet of Mount Holly the following morning and make an appointment to see Jim Northfield, the former lawyer and judge.

_________________
    Approaching the silver trailer the next day, both the grandfather and the boy tried to catch a glimpse of the animal asleep inside. But it was already awake, poking its great pink nostrils through the metal slats. The boy held out his hand and felt its breath—humid, so much like a human’s. It was a marvel. The grandfather watched the boy and pondered what they had done to deserve such a thing.
    Once they had finished their morning chores, they led the horse out of the trailer and mucked the urine-soaked dirt and straw, making sure the trough was filled with cold, clean water. The grandfather held the animal by its fancy silver bridle while the boy raked out the rounded lumps of manure with the flat edge of a shovel, piling them into a wheelbarrow. Then they dumped the remaining bag of feed in a bucket and placed it near its feet. As the horse ate, the boy gently touched its neck, trying to read its thoughts. “Hello, hello, hello,” the boy whispered. “I am your friend.”
    * * *
    The boy and his grandfather made their way to town. From behind the dashboard of the blue pickup, the nearby fields looked fearsome, zigzagging with bayonets of rippling corn. The boy had his headphones on, and was nodding along to the persistent rhyming annoyance of rap music; Quentin listened to his Walkman even when riding in the truck, because, as he had said a number of times before, he did not care for his grandfather’s “shitkicker” music. The music Jim preferred was old country—Jimmie Rodgers being his favorite—a habit he had picked up in Korea, listening to the Armed Forces Radio while he was stationed as an MP, the deejay then being like the voice of God, playing songs that put into words the faraway feelings of his young, wrong heart, though now there was no radio station within fifty or sixty miles that broadcast anything like that. Everything on the radio around here was oldies or new country or Christian secular music, none of which Jim could stand.
    * * *
    Interstate 65. Interstate 69. Interstate 64. Interstate 70. Interstate 74. Interstate 80. Interstate 90. Interstate 94. Route 6. Route 20. Route 24. Route 27. Route 30. Route 31. Route 33. Route 35. Route 36. Route 40. Route 41. Route 50. Route 52. Route 136. Route 150. Route 224. Route 231. Route 421. Hope. Laurel. La Fontaine. Markle. Churubusco. Kokomo. Hamlet. Peru. Macy. North Liberty. Santa Claus. English. Tell City. Bellwood. Russiaville. Mulberry. Zionsville. Brownsburg. New Whiteland.
    Or the sign saying, Mount Holly , the pale-blue pickup driving on through the afternoon into