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By Root 781 0

and shook out a little lime powder on the damp spots in the stall. Once they had dried, he would scatter fresh straw. But now he got a stiff brush and a metal comb and went to work on King Philip’s mane and tail and coat. Being so near the big hot-blooded horse would warm and ease the arthuritis pains that came and went with the morning dew, and it also seemed to soothe and loosen his mind. He had give up his commission same as General Forrest had, so people didn’t call him Ginral Jerry no more, but mostly just plain Jerry, though some did call him Mister Forrest, since he didn’t have any other last name but Forrest and that was a name that carried respect. He was free too, now that the war was over, and although the state of freedom had not much changed the way he lived, he liked to think about it and did so several times a day.

“Whoa, you,” he said, when King Philip shifted a leg or shivered, his low voice scrambled in his mouth. In the course of the war most of his natural teeth had fell out and General Forrest had got him a fresh set of wooden ones, like what George Washington used to have. The wooden teeth were not very comfortable, but Jerry liked to wear them anyway, except when he needed to eat or talk.

When King Philip stirred, Jerry slipped a hand out of the brush’s strap to stroke the horse with his bare palm. Nestling against the warm hide of the horse, he muttered at the level of his breath I’se free now, and let that whisper shimmer, and then thought My chirren free. My grandchirren be free. He combed some burrs and loose hair out of King Philip’s mane and thought My greatgrandchirren gone be free, and stopped with that. There was something about the freedom of his great-grandchildren that always seemed to trouble him a little; he didn’t know why. Maybe it was because he didn’t have any great-grandchildren yet, that he knew of. He didn’t know what this trouble could be, though it was true that now some people appeared to be worse off free than they had been slave … but Forrest’s people did all right, except they were poor, but then everybody down South was poor, white or black, since the war. Only Jerry thought Forrest would be rich again soon. He seemed to already be working on that.

In the other stalls horses had begun to nicker and stamp. “Hesh, y’all,” Jerry said, slipping his hand back into the strap of the brush. “Be still.” He looked about—the boy who should have been dropping a handful of grain in their feed boxes had wandered off somewhere. That was one of his grandsons, Sophus. Through the open barn doors, Jerry caught sight of him up near the fence, shading his eyes from the rising sun to look at something that must be coming down the road.

He made to call Sophus back to the barn, but he couldn’t get his voice to carry very far past the wooden teeth, and it was awkward to take them out because he had the brush and comb strapped to his hands. As he considered this problem, he felt King Philip bunch up against him. There was a flash of blue on the road.

King Philip backed up, surged forward, made to rear. With a ripple of his long muscular neck he broke free of the hackamore.

“Whoa, you hoss,” Jerry said, shaking off the brush to reach for a hold of forelock or mane. King Philip shook free and charged for daylight.

“Shit far,” Jerry said. He had learned this expression from his master.

The barn doorway was secured with a two-by-six plank slid between the doorposts at waist height, but Sophus, going out, had left it barely caught on one side. The plank bent away like a twig as King Philip went through it, then sprang back to catch Jerry in the midsection, knocking him flat and knocking the wind clean out of him. In the split second he lay on the dusty clay floor, he caught sight of an old ax handle waiting there to be set with a new head, and he snatched it as he got up and ran. Scattering fence rails like splinters, King Philip had burst onto the road to attack the little party of Federal curiosity-seekers who’d come out in hope of a glimpse of that devil, Forrest.

They were getting more devilment