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I pulled the car up to the gate, got out, opened the gate, and drove on in. The horses were quite a ways off. I drove slowly so as not to alarm them. I reached a grouping of huge gnarled trees and turned the engine off. I just sat there, staring ahead at that bunch of horses. After a few minutes, one of the horses, a big white one, walked over toward my car. I was slightly worried, like maybe I was offending the big beast. I stared out my window. The horse came closer and closer until finally he had his face pressed against the car window. I didn’t know how well he could see me, what with his eyes on the side of his head like that, but I could sure see him. As I sat admiring the horse’s big white face, he started leaning his massive chest into the car. The horse had to be a thousand pounds and I could feel the car rocking.

I was worried the horse was gonna get mad and really ram the car so I slowly rolled my car window down and tentatively patted his long white nose. This calmed him down some.

Eventually, I opened the car door and the horse backed away, letting me out. I patted him all over his body. He didn’t seem to mind. I felt more peaceful than I had since losing Dingo.

PRETTY SOON I found myself going out to the horse pasture every day to spend time with that little gang of half-wild horses. I was working less and less. I wasn’t even eating or sleeping much. Just kept going to that pasture. One day, I was out there, sitting by the gnarled trees and watching the horses when this guy came up to me out of nowhere. He was an older guy wearing coveralls and his skin and hair were so yellow he seemed to match the yellow pasture he’d sprung from like some magical creature.

“You got business here, son?” he asked me, walking slowly around me.

“No, sir, just enjoying the horses,” I said.

The yellow-looking man grunted.

“I could use you,” he said then, after eyeing me from head to toe.

“Oh?” I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of this.

“I seen you out here, talking to my horses day in day out. I got twenty more of ’em back about three miles down Little Egypt Road. You come with me I’ll show you what’s what with the equine arts.”

I didn’t know what to think. It was the strangest offer I’d ever gotten.

“Oh yeah?” I said.

“Come on, son, get up off your moneymaker,” the old guy said. He was smiling at me, showing pointy teeth. His yellow eyes seemed to twinkle, which was odd because I’d never thought of yellow as the kind of color that could twinkle.

“That’s nice of you, sir,” I said.

“Don’t thank me yet,” the guy said, bursting into a laugh that sounded like chain saws on dead trees.

“That there’s yours, right?” He motioned at the Chevy.

“Yes, sir.”

“You been driving into my pasture for three months. I seen ya,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Let’s go. You drive us back over to my barn.”

It was a little worrisome to think the guy had been watching me all this time and I wondered how he’d gotten over here in the first place if his barn was miles away. Plus, I’d never heard of any guy having twenty horses down on Little Egypt Road, so it all seemed a little strange. It’s not like I had anything better to do than see what would happen though.

We got into the Chevy and he was quiet now as I pulled out of the pasture and back onto the road, going where he told me.

A few miles down, we came to a dirt road with a gate and the guy got out and opened it. I drove in, waited for him to get back in, and then drove ahead.

The road was pitted and muddy and badly in need of work, but flanking it were beautiful pastures full of horses. Eventually, we came to a big red barn. The guy looked proud as we got out of the Chevy. He made a sweeping arm gesture, showing me what was his. The sky was a tender blue as it swept down over the strange man’s land.

We went into the barn that reeked of horse sweat and manure and creosote. It smelled like heaven. There were horses standing in big wooden stalls. Some had their long noses poking out, others had their butts to us and didn’t look up from their hay.

“So,” the yellow guy said,