THEY RODE TOGETHER a last time on a day in early March when the
weather had already warmed and yellow mexicanhat bloomed by the roadside.
[...]
His father rode sitting forward slightly in the saddle, holding the reins in one
hand about two inches above the saddlehorn. So thin and frail, lost in his clothes.
Looking over the country with those sunken eyes as if the world out there had been
altered or made suspect by what he'd seen of it elsewhere. As if he might never see
it right again. Or worse did see it right at last. See it as it had always been, would
forever be. The boy who rode on slightly before him sat a horse not only as if he'd
been born to it which he was but as if were he begot by malice or mischance into
some queer land where horses never were he would have found them anyway.
Would have known that there was something missing for the world to be right or he
right in it and would have set forth to wander wherever it was needed for as long
as it took until he came upon one and he would have known that that was what he
sought and it would have been.