She broke every horse you ever bought. Nobody moved. It is a terrible thing to watch a yard decide that a child is only a child. Hammond made a small sorry face and said something about it being a shame and Hollis took another step. And then Virgil Chandler came out from under his awning with something in his hand and he did not go around the pen.
He went over the rail at 61 years old and he was shouting before his feet were down. Hold it. Hold it right there. He had a hackamore in his fist. It was four strand rawhide, dark and smooth.
And he held it up next to the one on the black horse's head so that everybody along that fence could see the two of them together. I bought this in Canyon City 8 years ago and 60 more since off a man who would never tell me where he got them. Virgil said, "Same braid, same heel knot. There is one pair of hands in this state that ties that knot. I have been selling that woman's work in my own shop for 8 years and taking a cut off the top, and I never knew her name until 20 minutes ago." He turned around in the middle of that pen and looked at the rail.
Half of you are standing on her reigns right now. That is when a horse came in off the county road at a trot and the man on it was 66 years old and had a canvas book bag hanging off his horn. And he had not come for any of this. Alfred Newell had been riding that basin for 3 weeks. He was the county stock inspector.
Not one hoof of Sydney's 300 head was crossing out of Harney County without his certificate on the string and he had told Hammond's office on Tuesday that he would be at the diamond before the week was out. Nobody had thought about it twice. He got down at the gate and looked at a barefoot woman, a deputy, a child, a black stallion standing loose with a rawhide hackamore on his head and 200 buyers hanging on a fence. And he said what an inspector says. What's the trouble?
Horse thief? Hammond said. Newell nodded slowly. He had known Thomas Hammond for 25 years. He unbuckled the book bag off his saddle.
Which horse? Hammond opened his mouth and had nothing ready. Because in 8 years, nobody had ever asked him that in a way that required an answer. New walked in past him and put his hand on the black horse's neck the way a man does who has put his hand on 4,000 necks and he looked at the near shoulder for a while. Then he went back to his saddle bag and came out with a pair of hand shears.
Ma'am, will he stand for me? He will. Then hold his head and talked to him. And in front of 200 people, Alfred Newell knelt down beside that stallion and clipped the hair off a patch of his left shoulder about the size of two hands. Then he sent a boy for a bucket, wet it down, and let it sit, and the light came across that shoulder at a slant off the white sand.