Accidental Evil by Ike Hamill Read Free Book Online Page B

isolated.
    “Nice under here,” she said.
    He didn’t reply.
    “You want to ride over to Ballard’s with me? The whole car smells like a Christmas tree.”
    He looked at her.
    “Jeremy told me and Pete about Big Jack,” he said.
    Mary blinked and glanced away. Her son had never shown any real attachment to the giant horse. Some kids fawned over him. George had seen him drop a big dump on the road one year as the horse led the parade. Ever since then, her son had always wrinkled his nose when the horse went by. It was the way that everyone else in the parade walked right through the manure. By the time a person darted out to clean it up, lots of people had tromped right through the pile. Mary didn’t blame George for being a little put off. It was kinda strange—George wasn’t at all a squeamish kid—but she didn’t blame him for being put off.
    “Are you afraid they’ll have nobody to lead the parade?” Mary asked. It was her best guess at why the horse’s death had put him into such a funk.
    He shook his head.
    “What is it then?” she asked. It was a funny question—strange to ask someone why death was upsetting—but it seemed reasonable given the circumstance.
    “What about Dad?” George asked.
    “What about him?” Mary asked. It took her a second, but before he could answer, she knew. “Oh.”
    It wasn’t the horse that bothered George. It was what his father always said. The horse had led the parade as long as Mary could remember. The horse farm itself had been through three sets of owners, but Big Jack, the giant white Percheron stallion, had endured as the town’s mascot. He was a fixture. During the parade, someone inevitably asked, “How old is that horse, anyway?”
    Her husband, Vernon, always said the same thing. “Doesn’t matter how old that giant lummox is. He’s gonna outlive me, easy.”
    “George, just because Big Jack died, it doesn’t mean that anything is going to happen to your father.”
    Her son Ricky was just getting to the age where he was starting to critically evaluate things that his parents told him. He was developing his own identity and seeing the world with his own eyes. George was doing that at half his brother’s age. He did it now. He narrowed his eyes and looked at her, deciding if she was right or wrong.
    She wanted to repeat her statement, but held it to herself. She had to let George come to the conclusion on his own.
    “Why do you pray for stuff?” George asked.
    “Because I want it to happen,” she answered.
    “But you said there is no God who will help people out just because they ask for it. You said that people have to make their own luck,” George said. That kid remembered everything when it suited him. He couldn’t close the cap on the toothpaste, but he could quote something she had said years before.
    “Then I suppose that when I pray I’m reminding myself to work for what I want.”
    “Dad prayed that Big Jack would outlive him,” George said.
    “Honey, that wasn’t prayer. He was making a stupid joke.”
    “How is that a joke? He always says the horse would outlive him. Last year he said, ‘I’ll be damned if that horse doesn’t outlive me.’ That’s what he said. He prayed to be damned.”
    “That’s not prayer. There’s a difference. He was using an expression. In a way, he was expressing that he liked Big Jack and hoped he would have a long life. And he did. Big Jack lived a long, long life and had tons of baby horses. You remember when we saw his colt down at the show ring that time. Wasn’t that little horse a hoot?”
    George shook his head. He wasn’t disagreeing; he was rejecting her bid to change the subject. “I think Dad was praying that Big Jack would outlive him. Now there’s nothing to keep Dad alive.”
    “Your father has every reason to stay alive.” She reached out and grabbed his wrist. She didn’t grip him hard, but strong enough so that he would know it was time to move on. “Let’s go to