Gargantuan by Maggie Estep Read Free Book Online

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 manureand 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, pausing in front of one of the stalls, “I had a fella quit just yesterday and I need you.”
    “Yeah?” I said, staring past him at the red horse in the stall nearest us.
    “You start off mucking out stalls and we’ll take it from there. You can call me Sandman, by the way.”
    “I’m Ben.”
    “You got a last name, Ben?”
    “Nester,” I said.
    “I got a horse named Nester,” Sandman said.
    “Oh yeah?”
    “Yup,” the guy said.
    And that was it. He put me to work. Showed me how to muck the stalls out. Some of them, I had to change all the bedding, take out all the straw, and then put down a layer of lime and fresh straw. It took forever. I did about fifteen stalls and my back started aching but I didn’t mind. It was good pain.
    Sandman had gone off somewhere and it was just me and the horses and the barn with all those good smells in it. It was a little eerie how there was no one around. I had no idea what Sandman did with all these horses or how many other people he had working for him but I didn’t see anyone else all day long.
    Once it started getting dark out, Sandman came back and told me I was going to help him bring some of the horses in from outside. I’d never actually had much to do with horses other than hanging out and talking to the ones in the pasture but I wanted to learn. Out in the field, Sandman showed me how to stand at the horse’s left side, get the horse to put his nose through the halter, and then slip it over the ears, fasten it, and lead the horse forward. I had trouble with one little horse, a baby, only a year old. I’d get close to him and he’d prick his ears forward and his eyes would get bright but then, the moment I tried slipping the halter on, he’d bolt andthrow a little buck and make a squealing sound. Eventually, Sandman helped me by getting on the other side of the yearling so we had him boxed in, and I finally got a halter on him. As I led him though, he kept trying to take a nip at my arm.
    “That one’s gonna race,” Sandman told me once we were back inside the barn.
    “Oh yeah?” I’d put the little guy in his stall and he’d immediately relieved himself all over his clean straw.
    “Yup. I got a couple trainers coming by tomorrow have a look at him. Kind of spirit he’s got, I bet he makes it. Might even make it to one of the big tracks, win some real money. His mama won a stakes race at Aqueduct in New York once,” Sandman said, looking thoughtful.
    I didn’t really know what he was talking about that day but I learned pretty quickly.
    Sandman had two other people working for him. A guy named James who was around