Half broke horses: a true-life novel by Jeannette Walls Read Free Book Online Page A

fury, hitched up a carriage, and drove off to confront Old Man Pucket.
    We were worried about what was going to happen, but talking about your fears only scares you and everyone else even more, so nobody said anything. To keep our hands busy, Dorothy and I sat on the corral fence shucking pecans until Dad drove back up. He was usually careful to avoid overexerting his horses, but he’d pushed that gelding so hard his sides were heaving and his chest was covered in lather.
    Dad told us Old Man Pucket had unapologetically admitted killing the Great Danes, claiming they were on his property chasing his cattle and he was afraid they were going to bring one down. Dad was cursing and carrying on about how now he was going to bring down Old Man Pucket. He ran into the house and then came back out with his shotgun and jumped into the carriage.
    Dorothy and I raced over. I grabbed the reins as Dad kept trying to crack them. The reins were snaking up and down on the horse’s back, and it panicked, starting to bolt, but Dorothy leaped up on the seat and, being a big strong woman, pushed down the brake and wrestled the gun away from Dad. “You can’t go killing someone over dogs,” she said. “That’s how feuds get started.”
    When her family was living in Arkansas, she went on, her brother had killed someone in self-defense when a dispute broke out during a game of horseshoes, then he’d been killed by that man’s cousin. The cousin, afraid Dorothy’s father was going to avenge his son’s death, had come after him. They’d had to leave everything behind and take off for New Mexico.
    “My brother’s dead, and we ain’t got two nickels to rub together,” she said, “because a stupid argument over a damn game of horseshoes got out of hand.”
    I thought about how Lupe had stepped in during Dad’s spat with the tinker, and how no one with a level head had been there to calm down the man who’d killed Dad’s pa when he was shot in a dispute over eight dollars. So I reminded Dad about all that.
    Dad eventually settled down, but he kept stewing over the matter and the next day went into town to file a legal case against Old Man Pucket. He prepared obsessively for the hearing, detailing his grievances, researching the case law, taking statements from vets about the value of Great Danes, and writing the politicians he’d corresponded with over the years to see if they’d file friend-of-the-court briefs. He appointed me to speak for him in court, and he had me rehearse my statements and practice my examination of Dorothy, who was to be a witness testifying about her discovery of the dead dogs.
    On the day of the trial, we all got up early, and after breakfast we piled into the buckboard. When the circuit judge came to town, he held court in the lobby of the hotel, sitting in a wing-backed chair behind a small desk. The various plaintiffs and defendants leaned against the walls, waiting their turn.
    The judge was a rail-thin man who wore a string tie and a jacket with a velvet collar, and he looked at you alertly under his bushy eyebrows, giving the impression that he didn’t tolerate fools. The bailiff called each case, and the judge listened to the two sides, then made his decision on the spot, brooking no argument.
    Old Man Pucket was there, along with a couple of his sons. He was a stumpy little guy with skin the color of beef jerky and thumbnails he left untrimmed because he used them to pry things open. By way of dressing up for court, he had buttoned the top button of his frayed shirt.
    Our case was finally called late in the morning, and I was kind of nervous as I stood to make the presentation Dad had cooked up for me.
    “The history of the Great Dane is a proud and storied one,” I began, but the judge interrupted me.
    “I don’t need a damned history lesson,” he said. “Just tell me why you’re here.”
    I explained how Dad had imported the dogs from Sweden, planning to breed them as an investment, but