The Hex Witch of Seldom by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online

ought to get him cut if you’re planning to show him. He might make you a real good barrel racer, quick as he is.”
    â€œI ain’t thinking about things like that,” Bobbi said.
    For the first time her grandfather’s voice rose. “Well, you ought to be! What the devil are you thinking about?”
    Castration. Done at the proper time, it let a male horse’s bones grow longer, his neck grow more supple and graceful, more yielding to the rider’s pressure on the bit. And made him more docile, and let him share the same pasture with the mares. But what would it do to—a man?
    That was crazy. Bobbi felt the craziness of it twitch at her face.
    â€œWhat ails you, girl?” Grandpap asked impatiently.
    There was no proper answer Bobbi could give. “It just don’t feel right!” she burst out, and she lunged up from the table and blundered out into the springtime night, up the dark mountainside, staying away from the corral where the weird black horse might make pictures in his eyes for her, leaving Pap to clear off the supper dishes.

Chapter Four
    The next day Bobbi’s grandfather told her, much too patiently, as if speaking to someone whose mental balance he held in doubt, that he would not have a stallion on his farm with his horses. There would be no more arguing with him, Bobbi knew, patience or no patience. Shane must be gelded.
    Bobbi spent the next week floundering in a mental whirlpool she could not seem to escape.
    If Shane was just a horse, then it was reasonable and customary that he should be gelded. And it was crazy to think that Shane was anything other than a horse. And no matter what she had seen and what she knew, she did not want to be crazy. Grandpap would get a court order and have her put away like her mother. She had to make sure nobody ever knew she had thought crazy thoughts. Shane had to be just a horse.
    And yet, there was the form beyond the form.…
    She had seen it only once, at the wild horse distribution center, and she did not want to see it again. She looked at Shane as little as she could, and when she did look, she made sure she saw black hooves, black hide, a tail swishing flies. A horse. A mustang. She made her eyes tell her mind that Shane was a mustang, and she would not allow words to the protesting part inside her that was going crazy. Grandpap was right. Of course the horse had to be gelded. She did not want to go against Grandpap. She had no good reason to go against Grandpap. He was right, and she knew it.
    Why, then, did she feel so wrong?
    Grant Yandro watched her as if waiting for the next shoe to drop. There was nothing he could put his finger on about her—maybe she was a little too quiet, but a person is entitled to be quiet—there was nothing, really, but just a feeling he had, that she was not done surprising him. She wasn’t spending much time with her horse, he noted. “When are you going to halter-break that Shane?” he asked her cautiously over Monday morning’s breakfast.
    â€œWhat does it matter,” Bobbi said right back, “as long as he’ll go in the stall for me?” He could tell she had the answer ready. She had been giving it some thought.
    â€œI’ll have to hold him by the halter for the vet.” Grant had arranged for Dr. Boser to come the following Monday while Bobbi was in school. He was old-fashioned enough so that he always did that when he needed to have a horse gelded. Bobbi had seen almost every other kind of vetting, but she had never seen a castration.
    â€œCan’t you just muscle him for a couple minutes? Won’t Doc give him a sedative right away?”
    â€œIt’s my body you’re talking about here, girl!” Grant studied Bobbi closely, not really angry despite his tone. He knew he could manage the horse in the close confines of the stall. There would be a little excitement—he was almost looking forward to it, especially after