Galway Girl

Horses.

I was leaning on the corral fence, admiring the gorgeous animals.

A chestnut mare and a black stallion — they seemed perfect, like what you’d find on a box of Milk Tray. Keefer came up from the left, Jones as always loping beside him.

He was dressed in a denim jacket, torn not for fashion but from actual age, black combat pants and the dusty motorcycle boots, a black T with the near illegible Exile on Main Street. He looked like a Hell’s Angel, if those dudes ever smiled, said,

“They’re not mine.”

I laughed, asked,

“What, you’re a rustler too?”

His smile vanished and Jones tensed, alert to his owner’s every mood. Keefer said,

“They belong to a friend. His other ones have been stolen.”

I was a little skeptical, asked,

“Rustlers?”

A touch more sneer than intended leaked over the question. He gave me a look that was not aggressive but in the vicinity, said,

“A gang from the North, they steal to order...”

Paused, spat in the dirt, added,

“Those two are on their list.”

I asked,

“Are they a worry, I mean, like dangerous?”

He lit a Camel, unfiltered, didn’t offer one, showing he was angry, said,

“If beating one of the owner’s crew half to death with pickaxes qualifies, I dunno, what in the city” — the word dripping with contempt — “you class as dangerous but, out here, we think that qualifies.”

Jones had fixed me with an intense stare, the one that said,

I kind of liked you, but now...

We had breakfast in silence; fry-up:

Sausages

Double eggs (over easy, said Keefer)

Soda bread

Beans

And a gallon of coffee.

If we drank out of tin cups, we’d have been the complete Clint Eastwood western, bar us wearing Colts on our hips.

I said,

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Apologizing is not natural to me and I stumbled over the words. Keefer was very quiet, feeding bits of bacon to Jones who, for a German shepherd, took the food as gently as if he were in a James Herriot book. Keefer’s gaze was focused on the large front window, opening out to the woods. He finally said,

“She’s buried out there.”

That will kill a breakfast cold.

It did.

The she was his wife.

He said no more about it.