Excerpt
Playing the role of the discerning
buyer, they would closely inspect the conformation and
movement of each horse. Joel sensed that the two visitors were
having a hard time controlling their excitement.
The filly he just rode was Joel’s last horse of the morning.
Harry had already headed over to his caboose for his lunch. Joel
knew that he should invite the strangers into his house for lunch
and a visit but he was starting to enjoy his own company and
decided not to.
“So what do you think?” Joel inquired of the trainers.
“Well, we were just thinking—you and the old guy have a lot
on your hands here, with all of these horses, and you not really
being a horse person yourself, so maybe we could help you out.”
“Yeah,” chimed in the other stranger. “You are way out here in
the middle of nowhere and with your dad gone and everything
maybe people won’t even be bothering to come out and buy this
year. You know, it was really his reputation that sold these
horses. With him gone you might just end up with a lot of horseflesh
to winter here. And with the price of feed you sure wouldn’t
want to be doing that, would you?”
“What we were thinking,” the first trainer started in again, “is
that your dad had always been really good to us and we thought
we could return the favor by just stepping up and buying all
twelve of these three-year-olds off you. We were thinking that
3,000 dollars a head sounded fair. What do you think? Do we
have a deal?”
Before he could answer, the other trainer jumped in, “If you
are interested in selling those stallions we would want to buy
them too.”
Now Joel made up his mind. He didn’t need to check his facts.
His instinct had just been confirmed. “Gentlemen, I sure do
appreciate your driving out here and making an offer, but I don’t
think we’ll be selling the horses privately this year.”
“What do you mean?” one of the trainers asked. “Your dad
always sold privately.”
Libros Libertad 