Finest Hour (6 page)

“Cause at the end of the day, I get you both.”

Both women made little snorting noises, but it seemed more for show than anything else. It was a dance they had done a hundred times before.

“Don’t mind him none,” the first woman said, holding the knife out with a piece of meat dangling off the end. “He’s the worst man we ever came across.”

Her sister quickly added, “Which is why we married him.”

Both of the young women giggled.

Tanner took the meat and handed it to Samantha. She smelled it and then took a small nibble. It met her approval, and she quickly stuffed the rest into her mouth.

“Good?” he asked.

“A little stringy,” she said, pulling a little piece from between her teeth. “But, yeah, not bad.”

Tanner turned back to the woman and set his backpack on the table.

“I’ve got a few things, if you’re willing to trade.”

“Sure. Let’s see what you got.”

Tanner dug around and pulled out a pouch of freeze-dried lasagna.

“How about this?”

She picked it up and studied the back of the package, as if making her decision based on nutritional value. Her twin stepped up to see what was being offered.

“What’s he got?”

She handed her the package. “Lasagna.”

“I like lasagna. You?”

“Sure. What’s not to like?”

She called over her shoulder. “Bucky.”

The man turned, a large metal fork in his hand.

“What d’ya say?” She held up the package. “Lasagna?”

He shrugged. “Sounds good. I ain’t had lasagna since I used to date that pretty li’l cheerleader.” He stabbed a piece of the meat and held it out to the women.

“You ain’t never dated no cheerleaders,” she said, wrapping the meat in a piece of newspaper before handing it to Tanner.

“Have so. She was about yay high.” He held the fork out at about shoulder level. “And she had the cutest little set of—”

“Bucky,” both women warned in unison.

He chuckled and turned back to tend to the grill.

Tanner passed the meat over to Samantha and stepped away from the stall.

“Don’t you want any?” she asked.

“Nah. I’m saving room for that chow chow.”

She shrugged and took a bite.

“Okay, but this is way better.”

They spent the next thirty minutes wandering through the market, stopping to look at all manner of food, clothing, and tools. Some of the items were homemade, others were taken from abandoned houses, and a few even had tags from where they had been looted from ransacked stores.

At the far end of the flea market were a series of tents from which people offered training in a host of forgotten skills. Classes included farming with horse and plow, candle making, animal husbandry, woodworking, blacksmithing, weaving, and pottery making. The folks giving the classes all looked to be hardworking farmers with an interest in living like pioneers—a skill that was more valuable now than ever before.

Tanner and Samantha stopped and stood with a small crowd, watching as a blacksmith conducted a class on shoeing a draft horse. The animal stood nearly seven feet tall and had a broad, short back and tremendously powerful hindquarters. Its legs were feathered with soft white fur that reached down to the hooves. Despite its fearsome size, the horse seemed docile and patient, the product no doubt of thousands of years of domestication.

The blacksmith was a lanky man with thick forearms and a bushy mustache. A red port-wine birthmark ran from the top of his scalp to behind his left ear. He wore a thick leather apron that hung all the way down to his knees with the name “Gus” sewn onto the front. A cart stacked with hammers, pliers, files, and blades sat to one side, and a steel conical beak anvil had been set up on a thick stump of wood.

“How about we get a volunteer to help me shoe this horse?” he said, surveying the crowd.

No one stepped forward.

“Come on, now. Anyone can do it. I promise it’s not dangerous.”

A barrel-chested man who stood as tall as Andre the Giant shouted from the audience.

“It might help if you wiped that lipstick off your face.”

He turned to the crowd for their approval but found only furrowed brows and admonishing stares. Andre responded with an emphatic middle finger all around.

Doing his best to ignore the big man, Gus said, “Come on, this’ll be fun. Let’s have a volunteer.”

Without saying a word to Tanner, Samantha stepped forward.

“I’ll give it a try.”

The blacksmith quickly sized her up, as if deciding whether or not she was a worthy apprentice.

“I do believe you’ll make a fine farrier.”

“A fine what?”

“A farrier.” Gus cupped a hand around his mouth as if sharing a secret. “It’s just a fancy name for a blacksmith who works with horses.” He turned back to the audience. “What do you say we give this brave young lady a hand?”

The group offered a brief round of applause.

Andre said something, but the clapping drowned him out.

“Better put this on,” Gus said, handing her a thick leather apron.

Samantha slipped the strap over her head and tied it around back. Once she had the apron on, she stepped closer to the horse and gently stroked its neck.

“I imagine he’s the largest animal you’ve ever seen,” Gus said with an understanding smile.

She shook her head. “Not even close. Just a few days ago, I had the chance to pet an African bull elephant.”

The crowd came alive with friendly laughter.

“Sure you did, dear. All right now, let’s see if we can get some shoes on this horse. You ready?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“You’re already doing the first step by letting the horse know that you’re there. You certainly don’t want to surprise a fifteen-hundred-pound animal.”

“Right,” she said, patting it lightly on the rump.

“The next step is to get into position by sliding your hip up against his hock and gaskin.”

Samantha gave him a puzzled look.

Gus gently inched her into position in front of the horse’s hind leg.

“The hock is this large joint,” he said, stroking the animal’s leg, “and the gaskin is the muscle right above it.”

“That’s not where my hock is located,” snickered Andre.

Several people cut their eyes at him, but no one dared to say anything.

Tanner sized the big man up, deciding on the best way to shut him up. A heckler was one thing. A man who made crass comments to a twelve-year-old girl was another. And a man who made them to Samantha was something yet again.

Gus continued on with his instruction.

“Slide one of your legs inside of his so that you can apply a little pressure. That way he won’t feel like he’s going to topple over.”

“Got it,” she said, working herself into position.

“Great. Now that you’ve got your hip under him, lift his foot so that it folds up between your legs.”

She reached down and clumsily lifted the horse’s foot. When the hoof was facing toward her, she squeezed her knees together to hold it in place.

“Excellent. You’re a natural. Now it’s time to clean the bottom of his hoof.” Gus retrieved a hoof pick and a wire brush from his cart. “Here,” he said, handing her the pick. “Use this to scrape out any dirt or stones.”

She scraped the curved pick around the outer edge of the hoof, dislodging several clumps of dried dirt. When she had most of the debris removed, she swapped the pick out for the brush and gently scrubbed it across the bottom of the hoof.

“Wonderful. Now use the hook knife to slice away some of that dried flaky sole. When you’re done, the sole should be white.”

Samantha used the edge of the blade to carefully slice away the outermost layer of the sole. Underneath was a white leathery substance.

“This is sort of like peeling a potato,” she said.

Gus smiled. “I’ve never thought of it that way, but yes, I suppose it is.”

When she had the hoof fairly well cleaned up, the blacksmith took a quick look and nodded.

“Very nice. Next, you’re going to trim the hoof wall.”

Again, she gave him a confused look.

“Think of it like trimming his toenails.” He handed her a set of hoof nippers that looked like a long set of pliers.

Her eyes grew wide. “They’re awfully big nail clippers.”

The audience laughed.

“You don’t have to take off much,” explained Gus. “Just trim a little from each side as you work your way around toward the toe.”

She opened the nippers and positioned them over a small portion of the hoof wall.

“Like that?”

“A little more. You only want to leave him with about three inches to the hairline.”

She adjusted the nippers and struggled to snip off a small piece of the hoof wall.

“He’s got some thick toenails!” she grunted.

The crowd laughed again, warming to her little quips.

Samantha continued working the nippers around, and when she finished, she gently ran her hands over the hoof.

“It’s not very smooth.”

“That’s why we use this to dress it.” He traded the nippers out with a rasp. “File the bottom until the hoof is flat and level. But be careful of the frog.”

She chuckled. “A horse has a frog?”

Gus leaned down and touched a small triangular wedge centered in the hoof, and several people in the audience leaned in to see.

“That’s the frog. It can be sensitive on some horses.”

“It looks more like an arrowhead.”

He nodded. “I’ve often thought the same thing. Just try to keep the file from scrubbing against it too hard.”

“That’s right, sweetie,” shouted Andre. “Careful not to scrub it too hard.”

Rather than offer a warning, Tanner stepped back from the crowd and circled in behind the big man. He stopped when he was a few feet behind him, determined that Andre’s next outburst would be his last.

Samantha slid the rasp across the bottom of the hoof wall, testing the hoof with her fingertips after every few strokes. When it was finally smooth, she tilted the hoof out toward Gus.

“What do you think? Is that good enough?”

He leaned over and rubbed his palm across the hoof.

“It’s perfect. Now we’re ready to shoe the horse.”

Andre snickered. “I bet she’ll hear that more than once.”

Without warning, Tanner kicked straight up between the man’s legs. The blow was as underhanded as it was effective. Andre stumbled forward and collapsed to the ground, his face narrowly missing a pile of horse dung. That, however, was to be the only break he would catch. The blow had dislocated one of his testicles, driving it up into his abdomen and impacting it against the pubic bone. The pain was so great that he began to heave uncontrollably. As the pressure built, lunch finally bubbled up, and a huge pile of chunky meat and carrots spilled out onto the dirt. He tried to push himself up, but before he got to his knees, his eyes glazed over, and he collapsed into the puddle of puke.

The crowd turned to Tanner. A few nodded or smiled, but most stared at him with a mix of shock and uncertainty. He said nothing, offering neither explanation nor apology. Really, what was there to say? The situation was over as quickly as it had started.

Gus cleared his throat. “When you’re shoeing a horse,” he continued, hoping to pull the audience back in, “it’s important to find a shoe that fits.” He looked down at Samantha. “You wouldn’t want to wear your father’s shoes, now would you?”

Samantha glanced over at Tanner.

“Have you
seen
his feet?”

Everyone instinctively looked down at Tanner’s boots, the same boots that had just turned Andre into a countertenor.

Gus grabbed a horseshoe from his cart and leaned down to place it against the flat of the animal’s hoof.

“With a little fitting, this one should work.” He set the horseshoe on his anvil, held it with a pair of metal tongs, and gave the shoe a few careful strikes with his hammer. When he was satisfied, he set it back on the hoof. This time, it lay almost perfectly flat. “I think that’ll do just fine.”

“Do we glue it on?”

“You can, but most of the time we use special nails.”

She looked concerned. “You hammer nails into his foot?”

“Just through the hoof wall. And as long we do it right, it won’t hurt him a bit. Watch here.” Gus squeezed in closer and used a small hammer to tap the first nail into place. “The important thing is to drive it through the hoof wall at an outward angle. That way we stay clear of the sensitive portion of the hoof.”

“I see,” she said. “But what do you do with the points of the nails poking through the sides?”

Gus grabbed a claw hammer and carefully bent the nail tip. Then he took a pair of nippers and clipped it off, leaving about an eighth of an inch pointing toward the toe.

“Now, you try one,” he said, handing her the hammer and a nail.

Samantha mimicked what he had done, careful to maintain the same angle when tapping in the nail. Once she had it flush, she bent the tip and snipped off the excess. She repeated the process four more times. By the time she finished, sweat was rolling down her face and neck.

“Are we done?” she groaned. “My back is killing me.”

“Almost. The last step is to file off any rough spots on the outside of the hoof wall.” He handed her the rasp. “You want the hoof to be nice and smooth. That way the horse can’t hurt himself.”

Samantha took her time, carefully filing the tips of the nails and any rough patches on the hoof wall. When she was finished, she gently rubbed her palm over the outside of the hoof. It felt hard and smooth. Without asking, she lowered the foot down to the ground and slid out from beneath the horse. Her lower back felt like it was on fire.

“Sorry, but one shoe is enough for me,” she said, holding the file out to Gus.

He smiled and turned back to the crowd.

“Let’s give a hand to Hillsville’s newest farrier.”

The crowd clapped, and a couple of people even patted Tanner on the back. Perhaps it was to congratulate him on raising such an industrious daughter. More likely, it was to thank him for dropping the big oaf who was still lying in his own vomit.