Read Online Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham - Free Book Online Page A

Several others had skills in regards to cooking, fishing, and celestial navigation. And quite a few had things to say about animal husbandry.
    He had just begun to point out another horse when he called out, “What? Who put my horse in the ring?” His face took on a look of great consternation, lightened by a smile just behind it all. He ranted a few moments, confounded the help he had for their ineptitude or downright treachery, and finally spoke once more to the audience. “That horse, gentlemen, is my own sweet Sophia. She’s so smart she once tied up my shoelaces for me. She’s so strong she once sent a grizzly to the great beyond with one fell kick. She’s so fast she ran from the top to the bottom of a twister in six and half seconds flat. And she’s just about pretty enough to marry. But none of you’ll have her. She’s mine till the good Lord sees to tear us apart, which may happen eventually but surely won’t happen today and is likely not to happen in Kansas.”
    He went on for some time refusing offers that nobody had made as yet, and then he prepared to retire. He said goodbye to the auctioneer, bowed to the audience graciously, and hurried down to the ring with the utmost feigned urgency. Applause followed him from the podium. It turned to laughter when he whispered in his horse’s ear and patted her on the rump solicitously. Gabriel laughed with the rest and watched as most of the horses sold high and fast.
    GABRIEL WALKED BACK INTO TOWN ALONE, with a casual, loose-legged gait that still had something of the city in it. The hard labor of the past months had carved changes into the boy’s body. His hands were callused across the palms and bruised over the knuckles, making them puffed, rugged versions of their former selves. Cords of muscle fanned out across his back like wings growing beneath the skin, and the round curves that joined his chest and arms had twisted into solid balls. The drudgery of farm life, which warped many bodies, broke manmade tools, and took a toll of blood on both the land and its people, seemed only to strengthen this boy and speed his way to manhood. He grew with an intensity beyond that of anything planted in the ground—like a weed, some might say, and with much the same angry intent.
    He spotted the wagon from some distance away, parked on a main street near the store. The mule stood with its head hung low, in quiet contemplation of whatever it is that mules are likely to think about. Gabriel walked up to it and stroked the coarse hair of its forelock. He studied the creature for a few moments, then whispered in its ear, “You ever wish you were all horse?” The mule watched him with one rotund eyeball but gave no answer. “Ever think about that? You could have been all a horse or all a donkey, but instead somebody stuck you together a hinny.” The mule tossed its head at this and shied away a step, apparently not comfortable with being so characterized.
    Gabriel turned and looked at the store. It was a flat-faced wooden building built with a certain practicality of design that highlighted and yet economized on the sturdy timbers transported a thousand miles into this treeless world. It stood out on the street, not in design or size but in the brightness of its fresh white paint, and by the raucous colors of its new sign: HOWE AND SONS GENERAL STORE, yellow letters on a vermilion background, with a border of dark green.
    The inside was lit only by the front windows. Gabriel stood for a moment near the door, letting his eyes adjust to the dusty light, trying to make some order of the rows and stacks of merchandise, food items, household wares, and building supplies. He eventually located Solomon. He went up behind him, stood for a moment, then cleared his throat. When this brought no motion from Solomon, Gabriel cleared his throat once more and scuffed his foot against a crate. The man turned around, roused out of