Echo Burning

he walked back past the kitchen and stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.
    “I want a horse,” Bobby said. “The big mare. Saddle her up and bring her out.”
    Reacher paused again. “You want that now?”
    “When do you think? I want an evening ride.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “And we need a demonstration,” Bobby said.
    “Of what?”
    “You want to hire on, you need to show us you know what you’re doing.”
    Reacher paused again, longer.
    “O.K.,” he said.
    “Five minutes,” Bobby said.
    He stood up and headed back inside the house. Closed the door. Reacher stood for a moment with the heat on his back and then headed down to the barn. Headed for the big door. The one with the bad smell coming out of it. A demonstration? You’re in deep shit now, he thought. More ways than one.
    There was a light switch inside the door, in a metal box screwed to the siding. He flicked it on and weak yellow bulbs lit the enormous space. The floor was beaten earth, and there was dirty straw everywhere. The center of the barn was divided into horse stalls, back to back, with a perimeter track lined with floor-to-ceiling hay bales inside the outer walls. He circled around the stalls. A total of five were occupied. Five horses. They were all tethered to the walls of their stalls with complicated rope constructions that fitted neatly over their heads.
    He took a closer look at each of them. One of them was very small. A pony. Ellie’s, presumably. O.K., strike that . Four to go. Two were slightly bigger than the other two. He bent down low and peered upward at them, one at a time. Inprinciple he knew what a mare should look like, underneath. It should be easy enough to spot one. But in practice, it wasn’t easy. The stalls were dark and the tails obscured the details. In the end he decided the first one he looked at wasn’t a mare. Wasn’t a stallion, either. Some parts were missing. A gelding. Try the next . He shuffled along and looked at the next. O.K., that’s a mare. Good . The next one was a mare, too. The last one, another gelding.
    He stepped back to where he could see both of the mares at once. They were huge shiny brown animals, huffing through their noses, moving slightly, making dull clop sounds with their feet on the straw. No, their hoofs. Hooves? Their necks were turned so they could watch him with one eye each. Which one was bigger? The one on the left, he decided. A little taller, a little heavier, a little wider in the shoulders. O.K., that’s the big mare. So far, so good .
    Now, the saddle . Each stall had a kind of a thick post coming horizontally out of the outside wall, right next to the gate, with a whole bunch of equipment piled on it. A saddle for sure, but also a lot of complicated straps and blankets and metal items. The straps are the reins, he guessed. The metal thing must be the bit. It goes in the horse’s mouth. The bit between her teeth, right? He lifted the saddle off the post. It was very heavy. He carried it balanced on his left forearm. Felt good . Just like a regular cowboy. Roy Rogers, eat your heart out .
    He stood in front of the stall gate. The big mare watched him with one eye. Her lips folded back like thick rolls of rubber, showing big square teeth underneath. They were yellow. O.K., think. First principles . Teeth like that, this thing is not a carnivore. It’s not a biting animal. Well, it might try to nick you a little, but it’s not a lion or a tiger. It eats grass. It’s an herbivore. Herbivores are generally timid. Like antelope or wildebeests out there on the sweeping plains of Africa. So this thing’s defense mechanism is to run away, not to attack. It gets scared, and it runs. But it’s a herd animal, too. So it’s looking for a leader. It will submit to a show of authority. So be firm, but don’t scare it .
    He opened the gate. The horse moved. Its ears went back and its head went up. Then down. Up and down, against therope. It moved its back feet and swung its huge rear end toward him.
    “Hey,” he said, loud and clear and firm.
    It kept on coming. He touched it on the side. It kept on coming. Don’t get behind it. Don’t let it kick you . That much, he knew. What was the phrase? Like being kicked by a horse? Had to mean something.
    “Stand still,” he said.
    It was swinging sideways toward him. He met its flank with his right shoulder. Gave it a good solid shove, like he was aiming to bust down a door. The horse quieted. Stood still,