Quotation

The fateful encounter, p2 of 3: “I just want to take a look,” Harry said. Knackers generally paid sixty dollars a head. Was Harry prepared to pay more than that? Harry hesitated, then nodded. The horse was still watching him. Grudgingly, the man backed him out of the trailer. Scrambling down the steep ramp, the horse almost fell, but then righted himself. Once the animal was off the trailer, Harry got a better picture, and it wasn’t a pretty one. The big horse was male, a gelding, as Harry had expected. His coat, the dull white color that horsemen call gray, was matted and caked with mud. Open wounds marred both knees. His hooves were grown out and cracked, and a shoe was missing. The horse was thin, but not completely undernourished—not as bad off as the horses normally seen on a killer van. The marks across his chest showed that he’d pulled a heavy harness.