Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn Page A

over and spat.
    â€œYou can put that horse’s feet anywhere you want, can’t you?”
    â€œThey’re my feet,” Russell said.
    Â 
    Russell started on the next horse two days later, an Akhal-Teke, one of the oldest surviving breeds, only thirty-five hundred of them in the world. The stallion was golden from the tip of its nose to the last hair on its tail—seventeen hands, its conformation flawless. A stunning horse, perfect and powerful, but a horse half wild and restless in its blood and about an inch away from being a predator. Which meant he’d been made that way: no horse got there on his own. Russell decided to work him very slowly, a little each day. He went on to the Arabian—gentle as you had the right to expect an animal to be—and then he started another of the paints, leading him about the round corral and then going to work with the long line and the flag.
    By the afternoon of his fourth day, he was back to working the Akhal-Teke. The corral was lined along one side with his audience of Green Berets, five of them, and all of Wynne’s team currently in camp, with the exception of Billings. Wheels stood to one side, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, arms crossed, nodding sagely when Russell did something that seemed to bring the horse along. You didn’t whip the horse. You did nothing to hurt him. You brought only discipline, and discipline done right was an art form in itself. You had to be an artist. You made the wrong thing feel like work for the horse and the right thing feel like relief. Wrong thing difficult, right thing easy. Wrong thing pressure, right thing release.
    The stallion would trot in the afternoon light with the sun glowing along his caramel coat, a metallic look to it, a burnished metal gloss. Bronze-stockinged rear feet and bronze-stockinged front. A white strip down his nose. Gold spangles across his back, darker golden coins on his flanks. He circled the corral blowing, shaking his head, Russell talking to him, the soldiers watching from behind the rail.
    â€œYou got a damn bronc on your hands,” said Wheels.
    Russell leaned over and spat. He held out a hand for Wheels to pass him his flag, and the horse backed nervously several feet. He stood eyeing Russell. Then he sprang suddenly forward and gnashed at him with his teeth.
    Russell saw it unfold as if in slow motion—the horse lunging forward and his neck stretching out, head stretching, the muscles striated beneath the golden coat and his mouth hinged open, the perfectly white teeth parted like the jaws on a trap and then closing with a dull, wet snap as Russell ducked and slid to his right, slipping the way a boxer might dodge his opponent’s jab.
    â€œChrist Jesus!” Wheels shouted, and the others were calling out, murmuring. The stallion turned and came about to face Russell, but Russell had already backed against the corral, thrown one leg over, and straddled it. He studied the horse several moments where he stood in the sunlight with his tail swishing.
    Russell pointed to the stallion. He looked over at Wheels and Pike and the other Green Berets alongside the corral. “Nobody rides this horse but me.”
    â€œDon’t think you have to worry about that,” Pike said, and the men all laughed.
    All but Russell. He was staring at the horse. He told Wheels to bring him the Kimblewick bit from the stable.
    â€œDid I say
bronc
?” Wheels asked. “I meant
alligator.
”
    â€œBring me the Kimble,” Russell said.
    Wheels shrugged, took his boot off the lower bar of the corral panel, and went toward the stable. Russell was eyeing the stallion and rubbing the palm of one hand back and forth along his jaw.
    â€œThat thing could’ve bitten your face off,” one of the men told him.
    Russell nodded.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” another asked.
    Russell shook his head. A horse would lick its lips when it was learning, but this horse