He was quiet a long time. Then he said, "I never believed it. That Gideon done it on purpose. Mr. Pruett used to let me ride him to the mail sometimes. He'd stop and wait for you if you dropped your hat."
"I don't think he did it on purpose."
"Lyle says a horse that's killed a man knows how, after. Says it's like a dog that's killed sheep. You can't ever trust 'em again."
"Lyle says a great deal," said Josephine, and got up again, and went to the horse.
This time he let her hand come back all the way. She felt the heat coming off the wound before she touched it, and when she touched it, it was like touching a stove lid; he shuddered and his hind leg cocked to kick and she said "No," very low, the way you would say it to a child reaching for a knife, and he set the foot down again. She wet the flour sack in the salt water and laid it over the place and held it there. He groaned. It was a man's sound, almost, a sound of giving up. She stood with her cheek against his shoulder and held the warm rag on his back while the lantern hissed and Toby breathed on the fence, and after a while she felt the poison begin to come, warm and wet through the cloth.
"There," she said. "There, now. There it goes."
When she had cleaned it and salved it, she stepped back, and Gideon turned his big head around and looked at her for a long moment with his ears forward. Then he sighed through his nose and dropped his head and began to pull at the hay in the corner as if he had not eaten in a week.
Toby said, "Ma'am, how'd you do that?"
"I asked him," she said, "and I quit when he answered."
* * *
Deputy Orrin Pratt rode out from Ferris Crossing on Friday noon with Bannock beside him, and a third man behind them on a paint horse, and she knew before any of them opened his mouth how it was going to go.