Bill's towing

When James and I are out in the country we meet all kinds of characters. One of these, with a repeating role, is his old friend, Eric. Eric and James went to school together and were good buddies. He would say they were neighbors. Where I am from you have to live at least within a mile of someone in order for them to be a neighbor... but, hey, where I am from there would be 500 houses in that distance, not one.

You see, Eric is a "horse trader". James has explained to me that this means he buys horses off of craigslist for cheap, from people who can't afford to feed them, or just need the money instead of a horse. He breaks them, making them rideable and easier to train, then resells them for a profit. One horse in particular we have heard of recently he bought for 500. The horse was untamed so Eric broke him, trained him, and sold him for over three grand. Now, multiply this by the number of horses he has... hundreds at a single time.

He keeps the horses all over the county, in different farms he has leased out. So, in traveling from farm to farm, Eric passes by the house on a regular basis. He always has something interesting in tow and always stops to see if James is around.

One day when Eric stopped by he had a trailer full of horses. James went to the truck to catch up with him and I went to the trailer to poke around at the horses. I stuck my fingers through the openings in the trailer and the horses nibbled and rubbed on them. I am convinced Eric is going to find my horse one day.

Another day, when we were out at the farm, Eric stopped in front of the house. We stopped what we were doing and walked out to the road. "What in God's name..."

There he sat... shirtless, sweaty, and drunk, on a bench in a carriage, a beer in one hand, reigns in the other. Behind him was his girlfriend and two children, sitting in car seats that had been placed on the flat bed of the carriage. They had a new team of horses.

"I bought this here team for about $3,000, carriage and all!" he yelled.

"What are you going to do with them?" we asked...

"Sell 'em."

Pulling the wooden cart were two huge mastodons of horses. They were tall and shaggy. They were both dark black with grey and white manes. They sweated from the effort needed to pull the crew down the road and back. I petted their noses and looked at the reigns and harnesses hooking them to the trailer. The trailer/carriage was a wooden flatbed trailer with a bench up front, a hand brake, and four wheels, that's about it. Except for the car seats bolted to it.

"What are their names?" I asked, rubbing the horses' noses and pushing their long manes out of their eyes.

"Bill."

"Bill?"

"Yup."

"Bill.. and...?"

"Bill."

"Bill and... Bill?"

"Yup."

"What?"

"Bill and Bill. So when you yell at 'em, they both listen!"

"......"

"H'YEAH, BILL!"

And off they went.