By Baxter Black
On the Edge of Common Sense
Shoein’ Pigeye
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Just count me out,” said Wilford as he lay there in the dirt,
A shoein’ rasp behind his ear, a hoof print on his shirt.
“I’ll handle this,” said Freddie, “You jus’ git outta the way.
This sorry bag of buzzard bait has met his match today.”
The horse weren’t much to look at, just the kind a trader’d buy
But you knew that he’d be trouble when you looked him in the eye.
It was small and mean and glittered, as deep as Jacob’s well,
Like lookin’ down the smoke stack of the furnace room in Hell.
Freddie grabbed a set of nippers and bent to grab a hoof.
When he woke up... his shoein’ chaps were danglin’ from the roof.
His shirt tail hung in tatters and his watch had come unwound.
The nipper’s orbit finally peaked. They clattered to the ground.
“Go get a twitch,” said Freddie, “I’m about to clean his clock.”
He tied a rope around his neck and fished it past the hock
Then pulled back on the sideline to instill a little fear
When Pigeye bit a good-sized chunk from Wilford’s offside ear.
Wilford tangled in the sideline and tried to navigate
While draggin’ ’round’ the horse corral like alligator bait.
Freddie tried to stop this trollin’ with a loop around the head,
And it mighta worked if Freddie’d only roped the horse instead.
But, of course, he caught pore Wilford, who left a funny track...
...Sorta like an oil slick, when Freddie jerked the slack.
By now the boys were testy and tired of this travail
They figgered they’d be done by noon but they’d not drove a nail.
“Go git the boss’s Humvee! We’ll winch him to a post.”
They got the cayuse necked up tight, and set to work... almost
’Cause the halter broke and Pigeye walked the length of Freddie’s back.
They rolled beneath the axle like two lovers in the sack.
Freddie heard the sound of gunfire like a thousand amplifiers,
“I’ve got the sucker pinned down, Fred, I shot out all the tires!”
It was dark when Wilford stood up and laid his hammer down
A gross of crooked horseshoe nails lay scattered all around.
The place looked like a cross between the tomb of Gen’ral Grant
And a Puppy Chow explosion at the Alpo Dog Food plant!
Wilford couldn’t move his elbow but he grinned and proudly said,
“Ol pard, we done a good day’s work,” to what was left of Fred.
Freddie crawled out from the wreckage and staggered to one knee,
“What say, we wait till mornin’ to put on the other three...?”
