I was sitting in my rocking chair on the porch of my Cove Hollow place, and I seen them coming while they was still some ways off. When I first seen them they was so far away I couldn’t tell they was only three. Then they dipped below a little rise, and I didn’t see them at all for a while. When they topped the rise I seen they was only three, and I wondered why. They was coming real lazy, at a walk, and the tails of their horses was switching. It was only the fifteenth of June, but the flies was already bad. I knowed who they was. I mean, I knowed who one of them was, as soon as they topped that rise. I’d recognize the gait of that mare even if she was on the moon. When I seen they was only three, I stood up and squinted at them coming, trying to see who wasn’t there. I felt fluttery in my belly, and the closer they come, the worser the flutter got. I seen that Arkansas and Henry wasn’t there. Jackson and Barnes, they was there. And Sam, of course, on that mare. They was a mess.
