The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

We asked the captain what course

of action he proposed to take toward

a beast so large, terrifying, and

unpredictable.

It was an old, quiet horse, the color of gray corduroy, or child's clay, those elephant slabs wrapped in wax paper that Reston remembered from classrooms in his childhood. Six months earlier the horse had been delivered to the pasture out back of Reston's trailer, and it had taken four men to coax her from the truck. She didn't kick or fuss, but simply refused to budge. Reston had paid 100 dollars for the horse to save it from being put down. He had inherited his ex-girlfriend's pathological weakness for downtrodden animals of all kinds, and he had a dog