By Caren Schofield
I remember Bruno only when he was big as a horse to me and we tried to ride him but he'd sit every time we mounted. He had no imagination for Silver with baling twine reins. But he could "shake" and sometimes I'd lift both paws and make him dance with me. One morning he brought to our driveway a black cow tail, the bulbous joint still bloody. One end a frayed arrow of hair, the other a smooth white ball streaked with red and black and smelling of sweet relish. My father wouldn't touch it. When the severed goat hoof showed up he took Bruno to the pound. This summer Ron Parkins down the road was wakened with three of his horses crowding the pasture gate. The fourth lay in a corner, legs straight and cold, its head hacked off, ripped more than sliced. Headlines named a satanic cult of scarred teenagers who meet under a concrete bridge at midnight. But there were no arrests. The head never showed. I wondered whose yard the bloody head would greet some morning stuck on a stake. Its eyes still wide against its murderer, shredded skin hanging in daylight, drooling rust down wood.