Excerpt
6
was 8500 dollars and the average for geldings was 7300 dollars.
Seven stallions sold for an average of 11,000 dollars, with one
four-year-old stallion going for 35,000 dollars. Top seller for the
day was a twenty-one-year-old palomino mare sold by Joel
Hooper of Willow Springs, Montana, for 75,000 dollars. The
mare is an own daughter of the legendary Doc Bar out of a Peppy
San bred mare and she went to Bud Hankins of Salt Lake City,
Utah . . .”
Did he hear that right?
Did they say 75,000 dollars?
With caffeine-fueled lightening speed that surprised even Joel,
he sprang to his feet, raced for his wallet that he left sitting on the
coffee table and took out the check that he had folded and placed
there as he spoke with Cindy Jones the day before.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars” Joel mouthed to himself. Well
it wasn’t quite 75,000 dollars. Of course, there was the five-percent
commission that had been subtracted, but any way you
counted it the old mare was a 75,000-dollar blonde.
In a stunned zombie-like daze, Joel reached for his
sweat-stained Levi’s jacket and pulled on his Stetson. Calling for
Buddy the Border Collie, Joel headed out the door and up into the
solitude and serenity of the hills. Smiling to himself as he strode
across the yard he couldn’t help but think that with all of the
money he had spent on blondes in his life, the events of yesterday
probably had at least got him a little closer to breaking even.
Breaking even on the ranch and breaking even on blondes.
Manolis Aligizakis 