It was almost as hard as being asked to put Marleen down. I begged a special prayer of the Lord, and let her go. The old dead-bolt that took the filly down brought her low. I kept my eyes closed and begged for forgiveness. Then I covered her up forever.
Death is harder than blood to wash off.
You can't tell when it is gone, and it will sneak back up on you when you think all of it was gone last time. I scrubbed my hands a dozen times, and still I wondered if my hands were clean. As I sat down my mind raced away to ponder the old man who wanted to be buried in the hole dug by the county in his own back yard. His wife had been in a bucket of tears to think he would not be buried proper in a casket with some special preserving juice sloshed in his veins. But I was on his side.