Free Make Something Up by Chuck Palahniuk

carried snatches of her prayer. She was talking about how much she loved her old horse, and how much she loved the new Arabian. Listening, it occurred to Randall that the love people feel for animals is the purest form of love. Loving an animal, a horse, cat, or dog, was always a romantic tragedy. It meant loving something that would die before you. Like that movie with Ali MacGraw. There was no future, just the affection of the present moment. You didn’t expect a big payoff, someday.
    The fading light made it harder to see her in the yard, but Lisa’s words were clear. She said how much she was enjoying her summer. She said how beautiful Red Sultan’s Big Boy was and how much everyone loved him. When she said, “I love you, Mom,” Randall realized she’d been talking on her phone.
    Before she came inside, he heard the phone ring in the kitchen. The Caller ID said, “Private Number.” He picked up.
    The voice was no one he’d ever spoken with in his life. No, he’d have remembered this voice. The wheezing quality. The breathless panting. In a voice he’d never forget, a stranger asked, “Am I correct in understanding that you currently possess the Arabian stallion known as Red Sultan’s Big Boy?”
    Randall braced himself for a stream of verbal abuse. He listened for Lisa walking up the porch steps.
    Unbidden, the voice continued, “Please know that I am prepared to offer you the sum of five hundred thousand dollars for the animal in question.”
    A voice asked, “Who’s on the phone, Dad?” It was Lisa, standing at his elbow.
    “Nobody,” Randall said and hung up.
    That week, on a hunch he drove over the state line to the rendering plant in Harlow. It was no place folks went on a whim, the proverbial glue factory. The smell alone could knock a man down. He followed the road along a chain-link fence until he came to a locked gate. A travel trailer sat just inside, and Randall honked his horn and waited. A man came out of the trailer and asked his business, and Randall explained about shipping Sour Kraut’s body a couple weeks back. Without unlocking the gate, the man brought forth a clipboard. Leafing through the pages, he stood with just the fence between them. “A pinto gelding, you say?”
    Randall asked, “Do you have any record?”
    A lot of pages deep, the man said, “Here we go. The hide was fine. The bones. The hooves.” Clearly, they didn’t waste a thing.
    Randall asked, “Any sign of what killed him?”
    The man said, “County makes us test for spongiform encephalitis.”
    Randall waited. Big in his head was the image of Sour Kraut collapsed on the stable floor. His neck stretched out, and his head fallen in a puddle of bloody foam.
    The man turned the clipboard for him to see. His fingertip tapped a line where the word “atropine” was written. “Heart attack,” the man said. “Chances are your horse got into some nightshade or a patch of potato vine.”
    Randall asked, “How long’s it take?” Every muscle of him felt weak, as if he’d stepped out of a too-hot shower.
    “Not long.” The man shook his head. “That horse would’ve died where he ate it.”
    That same week, there came more of those strange telephone callers, each one offering to buy the horse. Among them was the broker who’d sold them the Arabian. Calling Thursday night, he wanted to buy back the horse. “Not for myself, mind you.” The broker sounded defensive. “I’m acting strictly as the agent for a third party.” He opened with a price of twelve thousand. Twice what Randall had paid. Flat out, Randall asked him what all the fuss was about. The broker asked, “You’re saying you truly don’t know?”
    Wary, Randall shook his head. He remembered being on the phone and asked, “Know what?”
    “You haven’t seen the video?” The broker said, “Since it went viral, I’m getting inquiries from as far away as Kingdom Come.”
    Before Randall could hang up, he heard the broker say, “Your little