The Filly

Title Page

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Prologue

No Cowboy Could Ever Tame That Filly

Harold Frisk would always remember the precise moment when his obsession began.

He was sitting in the backseat of the limo at the end of a long day; distracted by a week of minor disappointments, cancelled engagements, and unsolved problems as he tried to decipher the bad news from Wall Street scrolling across his laptop. He was trying to ignore the twinges of a chronic ailment he hoped was only acid reflux. The chauffeur kept tapping his brakes to avoid closing in on the dallying traffic ahead, and the continual rocking only fed Frisk’s irritation.

Then he saw the girl, and none of those things mattered any more.

She was running along the shoulder of the road. No, not running, floating rather, halfway up a two mile grade that would have burst a marathoner’s heart. There was no evidence of strain in her fluid stride. Her bare tanned arms and legs flowed with casual power she had yet to tap, and she grinned madly with the pure joy of youth in full flower.

Just some college girl, he told himself, training for an athletic event or burning off nervous energy before an exam. Perhaps she simply ran because she could, because the evening was beautiful, and the wind was fresh in her hair. It seemed to him that her spirited headlong rush should be the proper metaphor for the human condition, not the empty souls fretting on the highway beside her.

He didn’t care to know the petty details of her life. Her true name could only disappoint; as would the knowledge of her minor vices, annoying habits, and venial sins. Even her redeeming virtues held no interest for him. She represented an apotheosis of a sort, and he would summon the memory of her often in years to come, when he found himself most in need of courage or hope.

She would be pretty, he was sure, on her wedding day. She would glow in pregnancy, and shine as a proud mother. She might even age like fine scotch. But he knew that she would never again be as beautiful as she was to him in that moment.

Part One

Everything Changed The Day That The Stranger Came to Town