Short Stories

Royal Licorice
—R. A. Lafferty


  •   · Excerpt    
      "Black Red had been sixteen years at stud. This was after a strict colthood and eight years of competitive horse racing. Now he had become a very slow and undependable stud. He was one old horse. He gnawed a clump of prickly pear. He had been a stupid and rock-headed horse from his youth, and now that his eyes were shot he would eat anything. His owner chewed on a length of big bluestem grass and contemplated him. It was too bad to sell, for nine dollars for cat meat, a horse that had earned five million dollars. But what else could be done with the old animal? But Black Red smelled a brother horse, an old flyer like himself, and he raised his head."  —R. A. Lafferty
         · 1975 Locus 10th, Best Short Fiction



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