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place. My Mom invited her out and gave her directions, then immediately mobilized the entire family in a whirlwind clean-up. We mowed the lawn, cleaned the stalls, and replaced a couple of fallen fence boards. By the time Rebecca showed up, the place looked about as good as it could on short notice. It didn't hurt that it was a beautiful early summer day, with a light breeze sending gentle waves across the lush pasture. Ms. Rhoades was moved by the ambient beauty of the day, by the peacefulness of the spot my Mother had chosen, and by the evident kindness of a stranger. She agreed to have us pick up Charlie.

A few hours later that day, after we had picked up the deceased horse, Rebecca Rhoades phoned again. As before, she was in tears. "I'm so sorry to do this," she cried, "but I just can't bear the thought of not seeing Charlie one more time. Please. You haven't b-buried him yet, have you? I need to see him once more, to say good bye one last time." My Mother should have simply said that it was too late, that Charlie was buried. That's what most horse traders would have done. It would have been so much easier.

What my Mother actually said, was "I think our heavy equipment operator just finished digging the grave. I can run out there and see if I can catch him before he finishes burying Charlie, and try to hold him up until you get here." She then made two phone calls of her own, to call in favors from old friends. The second call was to Leonard Joseph, our "heavy equipment operator", to see how fast he could get to our farm with his back hoe.

Most successful business managers will tell you that you have to leverage your strengths and resources, and we did this in a variety of both obvious and discreet ways. We knew people in the rendering business (a polite way of saying "slaughterhouse"), who would buy horses that nobody else wanted. The slaughter house was owned by a couple named Darryl and Sharon. They weren't supposed to use dead stock, but since the horses were rendered for dog food and not human consumption, enforcement of this rule was lax to say the least.

By now it should be obvious that my Mother had never intended to bury Charlie on our farm. Her justification of this deception was easy for her. Money was tight, and it wasn't easy raising 5 kids on a small farm. Charlie was beyond caring what happened to him, and Rebecca was happy with the version of reality my Mom had given her. The problem of course was that this version of reality was on the verge

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