In Riding Away, today’s “On the Square” article, Joseph Bottum . . . no, just read it. Any teaser I could give you would give away too much. But it does begin this way:

She was wiry and whip-thin, like most of the kids who come off the ranches, and like nearly all of them, she sat a horse like a dream. I first met her when she was, I suppose, around thirteen or so—I can’t remember, exactly, but it was a few years ago, when she was helping with the horses of some friends as a summer job: saddle-breaking, training the colts, currying, riding as the trailer on the gentle rides they’d get up for the tourists.