I'd heard Gordy tell me and anyone who would listen that "A mule will never hurt you." I heard it often and believed it. He had a convincing way of saying it. If we were around his mules, he'd scratch hard behind their ears or give them loud dust-smacks on the neck and say it with affection to nobody in particular. If we were in gathered company, he'd look off in the distance, as though remembering bitter disappointments from failed parts of his life, transgressions and betrayals which mules were incapable of dealing, and repeat it with a wistful voice. "A mule will never hurt you," he would say, just like a big lug would say it. It made men nod and women melt.

People who own mules feel obligated to repeat this comforting illusion because they want to believe it. I know that now. The illusion assumes you can't make a mule do something it thinks it can't or doesn't want to do. Its corollaries are that mules are sensible, whereas horses are not. Mules are sure-footed; horses, club-footed. Mules care about their safety; horses are clueless. The implication is that as long as you are attached to a mule, you will come out on top. What I think now is that I only heard the clipped version of this homily, and that the full, decoded statement probably reads "A mule will never hurt you ... unless it can."

Gordy's affection for his mules runs deep, so the risk is great that my comments about them might seem like reflections upon him. But Walt Whitman says if you love a leper, you hate his leprosy. In this way I distinguish between the muleteer and his mules, even if the muleteer's affection for his animals will not allow him to separate himself. I like Gordy and not his mules.

from Mule Trained; Or, How I Learned to Walk Again