"The End of Old Horse" is an excellent example of the understated, precise verbal control that Simon J. Ortiz wields in his fiction. Principally known as a poet, Ortiz has worked in all forms of literature since the 1960s. His stories tend to illuminate the subtle emotional forces at play in brief, supposedly inconsequential moments.

Ortiz was raised on the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, and most of his writing reflects this fact without dwelling on it. In "The End of Old Horse," two boys growing up on a reservation spend a quiet, eventless summer day trying to catch fish in a creek before their neighbor approaches to tell them that his dog strangled himself by straining too hard against the rope that tied him to a pole. The younger boy, Gilly, who has a supposedly grownup liking for obscenity, tries unsuccessfully to suppress his anger; the older boy, who is the story's narrator, nearly convinces himself that he does not care. Their actions are minimal, but with masterful control Ortiz conveys the suffering and confusion of children facing grief alone apparently for the first time.

"The End of Old Horse" was included in The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians, edited by Kenneth Rosen and published in 1974. It has also been included in Ortiz's short story collection Men on the Moon, published in 1999.