The Horse Whisperer

by Nicholas Evans

  “I just can’t get over the way he felt under me after you’d finished with him,” she was saying, again. “Everything had just, I don’t know, freed up or something.”

  Tom nodded and gave a little shrug.

  “Well, that’s what happened,” he said. “He just needed to know it was okay and you just needed to get out of his way a little.”

  There was a roar of laughter from the next table and they both turned to look. The donkey man was spinning some piece of Hollywood gossip about two movie stars Tom had never heard of, caught in a car doing something he couldn’t quite picture.

  “Where did you learn all this stuff Tom?” he heard Dale ask. He turned back to her.

  “What stuff?”

  “You know, about horses. Did you have like, a guru or a teacher or something?”

  He fixed her with a serious look, as if about to vouchsafe wisdom.

  “Well Dale, you know, a lot of this is nuts and bolts stuff.” She frowned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if the rider’s nuts, the horse bolts.”

  She laughed, too enthusiastically, putting her hand on his arm. Hell, he thought, it wasn’t that good a joke.

  “No,” she pouted. “Tell me, seriously.”

  “A lot of these things you can’t really teach. All you can do is create a situation where if people want to learn they can. The best teachers I ever met were the horses themselves. You find a lot of folk have opinions, but if it’s facts you want you’re better off going to the horse.”

  She gave him a look he guessed was supposed to convey in equal measure a religious wonder at his great profundity and something rather more carnal. It was time for him to go.

  He got up from the table making some lame excuse about having to check Rimrock, who’d long since been turned out. When he wished Dale good-night, she looked a little peeved at having wasted so much energy on him.

  As he drove back to the motel, he thought it was no accident that California had always been the favored place for any cult that blended sex and religion. The people were pushovers. Maybe if that group in Oregon—the ones who used to wear orange pants and worship the guy with the ninety Rolls-Royces—had set up here instead, they’d still be going strong.

  Tom had met dozens, scores, of women like Dale at these clinics over the years. They were all searching for something. With many it seemed in some strange way to be connected with fear. They’d bought themselves these fiery, expensive horses and were terrified of them. They were looking for something to help conquer this fear or maybe just fear in general. They might equally have chosen hang gliding or mountaineering or wrestling killer sharks. They just happened to have chosen riding.

  They came to his clinics longing for enlightenment and comfort. Tom didn’t know how much enlightenment there had been, but there’d been comfort a fair few times and it had been mutual. Ten years ago, a look like the one Dale just gave him and they’d have been bowling back to the motel together and out of their clothes before you could even shut the door.

  It wasn’t that nowadays he always walked away from such opportunities. It just didn’t seem worth the trouble quite so much anymore. For there was usually trouble of some kind. People seldom seemed to bring the same expectations to such encounters. It had taken him a while to learn this and to understand what his own expectations were, let alone those of any woman he might meet.

  For some time after Rachel left, he’d blamed himself for what happened. He knew it wasn’t just the place that was wrong. She had seemed to need something from him that he hadn’t been able to give. When he’d told her that he loved her, he’d meant it. And when she and Hal went, they left a space within him that, try as he might, he was never quite able to fill with his work.

  He’d always liked the company of women and found that sex came his way without looking for it. And as the clinics took off and he traveled month after month around the country, he found some solace this way. Mostly they were brief affairs, though there were one or two women, as relaxed as he about these matters, who even to this day when he passed through, welcomed him to their beds like an old friend.

  The guilt about Rachel however had stayed with him. Until at last he realized that what she had needed from him was need itself. That he should need her as she needed him. And Tom knew that this was impossible. He could never feel such a need, for Rachel or anyone else. For without ever spelling it out to himself and without any sense of self-satisfaction, he already knew he had in his life a kind of innate balance, the kind that others seemed to spend most of their lives striving for. It didn’t occur to him that this was anything special. He felt himself simply part of a pattern, a cohesion of things animate and inanimate, to which he was connected both by spirit and by blood.

  He turned the Chevy into the motel parking lot and found a space right outside his room.

  The bathtub was too short for a long soak. You had to decide whether to let your shoulders get cold or your knees. He got out and dried himself in front of the TV. The mountain lion story was still big news. They were going to hunt it down and kill it. Men with rifles and fluorescent yellow jackets were combing a hillside. Tom found it kind of touching. A mountain lion would see those jackets from about a hundred miles. He got into bed, killed the TV and called home.

  His nephew Joe, the oldest of Frank’s three boys, answered the phone.

  “Hi Joe, how’re you doing?”

  “Good. Where are you?”

  “Oh, I’m in some godforsaken motel, in a bed that’s about a yard too short. Reckon I may have to take my hat and boots off.”

  Joe laughed. He was twelve years old and quiet, much like Tom had been at that age. He was also pretty good with the horses.

  “How’s old Brontosaurus doing?”

  “She’s good. She’s getting real big. Dad thinks she’ll foal by midweek.”

  “You make sure you show your old man what to do.”

  “I will. Want to speak to him?”

  “Sure, if he’s around.”

  He could hear Joe calling his dad. The living room TV was on and, as usual, Frank’s wife Diane was hollering at one of the twins. It still seemed odd, them living in the big ranch house. Tom continued to think of it as his parents’ house even though it was nearly three years since his father had died and his mother had gone to live with Rosie in Great Falls.

  When Frank had married Diane, they’d taken over the creek house, the one Tom and Rachel had briefly occupied, and done some remodeling. But with three growing boys it was soon a squeeze and when his mother left, Tom insisted they move into the ranch house. He was away so much of the time, doing clinics, and when he was there, the place felt too big and too empty. He would have been happy to do a straight swap and move back out to the creek house himself but Diane said they’d only move if he stayed, there was room enough for all of them. So Tom had kept his old room and now they all lived together. Visitors, both family and friends, sometimes used the creek house, though mainly it stood empty.

  Tom could hear Frank’s footsteps coming to the phone.

  “Hiya bro, how’s it going down there?”

  “It’s going okay. Rona’s going for a world record on the number of horses and the motel here’s built for the seven dwarfs but aside from that, everything’s dandy.”

  They talked for a while about what was happening on the ranch. They were in the middle of calving, getting up all hours of the night and going up to the pasture to check the herd. It was a lot of hard work but they hadn’t lost any calves yet and Frank sounded cheerful. He told Tom there had been a lot of calls asking if he would reconsider his decision not to do any clinics this summer.

  “What did you tell ‘em?”

  “Oh, I just said you were getting too old and were all burned out.”

  “Thanks pal.”

  “And there was a call from some Englishwoman in New York. She wouldn’t say what it was about, just that it was urgent. Gave me a real hard time when I
wouldn’t tell her your number down there. I said I’d ask you to call her.”

  Tom picked up the little pad off the bedside table and wrote down Annie’s name and the four phone numbers she had left, one of them a mobile.

  “That it? Just the four? No number for the villa in the South of France?”

  “Nope. That’s it.”

  They talked a little about Bronty then said good-bye. Tom looked at the pad. He didn’t know too many people in New York, only Rachel and Hal. Maybe this was something to do with them, though surely this woman, whoever she was, would have said so. He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty, which made it one-thirty in New York. He put the pad back on the table and switched off the light. He would call in the morning.

  He didn’t get the chance. It was still dark when the phone rang and woke him. He switched on the light before answering and saw it was only five-fifteen.

  “Is that Tom Booker?” From the accent, he could tell immediately who it must be.

  “I think so,” he said. “It’s kind of early to be sure.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I thought you’d probably be up early and didn’t want to miss you. My name’s Annie Graves. I called your brother yesterday, I don’t know if he told you.”

  “Sure. He told me. I was going to call you. He said he hadn’t given you this number.”

  “He didn’t. I managed to get it from someone else. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that I understand you help people who’ve got horse problems.”

  “No ma’am, I don’t.”

  There was a silence at the other end. Tom could tell he had thrown her.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s kind of the other way around. I help horses who’ve got people problems.”

  They hadn’t gotten off to a great start and Tom regretted being a wise guy. He asked her what the problem was and listened for a long time in silence as she told him what had happened to her daughter and the horse. It was shocking and made all the more so by the measured, almost dispassionate way she told it. He sensed there was emotion there, but that it was buried deep and firmly under control.

  “That’s terrible,” he said when Annie had finished. “I’m real sorry.”

  He could hear her take a deep breath.

  “Yes, well. Will you come and see him?”

  “What, to New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ma’am, I’m afraid—”

  “Naturally I’ll pay the fare.”

  “What I was going to say was, I don’t do that sort of thing. Even if it was somewhere nearer, that’s not what I do. I give clinics. And I’m not even doing them for a while. This here’s the last one I’m doing till the fall.”

  “So you’d have time to come, if you wanted to.”

  It wasn’t a question. She was pretty pushy. Or maybe it was just the accent.

  “When does your clinic finish?”

  “On Wednesday. But—”

  “Could you come on Thursday?”

  It wasn’t just the accent. She had picked up on a slight hesitation and was pushing hard at it. It was like what you did with a horse, pick the path of least resistance and work on it.

  “I’m sorry ma’am,” he said firmly. “And I’m real sorry about what happened. But I’ve got work to do back on the ranch and I can’t help you.”

  “Don’t say that. Please, don’t say that. Would you at least think about it.” Again it wasn’t a question.

  “Ma’am—”

  “I’d better go now. I’m sorry to have woken you.”

  And without letting him speak or saying good-bye, she hung up.

  When Tom walked into reception the following morning, the motel manager handed him a Federal Express package. It contained a photograph of a girl on a beautiful-looking Morgan horse and an open return air ticket to New York.

  TEN

  TOM LAID HIS ARM ALONG THE BACK OF THE PLASTIC covered bench seat and watched his son cooking hamburgers behind the counter of the diner. The boy looked as if he’d been doing it all his life, the way he moved them around the grill and flipped them nonchalantly as he chatted and laughed with one of the waiters. It was, Hal had assured him, the hottest new lunch place in Greenwich Village.

  The boy worked here for nothing three or four times a week in exchange for living rentfree in a loft apartment belonging to the owner, who was a friend of Rachel’s. When he wasn’t working here, Hal was at film school. Earlier he’d been telling Tom about a “short” he was shooting.

  “It’s about a man who eats his girlfriend’s motorcycle piece by piece.”

  “Sounds tough.”

  “It is. It’s kind of a road movie but all set in one place.” Tom was about ninety percent sure this was a joke. He really hoped so. Hal went on, “When he’s finished the motorcycle, he does the same with the girlfriend.”

  Tom nodded, considering this. “Boy meets girl, boy eats girl.”

  Hal laughed. He had his mother’s thick black hair and dark good looks, though his eyes were blue. Tom liked him very much. They didn’t get to see each other too often, but they wrote and when they did meet, they were easy together. Hal had grown up a city kid but he came out to Montana now and again and when he did, he loved it. He even rode pretty good, considering.

  It had been some years since Tom had seen the boy’s mother, but they talked on the phone about Hal and how he was doing and that was never difficult either.

  Rachel had married an art dealer called Leo and they’d had three other children who were now in their teens. Hal was twenty and seemed to have grown up happy. It was the chance of seeing him that had clinched the decision to fly east and look at the Englishwoman’s horse. Tom was going up there this afternoon.

  “Here you go. One cheeseburger with bacon.”

  Hal put it down in front of him and sat down opposite him with a grin. He was only having a coffee.

  “You’re not eating?” asked Tom.

  “I’ll have something later. Try it.”

  Tom took a bite and nodded his approval.

  “It’s good.”

  “Some of the guys just leave them lying on the grill. You gotta work them, seal the juices.”

  “Is it okay for you to take time out like this?”

  “Oh sure. If it gets busy, I’ll go help.”

  It wasn’t yet noon and the place was still quiet. Tom normally didn’t like to eat much at midday and he rarely ate meat nowadays but Hal had been so keen to cook him a burger he’d pretended he was up for it. At the next table, four men in suits and a lot of wrist jewelry were talking loudly about a deal they’d done. Not the normal kind of clientele, Hal had discreetly informed him. But Tom had enjoyed watching them. He was always impressed by the energy of New York. He was just glad he didn’t have to live here.

  “How’s your mother?” he asked.

  “She’s great. She’s playing again. Leo’s fixed for her to give a concert at a gallery just around the corner here on Sunday.”

  “That’s good.”

  “She was going to come along today and see you but last night there was this colossal row and the pianist walked out, so now it’s all panic to find someone else. She said to give you her best.”

  “Well you make sure to give her mine.”

  They talked about Hal’s course and his plans for the summer. He said he’d like to come out to Montana for a couple of weeks and it seemed to Tom that he meant it and wasn’t just saying it to make him feel wanted. Tom told him how he was going to be working with the yearlings and some of the older colts he’d bred. Talking about it made him long to get started. His first summer for years with no clinics, no traveling, just being there by the mountains and seeing the country come to life again.

  The diner was getting busy so Hal had to go back to work. He wouldn’t let Tom pay and came out with him onto the sidewalk. Tom put his hat on and noticed the glance Hal gave it. He hoped it wasn’t too embarrassing to be seen with a cowboy.
It was always a little awkward when they said good-bye, with Tom thinking maybe he should give the boy a hug, but they’d kind of got into the habit of just shaking hands so today, as usual, that’s all they did.

  “Good luck with the horse,” Hal said.

  “Thank you. And you with the movie.”

  “Thanks. I’ll send you a cassette.”

  “I’d like that. Bye then Hal.”

  “Bye.”

  Tom decided to walk a few blocks before looking for a cab. It was cold and gray and the steam rose in drifting clouds from manholes in the street. There was a young guy, standing on a corner, begging. His hair was a matted tangle of rats’ tails and his skin the color of bruised parchment. His fingers spilled through frayed woolen mitts and with no coat, he was hopping from one foot to the other to keep warm. Tom gave him a five-dollar bill.

  They were expecting him at the stables at about four, but when he got to Penn Station he found there was an earlier train and decided to take it. The more daylight there was when he saw the horse, he thought, the better. Also, this way maybe he could get a little look at the animal on his own first. It was always easier when the owners weren’t breathing down your neck. When they were, the horses always picked up on the tension. He was sure the woman wouldn’t mind.

  Annie had wondered whether to tell Grace about Tom Booker. Pilgrim’s name had barely been mentioned since the day she saw him at the stables. Once Annie and Robert had tried talking to her about him, believing it better to confront the issue of what they should do with him. But Grace had become very agitated and cut Annie off.

  “I don’t want to hear,” she said. “I’ve told you what I want. I want him to go back to Kentucky. But you always know better, so it’s up to you.”