She knew that Grace had talked to Tom about the accident, not from him but from overhearing Grace tell Robert on the phone a few days later. This had become one of Grace’s favorite tricks, letting Annie learn things by proxy so she could gauge the precise extent of her exclusion. On the night in question, Annie had been taking a bath upstairs and lay there listening through the open door—as Grace knew she must be, for she made no attempt to lower her voice.
She hadn’t gone into detail, simply told Robert she’d remembered more than she expected about what had happened and that she felt better for having talked about it. Later, Annie had waited to be told herself but knew it wasn’t going to happen.
For a while she’d felt angry with Tom, as if somehow he’d invaded their lives. She’d been curt with him the next day.
“I hear Grace told you all about the accident?”
“Yes, she did,” he said, almost matter-of-fact. And that was all. It was clear he saw it as something between him and Grace and when Annie got over her anger, she respected him for this and remembered that it wasn’t he who’d invaded their lives but the other way around.
Tom rarely spoke to her about Grace and when he did it was about things that were safe and factual. But Annie knew he saw how it was between them, for who could not?
TWENTY-TWO
THE CALVES HUDDLED AT THE FAR END OF THE MUDDY corral, trying to hide behind each other and using their wet black noses to push each other forward. When one of them got shunted to the front you could see panic set in and when it got too much he’d break around to the back and the whole thing would start over again.
It was the Saturday morning before Memorial Day and the twins were showing Joe and Grace how good they’d gotten at roping. Scott, whose turn it was, had on a pair of brand-new chaps and a hat that was a size too big for him. He’d already knocked it off a couple of times swinging the loop. Each time Joe and Craig had whooped with laughter and Scott had got red and done his best to look as if he found it funny too. He’d been swinging the rope in the air so long that Grace was getting dizzy watching.
“Shall we come back next week?” Joe said.
“I’m picking, okay?”
“They’re over there. Black, with four legs and a tail?”
“Okay, smartass.”
“Well jeez, just throw the damn thing.”
“Okay! Okay!”
Joe shook his head and gave Grace a grin. They were sitting side by side on the top rail and Grace still felt proud of herself for having climbed up there. She did it like it was nothing and though it hurt like hell where the bar now pressed into her stump she wasn’t going to budge.
She had on a new pair of Wranglers she and Diane had spent a long time finding in Great Falls and she knew they looked good because she’d spent half an hour in front of the bathroom mirror this morning checking them out. Thanks to Terri, the muscles in her right butt filled them out well. It was funny, back in New York she wouldn’t have been seen dead in anything other than Levi’s, but out here everyone wore Wranglers. The guy in the store said it was because the seams on the inside leg were more comfy for riding.
“I’m better’n you are anyway,” Scott said.
“You sure swing a bigger loop.”
Joe jumped down into the corral and walked across the mud toward the calves.
“Joe! Get out the way will ya?”
“Don’t pee your pants. I’m gonna make it easier for you, break ‘em up some.”
As he got nearer, the calves moved off till they were bunched in the corner. Their only escape now was to make a break and Grace could see the worry grow among them till it was set to erupt. Joe stopped. One more step and they’d go.
“Ready?” he called.
Scott bit on his bottom lip and swung the loop a little quicker so it made a whirring noise in the air. He nodded and Joe stepped forward. Right away the calves broke for the other corner. Scott gave a little unintended cry of effort as he threw it. The rope snaked through the air and landed with its loop clean over the head of the leading calf.
“Yeah!” he yelled and yanked it tight.
But the triumph lasted only a second, for as soon as the calf felt the loop tighten he was away and Scott went with him. He left his hat hanging in the air and slapped headfirst onto the mud like a diver in a swimming race.
“Let go! Let it go!” Joe kept hollering, but maybe Scott didn’t hear or maybe his pride didn’t let him because he hung on to the rope as if his hands were glued to it and off he went. What the calf lacked in size he made up for in spirit and he jumped and bucked and kicked like a steer in a rodeo show, sledging the boy behind him through the mud.
Grace put her hands to her face in alarm and nearly toppled back off the rail. But once they could see Scott was only hanging in there because he wanted to, Joe and Craig started to whoop and laugh. And still he didn’t let go. The calf took him from one end of the corral to the other and back again while the other calves stood bemused.
The noise brought Diane running from the house but Tom and Frank, from the barn, beat her to it. They got to the rail beside Grace just as Scott let go.
He lay quite still, face down in the mud and everyone went quiet. Oh no, Grace thought, oh no. At the same moment Diane arrived and gave a frightened cry.
One hand slowly lifted itself from the mud, in a kind of comical salute. Then, theatrically, the boy lifted himself up and turned to face them, standing before them in the middle of the corral to let them have their laugh. And so they did. And when Grace saw Scott’s teeth show white in an otherwise perfect coat of brown, she joined in. And together they laughed loud and long and Grace felt part of them and that life perhaps might yet be good.
A half-hour later everyone had dispersed. Diane had taken Scott back into the house to clean up and Frank, who wanted Tom’s opinion on a calf he was worried about, had driven him and Craig up to the meadow. Annie had gone down to Great Falls to buy food for what she insisted on calling, to Grace’s embarrassment, “the dinner party” to which she’d invited the Booker family that evening. So now it was just the two of them, Grace and Joe, and it was Joe who suggested they go down to see Pilgrim.
Pilgrim now had a corral to himself next to the colts Tom was starting and whose interest, over the double fence, he returned with a mix: of suspicion and disdain. He saw Grace and Joe from a long way off and started snorting and nickering and trotting up and down the neurotic, muddy track he’d churned along the far side of the corral.
The rutted grass made walking a little tricky but Grace concentrated on swinging her leg through and although she knew Joe walked more slowly than he normally would, it didn’t worry her. She felt as easy with him as she did with Tom. They reached the gate to Pilgrim’s corral and leaned there to watch him.
“He was such a beautiful horse,” she said.
“He still is.”
Grace nodded. She told him about that day, almost a year ago, when they went down to Kentucky. And while she spoke, across the corral, Pilgrim seemed to be acting out some perverse parody of the events she described. He paced the rail in a mocking strut with his tail held high, but it was matted and twitched and was angled, Grace knew, by fear not pride.
Joe listened and she saw in his eyes the same contained calm that was in Tom’s. It was startling sometimes how like his uncle he was, both in looks and manner. That easy smile and the way he took off his hat and pushed back his hair. Now and again Grace had caught herself wishing he was just a year or two older—not that he’d be interested in her, of course. Not in that way, not now, what with her leg. Anyway, it was fine as it was, just being friends.
She had learned a lot from watching Joe handle the younger horses, especially Bronty’s foal. He never forced himself on them but instead let them come and offer themselves and then he would accept them with an ease that Grace could see made them feel both welcome and secure. He’d play with them, but if they ever got unsure he’d back off and leave them be.
“Tom says you gotta give them direction,” he’d told her one day when they were with the foal. “But push too hard and they get real squirmy. You gotta let them kind of fill in. Tom says it’s all about self-preservation.”
Pilgrim had stopped and stood watching them from as far away as he could get.
“So, you gonna ride him?” Joe said. Grace turned to him and frowned.
“What?”
“When Tom’s got him straightened out.”
She gave a laugh that sounded hollow even to her.
“Oh, I’m not going to ride again.”
Joe shrugged and nodded. There was a thump of hooves from the neighboring corral and they both turned to watch the colts playing some equine version of tag. Joe bent and plucked a stem of grass and stood sucking it awhile.
“Pity,” he said.
“What?”
“Well, couple of weeks’ time, Dad’ll be driving the cattle up there to the summer pastures and we all go along. It’s kinda fun, real pretty up there, you know?”
They went over to the colts and gave them some feed nuts Joe had in his pocket. As they walked back to the barn, Joe sucked his grass stem and Grace wondered why she went on pretending she didn’t want to ride. Somehow she’d got herself trapped. And she felt, as with most things, that it probably had something to do with her mother.
Annie had surprised her by supporting the decision, so much so that Grace was suspicious. It was, of course, the stiff-upper-lip English way that when you fell off you climbed right back on so you didn’t lose your nerve. And though what had happened was clearly more than a tumble, Grace had come to suspect Annie was playing some devious double-bluff, agreeing with Grace’s decision only in order to prompt the opposite. The only thing that made her doubt this was Annie herself, after all these years, starting to ride again. Grace privately envied these morning rides with Tom Booker. But what was weird was that Annie must know it was almost guaranteed to put Grace off riding again herself.
Where though, Grace now wondered, did all this second-guessing get her? What was the point in denying her mother some maybe imaginary triumph, when it meant denying herself something she was now almost sure she wanted?
She knew she’d never ride Pilgrim again. Even if he got better, there would never be that trust between them again and he’d be sure to sense some lurking fear within her. But she could try riding some lesser horse maybe. If only she could do it without it all being a big deal, so that if she failed or looked stupid or something, it wouldn’t matter.
They got to the barn and Joe opened the door and led the way in. All the horses were turned out now that the weather was warmer and Grace didn’t know why he was bringing her in here. The click of her cane on the concrete floor echoed loudly. Joe took a left turn into the tack room and Grace stopped in the doorway, wondering what he was doing.
The room smelled of its new pine paneling and dressed leather. She watched him walk over to the rows of saddles that stood on their rests on the wall. When he spoke, it was over his shoulder, with the grass stem still in his teeth and his voice matter-of-fact, as if he were offering her a choice of sodas from the icebox.
“My horse or Rimrock?”
Annie regretted the invitation almost as soon as she’d issued it. The kitchen in the creek house wasn’t exactly built for high cuisine, not that her cuisine was all that high anyway. Partly because she believed it more creative but mainly because she was too impatient, she cooked by instinct rather than recipe. And, apart from three or four stock dishes she could cook with her eyes shut, it was fifty-fifty whether something turned out brilliant or botched. This evening, she already felt, the odds were tilting more toward the latter.
She’d opted, safely she thought, for pasta. A dish they’d done to death last year. It was chic but easy. The kids would like it and there was even a chance Diane might be impressed. She’d also noticed Tom avoided eating too much meat and, more than she cared to admit to herself, she wanted to please him. There were no fancy ingredients. All she needed was penne regata, mozzarella and some fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes, all of which she thought she’d be able to pick up in Choteau.
The guy in the store had looked at her as if she’d spoken in Urdu. She’d had to drive on down to the big supermarket in Great Falls and still couldn’t find all she needed. It was hopeless. She’d had to rethink it on the spot and trudged the aisles, getting more and more annoyed, telling herself she’d be damned if she’d give in and serve them steak. Pasta she’d decided and pasta it would be. She ended up getting dried spaghetti, bottled bolognese sauce and a few trusty ingredients to spice it up so she could pretend it was her own. She checked out with two bottles of good Italian red and just sufficient pride intact.
By the time she’d got back to the Double Divide she felt better. She wanted to do this for them, it was the least she could do. The Bookers had all been so kind, even if Diane’s kindness always seemed to have an edge to it. Whenever Annie had brought up the question of payment, for the rent and for the work he was doing with Pilgrim, Tom had brushed it aside. They’d settle up later, he said. She’d got the same response from Frank and Diane. So the dinner party tonight was Annie’s interim way of thanking them.
She put the food away and carried the stack of newspapers and magazines she’d bought in Great Falls over to the table under which there was already a small mountain of them. She’d already checked her machines for messages. There had been only one, on E-mail, from Robert.
He’d been hoping to fly out and spend the holiday weekend with them but at the last minute was summoned to a meeting on Monday in London. From there he had to go on to Geneva. He’d phoned last night and spent half an hour apologizing to Grace, promising he’d come out soon. The E-mail note was just a jokey one he’d sent as he was about to leave for JFK, written in some cryptic language he and Grace called cyberspeak which Annie only half understood. At the bottom he’d drawn a computer-generated picture of a horse with a big smile on its face. Annie printed it out without reading it.
When Robert had told her last night that he wouldn’t be coming, her first reaction had been relief. Then it had worried her that she should feel this and ever since she’d busily avoided analyzing further.
She sat down and wondered idly where Grace was. There had been nobody about down at the ranch when she drove back in from Great Falls. She guessed they were all indoors or around by the back corrals. She’d go and look when she’d caught up with the weeklies, the Saturday ritual she persisted with here, though it seemed to require a lot more effort. She opened Time magazine and bit into an apple.
It took Grace about ten minutes to make her way down below the corrals and through the grove of cottonwoods to the place Joe had told her about. She hadn’t been down here before but when she came through the trees she understood why he’d chosen it.
Below her, at the foot of a curving bank, lay a perfect ellipse of meadow, moated beyond by an elbow of the creek. It was a natural arena, secluded from all but trees and sky. The grass stood deep, a lush blue-green, and wildflowers grew among it of a kind Grace had never seen.
She waited and listened for him. There was barely a breeze to worry the leaves of the cottonwoods that towered behind her and all she could hear was the hum of insects and the beating of her heart. No one was to know. That was the deal. They’d heard Annie’s car and watched her go by through a crack in the barn door. Scott would be out again soon, so in case they were seen, Joe had told her to go on ahead. He’d saddle the horse, check the coast was clear and follow.
Joe said he knew Tom wouldn’t mind if she rode Rimrock, but Grace wasn’t happy about it so they settled on Gonzo, Joe’s little paint. Like every other horse she’d met here, he was sweet and calm and Grace had already made friends with him. He was also a better size for her. She heard a branch snap and the soft blow of the horse and she turned and saw them coming through the trees.
“Anybody see you?” she said.
“Nope.”
He rode by her and steered Gonzo gently down the bank to the meadow. Grace followed but the slope was difficult and a yard or so from the bottom she caught her leg and fell. She finished in a tangle that looked worse than it was. Joe got down and came to her.
“You okay?”
“Shit!”
He helped her up. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m okay. Shit, shit, shit!”
He let her curse and without a word dusted down her back for her. She saw there was a muddy mark all down one side of her new jeans.
“Your leg okay?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It just makes me so angry sometimes.”
He nodded and for a moment or two said nothing, letting her sort herself out.
“Still want to try?”
“Yes.”
Joe led Gonzo and the three of them walked out into the meadow. Butterflies lifted before them, making way in the shin-high grass which smelled warm and sweet with the sun and the crushing of their boots. The creek here ran shallow over gravel and as they came nearer, Grace could hear the water. A heron lifted up’ and banked lazily away, adjusting his legs as he went.
They reached a low stump of cottonwood, gnarled and overgrown, and Joe stopped beside it and coaxed Gonzo around so that it formed a platform for Grace to mount.
“That any good?” he said.
“Uh-huh. If I can get up there.”
He stood at the horse’s shoulder, holding him steady with one hand and Grace with the other. Gonzo shifted and Joe gave him a stroke on the neck and told him it was okay. Grace put a hand on Joe’s shoulder and hoisted herself with her good leg up onto the tree stump.
“Okay?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Are the stirrups too short?”
“No, they’re fine.”
Her left hand was still on his shoulder. She wondered whether he could feel in it the banging of her blood.
“Okay. Keep hold of me and, when you’re ready, put your right hand on the horn of the saddle.”
The Horse Whisperer Page 23
