The Horse Whisperer

by Nicholas Evans

  Grace took a deep breath and did as he said. Gonzo moved his head a little but his feet stayed rooted. When he was sure she was steady, Joe took his hand off her, reached down, and took hold of the stirrup.

  This was going to be the difficult part. To put her left foot in the stirrup, all her weight would have to be on her prosthetic. She thought she might slip but she could feel Joe brace himself and take a lot of the weight and in no time she had her foot safely in the stirrup as if they’d done it many times before. All that happened was that Gonzo shifted a little again but Joe whoaed him, calm but firmer this time, so that he steadied on the instant.

  All she had to do now was swing her prosthetic leg over, but it felt so strange having no feeling there and she suddenly remembered that the last time she’d done this was on the morning of the accident.

  “Okay?” Joe said.

  “Yes.”

  “Go on then.”

  She braced her left leg, letting the stirrup take her weight, then tried to lift her right leg over the horse’s rear.

  “I can’t get it high enough.”

  “Here, lean on me some more. Lean out, so you get more of an angle.”

  She did and, summoning all her strength as if her life depended on it, she lifted the leg and swung. And as she did so, she pivoted and hauled herself up with the saddle horn and she felt Joe hoist her too and she swung the leg high and sideways and over it went.

  She settled herself into the saddle and was surprised it didn’t feel more alien. Joe saw her looking for the other stirrup and so he went quickly around and helped her into it. She could feel the inside thigh of her stump on the saddle and though tender, it was impossible to know precisely where feeling ended and nothingness began.

  Joe stepped aside with his eyes fixed on her in case something happened, but she was too much in her own head to notice this. She gathered the reins and nudged Gonzo forward. He moved out without question and she walked him in a long curve along the rim of the creek and didn’t look back. She could give more pressure with the leg than she’d imagined possible, though without calf muscles she had to generate it with her stump and measure its effect by the horse’s response. He moved as if he knew all this and by the time they’d reached the end of the meadow and turned, without a foot misplaced, the two of them were one.

  Grace lifted her eyes for the first time and saw Joe standing there among the flowers waiting for her. She rode an easy S shape back to him and stopped and he grinned up at her with the sun in his eyes and the meadow spreading away behind him and Grace suddenly wanted to cry. But she bit hard on the inside of her lip and grinned back down at him instead.

  “Easy as pie,” he said.

  Grace nodded and as soon as she could trust her voice said yeah, it was easy as pie.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE CREEK HOUSE KITCHEN WAS A SPARTAN AFFAIR, LIT by cold fluorescent strips whose casing had become coffins for an assortment of insects. When Frank and Diane had moved to the ranch house, they’d taken all the best equipment with them. The pots and pans were all from broken families and the dishwasher needed a thump in the right place to click through its cycle. The only thing Annie hadn’t quite yet mastered was the oven which seemed to have a mind of its own. The door seal was rotten and the heat dial loose so that cooking required a blend of guesswork, vigilance and luck.

  Baking the French-style apple tart she was serving for dessert however, hadn’t been half the task of working out how they all might get to eat it. Too late Annie had discovered there weren’t enough plates, cutlery or even enough chairs. And, embarrassed—because it somehow seemed to defeat the whole object—she’d had to call Diane and drive down and borrow some. Then she’d realized that the only table big enough to use was the one she was using for her desk, so she’d had to clear it and now all her machinery was stacked on the floor with her papers and magazines.

  The evening had started in panic. Annie was used to entertaining people who thought the later you arrived the cooler you were, so it hadn’t occurred to her that they’d arrive on the dot. But at seven, when she hadn’t even changed, there they were, all but Tom, walking up the hill. She yelled to Grace, flew upstairs and threw on a dress she now had no time to press. By the time she heard their voices down by the porch, she’d done her eyes and lips, brushed her hair, given herself a blast of perfume and was downstairs to greet them.

  Seeing them all standing there, Annie thought what a stupid idea this was, entertaining these people in their own house. Everyone seamed to feel awkward. Frank said Tom had been delayed by some problem with one of the yearlings but he was in the shower when they left and wouldn’t be long. She asked them what they wanted to drink and remembered as she did so that she’d forgotten to get any beer.

  “I’ll have a beer,” Frank said.

  It got better though. She opened a bottle of wine while Grace took Joe and the twins off and sat them on the floor in front of Annie’s computer where soon she had them surfing spellbound on the Internet. Annie, Frank and Diane carried chairs out onto the porch and sat talking in a fading glow of evening light. They laughed over Scott’s adventure with the calf, assuming Grace had told her all about it. Annie pretended she had. Then Frank told a long story about a disastrous high school rodeo where he’d humiliated himself in front of a girl he was trying to impress.

  Annie listened with feigned attention, all the while waiting for the moment she would see Tom come around the end of the house. And when he did, his smile and the way he took off his hat and said he was sorry for being late were just as she’d imagined.

  She led him into the house, apologizing before he even asked for one that there wasn’t any beer. Tom said wine would be fine and he stood and watched her pour it. She handed him the glass and looked him full in the eyes for the first time and whatever she’d been going to say flew right out of her head. There was a beat of embarrassed silence before he came to the rescue.

  “Something smells good.”

  “Nothing spectacular I’m afraid. Is your horse alright?”

  “Oh yeah. Her temperature’s running a little high but she’ll be okay. Have you had a good day?”

  Before she could answer, Craig ran in calling Tom’s name and telling him he had to come and see something they had on the computer.

  “Hey, I’m having a talk here with Grace’s mom.”

  Annie laughed and told them to go ahead, Grace’s mom needed to see to the food anyway. Diane came in to help and the two of them chatted about the children while they got things ready. And every so often Annie would glance through into the living room and see Tom in his pale blue shirt, hunkered down among the kids, all of them vying for his attention.

  The spaghetti was a hit. Diane even asked for the sauce recipe and Annie would have owned up if Grace hadn’t beaten her to it and told them all it was out of a bottle. Annie had set the table in the middle of the living room and lit it with candles she’d bought in Great Falls. Grace had said this was overdoing it but Annie had persisted and now was glad she had because their light gave the room a warm glow and cast flickering shadows on the walls.

  And she thought how good it was to hear the silence of this house filled with talk and laughter. The kids sat at one end and the four adults the other, she and Frank facing Tom and Diane. A stranger, it occurred to Annie, would have assumed them couples.

  Grace was telling everyone about the things you could access on the Internet, like The Visible Man, a murderer in Texas who had been executed and donated his body to science.

  “They froze him and sliced him up into two thousand little pieces and photographed each one of them,” she said.

  “That’s gross,” Scott said.

  “Do we want to hear about this while we’re eating?” Annie said. She’d meant it only lightly but Grace decided to take it as a rebuke. She gave Annie a withering look.

  “It’s the National Library of Medicine, Mom. It’s education for Godsake, not some stupid beat-’em-up game.�
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  “Slice ’em up, more like,” Craig said.

  “Go on Grace,” Diane said. “It’s fascinating.”

  “Well that’s it really,” Grace said. She spoke without enthusiasm now, signaling to everyone that her mother had, as usual, deflated not just her but the topic too of both interest and fun. “They just put him back together again and you can call it up on the screen and dissect him, like in three-D, you know.”

  “You can do all that right here on that little screen?” Frank said.

  “Yes.”

  The word was so flat and final that only silence could follow it. It lasted but a moment, though it seemed to Annie an eternity, and Tom must have seen the desperation in her eyes, because he gave Frank a sardonic nod and said, “Well, there you go little brother, your chance for immortality.”

  “Lord have mercy,” Diane said. “Frank Booker’s body on view to the nation.”

  “Oh, and what’s wrong with my body may I ask?”

  “Where d’you want us to start?” Joe said. Everyone laughed.

  “Hell,” said Tom. “With two thousand pieces, you could put them back in a different way and get a prettier result.”

  The mood began to flow again and once she was sure of it Annie gave Tom a look of relief and thanks, which he acknowledged with just the smallest softening of his eyes. It struck her as uncanny that this man who’d never fully known a child of his own should so understand each wounding nuance that passed between her and Grace.

  The apple tart wasn’t so great. Annie had forgotten the cinnamon and she could tell as soon as she cut the first slice that it could have done with another fifteen minutes. But no one seemed to mind and the kids all had ice cream instead anyway and were soon off to the computer again while the adults sat and had coffee at the table.

  Frank was complaining about the conservationists, the greenos as he called them, and how they didn’t understand the first damn thing about ranching. He addressed himself to Annie because the others had clearly heard it a hundred times. These maniacs were letting wolves go, shipping the damn things in from Canada so they could come and help the grizzlies eat the cattle. A couple of weeks back, he said, a rancher down near Augusta had two heifers taken.

  “And all these greenos flew up from Missoula with their choppers and consciences and all and said, sorry old buddy, we’ll airlift him out for ya, but don’t you go trapping or shooting him or we’ll nail your hide in court. Damn thing’s probably lazing by the pool now at some five-star hotel, you and me footing the bill.”

  Tom was grinning at Annie and Frank saw and pointed a finger at him.

  “This guy’s one of ‘em, Annie, I tell ya. Ranching in his blood and he’s green as a seasick frog on a pool table. You wait till Mr. Wolf takes one of his foals, oh boy. It’ll be the three big S’s.”

  Tom laughed and saw Annie’s frown.

  “Shoot, shovel and shut the hell up,” he confided. “The caring rancher’s response to nature.”

  Annie laughed and was suddenly aware of Diane’s eyes on her. And when Annie looked at her, Diane smiled in a way that only emphasized that she hadn’t been smiling before.

  “What do you think, Annie?” she asked.

  “Oh, I don’t have to live with it.”

  “But you must have an opinion.”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh surely. You must cover this kind of thing all the time in your magazine.”

  Annie was surprised to be so pursued. She shrugged.

  “I suppose I think every creature has a right to live.”

  “What, even plague rats and malarial mosquitoes?”

  Diane was still smiling and the tone was light but there was something beneath it that made Annie cautious.

  “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “I guess it depends who they bite.”

  Frank gave a roar of laughter and Annie allowed herself a glance at Tom. He was smiling at her. So too, in a less fathomable way, was Diane who seemed at last prepared to let the subject drop. Whether that was so remained a mystery because suddenly there was a yell and Scott was behind her grabbing her shoulder, his cheeks hot with outrage.

  “Joe won’t let me use the computer!”

  “It’s not your turn,” Joe called from where the others were all still huddled around the screen.

  “It is too!”

  “It’s not your turn Scott!”

  Diane called Joe over and tried to mediate. But the yelling got worse and soon Frank was involved too and the fight shifted from the particular to the general.

  “You never let me have a turn!” Scott said. He was near tears.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Joe said.

  “Boys, boys.” Frank had his hands on their shoulders.

  “You think you’re so great—”

  “Oh shut up.”

  “—giving Grace riding lessons and all.”

  Everyone went quiet except for some cartoon bird squawking on oblivious on the computer screen. Annie looked at Grace who immediately looked away. No one seemed to know what to say. Scott was a little daunted by the effect his revelation had produced.

  “I saw you!” His voice was more taunting but less certain. “Her on Gonzo, down by the creek!”

  “You little shit!” Joe said it through his teeth and at the same time made a lunge. Everyone erupted. Scott was knocked back against the table and coffee cups and glasses went flying. The two boys fell in a tangle to the floor, with Frank and Diane above them yelling and trying to lever them apart. Craig came running, feeling he should somehow be involved here too but Tom put out a hand and took gentle hold of him. Annie and Grace could only stand and watch.

  The next moment Frank was marching the boys out of the house, Scott wailing, Craig crying in sympathy and Joe in a silent fury which spoke louder than both. Tom went with them as far as the kitchen door.

  “Annie I’m so sorry,” Diane said.

  They were standing by the wreckage of the table like dazed hurricane survivors. Grace stood pale and alone across the room. As Annie looked at her, something that was neither fear nor pain, but a hybrid of both, seemed to cross the girl’s face. Tom saw it too when he came back from the kitchen and he went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded without looking at him.

  “I’m going upstairs.”

  She picked up her cane and made her way with awkward haste across the room.

  “Grace . . .” Annie said gently.

  “No Mom!”

  She went out and the three of them stood and listened to the sound of her uneven footsteps on the stairs. Annie saw the embarrassment on Diane’s face. On Tom’s there was a compassion that, if she’d let it, would have made her weep. She inhaled and tried to smile.

  “Did you know about this?” she said. “Did everyone know except me?”

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t think any of us knew.”

  “Maybe she wanted it to be a surprise,” Diane said.

  Annie laughed.

  “Yeah, well.”

  She wanted them only to go, but Diane insisted on staying to clear the place up and so they stacked the dishwasher and cleared the broken glass from the table. Then Diane rolled up her sleeves and got going on the pots and pans. She clearly thought it best to be chirpy and chattered on at the sink about the barn dance Hank had invited them all to on Monday.

  Tom said barely a word. He helped Annie haul the table back to the window and waited while she switched off the computer. Then, working side by side, they started to load all her work things back onto the table.

  What prompted her, Annie didn’t know, but suddenly she asked how Pilgrim was. He didn’t answer right away, just went on sorting some cables, not looking at her, while he considered. His tone, when at last he spoke, was almost matter-of-fact.

  “Oh, I reckon he’ll make it.”

  “You do?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are
you sure?”

  “No. But you see Annie, where there’s pain, there’s still feeling and where there’s feeling, there’s hope.”

  He fixed the last cable.

  “There you go.” He turned to face her and they looked each other in the eye.

  “Thanks,” Annie said quietly.

  “Ma’am, it’s my pleasure. Don’t let her turn you away.”

  When they came back to the kitchen, Diane had finished and all except the things she’d lent was put away in places she knew better than Annie. And when Diane had brushed aside Annie’s thanks and apologized again for the boys, she and Tom said their good-nights and went.

  Annie stood under the porch light and watched them walk away. And as their figures were swallowed by the darkness, she wanted to call after him to stay and hold her and keep her from the cold that fell again upon the house.

  Tom said good-night to Diane outside the barn and went on in to check the sick filly. Walking down from the creek house, Diane had gone on about how dumb Joe was to take the girl riding like that without telling a soul. Tom said he didn’t think it was dumb at all, he could understand why Grace might want to keep such a thing secret. Joe was being a friend to her, that was all. Diane said it was none of the boy’s business and frankly she’d be glad when Annie packed up and took the poor girl back home to New York.

  The filly hadn’t gotten any worse, though she was still breathing a little fast. Her temperature was down to a hundred and two. Tom rubbed her neck and talked to her gently while with his other hand he felt her pulse behind the elbow. He counted the beats for twenty seconds, then multiplied by three. It was forty-two beats per minute, still above normal. She was clearly running some kind of fever and maybe he’d have to get the vet up to see her in the morning if there was no change.

  The lights of Annie’s bedroom were on when he came out and they were still on when he finished reading and switched off his own bedroom light. It was a habit now, this last look up at the creek house where the illuminated yellow blinds of Annie’s window stood out against the night. Sometimes he’d see her shadow pass across them as she went about her unknown bedtime rituals and once he’d seen her pause there, framed by the glow, undressing and he’d felt like a snooper and turned away.