The Horse Whisperer (33 page)

“How do you mean, headhunting?”

“Oh, you know how it’s always been at that place, musical chairs and shoot the pianist. I just heard he was giving Annie a hard time, that’s all.”

“Well, it’s the first I’ve—”

“Just gossip. Shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

He gave a satisfied grin and, having fulfilled what may indeed have been the sole purpose of the encounter, said he’d better get back to the airline desk to do some more complaining.

Back in the business lounge Robert helped himself to another beer and flipped through a copy of
The Economist
, mulling over what Freddie had said. Although he’d played ingenuous, he’d known right away what the man was getting at. It was the second time in a week that he’d heard it.

The previous Tuesday he’d been at a reception given by one of his firm’s big clients. It was the kind of do he normally made excuses to avoid but which, with Annie and Grace away, he’d actually found himself looking forward to. It was held in several sumptuous acres of office near Rockefeller Center with mountains of caviar high enough to ski on.

Whatever the latest collective noun for a gathering of lawyers was (they came up with a new and more disparaging one each week), there was certainly one of them here. There were many faces from other law firms that Robert recognized and he guessed the hosts’ motive for inviting them all was to keep his own firm on their toes. Among the other lawyers was Don Farlow. They’d only met once before but Robert liked him and knew Annie did too and that she rated him highly.

Farlow greeted him warmly and Robert was pleased to find as they chatted that they shared not just an appetite bordering on greed for caviar, but a wholesomely cynical attitude about those who’d provided it. They staked a claim beside the nursery slopes and farlow listened sympathetically while Robert told him how the litigation over Grace’s accident was progressing—or rather not progressing, for it was getting so complicated
it seemed destined to drag on for years. Then the talk moved on. Farlow asked after Annie and how things were going out west.

“Annie’s sensational,” said Farlow. “The very best. The crazy thing is, that asshole Gates knows that.”

Robert asked him what he meant and Farlow looked surprised and then embarrassed. He quickly changed the subject and the only other thing he said, as he went, was that Robert should tell Annie to come back soon. Robert had gone straight home and called Annie. She’d made light of it.

“That place is Paranoia Palace,” she said. Oh sure, Gates had been giving her a hard time, but no more than usual. “The old bastard knows he needs me more than I need him.”

Robert had let it drop, even though he felt that her bravado seemed intended more to convince herself than him. Now if Freddie Kane knew about it, it was a safe bet that most of New York knew too or soon would. And though this wasn’t Robert’s world, he’d seen enough of it to know which was more important: what was said or what was true.

H
ANK AND
D
ARLENE NORMALLY HELD THEIR BARN
dance on the Fourth of July. But this year Hank was scheduled to have his varicose veins fixed at the end of June and didn’t fancy hobbling around so they’d hauled it back a month or so to Memorial Day.

There was risk involved. A few years back, two feet of snow had fallen this very weekend. And some Hank had invited felt a day set aside to honor those who’d died for their country wasn’t a suitable day for a celebration at all. Hank said shit, come to that, celebrating independence was pretty dumb too when you’d been married as long as him and Darlene, and anyway, all those he knew who’d gone to Vietnam liked a damn good party, so what the hell?

Just to show him, it rained.

Rivers of it slid off billowing tarpaulins to hiss among the burgers, ribs and steaks on the barbecue and a fuse box exploded with a flash and snuffed all the colored lights strung around the yard. No one seemed to mind too much. They all just packed into the barn. Someone gave Hank a T-shirt which he immediately
put on; it had I
TOLD YOU
printed on the front in big black letters.

Tom was late arriving because the vet couldn’t get out to the Double Divide till after six. He’d given the little filly another shot and thought that would do it. They were still busy with her when the others left for the party. Through the open doors of the barn he’d seen all the kids piling into the Lariat with Annie arid Grace. Annie had waved to him and asked if he was coming. He told her he’d be along later. He was pleased to see she was wearing the dress she’d worn two nights before.

Neither she nor Grace had spoken a word about what had happened that night. On Sunday he’d risen before dawn and dressed in the dark and seen Annie’s blinds still open and the lights still on. He’d wanted to go on up and see if everything was okay but thought he’d leave it awhile in case it seemed nosy. When he’d finished seeing to the horses and came in for breakfast, Diane said Annie had just called to ask if it would be alright if she and Grace came with them to church.

“Probably just wants to write it up in her magazine,” Diane said. Tom told her he thought that was unfair and that she should give Annie a break. Diane hadn’t spoken to him for the rest of the day.

They’d all driven to church in two cars and it was clear at once, to Tom at least, that something had changed between Annie and Grace. There was a stillness there. He noticed how when Annie spoke Grace now looked her in the eyes and how, after they’d parked the cars, the two of them linked arms and walked together all the way to the church.

There wasn’t room for them all in one row, so Annie and Grace had sat a row in front where a shaft of sun angled down from a window, trapping slow convections
of dust. Tom could see the other churchfolk looking at the newcomers, the women as much as the men. And he found his own eyes kept returning to the nape of Annie’s neck when she stood to sing or tilted her head in prayer.

Back at the Double Divide later, Grace had ridden Gonzo again, only this time in the big arena with everyone watching. She walked him awhile then, when Tom told her to, took him up to a trot. She was a little tight at the start, but once she relaxed and found the feel, Tom could see how sweetly she rode. He told her a couple of things about the way she was using her leg and when it all clicked, he said to go ahead and move on up to a lope.

“A lope!”

“Why not?”

So she did and it was fine and as she opened her hips and moved with the motion he saw the grin break out on her face.

“Shouldn’t she be wearing a hat?” Annie had asked him quietly. She meant one of those safety helmets people wore in England and back east and he’d said well no, not unless she was planning on falling off. He knew he should have taken it more seriously, but Annie seemed to trust him and left it at that.

Grace slowed in perfect balance and brought Gonzo to an easy stop before them and everyone clapped and cheered. The little horse looked like he’d won the Kentucky Derby. And Grace’s smile was wide and clear as a morning sky.

After the vet had left, Tom showered, put on a clean shirt and set off through the rain for Hank’s place. It was coming down so thick, the old Chevy’s wipers all but gave in and Tom had to peer with his nose to the glass to negotiate a way through the flooded craters of
the old gravel road. There were so many cars when he got there that he had to park right out on the driveway and if he hadn’t worn his slicker he’d have been soaked by the time he got to the barn.

As soon as he walked in, Hank saw him and came over with a beer. Tom laughed at the T-shirt and even as he took off his slicker, realized he was already scanning the faces for Annie. The barn was large but still too small for all the folk packed into it. There was country music playing, almost drowned by the sound of talk and laughter. People were still eating. Every now and then the wind would drive a cloud of smoke from the barbecue in through the open doors. Mostly people ate standing up because the tables hauled in from outside were still wet.

While he chatted with Hank and a couple of other guys, Tom let his eyes travel the room. One of the empty stalls on the far side had been turned into a bar and he could see Frank helping out behind it. Some of the older kids, including Grace and Joe, were gathered around the sound system, going through the box of tapes and groaning at the embarrassing prospect of their parents trying to dance to the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. Nearby Diane was telling the twins for the last time to quit throwing food or she’d take them right home. There were many faces Tom knew and many who greeted him. But there was only one he was looking for and at last he saw her.

She stood in the far corner with an empty glass in her hand, talking with Smoky who’d come up from New Mexico where he’d been working since Tom’s last clinic. It was Smoky who seemed to be doing most of the talking. Every so often Annie glanced around the room and Tom wondered if she was looking for
anyone
in particular and if so, whether it might be him. Then
he told himself not to be such a damn fool and went and got himself some food.

   Smoky knew who Annie was as soon as they were introduced. “You’re the one done call him when we were doing the Marin County clinic!” he said. Annie smiled.

“That’s right.”

“Hell, I remember him calling me when he came back from New York saying there was no way he was going to work with that horse. Now here y’all are.”

“He changed his mind.”

“Ma’am, he sure must of. Ain’t never seen Tom do something he didn’t want.”

Annie asked him questions about his work with Tom and what went on at the clinics and it was clear from the way he spoke that Smoky worshiped the ground Tom walked. He said there were quite a few people now doing clinics and things but not one of them was in the same league, or even close. He told her about things he’d seen Tom do, horses he’d helped that most folk would have taken out and shot.

“When he lays his hands on them you can see all the trouble just kind of fall out of them.”

Annie said he hadn’t done this yet with Pilgrim and Smoky said that must be because the horse wasn’t yet ready.

“It sounds like magic,” she said.

“No ma’am. It’s more than magic. Magic’s just tricks.”

Whatever it was, Annie had felt it. She’d felt it when she watched Tom work, when she rode with him. In truth, she felt it almost every moment she was with him.

It was this that she had contemplated yesterday
morning when she woke with Grace still sleeping beside her and saw the dawn spilling in through the faded drapes that now hung unmoving. For a long time she’d lain quite still, cradled in the calm of her daughter’s breathing. Once, from a distant dream, Grace murmured something that Annie labored in vain to decipher.

It was then she’d noticed, among the pile of books and magazines beside the bed, the copy of
Pilgrim’s Progress
Liz Hammond’s cousins had given her. She hadn’t opened it nor had she any idea that Grace had brought it in here. Annie slipped quietly from the bed and took it to the chair by the window where there was just enough light to read.

She remembered listening wide-eyed to the story as a child, captivated on a simple literal level by the story of little Christian’s heroic journey to the Celestial City. Reading it now, the allegory seemed obvious and clumsy. But there was a passage near the end that made her pause.

Annie read the passage three times and read no farther. It was this that had led her to call Diane to ask if she and Grace could come to church. However, the urge—so wildly out of character that it made even Annie laugh—had little, if anything, to do with religion. It had to do with Tom Booker.

Annie knew that somehow he had set the scene for what had happened. He had unlocked a door through which she and Grace had found each other. “Don’t let her turn you away,” he’d told her. And she hadn’t. Now she simply wanted to give thanks, but in a ritualized way that wouldn’t embarrass anyone. Grace had teased her when she told her, asking how many centuries it was since she’d last seen the inside of a church. But she said it with affection and was plainly happy to come along.

Annie’s head refocused on the party. Smoky didn’t seem to have noticed her drifting. He was in the middle of some long, involved story about the man who owned the ranch he was working at down in New Mexico. While Annie listened she went back to doing what she’d spent most of the evening doing, looking out for Tom. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all.

Hank and the other men cleared the tables out into the rain again and the dancing began. The music was louder now and still country so that, led by the most streetwise among them, the kids could keep up their groaning, no doubt secretly relieved at not having to dance themselves. Laughing at your parents was a whole lot more fun than having them laugh at you. One or two of the older girls had broken ranks and were dancing and the sight suddenly had Annie worried. Stupidly,
until now, it hadn’t occurred to her that seeing others dance might upset Grace. She made an excuse to Smoky and went to find her.

Grace was sitting by the stalls with Joe. They saw Annie coming and Grace whispered something to him that made him grin. It was gone from his face by the time Annie got there. He stood up to greet her.