The Horse Whisperer (44 page)

Annie’s calm had even survived when she called and spoke to them both. The message she’d left on Tuesday, that she was going to spend a couple of days up at the Bookers’ mountain cabin, seemed to have stirred not the smallest ripple. Throughout their marriage she had often taken time on her own somewhere and Robert presumably now saw this as part of the process of getting her head back together after losing her job. He simply asked how it had been and, simply, she replied that it had been lovely. Except by omission, she didn’t even have to lie.

“It worries me, all this back-to-nature, big-outdoors stuff you’re getting into,” he joked.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, soon you’ll be wanting to move out there and I’ll have to switch to livestock litigation or something.”

When they hung up Annie wondered why the sound of his voice or of Grace’s hadn’t plunged her into the sea of guilt she surely knew awaited her. It just hadn’t. It was as though that susceptible part of her nature were in suspense, with its eye on the clock and mindful that she had owing yet some few, fleeting hours with Tom.

She was cooking him the pasta dish she’d wanted to make that evening they’d all come for supper. The little pots of basil she’d bought in Butte were flourishing. As she chopped the leaves, he came up behind her and rested his hands lightly on her hips and kissed the side of her neck. The touch of his lips made her catch her breath.

“It smells good,” he said.

“What, me or the basil?”

“Both.”

“You know, in ancient times they used basil to embalm the dead.”

“Mummies you mean?”

“Daddies too. It prevents mortification of the flesh.”

“I thought that was about banishing lust.”

“It does that too, so don’t eat too much.”

She tipped it into the pan where the onions and tomatoes were already cooking, then swiveled slowly in his hands to face him. Her forehead was against his lips and he kissed her there gently. She looked down and slotted her thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. And in the sharing quiet of that moment, Annie knew she could not leave this man.

“Oh Tom. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

They lit the candles she’d bought for the supper party and turned off the fluorescents so they could eat at the little table in the kitchen. The pasta was perfect. When they were through eating, he asked her if she’d figured out the string trick. She said according to Joe it wasn’t a trick but in any case, no, she hadn’t.

“Do you still have it?”

“What do you think?”

She pulled it from her pocket and gave it to him and he told her to hold up her finger and watch closely
because he was only going to show her once. She did and followed every intricate maneuver of his hand until the loop circled and seemed trapped by their touching fingers. Then, as he slowly pulled the loop, the moment before it came free, she suddenly saw how it was done.

“Let me try,” she said. She found she could picture exactly the movements his hands had made and translate them in mirror image to her own. And sure enough, when she pulled, the cord came free.

He sat back in his chair and gave her a smile that was both loving and sad.

“There you are,” he said. “Now you know.”

“Do I get to keep the cord?”

“You don’t need it anymore.” And he took it and put it in his pocket.

   Everyone was there and Grace wished they weren’t. Such though had been the buildup to this moment, that a full turnout was only to be expected. She looked at the waiting faces along the rail of the big arena: her mom, Frank and Diane, Joe, the twins in their matching Universal Studios caps, even Smoky had come by. And what if it all went wrong? It wouldn’t, she told, herself firmly. She wasn’t going to let it.

Pilgrim stood saddled in the middle of the arena while Tom adjusted the stirrups. The horse looked beautiful, though Grace still couldn’t get used to the sight of him in a western saddle. Since riding Gonzo she’d come to prefer it to her old English one. It made her feel more secure, so that’s what they were going to use today.

Earlier, she and Tom had managed to weed out the last tangles from his mane and tail and they’d brushed him till he shone. Scars aside, she thought, he looked
like a show horse. He’d always had a sense of occasion. It was almost a year to the day, she recalled, that she’d seen the first photograph of him, the one they’d sent up from Kentucky.

They had all just watched Tom ride him gently around the arena a few times. Grace had stood beside her mother and tried with deep breathing to subdue her fluttering stomach.

“What if it’s only Tom he’ll let ride him?” she hissed.

Annie gave her a hug. “Honey, Tom wouldn’t let you if it wasn’t safe, you know that.”

It was true. But it didn’t make her any less nervous.

Tom had left Pilgrim alone and was now heading over to them. She stepped forward. The new leg felt, good.

“All set?” he said. She swallowed and nodded. She wasn’t sure she could trust her voice. He saw the worry in her face and when he got to her he said, so no one else could hear, “You know, Grace, we don’t have to do this now. Tell you the truth, I didn’t know there was going to be this kind of circus.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and they walked out to where Pilgrim stood waiting. She saw him prick up his ears as they came.

   Annie’s heart was thumping so loud she thought Diane, next to her, must be able to hear. It was hard to know how many of its beats were for Grace and how many for herself. For what was going on across the strip of red sand was too momentous. It was both a beginning and an end, though of what and for whom,
Annie had no clear perception. It was as though everything were swirling in some vast, climactic centrifuge of emotion and only when it stopped would she see what it had done to them all and what was then to become of them.

“She’s one brave kid, that daughter of yours,” Diane said.

“I know.”

Tom had Grace stop a short distance from where Pilgrim was standing, so as not to crowd him. He went the final few paces alone, stopped beside him then reached gently to take hold of him. He held him by the bridle and put his head beside Pilgrim’s while he soothed the horse’s neck with the flat of his other hand. Pilgrim never took his eyes off Grace.

Even from a distance, Annie could tell something was wrong.

When Tom tried to ease him forward, he resisted, lifting his head and looking down at Grace so that you could see white at the top of his eye. Tom turned him away and walked him in circles, as she’d seen him do on a halter, bending him, making him yield to pressure and roll his hindquarters across. This seemed to calm him. But as soon as Tom led him back toward Grace, he became edgy again.

Grace was facing the other way, so Annie couldn’t see her face. But she didn’t need to. She could feel from here the worry and hurt that had surely taken hold of the girl.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Diane said.

“He’ll be alright.” Annie said it too quickly. It sounded harsh.

“I reckon,” said Smoky. But even he didn’t seem too sure.

Tom took Pilgrim away and did some more circles
and when that didn’t work either, he climbed up on him and took him a few times around the arena at a lope. Grace turned slowly, following them with her eyes. She looked briefly at Annie and they swapped a smile neither could make convincing.

Tom didn’t speak or concern himself with anyone but Pilgrim. He was frowning and Annie couldn’t tell if it was only in concentration or if there was worry there too, though he never showed worry, she knew, when he was with horses.

He dismounted and led Pilgrim again toward Grace. And again the horse balked. This time Grace turned on her heel and almost fell. As she walked back across the sand, her mouth quivered and Annie could see she was fighting tears.

“Smoke?” Tom called. Smoky climbed over the rail and went to him.

Frank said, “He’ll be okay, Grace. Just you hang on there a minute or two. Tom’ll get him okay, you’ll see.”

Grace nodded and tried to smile but couldn’t look at him or anyone else, least of all Annie. Annie wanted to hug her but held off. She knew Grace wouldn’t be able to take it and the tears would come and then she’d be embarrassed and angry at both of them. Instead, when the girl came near enough, Annie said quietly, “Frank’s right. It’ll be okay.”

“He saw I was scared,” Grace said under her breath.

Out in the arena, Tom and Smoky were huddled, having some urgent, hushed discussion none but Pilgrim could hear. After a while, Smoky turned and jogged over to the gate at the end of the arena. He climbed over it and disappeared into the barn. Tom left Pilgrim where he was and came over to where everyone was waiting.

“Okay Gracie,” he said. “We’re going to do something
now that I’d kind of hoped we wouldn’t have to. But there’s still something going on inside him that I can’t reach in any other way. So me and Smoke here, we’re going to try laying him down. Okay?”

Grace nodded. Annie could see the girl had no clearer idea of what this meant than she had herself.

“What does it involve?” Annie asked. He looked at her and she had a sudden vivid image of their joined bodies.

“Well, it’s more or less how it sounds. Only I have to tell you that it’s not always pretty to watch. Sometimes a horse’ll fight it real hard. That’s why I don’t like doing it unless I have to. This fella’s already shown us he likes a good fight. So if you’d sooner not watch, I suggest you go inside and we’ll call you when we’re done.”

Grace shook her head. “No. I want to watch.”

   Smoky came back into the ring with the things Tom had sent him to get. They’d had to do this a few months back at a clinic down in New Mexico, so Smoky pretty much knew the score. Quietly though, away from all those watching, Tom took him through the process again so there wouldn’t be any mistakes and nobody would get hurt.

Smoky listened gravely, nodding now and again. When Tom saw he had it straight in his head, the two of them went over toward Pilgrim. He’d moved away to the far side of the arena and you could tell by the way he worked his ears that he sensed something was about to happen and that it might not be fun. He let Tom come to him and rub his neck but didn’t take his eyes off Smoky who stood a few yards off with all those ropes and things in his hand.

Tom unhitched the bridle and in its place slipped on
the rope halter Smoky handed him. Then, one at a time, Smoky passed him the ends of two long ropes that were coiled over his arm. Tom fastened one under the halter and the other to the horn of the saddle.

He worked calmly, giving Pilgrim no cause for fear. The subterfuge made him feel bad, knowing what was to come and how the trust he’d built with the horse would now have to be broken before it could be restored. Maybe he’d got it wrong just now, he thought. Maybe what had happened between him and Annie had affected him in some way that Pilgrim sensed. Most likely all the horse had sensed was Grace’s fear. But you could never be quite sure, even he, what else was going on in their minds. Maybe from somewhere deep inside him, Tom was telling the horse he didn’t want it to work, for when it worked that was the end and Annie would be gone.

He asked Smoky for the hobble. It was made out of an old strip of sacking and rope. Smoothing his hand down Pilgrim’s left foreleg, he lifted the hoof. The horse only shifted slightly. Tom soothed him all the time with his hand and his voice. Then, when the horse was still, he slipped the sling of sacking over the hoof and made sure it was snug. The other end was rope and with it he hoisted the weight of the raised hoof and made it fast to the horn of the saddle. Pilgrim was now a three-legged animal. An explosion waiting to happen.

It happened, as he knew it would, as soon as Tom moved away and took one of the lines, the halter one, from Smoky. Pilgrim tried to move and found himself crippled. He lurched and hopped on his right foreleg and the feeling scared him so badly that he jolted and hopped again and scared himself even worse.

If he couldn’t walk, then maybe he could run, so now he tried and his eyes filled with panic at the feel of it.
Tom and Smoky braced themselves and leaned back on their lines, forcing him around them in a circle maybe fifteen feet in radius. And around and around he went, like a crazed rocking horse with a broken leg.

Tom glanced at the faces that watched from the rail. He could see Grace had grown pale and that Annie was now holding her, and he cussed himself for giving them the choice and not insisting they go inside and save themselves the pain of this sorry sight.

   Annie had her hands on Grace’s shoulders and the knuckles had gone white. Every muscle in their two bodies was clenched and jerked at each agonized hop that Pilgrim made.

“Why’s he doing this!” Grace cried.

“I don’t know.”

“It’ll be okay Grace,” Frank said. “I saw him do this one time before.” Annie looked at him and tried to smile. His face belied the comfort of his words. Joe and the twins looked almost as worried as Grace.

Diane said quietly, “Maybe you’d better take her inside.”

“No,” Grace said. “I want to watch.”

By now Pilgrim was covered in sweat. But still he kept going. As he ran, his hobbled foot jabbed the air like a wild, deformed flipper. His jolting gait sent up a burst of red sand at every step and it hung over the three of them like a fine red mist.

It seemed to Annie so wrong, so out of character, for Tom to be doing this. She had seen him be firm with horses before but never causing pain or suffering. Everything he’d done with Pilgrim had been designed to build up trust and confidence. And now he was hurting him. She just couldn’t understand.

At last the horse stopped. And as soon as he did Tom nodded to Smoky and they let the two lines go slack. Then off he went again and they tightened the lines and kept the pressure on until he stopped. They gave him slack again. The horse stood there, his wet sides heaving. He was panting like some desperate asthmatic smoker and the sound was so rasping and terrible that Annie wanted to block her ears.