The Horse Whisperer (30 page)

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.”

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.

T
HE 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.