The Horse Whisperer

'Sure, if he's around.'

He could hear Joe calling his dad. The living-room TV was on and, as usual, Frank's wife Diane was hollering at one of the twins. It still seemed odd, them living in the big ranch house. Tom continued to think of it as his parents' house even though it was nearly three years since his father had died and his mother had gone to live with Rosie in Great Falls.

When Frank had married Diane, they'd taken over the creek house, the one Tom and Rachel had briefly occupied, and done some remodeling. But with three growing boys it was soon a squeeze and when his mother left, Tom insisted they move into the ranch house. He was away so much of the time, doing clinics, and when he was there, the place felt too big and too empty. He would have been happy to do a straight swap and move back out to the creek house himself but Diane said they'd only move if he stayed, there was room enough for all of them. So Tom had kept his old room and now they all lived together. Visitors, both family and friends, sometimes used the creek house, though mainly it stood empty.

Tom could hear Frank's footsteps coming to the phone.

'Hiya bro, how's it going down there?'

'It's going okay. Rona's going for a world record on the number of horses and the motel here's built for the seven dwarfs but aside from that, everything's dandy.'

They talked for a while about what was happening on the ranch. They were in the middle of calving, getting up all hours of the night and going up to the pasture to check the herd. It was a lot of hard work but they hadn't lost any calves yet and Frank sounded cheerful. He told Tom there had been a lot of calls asking if he would reconsider his decision not to do any clinics this summer.

'What did you tell 'em?'

'Oh, I just said you were getting too old and were all burned out.'

'Thanks pal.'

'And there was a call from some Englishwoman in New York. She wouldn't say what it was about, just that it was urgent. Gave me a real hard time when I wouldn't tell her your number down there. I said I'd ask you to call her.'

Tom picked up the little pad off the bedside table and wrote down Annie's name and the four phone numbers she had left, one of them a mobile.

'That it? Just the four? No number for the villa in the South of France?'

'Nope. That's it.'

They talked a little about Bronty then said goodbye. Tom looked at the pad. He didn't know too many people in New York, only Rachel and Hal. Maybe this was something to do with them, though surely this woman, whoever she was, would have said so. He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty, which made it one-thirty in New York. He put the pad back on the table and switched off the light. He would call in the morning.

He didn't get the chance. It was still dark when the phone rang and woke him. He switched on the light before answering and saw it was only five-fifteen.

'Is that Tom Booker?' From the accent, he could tell immediately who it must be.

'I think so,' he said. 'It's kind of early to be sure.'

'I know, I'm sorry. I thought you'd probably be up early and didn't want to miss you. My name's Annie Graves. I called your brother yesterday, I don't know if he told you.'

'Sure. He told me. I was going to call you. He said he hadn't given you this number.'

'He didn't. I managed to get it from someone else. Anyway, the reason I'm calling is that I understand you help people who've got horse problems.'

'No ma'am, I don't.'

There was a silence at the other end. Tom could tell he had thrown her.

'Oh,' she said. 'I'm sorry, I—'

'It's kind of the other way around. I help horses who've got people problems.'

They hadn't gotten off to a great start and Tom regretted being a wiseguy. He asked her what the problem was and listened for a long time in silence as she told him what had happened to her daughter and the horse. It was shocking and made all the more so by the measured, almost dispassionate way she told it. He sensed there was emotion there, but that it was buried deep and firmly under control.

'That's terrible,' he said when Annie had finished. 'I'm real sorry.'

He could hear her take a deep breath.

'Yes, well. Will you come and see him?'

'What, to New York?'

'Yes.'

'Ma'am, I'm afraid—'

'Naturally I'll pay the fare.'

'What I was going to say was, I don't do that sort of thing. Even if it was somewhere nearer, that's not what I do. I give clinics. And I'm not even doing them for a while. This here's the last one I'm doing till the fall.'

'So you'd have time to come, if you wanted to.'

It wasn't a question. She was pretty pushy. Or maybe it was just the accent.

'When does your clinic finish?'

'On Wednesday. But—'

'Could you come on Thursday?'

It wasn't just the accent. She had picked up on a slight hesitation and was pushing hard at it. It was like what you did with a horse, pick the path of least resistance and work on it.

'I'm sorry ma'am,' he said firmly. 'And I'm real sorry about what happened. But I've got work to do back on the ranch and I can't help you.'

'Don't say that. Please, don't say that. Would you at least think about it.' Again it wasn't a question.

'Ma'am—'

I'd better go now. I'm sorry to have woken you.'

And without letting him speak or saying goodbye, she hung up.

When Tom walked into reception the following morning, the motel manager handed him a Federal Express package. It contained a photograph of a girl on a beautiful-looking Morgan horse and an open return airticket to New York.

Chapter Ten

Tom laid his arm along the back of the plastic-covered bench seat and watched his son cooking hamburgers behind the counter of the diner. The boy looked as if he'd been doing it all his life, the way he moved them around the grill and flipped them nonchalantly as he chatted and laughed with one of the waiters. It was, Hal had assured him, the hottest new lunch place in Greenwich Village.

The boy worked here for nothing three or four times a week in exchange for living rentfree in a loft apartment belonging to the owner, who was a friend of Rachel's. When he wasn't working here, Hal was at film school. Earlier he'd been telling Tom about a'short' he was shooting.

'It's about a man who eats his girlfriend's motorcycle piece by piece.'

'Sounds tough.'

'It is. It's kind of a road movie but all set in one place.' Tom was about ninety percent sure this was a joke. He really hoped so. Hal went on, 'When he's finished the motorcycle, he does the same with the girlfriend.'

Tom nodded, considering this. 'Boy meets girl, boy eats girl.'

Hal laughed. He had his mother's thick black hair and dark goodlooks, though his eyes were blue. Tom liked him very much. They didn't get to see each other too often, but they wrote and when they did meet, they were easy together. Hal had grown up a city kid but he came out to Montana now and again and when he did, he loved it. He even rode pretty good, considering.

It had been some years since Tom had seen the boy's mother, but they talked on the phone about Hal and how he was doing and that was never difficult either.

Rachel had married an art dealer called Leo and they'd had three other children who were now in their teens. Hal was twenty and seemed to have grown up happy. It was the chance of seeing him that had clinched the decision to fly east and look at the Englishwoman's horse. Tom was going up there this afternoon.

'Here you go. One cheeseburger with bacon.' Hal put it down in front of him and sat down opposite him with a grin. He was only having a coffee.

'You're not eating?' asked Tom.

I'll have something later. Try it.'

Tom took a bite and nodded his approval. 'It's good.'

'Some of the guys just leave them lying on the grill. You gotta work them, seal the juices.'