She took the bait and nodded.
'He's back here.'
Tom followed her around the back of the barn to the row of old stalls. When she got to Pilgrim's door,
she turned to face him. She looked agitated suddenly.
'I have to tell you, this has been a disaster from the beginning. I don't know how much she's told you, but the truth is, in everybody's opinion except hers, this horse should have been put out of its misery long ago. Why the vets have gone along with her I don't know. Frankly, I think keeping it alive is cruel and stupid.'
The intensity took Tom by surprise. He nodded slowly and then looked at the bolted door. He'd already seen the yellowy-brown liquid oozing from under it and could smell the filth beyond.
'He's in here?'
'Yes. Be careful.'
Tom slid the top bolt and heard an immediate scuffle. The stench was nauseating.
'God, doesn't anyone clean him out?'
'We're all too scared,' Mrs Dyer said quietly.
Tom gently opened the top part of the door and leaned in. He saw Pilgrim through the darkness, looking back at him with his ears flattened and his yellow teeth bared. Suddenly the horse lunged and reared, striking at him with his hooves. Tom moved swiftly back and the hooves missed him by inches and smashed against the bottom door. Tom closed the top and rammed the bolt shut.
'If an inspector saw this, he'd close the whole damn place down,' he said. The quiet, controlled fury in his voice made Mrs Dyer look at the ground.
'I know, I've tried to tell—' He cut her off.
'You ought to be ashamed.'
He turned away and walked back toward the yard. He could hear an engine revving and now the frightened call of a horse as a car horn started blaring.
When he came around the end of the barn he saw one of the colts was already tied up in the trailer. There was blood on one of its hind legs. Eric was trying to drag the other colt in, lashing with the whip while his brother, in an old pickup, shunted it from behind, honking the horn. Tom went up to the car, flung the door open and dragged the boy out by the scruff of his neck.
'Who the fuck do you think you are?' the boy said, but the end of it came out falsetto as Tom swung him sideways and threw him to the ground.
'Wyatt Earp,' Tom said and walked right on past toward Eric who backed away.
'Hey listen cowboy…' he said. Tom grabbed him by the throat, freed the colt and took the whip out of the boy's other hand with a twist that made him yelp. The colt ran off across the yard, saving itself. Tom had the whip in one hand and the other still clamped on Eric's throat so that the boy's frightened eyes bulged. He held him there in front of him, their faces not a foot apart.
'If I thought you were worth the effort,' Tom said, 'I'd whip your no-good hide from hell to breakfast.'
He shoved him away and the boy's back thumped against the wall, knocking the wind clean out of him. Tom looked back and saw Mrs Dyer coming into the yard. He turned and stepped around the side of the trailer.
As he came through the gap, a woman was getting out of a silver Ford Lariat parked beside the waiting taxi. For a moment he and Annie Graves were face to face.
'Mr Booker?' she said. Tom was breathing hard. All he really registered was the auburn hair and the troubled green eyes. He nodded. 'I'm Annie Graves. You got here early.'
'No ma'am. I got here too damn late.' He got into the cab, shut the door and told the driver to go. When they reached the bottom of the driveway he realized he was still holding the whip. He wound down the window and threw it in the ditch.
Chapter Eleven
It was Robert who finally suggested going to Lester's for breakfast. It was a decision he'd worried about for two weeks. They hadn't gone there since Grace started school again and that unspoken fact was starting to weigh heavily. The reason it hadn't been mentioned was that Lester's excellent breakfast was only part of the routine. The other part, just as important, was taking the crosstown bus to get there.
It was one of those silly things that had started when Grace was much younger. Sometimes Annie came too but usually it was just Robert and Grace. They used to pretend it was some grand adventure and would sit at the back and play a whispered game in which they took turns elaborating fantasies about the other passengers. The driver was really an android hitman and those little old ladies rock stars in disguise. More recently they would just gossip but until the accident it had never occurred to either of them not to take the bus. Now neither was sure if Grace would be able to climb onto it.
So far she had been going to school two and then three days a week, mornings only. Robert took her there by cab and Elsa collected her by cab at noon. He and Annie tried to seem casual when they asked her how it was going. Great, she said. Everything was great. And how were Becky and Cathy and r
Mrs Shaw? They were all great too. He suspected that she knew full well what they wanted to ask but couldn't. Did people stare at her leg? Did they ask her about it? Did she see them talking about her?
'Breakfast at Lester's?' Robert said that morning, in as matter-of-fact a voice as he could muster. Annie had already left for an early meeting. Grace shrugged and said, 'Sure. If you want to.'
They took the elevator down and said good morning to Ramon, the doorman.
'Get you a taxi?' he said.
Robert hesitated, but only for a beat.
'No. We're getting the bus.'
As they walked the two blocks to the bus stop, Robert chattered away and tried to look as if it was natural to be walking this slowly. He knew Grace wasn't listening to him. Her eyes were locked on the sidewalk ahead, surveying its surface for traps, concentrating hard on placing the rubber tip of the cane and swinging her leg through behind it. By the time they got to the stop, despite the cold, she was sweating.
When the bus came, she climbed in as though she had been doing it for years. It was crowded and for a while they stood near the front. An old man saw Grace's cane and offered her his seat. She thanked him and tried to decline but he wouldn't hear of it. Robert wanted to scream at him to let her be but didn't and, blushing, Grace relented and sat down. She looked up at Robert and gave him a little humiliated smile that smote his heart.
When they walked into the coffee shop, Robert had a sudden panic that he should have called and warned Lester so that no one would make a fuss or ask embarrassing questions. He needn't have worried. Perhaps someone from the school had already told them, but Lester and the waiters were their normal brisk and cheerful selves.
They sat at their usual table by the window and ordered what they always ordered, bagels with cream cheese and lox. While they waited, Robert tried hard to keep the conversation going. It was new to him, this need to fill the silences between them. Talking with Grace had always been so easy. He noticed how her eyes kept drifting off to the people walking past outside, on their way to work. Lester, a dapper little man with a toothbrush moustache, had the radio on behind the counter and for once Robert felt grateful for the constant, inane babble of traffic news and jingles. When the bagels arrived Grace barely touched hers.
'Like to go to Europe this summer?' he said.
'What, a vacation you mean?'
'Yes. I thought we could go to Italy. Rent a house in Tuscany or somewhere. What do you think?'
She shrugged. 'Okay.'
'We don't have to.'
'No. It'd be nice.'
'If you're good, we might even go on to England and visit your grandmother.' Grace grimaced on cue. The threat of dispatching her to see Annie's mother was an old family joke. Grace glanced out of the window then back at Robert.
'Dad, I think I'll go in now.'
'Not hungry?'
She shook her head. He understood. She wanted to get into school early, before the lobby was crowded with gawking girls. He knocked back his coffee and paid the check.