The Horse Whisperer

'He looks so funny,' Scott said.

'I've got a picture of you two at that age,' said Tom. 'And you know what?'

'They looked like bullfrogs,' Joe said.

The twins soon got bored and left. Tom and Joe turned the other horses out into the paddock behind the barn. After breakfast they were going to start working with some of the yearlings. As they walked back to the house, the dogs started barking and ran out past them. Tom turned and saw a silver Ford Lariat coming over the end of the ridge and heading down the driveway toward them. There was just the driver in it and as it got nearer he could see it was a woman.

'Your mom expecting company?' Tom asked. Joe shrugged. It wasn't until the car pulled up, with the dogs running around it still barking, that Tom recognized who it was. It was hard to believe. Joe saw his look.

'You know her?'

'I believe I do. But not what she's doing here.'

He told the dogs to hush and walked over. Annie got out of the car and came nervously toward him. She was wearing jeans and hiking boots and a huge, cream-colored sweater that came halfway down her thighs. The sun behind made her hair flare red and Tom realized how clearly he remembered those green eyes from the day at the stables. She nodded at him without quite smiling, a little sheepish.

'Mr Booker. Good morning.'

'Well, good morning.' They stood there for a moment. 'Joe, this is Mrs Graves. Joe here is my nephew.' Annie offered the boy her hand.

'Hello, Joe. How are you?'

'Good.'

She looked up the valley, toward the mountains, then looked back at Tom.

'What a beautiful place.'

'It is.'

He was wondering when she was going to get around to saying what on earth she was doing here, though he already had an idea. She took a deep breath.

'Mr Booker, you're going to think this is insane, but you can probably guess why I've come here.'

'Well. I kind of reckoned you didn't just happen to be passing through.' She almost smiled.

'I'm sorry just turning up like this, but I knew what you'd say if I phoned. It's about my daughter's horse.'

'Pilgrim.'

'Yes. I know you can help him and I came here to ask you, to beg you, to have another look at him.'

'Mrs Graves…'

'Please. Just a look. It wouldn't take long.'

Tom laughed. 'What, to fly to New York?' He nodded at the Lariat. 'Or were you counting on driving me there?'

'He's here. In Choteau.'

Tom stared at her for a moment in disbelief.

'You've hauled him all the way out here?' She nodded. Joe was looking from one of them to the other, trying to get the picture. Diane had stepped out onto the porch and stood there holding open the screen door, watching.

'All on your own?' Tom asked.

'With Grace, my daughter.'

'Just to have me take a look at him?'

'Yes.'

'You guys coming in to eat?' called Diane. Who's the woman, was what she really meant. Tom put his hand on Joe's shoulder.

'Tell your mom I'm coming,' he said and as the boy went off he turned back to Annie. They stood looking at each other for a moment. She gave a little shrug and, at last, smiled. He noticed how it made the corners of her mouth go down but left untouched the troubled look in her eyes. He was being railroaded and wondered why he didn't mind.

'Excuse me saying it, ma'am,' he said. 'But you sure as hell don't like taking no for an answer.'

'No,' Annie said simply. 'I suppose I don't.'

Grace lay on her back on the floor of the musty bedroom, doing her exercises and listening to the electronic bells of the Methodist church across the street. They didn't just chime the hour, they played whole tunes. She quite liked the sound, mainly because it was driving her mother crazy. Annie was down in the hall, on the phone to the real estate agent about it.

'Don't they know there are laws about this sort of thing?' she was saying. 'They're polluting the air.'

It was the fifth time she had called him in two days. The poor man had made the mistake of giving her his home number and Annie was ruining his weekend, bombarding him with complaints: the heating wasn't working, the bedrooms were damp, the extra phone line she'd asked for hadn't been installed, the heating still wasn't working. And now the bells.

'It wouldn't be so bad if they played something half decent,' she was saying. 'It's ridiculous, the Methodists have all the good tunes.'

Yesterday when Annie went out to the ranch, Grace had refused to go with her. After Annie left, she went out exploring. There wasn't much to explore. Choteau was basically one long main street with a railroad on one side and a grid of residential streets on the other. There was a dog parlor, a video store, a steak house and a cinema showing a movie Grace had seen over a year ago. The town's only claim to fame was a museum where you could see dinosaur eggs. She went into a couple of stores and the people were friendly but reserved. She was aware of others watching as she walked slowly back down the street with her cane. When she got back to the house she felt so depressed, she burst into tears.

Annie had come back elated and told Grace that Tom Booker had agreed to come and see Pilgrim the following morning. All Grace said was, 'How long have we got to stay in this dump?'

The house was a big, rambling place, faced with peeling pale-blue clapboard and carpeted throughout in a stained, yellow-brown shagpile. The sparse furniture looked as if it had been picked up in a yard sale. Annie was appalled when they first saw the place. Grace was delighted. Its glaring inadequacy was on her side, a perfect vindication.

Secretly, she wasn't as opposed to this mission of her mother's as she made out. It was a relief in fact to get away from school and the tiring business of putting on a brave face all the time. But her feelings for Pilgrim were confused. They frightened her. It was best to block him right out of her head. Her mother however made this impossible. Her every action seemed to force Grace to confront the issue. She'd taken this whole thing on as if Pilgrim was hers and he wasn't hers, he was Grace's. Of course Grace wanted him to get better, it was just that… It struck her then, for the first time, that maybe she didn't want him to get better. Maybe she blamed him for what had happened? No, that was stupid. Maybe she wanted him to be as she was, forever maimed? Why should he recover and not her? It wasn't fair. Stop it, stop it, she told herself. These whirling, crazy thoughts were her mother's fault and Grace wasn't going to let them get a hold in her head.

She redoubled the effort in her exercises, until she felt the sweat trickle down her neck. She lifted her stump high in the air, again and again, making the muscles ache in her right buttock and her thigh. She could look at this leg now and accept at last that it belonged to her. The scar was neat, no longer that angry, itching pink. Her muscles were coming back nicely, so much so that the sleeve of her prosthetic leg was starting to feel a little tight. She heard Annie hang up.

'Grace? Have you finished? He'll be here soon.'

Grace didn't reply, just let the words hang there.

'Grace?'

'Yeah. So what?'

She could feel Annie's reaction, picture the irked look on her face giving way to resignation. She heard her sigh and go back into the drab dining room which, as a first priority of course, Annie had transformed into her office.

Chapter Fifteen

All Tom had promised was that he would go and have another look at the horse. After she had come all that way, it was the least he could do. But he'd made it a condition that he would go alone. He didn't want her looking over his shoulder, putting pressure on him. She was pretty good at that, he already knew. She had made him promise to drop by afterward and give her his verdict.