The swirling water felt good on her stump and she lay back and thought about the Indian boy.
How good to be able to do that, to leave your body whenever you wanted and go off somewhere. It made her wonder about when she was in the coma. Perhaps that's what had happened then. But where had she gone and what had she seen? She couldn't remember a thing about it, not even a dream, only the coming out of it, swimming through the tunnel of glue toward her mother's voice.
She had always been able to remember her dreams. It was easy, all you had to do was tell someone about them the moment you woke, even if it was only yourself. When she was younger, in the mornings, she used to climb into her parents' bed and snuggle under her father's arm and tell him. He'd ask her all ; sorts of detailed questions and sometimes she'd have to invent things to fill in the gaps. It was always only her father because by that hour Annie was already up and out running or in the shower yelling for Grace to get dressed and go do her piano practice. Robert used to tell her she should write all her dreams down because she'd have fun reading about them when she was grown up, but Grace could never be bothered.
She had expected to have terrible, bloody dreams about the accident. But she hadn't dreamed about it once. And the only one she'd had about Pilgrim was two nights ago. He was standing on the far side of a great brown river and it was odd because he was younger, little more than a foal, but it was definitely Pilgrim. She'd called him and he'd tested the water with his foot then walked right in and started to swim toward her. But he wasn't strong enough for the current and it started to sweep him away and she'd watched his head getting smaller and smaller and she felt so powerless and filled with anguish because all she could do was keep on calling his name. Then she was aware that someone was standing beside her and she turned and saw Tom Booker and he said she shouldn't worry, Pilgrim would be okay, because downstream the river wasn't so deep and he would be sure to find a place to cross.
Grace hadn't told Annie about Tom Booker asking if she'd talk about the accident. She feared Annie might make a fuss or resent it or try and make the decision for her. It was none of Annie's business. It was something private between her and Tom, about her and her horse and it was for her to decide. And she realized now that she had already decided. Although the prospect daunted her, she would talk to him. Maybe she would tell Annie later.
The door opened and Terri came back in and asked her how she was doing. She said Grace's mom had just called. Diane Booker would be there at midday to pick her up.
They rode up along the creek and crossed at the ford where they'd met the other morning. As they moved up into the lower meadow the cattle stepped lazily aside to let them pass. The cloud had broken away and scattered from the snow-covered tops of the mountains and the air smelled new, of roots uncoiling. There were pink crocus and shooting star already showing in the grass and a first hint of leaf hung like a green haze on the cotton woods.
He let her go before him for a while and watched the breeze in her hair. She'd never ridden western before and said the saddle felt like a boat. Back at the house she'd got him to shorten Rimrock's stirrups so they were now more the length you'd ride a cutting horse or if you were roping, but she said she felt more in control that way. He could see she was a rider from the way she held herself and from the easy way her body moved with the rhythm of the horse.
When it was clear she had the feel of it, he eased alongside and they rode together, neither one of them speaking except when she asked him the name of some tree or plant or bird. She'd fix him with those green eyes of hers while he told her and then nod, all serious, storing the information away. They rode past stands of aspen which he told her they called quakin' asp on account of the way the wind fluttered in their leaves and he showed her the black scars in their pale trunks where in the winter foraging elk had stripped away the bark.
They rode up a long, sloping ridge, strewn with pine and potentilla, and came to the rim of a high bluff from where you could look down the twin valleys that gave the ranch its name and there they stopped and sat the horses awhile.
'That's quite a view,' Annie said. He nodded.
'When my daddy moved us all out here, Frank and I would come up here sometimes and have ourselves a race back down to the corral for a dime or maybe a quarter if we were feeling rich. He'd take one creek and I'd take the other.'
'Who won?'
'Well, he was younger and mostly he went so darn fast he fell off and I'd have to hang around in the trees down there and time it just right so we finished neck and neck. It made him real happy to win, so most times that's what happened.'
She smiled at him.
'You ride pretty good,' he said. She made a face.
'This horse of yours would make anyone look good.'
She reached down and rubbed Rimrock's neck and for a moment the only sound was the soft frupping of the horses' nostrils. She sat back up and looked down the valley again. You could just see the tip of the creek house above the trees.
'Who's R.B.?' she said.
He frowned. 'R.B.?'
'On the well, by the house. There are some initials, T.B. - which I guessed was you - and R.B.' He laughed.
'Rachel. My wife.'
'You're married?'
'My ex-wife. We got divorced. A long time ago.'
'Do you have children?'
'Uh-huh, one. He's twenty years old. Lives with his mother and stepfather in New York City.'
'What's his name?'
She sure asked a whole lot of questions. That was her job, he guessed, and he didn't mind at all. In fact he liked the way she was so direct, just looked you right in the eye and came out with it. He smiled.
'Hal.'
'Hal Booker. That's nice.'
'Well, he's a nice guy. You look kind of surprised.'
Right away he felt bad for saying it for he could tell from the way she colored up that he'd embarrassed her.
'No, not at all. I just—'
'He was born right down there in the creek house.'
'Is that where you lived?'
'Yup. Rachel didn't take to it out here. The winters can get kind of hard if you're not used to it.'
A shadow passed over the heads of the horses and he looked up at the sky and so did she. It was a pair of golden eagles and he told her how you could know this from their size and the shape and color of their wings. And together, in silence, they watched them soar slowly up the valley until they were lost beneath the massive gray wall of mountain beyond.
'Been there yet?' Diane said, as the Albertasaurus watched them go by the museum on their way out of town. Grace said she hadn't. Diane drove brusquely, handling the car as though it needed to be taught a lesson.
'Joe loves it. The twins prefer Nintendo.'
Grace laughed. She liked Diane. She was sort of spiky but she'd been nice to her right from the start. Well, they all had, but there was something special about the way Diane talked with her, something confiding, almost sisterly. It occurred to Grace that it might be to do with her having only had sons.
'They say dinosaurs used this whole area as a breeding ground,' she went on. 'And you know what, Grace? They're still around. You just meet some of the men hereabouts.'
They talked about school and Grace told her how, on the mornings she didn't have to come in to the clinic, Annie made her do schoolwork. Diane agreed that was tough.