The Horse Whisperer

'How does your dad feel about you both being out here?'

'He gets a little lonely.'

'I bet he does.'

'But he's got some big important case on at the moment so I maybe wouldn't see too much of him anyway.'

'They're a real glitzy pair your mom and dad, huh? These big careers and all.'

'Oh, Dad's not like that.' It came right out and the silence that followed made it sound worse. Grace hadn't meant to imply any criticism of her mother but she knew from the way Diane looked at her that this was how it had sounded.

'Does she ever get to take a vacation?'

The tone was knowing, sympathetic and it made Grace feel like a traitor, that she'd handed Diane some kind of weapon and she wanted to say no, you've got it wrong, it's not like that at all. But instead she just shrugged and said, 'Oh yes, sometimes.'

She looked away and for some miles neither of them spoke. There were some things other people could never understand, she thought. It always had to be one way or the other and it was more complicated than that. She was proud of her mother, for heaven's sake. Although she'd never dream of letting her know, Annie was how she herself wanted to be when she grew up. Not exactly maybe, but it seemed natural and right that women should have such careers. She liked the way all her friends knew about her mother, how successful she was and everything. She wouldn't want it any other way and though she sometimes gave Annie a hard time for not being around as much as other people's moms, if she was honest, she never felt she was missing out. It was often just her and her dad, but that was okay. It was more than okay, sometimes she even preferred it that way. It was just that Annie was, well, so sure about everything. So extreme and purposeful. It made you want to fight her even when you agreed.

'Pretty, isn't it?' Diane said.

'Yes.' Grace had been staring out at the plains but she hadn't taken anything in and, now that she did, pretty didn't seem the right word at all. It seemed a desolate kind of place.

'You wouldn't dream there's enough nuclear weapons buried out there to blow up the entire planet, would you?'

Grace looked at her. 'Really?'

'You betcha.' She grinned. 'Missile silos all over the place. We may not have too many people out here but bombs and beef, oh boy, we're second to none.'

Annie had the phone tucked into her neck and was half-listening to Don Farlow while she played around on the keyboard with a sentence she'd just typed. She was trying to write an editorial, the only writing she got to do nowadays. Today she was rubbishing a new street crime initiative just announced by the mayor of New York City but she was having trouble finding the old mix of wit and vitriol that used to characterize Annie Graves at her best.

Farlow was getting her up to speed on assorted things he and his legal hitmen had been working on, none of which interested Annie remotely. She gave up on the sentence and looked out of the window. The sun was getting low and down at the big arena she could see Tom leaning on the rail talking with Grace and Joe. She saw him throw his head back and laugh at something. Behind him the barn threw a long wedge of shadow on the red sand.

They'd been working all afternoon with Pilgrim, who now stood watching from the other end of the arena, the sweat shining on his back. Joe had only just got back from school and had as usual gone right out to join them. Every now and then, over the past few hours, Annie had looked down there at Tom and Grace and felt just an inkling of something that, if she didn't know herself better, she might have mistaken for jealousy.

Her thighs ached from the morning's ride. Muscles she hadn't used for thirty years were making their complaints known and Annie relished the pain like a keepsake. It was years since she'd felt the exhilaration that had been there this morning. It was like someone had let her out of a cage. Still excited, she'd told Grace all about it as soon as Diane dropped her home. The girl's face had fallen a little before clicking on the disinterest with which lately she greeted all her mother's news and Annie cursed herself for blurting it out. It had been insensitive, she thought; although later, on reflection, she wasn't quite sure why.

'And he said to call a halt,' Farlow was saying.

'What? Sorry Don, could you say that again?'

'He said to drop the lawsuit.'

'Who did?'

'Annie! Are you feeling okay?'

'I'm sorry Don, I'm just fiddling around with something here.'

'Gates told me to drop the Fiske case. Remember? Fenimore Fiske? "And who, pray, is Martin Scorsese?'"

It was one of Fiske's many immortal gaffes. He'd dug himself in even deeper some years later by calling Taxi Driver a squalid little film from a trifling talent.

'Thanks Don, I remember him well. Gates really said to drop it?'

'Yes. He said it was costing too much and it would do you and the magazine more harm than good.'

'That son of a bitch! How dare he do that without talking to me? Jesus!'

'For Godsake don't tell him I told you.'

'Jesus.'

Annie swung around in her chair and her elbow knocked a cup of coffee off the desk.

'Shit!'

'You alright?'

'Yeah. Listen Don, I've got to think about this. I'll call you back, okay?'

'Okay.'

She hung up and for a long moment stared down at the broken cup and the spreading stain of coffee.

'Shit.'

And she went off to the kitchen to get a cloth.

Chapter Twenty

'I thought it was the snowplow, you see. I heard it a long, long way off. We had all the time in the world. If we'd known what it was, we could have taken the horses right off the road, out into the field or somewhere. I should have said something about it to Judith but I just didn't think. Any case, when we were out with the horses, she was always the boss, you know? Like if there was a decision to be made, she'd be the one who got to make it. And it was like that with Gulliver and Pilgrim too. Gully was the boss, the sensible one.'

She bit her lip and looked away to one side so that the light on the back of the barn caught the side of her face. It was getting dark and a cool breeze was coming in off the creek. The three of them had put Pilgrim away for the night and then Joe, with no more than a look from Tom, had made himself scarce, saying he had homework to do. Tom and Grace had strolled over to the back pen where he kept the yearlings. Once she'd caught the foot of her false leg in a rut and stumbled a little and Tom had nearly reached out to stop her from falling, but she'd righted herself and he was glad he hadn't. Now the two of them were leaning on the fence of the pen watching the horses.

She'd taken him step by snowy step through the morning of the accident. How they'd gone up through the woods and how funny Pilgrim had been, playing with the snow and how they'd lost the trail and had to make that steep descent beside the stream. She talked without looking at him, keeping her eyes on the horses, but he knew all she saw was what she'd seen that day, another horse and a friend both now dead. And Tom watched her talk and felt for her with the whole of his heart.

'Then we found the place we'd been looking for. It was like this steep bank leading up to the railroad bridge. We'd been up there before, so we knew where the path was. Anyway, Judith went first and you know, it was weird, it was like Gully knew something was wrong because he didn't want to go and Gully isn't like that.'

She heard her own words and how she'd got the tense wrong and she looked at him briefly and he gave her a smile.

'So up he went and I asked her if it was okay and she said it was but to be careful, so I started up after her.'

'Did you have to make Pilgrim go?'