Chapter Twenty-eight
Tom Booker watched the lariat disappear over the ridge and wondered, as he had so many times before, about the man Annie and Grace were going to collect. What he knew of him he knew mainly from Grace. As if by some unspoken consent, Annie had talked of her husband only rarely and even then impersonally, more of his job than of his character.
Despite the many good things Grace had told him (or perhaps because of them) and despite his own best efforts to the contrary, Tom could not fully dislodge a predisposed dislike that was not, he knew, in his nature. He'd tried to rationalize it, in the hope of finding some more acceptable reason. The guy, after all, was a lawyer. How many of them had he ever met and liked? But of course, it wasn't that. There was sufficient cause in the simple fact that this particular lawyer was Annie Graves's husband. And in a few short hours he would be here, openly possessing her again. Tom turned and went into the barn.
Pilgrim's bridle hung on the same peg in the tack room where he'd put it the day Annie first brought the horse out here. He took it down and looped it over his shoulder. The English saddle too was on the same rest. There was a thin layer of hay dust on it which Tom wiped away with his hand. He lifted the saddle off with its rug and carried them out and down the avenue of empty stalls to the back door.
Outside the morning was hot and still. Some of the yearlings in the far paddock were already seeking the shade of the cottonwoods. As Tom made his way down toward Pilgrim's corral, he looked at the mountains and knew from their clarity and a first wafting of cloud that later there would be thunder and rain.
All week he had avoided her, shunning the very moments he had always sought, when he might be alone with her. He had learned from Grace that Robert was coming. But even before then, even as they rode down from the mountains, he'd decided this was what he must do. Not an hour had gone by that he hadn't remembered the feel and smell of her, the touch of her skin on his, the way their mouths had melded. The memory was too intense, too physical, for him to have dreamed it, but he would treat it as if he had, for what else could he do? Her husband was coming and soon, in a matter of days now, she would be gone. For both of their sakes, for all of their sakes, it was best that until then he keep his distance and see her only when Grace was there too. Only thus might his resolve endure.
It had been sorely tested the very first evening. When he dropped Grace back at the house, Annie was waiting out on the porch. He waved and would have pulled away but she came toward the car to speak to him while Grace went off inside.
'Diane tells me they're all going to L.A. next week.'
'Yes. It's all a big secret.'
'And you're off to Wyoming.'
'That's right. I promised a while back I'd go visit down there. Friend of mine's got a couple of colts he wants starting.'
She nodded and for a moment the only sound was the impatient rumble of the Chevy's engine. They smiled at each other and he felt she was equally unsure of the territory they had stepped into. Tom tried hard to let nothing show in his eyes that might make things difficult for her. In all likelihood she regretted what had happened between them. Maybe one day he would too. The screen door banged and Annie turned.
'Mom? Okay if I call Dad?'
'Sure.'
Grace went in again. When Annie turned back to him, he saw in her eyes that there was something she wanted to say. If it was regret, he didn't want to hear it so he spoke to stem it.
'I hear he's coming out this weekend?'
'Yes.'
'Grace is like a cat with ten tails, been going on about it all afternoon.'
Annie nodded. 'She misses him.'
'I'll bet. We'll have to see if we can lick old Pilgrim into shape by then. Get Grace up there riding him.'
'Are you serious?'
'Don't see why not. We've got some hard work this week but if things work out, I'll give it a go and if he's okay with me, Grace can do it for her daddy.'
'Then we can take him home.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Tom—'
'Of course, you're welcome to stay as long as you like. Just because we're all away, doesn't mean you have to leave.'
She smiled bravely. "Thank you.'
'I mean, packing up all your computer and fax and all's going to take a week or two.' She laughed and he had to look away from her for fear of betraying the ache in his chest at the thought of her leaving. He shoved the car into gear and smiled and bade her good-night.
Since then Tom had done better in avoiding being alone with her. He'd thrown himself into the work with Pilgrim with an energy he hadn't been able to summon since his earliest clinics.
In the mornings he worked him on Rimrock, moving him round and round the corral until he could go from a walk to a lope and back again as smoothly as Tom was sure he once had and until his hind feet fit faultlessly the prints of his fore. In the afternoons Tom went on foot and worked him on a halter. He worked him in circles, stepping in close and turning him, making him roll his hindquarters across.
Sometimes Pilgrim would try and fight it and back away and when he did this Tom would run with him, keeping in the same position until the horse knew there was no point running because the man would always be there and that maybe after all it was okay to do what was being asked of him. His feet would come still and the two of them would stand there awhile, drenched in their own and each other's sweat, leaning on each other and panting, like a pair of punched-out boxers waiting for the bell.
At first Pilgrim had found his new urgency puzzling, for even Tom had no way of telling him there was a deadline now. Not that Tom could have explained why he should be so determined to make the horse right when in so doing he would deprive himself forever of what he most wanted. But whatever he made of it, Pilgrim seemed to draw on this strange and relentless new vigor and soon he was as much a party to the endeavor as Tom.
And today, at last, Tom would ride him.
Pilgrim watched him shut the gate and walk to the middle of the corral, carrying the saddle with the bridle looped over his shoulder.
'That's right old pal, that's what it is. But don't you take my word for it.'
Tom laid the saddle down on the grass and stepped away from it. Pilgrim looked off to one side for a moment, pretending it was no big deal and he wasn't interested. But he couldn't stop his eyes from coming back to the saddle and after a while he stepped forward and walked toward it.
Tom watched him come and never moved. The horse stopped about a yard away from where the saddle lay and reached out almost comically with his nose to sniff the air above it.
'What d'you reckon? Gonna bite ya?'
Pilgrim gave him a baleful look then looked back at the saddle. He was still wearing the rope halter Tom had made for him. He pawed the ground a couple of times then stepped in closer and nudged the saddle with his nose. With an easy movement, Tom took the bridle off his shoulder and held it in both hands, sorting it. Pilgrim heard it clink and looked up.
'Don't you go looking all surprised. You saw this coming a hundred miles away.'
Tom waited. It was hard to imagine this was the same animal he'd seen in that hellish stall in upstate New York, severed from the world and all that he was. His coat gleamed, his eyes were clear and the way his nose had healed gave him a look that was almost noble, like some battle-scarred Roman. Never, Tom thought, had a horse been so transformed. Nor so many lives around one.
Now Pilgrim came to him, as Tom knew he would, and gave the bridle the same ritual sniffing he'd given the saddle. And when Tom undid the halter and put the bridle on him, not once did he flinch. There was still some tightness and the faintest quivering in his muscles, but he let Tom rub his neck and then move his hand along and rub the place where the saddle would go and neither did he step away nor even toss his head at the feel of the bit in his mouth. However fragile, the confidence and trust Tom had been working for were set.