Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer

The yellow blinds on the upstairs windows of the creek house were closed. Annie and Grace were probably still asleep. He'd helped them move in the previous afternoon after he and Diane had cleaned the place up a little. Diane had barely said a word all morning but he could tell how she felt by the jutting of her jaw and the methodically violent way she wielded the vacuum cleaner and made up the beds. Annie was to sleep in the main front bedroom, overlooking the creek. It was where Diane and Frank had slept and, before them, he and Rachel. Grace was to have Joe's old bedroom at the back of the house.

'How long are they planning on staying?' Diane said as she finished making Annie's bed. Tom was by the door, checking that a radiator worked. He turned but she wasn't looking at him.

'I don't know. Guess it depends how things go with the horse.'

Diane didn't say a thing, just shunted the bed back into position with her knees so that the headboard banged against the wall.

'If you have a problem with it, I'm sure—'

'Who said I had a problem? I don't have a problem.' She stomped past him out onto the landing and scooped up a pile of towels she'd left there. 'I just hope the woman knows how to cook, that's all.' And she went off down the stairs.

Diane wasn't around later when Annie and Grace arrived. Tom helped them unload the Lariat and took their bags upstairs for them. He was relieved to see they'd brought two big boxes of groceries. The sun was streaming in through the big front window in the living room and made the place seem light and airy. Annie said how pretty it was. She asked if it would be okay to move the long dining table over to the window so that she could use it as her desk and look out on the creek and the corrals while she worked. Tom took one end and she took the other and when they'd moved it he helped her bring in all her computers and fax machines and some other electronic gadgetry whose purpose he couldn't begin to guess.

It had struck him as odd that the first thing Annie should want to do in this new place, before unpacking, before even seeing where she was to sleep, was to set up somewhere to work. He could tell from the look on Grace's face as she watched that to her it wasn't odd at all. It had always been like this.

Last night before he turned in, he'd walked out, as he always did, to check on the horses and on the way back he'd looked up at the creek house and seen the lights on and wondered what they were doing, this woman and her child, and of what if anything they spoke. Seeing the house standing there against the clear night sky, he'd thought of Rachel and the pain those walls had encased so many years ago. Now pain was encased there again, pain of the highest order, finely wrought by mutual guilt and used by wounded souls to punish those they love the most.

Tom made his way past the corrals, the frosted grass scrunching under the soles of his boots. The branches of the cottonwoods along the creek were laced with silver and over their heads he could see the eastern sky starting to glow pink where soon the sun would show. The dogs were waiting for him outside the barn door, all eager. They knew he never let them go in with him but they always thought it worth a try. He shooed them away and went in to see to the horses.

An hour later, when the sun had melted black patches on the barn's frost-veneered roof, Tom led out one of the colts he'd started the previous week and swung himself up into the saddle. The horse, like all the others he'd raised, had a good soft feel and they rode an easy walk up the dirt road toward the meadows.

As they passed below the creek house, Tom saw the blinds of Annie's bedroom were now open. Farther on he found footprints in the frost beside the road and he followed them until they were lost among the willows where the road crossed the creek in a shallow ford. There were rocks you could use as stepping-stones and he could see from the wet criss-cross marks on them that whoever it was had done just that.

The colt saw her before he did and, prompted by the pricking of its ears, Tom looked up and saw Annie running back down from the meadow. She was wearing a pale gray sweatshirt, black leggings and a pair of those hundred-dollar shoes they advertised on TV. She hadn't yet seen him and he brought the colt to a stop at the water's edge and watched her come nearer. Through the low rush of the water, he could just make out the sound of her breathing. She had her hair tied back and her face was pink from the cold air and the effort of her running. She was looking down, concentrating so hard on where she was putting her feet that if the colt hadn't softly snorted she might have run right into them. But the sound made her look up and she stopped in her tracks, some ten yards away.

'Hi!'

Tom touched the brim of his hat.

'A jogger, huh?'

She made a mock haughty face. 'I don't jog, Mr Booker. I run.'

'That's lucky, the grizzlies around here only go for the joggers.'

Her eyes went wide. 'Grizzly bears? Are you serious?'

'Well, you know, we keep 'em pretty well fed and all.' He could see she was worried and grinned. 'I'm kidding. Oh, they're around but they like to stay higher. You're safe enough.' He thought about adding, except for the mountain lions, but if she'd heard about that woman in California she might not think it too funny.

She gave him a narrow-eyed look for teasing her, then grinned and came closer so that the sun fell full on her face and she had to shield her eyes with one hand to look up at him. Her breasts and shoulders rose and fell to the rhythm of her breathing and a slow steam curled off her and melted in the air.

'Did you sleep okay up there?' he said.

'I don't sleep okay anywhere.'

'Is the heating okay? It's been a while since—'

'It's fine. Everything's fine. It's really very kind of you to let us stay out here.'

'It's good to have the old place lived in.'

'Well, anyway. Thank you.'

For a moment, neither of them seemed to know what to say. Annie reached out to touch the horse, but did it a little too suddenly so that the animal tossed his head away and took a couple of steps back.

'I'm sorry,' Annie said. Tom reached down and rubbed the colt's neck.

'Just hold your hand out. A little lower, there, so he can get the smell of you.' The colt lowered his muzzle to Annie's hand and explored it with the tips of his whiskers, snuffling it now. Annie watched, a slow smile starting, and Tom noticed again how the corners of her mouth seemed to have some mysterious life of their own, qualifying each smile for its occasion.

'He's beautiful,' she said.

'Yeah, he's doing pretty good. Do you ride?'

'Oh. A long time ago. When I was Grace's age.'

Something in her face changed and at once he regretted asking the question. And he felt dumb because it was clear that in some way she blamed herself for what had happened to her daughter.

'I'd better get back, I'm getting cold.' She moved off, giving the horse space as she passed, squinting up at Tom. 'I thought it was supposed to be spring!'

'Oh well, you know what they say, if you don't like the weather in Montana, wait five minutes.'

He turned in the saddle and watched her make her way back across the stepping-stones of the ford. She slipped and cursed to herself as one shoe went briefly under the icy water.

'Need a lift?'

'No, I'm fine.'

'Ill come by around two o'clock and collect Grace,' he called.

'Okay!'

She reached the far side of the creek and turned to give him a little wave. He touched his hat and watched her turn away again and break into a run, still not looking at what lay around her or ahead of her, but only where she placed her feet.

Pilgrim burst into the arena as though fired from a cannon. He ran straight to the far end and stopped there, sending up a splash of red sand. His tail was clenched and it twitched and his ears moved back and forward. His eyes were wild and fixed on the open gate through which he'd come and through which he knew the man would now follow him.