Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer

When the music stopped Joe gave a courteous bow and escorted her back to Grace who hadn't stopped laughing. Annie felt a touch on her shoulder and turned. It was Hank. He wanted the next dance and wouldn't take no for an answer. By the time they'd finished he had Annie laughing so much her sides ached. But there was no respite. Frank was next, then Smoky.

As she danced, she looked over and saw Grace and Joe were now doing a jokey kind of dance with the twins and some other kids, jokey enough anyway to allow Grace and Joe the illusion that they weren't really dancing with each other.

She watched Tom dance with Darlene, then Diane, then more closely with some pretty, younger woman Annie didn't know and didn't much want to know. Perhaps it was some girlfriend she hadn't heard about. And every time the music stopped, Annie looked for him and wondered why he didn't come and ask her to dance.

He saw her making her way across to the bar after she'd danced with Smoky and as soon as he could do so politely he thanked his partner and followed. It was the third time he'd tried to reach her but someone always got there first.

He weaved his way behind her through the hot crowd and saw her wipe the sweat from her brow with both hands, back through her hair, just as she'd done when he met her out running. There was a dark patch on her back where the fabric of her dress had grown wet and clung to her skin. As he got near he could smell her perfume mixed with another more subtle and potent that was all her own.

Frank was back serving behind the bar and asked Annie over other people's heads what she wanted. She asked him for a glass of water. Frank said sorry there wasn't any, only Dr Peppers. He handed her one and she thanked him and turned and Tom was standing right there in front of her. 'Hi!' she said.

'Hi. So Annie Graves likes to dance.' 'As a matter of fact, I can't stand it. It's just that here no one gives you the choice.'

He laughed and decided therefore that he wouldn't ask her, though he'd looked forward to it all evening. Someone pushed between them, cutting them off from each other for a moment. The music had started up again so they had to shout to make each other hear.

'You obviously do,' she said.

'What?'

'Like to dance. I saw you.'

'I guess. But I saw you too and I reckon you like it more than you say.'

'Oh, you know, sometimes. When I'm in the mood.'

'You want some water?'

'I would die for water.'

Tom called to Frank for a clean glass and handed back the Dr Peppers. Then he put a hand lightly on Annie's back to steer her through the crowd and felt the warmth of her body through the damp dress.

'Come on.'

He found a path for them among all the people and all she could think of was the feel of his hand on her back, just below her shoulder blades and the clasp of her bra.

As they skirted the dance floor, she chided herself for telling him she didn't like to dance, for otherwise he'd surely have asked and there was nothing she wanted more.

The great barn doors stood open and the disco lights lit the rain outside like a bead curtain of ever-changing color. There was no longer any wind but the rain fell so hard it made a breeze of its own and others had gathered in the doorway for the cool Annie now felt on her face.

They stopped and stood together on the brink of shelter and peered out through the rain whose roar made distant the music behind them. No longer was there reason for his hand to be on her back and though she hoped he wouldn't, he took it away. Across the yard she could just make out the lights of the house like a lost ship where she assumed they were headed for her drink of water.

'We'll get drenched,' she said. 'I'm not that desperate.'

'I thought you said you'd die for water?'

'Yes, but not in it. Though they say drowning's the best way to go. I always thought, how on earth do they know that?'

He laughed. 'You sure do a lot of thinking, don't you?'

'Yep, always fizzing away up there. Can't stop it.'

'Kind of gets in the way sometimes, don't it?'

'Yep.'

'Like now.' He saw she didn't understand. He pointed toward the house. 'Here we are, looking out through the rain and you're thinking, too bad, no water.'

Annie gave him a wry look and took the glass from his hand. 'Kind of a forest-and-trees situation, you mean.'

He shrugged and smiled and she reached out into the night with the glass. The pricking of the rain on her bare arm was startling, almost painful. The roar of its falling excluded all but the two of them. And while the glass filled they held each other's eyes in a communion of which humor was only the surface. It took less time than it seemed or than either seemed to want.

Annie offered it first to him, but he just shook his head and kept watching her. She watched him back over the rim of the glass as she drank. And the water tasted cool and pure and so purely of nothing that it made her want to cry.

Grace could tell something was going on as soon as she climbed into the Chevy beside him. The smile gave it away, like a kid who'd hidden the candy jar. She swung the door shut and Tom pulled away from the back of the creek house and headed down toward the corrals. She'd only just got back from her morning session with Terri in Choteau and was still eating a sandwich.

'What is it?' she said.

'What's what?'

She narrowed her eyes at him but he was all innocence.

'Well, for a start, you're early.'

'I am?' He shook his wristwatch. 'Darn thing.'

She saw it was a lost cause and sat back to finish her sandwich. Tom gave her that funny smile again and kept driving.

The second clue was the rope he picked up from the barn before they went down to Pilgrim's corral. It was much shorter than the one he used as a lasso and of a narrower gauge, plied in an intricate criss-cross of purple and green.

'What's that?'

'It's a rope. Pretty, isn't it?'

'I meant. What is it for?'

'Well, Grace, there's no end of things a hand could do with a rope like this.'

'Like swing from trees, tie yourself up…'

'Yep, that kind of thing.'

When they got to the corral Grace leaned on the rail where she usually did and Tom went in with the rope. Away in the far corner, as usual too, Pilgrim started snorting and trotting to and fro as if marking out some futile last resort. His tail, ears and the muscles on his sides seemed wired to a convulsive current. He watched Tom every step of the way.

But Tom didn't look at him. As he walked, he was doing something with the rope, though what, because his back was to her, Grace couldn't tell. Whatever it was, he went on with it after he stopped in the center of the corral and still he didn't look up.

Grace could see Pilgrim was as intrigued as she was. He'd stopped his pacing and now stood watching. And though every so often he tossed his head and pawed the ground, his ears reached out at Tom as if pulled by elastic. Grace moved slowly along the rails to get a better angle on what Tom was doing. She didn't have to go far because Tom turned toward her so that his shoulder masked what he was doing from Pilgrim. But all Grace could see was that he seemed to be tying the rope into a series of knots. Briefly, he looked up and smiled at her from under the brim of his hat.

'Kinda curious, ain't he?'

Grace looked at Pilgrim. He was more than curious. And now that he couldn't see what Tom was doing, he did what Grace had done and took a few small steps to get a better look. Tom heard him and at the same time moved a couple of steps farther away, turning too, so that now he had his back to the horse. Pilgrim stood awhile and looked off to one side, taking stock. Then he looked at Tom again and took a few more tentative steps toward him. And Tom heard him again and moved off so the space between them stayed almost but not quite the same.