Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer

Today Tom was riding one of his young mares, a pretty strawberry roan. Annie rode Rimrock. All day he'd thought how good she looked on him. She and Grace were wearing the hats and boots he'd helped them buy yesterday after Annie said she was coming. At the store they'd laughed side by side at the sight of themselves in the glass. Annie had asked did they get to wear guns too and he said that depended on who she was going to shoot. She said the only candidate was her boss back in New York so maybe a Tomahawk missile might be better.

Their crossing of the plateau was leisurely. But as the cattle reached the foot of the ridge they seemed to sense that from here on it was one long climb and they quickened the pace and called to each other as if to summon some collective effort. Tom had asked Annie to ride ahead with him but she'd smiled and said she'd better drop back to see if Diane needed help. So he'd come up here alone.

Now the herd was almost up to him. He turned his horse and rode over the crest of the ridge. A small crowd of mule deer vaulted away in front of him. At a safe distance they stopped to look back. The does were heavy-bellied with their fawns and assessed him with their great tilted ears before the buck moved them off again. Beyond their bobbing heads, Tom could see the first of the narrow pine-fringed passes that led to the high pastures and, leaning massively above them, the snowpatched peaks of the divide.

He'd wanted to be beside Annie and see her face when this view was revealed to her and he'd felt a loss when she declined and went back to Diane. Maybe she sensed in his offer an intimacy he hadn't meant, or rather one he yearned for but hadn't meant to convey.

By the time they reached it, the pass was already in the shadow of the mountains. And as they moved slowly up between the darkening banks of trees, they looked back and saw the shadow' spread east like a stain behind them until only the distant plains retained the sun. Above the trees on either side, sheer gray walls of rock encompassed them, making echoes of the children's calls and the murmur of the cattle.

Frank threw another bough on the fire and its impact sent a volcano of sparks into the night sky. The wood was from a fallen tree they'd found and so dry it seemed to thirst for the flames that beset it, tonguing high into the windless air.

Through the dodging of the flames, Annie watched the glow on the children's faces and noticed how their eyes and teeth flashed when they laughed. They were telling riddles and Grace had them all guessing feverishly at one of Robert's favorites. Grace had her new hat tipped rakishly forward and her hair, cascading from it to her shoulders, trapped the firelight in a spectrum of reds and ambers and golds. Never, Annie thought, had her daughter looked more lovely.

They'd finished eating, a simple meal cooked on the fire, of beans, chops and salty bacon with jacket potatoes baked in the embers. It had tasted wonderful. Now, while Frank saw to the fire, Tom went to get water from the stream across the meadow so they could make coffee. Diane was joining in the riddle game now. Everyone assumed Annie knew the answer and, though she'd forgotten it, she was happy to keep quiet, lean back against her saddle and observe.

They'd reached this place just before nine when the last of the sun was fading from the far-off plains. The final pass had been steep, with the mountains tilting over their heads like cathedral walls. At last they'd followed the cattle through an ancient gateway of rock and seen the pasture open up before them.

The grass was thick and dark in the evening light and because spring, Annie supposed, came later here, there were fewer flowers yet among it. Above, only the highest peak remained and its angle had rolled to give a glimpse of a western slope where a sliver of snow glowed golden pink in the long-gone sun.

The pasture was encircled by forest and on one side, where the ground was slightly raised, stood a small log cabin with a simple pen for the horses. The stream looped in and out of the trees along the other side and it was here first that they'd all gone to let the horses drink beside the jostling cattle. Tom had warned them that it could freeze up here at night and that they should bring warm clothes. But the air had stayed balmy.

'Howya doing there, Annie?' Frank had stacked the fire and was settling himself beside her. She could see Tom materializing from the darkness beyond where now and then the invisible cattle called.

'Frank, apart from my aching butt, I'm doing just great.'

He laughed. It wasn't just her butt. Her calves ached too and the insides of her thighs were so sore she winced every time she moved. Grace had lately ridden less even than she had, but when Annie had asked her earlier if she was sore too, she said she was fine and, no, the leg didn't hurt at all. Annie didn't believe a word of it but left it at that.

'Remember those Swiss folk last year, Tom?'

Tom was pouring water into the coffeepot. He laughed and said yeah, he did, then set the pot on the fire and sat back beside Diane to listen.

Frank said he and Tom had been driving through the Pryor Mountains and found their road blocked by a herd of cattle. Behind them came these cowboys, all dressed to the nines in fancy new gear.

'One of them had on a pair of hand-tooled chaps must have set him back a thousand bucks. Funny thing was, they weren't riding, they were all walking, leading their horses behind them and they looked real miserable. Anyway, me and Tom wind down the window and ask is everything okay and they don't understand a word we're saying.'

Annie watched Tom across the corner of the fire. He was watching his brother and smiling his easy smile. He seemed to sense her gaze, for his eyes moved from Frank to her and in them there was no surprise, only a calm so knowing it faltered her heart. She held his look for as long as she dared, then smiled and turned again to Frank.

'We don't understand a word they're saying neither, so we just wave and let them go by. Then up the road we find this old guy dozing behind the wheel of a brand-new Winnebago, top of the range. And he lifts his hat and I know the guy. It's Lonnie Harper, has a big spread over that way but never could run it to save his life. Anyway, we say howdy and ask is that his herd back there and he says, yeah, it sure is and the cowboys are from Switzerland, all over here on vacation.

'Said he'd set himself up as a dude ranch and these folks were paying him thousands of bucks to come and do what he used to have to pay hands to do. We said why're they walking? And he laughed and said that was the best part, 'cause after one day they all got too saddle-sore to ride, so there wasn't even no wear on the horses.'

'Way to go,' Diane said.

'Yep. These poor Swiss fellas get to sleep on the ground and cook their own beans on the fire while he sleeps in the Winnie, watches TV and eats like a king.'

When the water boiled, Tom made coffee. The twins were through with riddles and Craig asked Frank to show Grace his match trick.

'Oh no,' Diane groaned. 'Here we go.'

Frank took two matches from the box he kept in his vest pocket and placed one on the upturned palm of his right hand. Then, with a serious face, he leaned over and rubbed the head of the other match in Grace's hair. She laughed, a little uncertainly.

'You do physics and all that stuff at school, Grace, I guess.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Well then you'll know about static electricity and all. That's all this really is. I'm just kinda charging up here.'

'Oh yeah,' Scott said sarcastically. Joe promptly shushed him. Holding the charged match between finger and thumb with his left hand, Frank now drew it slowly up the palm of his right hand so that its head approached the head of the first match. As soon as they touched there was a loud snap and the first match jumped clean off his hand. Grace shrieked in surprise and everyone laughed.