Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer

Looking at her parents, united side by side before her, Grace felt true contentment. It was as though the final pieces of her fractured jigsaw life were falling back in place. The only space that remained was riding Pilgrim. And that, if all had gone well today at the ranch, would soon be filled too. Until they knew for sure, neither she nor Annie was going to mention it to Robert.

It was a prospect that both thrilled and troubled Grace. It wasn't so much that she wanted to ride him again but that she knew she must. Since she'd been riding Gonzo, no one seemed to doubt that she would do so - provided, that is, Tom thought it safe. Only she, secretly, had doubts.

They were not to do with fear, at least not in its simple sense. She worried that when the moment came she might feel fear but was fairly sure that if she did she would at least be able to control it. She worried more however that she might let Pilgrim down. That she wouldn't be good enough.

Her prosthetic leg was now so tight it gave her constant pain. On the last few miles of the cattle drive it had been almost unbearable. She hadn't told a soul. When Annie noticed how often now she left the leg off when they were alone, Grace had made light of it. It had been harder to pretend to Terri Carlson. Terri could see how inflamed the stump was and told her she urgently needed a new fitting. The trouble was, nobody out West did this type of prosthetic. The only place it could be done was New York.

Grace was determined to hold out. It would only be a week or two at most. She would just have to hope that the pain wouldn't distract her too much and make her less good when the moment came.

It was the cusp of evening when they left Route 15 and headed west. Before them the Rocky Front was stacked high with thunderheads which seemed to reach out over the gathering sky toward them.

They drove through Choteau so that Grace could show Robert the dump they'd first lived in and the dinosaur outside the museum. Somehow he'd come to seem neither as big nor as mean as he had when they arrived. Nowadays Grace almost expected him to wink.

By the time they reached the turn off 89, the sky was vaulted with blackening cloud like a ruined church, through which the sun found fitful access. Cruising out along the straight gravel road to the Double Divide, they all fell silent and Grace began to feel nervous. She wanted so much for her father to be impressed by the place. Perhaps Annie felt the same way, because when they came over the ridge and saw the Double Divide open up before them, she stopped the car to let Robert take in the view.

The dust-cloud they had stirred from the road overtook them and drifted slowly ahead, dispersing gold on a stark burst of sun. Some horses grazing down by the cottonwoods that fringed the nearest bend of the creek raised their heads to watch.

'Wow,' Robert said. 'Now I know why you guys don't want to come home.'

Annie had bought the food for the weekend on the way to the airport and should, of course, have done it on the way back. Five hours in a hot car had done the salmon no good at all. The supermarket in Butte was the best she'd found since coming to Montana. They even had sun-dried tomatoes and small pots of rooted basil which had wilted badly on the journey home. Annie had watered them and stood them on the windowsill. They might just survive. Which was more than could be said for the salmon. She took it to the sink and ran it under cold water in the hope of washing away the ammonia smell.

The rush of water drowned the constant low rumble of thunder outside. Annie doused the fish's sides and watched its loosened scales shiver and twirl and disappear with the water. Then she opened its gutted belly and sluiced the blood from its clotted membranous flesh till it glistened a lurid pink. The smell became less pungent, but the feel of the fish's flaccid body in her hands brought such a wave of nausea that she had to leave the fish on the draining board and go quickly through the screen door out onto the porch.

The air was hot and heavy and brought no relief. It was almost dark, though long before it should be. The clouds were a bilious black veined with yellow and so low they seemed to compress the very earth.

Robert and Grace had been gone almost an hour. Annie had wanted to leave it until morning but Grace had insisted. She wanted to introduce Robert to the Bookers and let him see Pilgrim right away. She hardly gave him time to look inside the house before getting him to drive her down to the ranch. She'd wanted Annie to come along too, but Annie said no, she'd get supper and have it ready for when they got back. Tom meeting Robert was something she'd rather not see. She wouldn't know where to look. Even the thought of it now made her nausea worse.

She'd bathed and changed into a dress but already felt sticky again. She stepped out on to the porch and filled her lungs with the useless air. Then she walked slowly around to the front of the house where she could look out for them.

She'd seen Tom and Robert and all the kids piling into the Chevy and watched the car go by below her on its way up to the meadows. The angle was such that she could only see Tom in the driver's seat as they passed. He didn't look up. He was turned talking to Robert who sat beside him. Annie wondered what he made of him. It was as though she herself were being judged by proxy.

All week Tom had avoided her and although she thought she knew why, she felt his distance like a widening space within her. While Grace was in Choteau seeing Tern Carlson, Annie had waited for him to call as he always did to ask her to go riding, knowing in her heart that he wouldn't. When she went with Grace to watch him working with Pilgrim, he was so involved he barely seemed to notice her.

Afterward, their conversation had been trivial, polite almost.

She wanted to talk to him, to say she was sorry for what had happened, though she wasn't. At night, alone in her bed, she'd thought of that tender mutual exploring, taking it further in fantasy until her body ached for him. She wanted to say she was sorry simply in case he thought badly of her. But the only chance she'd had was that first evening when he had brought Grace home. And when she'd started to speak he'd cut her off, as if he knew what she was going to say. The look in his eyes as he drove away had almost made her run calling after him.

Annie stood with her arms folded, watching the lightning flicker somewhere above the shrouded mass of the mountains. She could see the headlights of the Chevy now among the trees up by the ford and as they leveled and headed down the track she felt a heavy drop of rain on her shoulder. She looked up and another smacked the center of her forehead and trickled down her face. The air was suddenly cooler and filled with the fresh smell of wet on dust. Annie could see the rain coming down the valley toward her like a wall. She turned and hurried back inside to grill the salmon.

He was a nice guy. What else did Tom expect? He was lively and funny and interesting and, more important, he was interested. Robert leaned forward to squint through the futile arc made by the wipers. They had to shout to make themselves heard through the drumming of the rain on the car's roof.

'If you don't like the weather in Montana, wait five minutes,' Robert said. Tom laughed.

'Did Grace tell you that?'

'I read it in my guidebook.'

'Dad's the ultimate guidebook nerd,' Grace yelled from the back.

'Well thanks sweetie, I love you too.'

Tom smiled. 'Yep, well. Sure looks like rain.'

He'd taken them up pretty well as far as you could comfortably go in a car. They'd seen some deer, a hawk or two and then, high on the far side of the valley, a herd of elk. The calves, some no more than a week old, sheltered beside their mothers from the thunder. Robert had brought along some binoculars and they watched for ten minutes or more, the kids all clamoring for their turn. There was a big bull with a wide six-point sweep of antlers and Tom tried bugling to it but got no reply.