Chapter Twenty-three 11 page

'You have a problem with that, Grace?' Tom said. She looked at him with what was no doubt meant as contempt but when she spoke, her voice quavered.

'Isn't it like, obvious?'

Tom considered this for a moment, then shook his head. 'Nope. I don't think it is. Anyway, that's the deal. Thanks for the coffee.' He put his cup down and walked toward the door. Annie looked at Grace who turned away into the living room. Then Annie came hurrying after him into the hall.

'What would she have to do?'

'Just be there, help out, be involved.'

Something told him he shouldn't mention riding. He put his hat on and opened the front door. He could see the desperation in Annie's eyes.

'It's cold in here,' he said. 'You ought to get the heating checked out.'

He was about to step out when Grace appeared in the living-room doorway. She didn't look at him. She said something but it was so low he couldn't catch it.

'I'm sorry Grace?'

She shifted uncomfortably, her eyes flicking sideways.

'I said okay. I'll do it.'

And she turned away and went back into the room.

Diane had cooked a turkey and was carving it as if it deserved it. One of the twins tried picking a piece and got his hand slapped. He was supposed to be ferrying the plates over from the sideboard to the table where everyone else was already seated.

'What about the yearlings?' she said. 'I thought that was the whole idea of not doing clinics, so you could work with your own horses for a change.'

'There'll be time for that,' said Tom. He couldn't understand why Diane seemed so riled.

'Who does she think she is, coming out here like that? Just assuming she can force you into it. I think she's got one hell of a nerve. Get off!' She tried to slap the boy again but this time he got away with the meat. Diane raised the carving knife. 'Next time you get this, okay? Frank, don't you think she's got a nerve?'

'Oh hell, I don't know. Seems to me it's up to Tom. Craig, will you pass the corn please?'

Diane made up the last plate for herself and came and sat down. They all went quiet for Frank to say grace.

'Anyway,' Tom went on after it was said, 'Joe here's going to be helping me with the yearlings. That right, Joe?'

'Sure.'

'Not while you're at school you're not,' Diane said. Tom and Joe exchanged a look. No one spoke for a while, everyone just getting on with helping themselves to vegetables and cranberry sauce. Tom hoped Diane would let the matter drop, but she was like a dog with a bone.

'I guess they'll want feeding and all, out here all day long.'

'I don't reckon they'll expect that,' Tom said.

'What, they'll go forty miles into Choteau every time they want a cup of coffee?'

'Tea,' Frank said. Diane shot him an unfriendly look.

'Huh?'

'Tea. She's English. They drink tea. Come on Diane, give the guy a break.'

'Does the girl's leg look funny?' Scott said, through a mouthful of turkey.

'Funny!' Joe shook his head. 'You are one weird kid.'

'No I mean, is it like, made of wood or what?'

'Just eat your food Scott, okay?' Frank said.

They ate in silence for a while. Tom could see Diane's mood hanging above her like a cloud. She was a tall, powerful woman, whose face and spirit had been hardened by the place she lived in. Increasingly as she moved into her mid-forties, she had about her an air of lost opportunity. She'd grown up on a farm near Great Falls and it was Tom who'd first met her. They dated a few times, but he made it clear he wasn't ready to settle down and was anyway so seldom around, that it just petered out. So Diane married the younger brother instead. Tom was fond of her, though sometimes, especially since his mother moved to Great Falls, he found her a touch over-protective. He worried now and again that she gave him more attention than she did Frank. Not that Frank ever seemed to notice.

'When you figuring on branding?' he asked his brother.

'Weekend after next. If the weather picks up.'

On a lot of ranches they left it until later, but Frank branded in April because the boys liked to help and the calves were still small enough for them to handle. They always made an event of it. Friends came over to help and Diane laid on a spread for everyone afterward. It was a tradition Tom's father had begun and one of many Frank kept going. Another was how they still used horses for much of the work other ranchers now used vehicles for. Rounding up cattle on motorcycles wasn't the same somehow.

Tom and Frank had always seen these things the same way. They never disagreed about the way the ranch was run, nor anything else for that matter. This was partly because Tom thought of the place as more Frank's than his. It was Frank who'd stayed here all these years while he traveled, doing his horse clinics. And Frank had always been the better businessman and knew more about cattle than he would ever know. The two of them were close and easy together and Frank was genuinely thrilled about Tom's plans to get more seriously into horse rearing because it meant he'd be around the place more. Though the cattle were mainly Frank's and the horses Tom's, they discussed things and helped each other out whenever they could. Last year, when Tom was off doing a chain of clinics, it was Frank who had supervised the building of an arena and exercise pool that Tom had designed for the horses.

Tom was aware suddenly that one of the twins had asked him a question.

'Sorry, what was that?'

'Is she famous?' It was Scott.

'Is who famous, for heavensakes?' Diane snapped.

'The woman from New York.'

Diane didn't give Tom the chance to answer.

'Have you heard of her?' she asked the boy. He shook his head. 'Well then, she isn't famous is she? Eat your food.'

Chapter Sixteen

The northern edge of Choteau was guarded by a thirteen-and-a-half-foot-tall dinosaur. Pedants knew it to be an Albertasaurus but to everyone else it looked pretty much like a regular T. Rex. It kept watch from the parking lot of the Old Trail Museum and you got to see it just after you passed the sign on Route 89 saying Welcome to Choteau - Nice People, Great Country . Conscious perhaps of the immediate damper this might put on such a welcome, the sculptor had shaped the creature's steak-knife teeth into a knowing grin. The effect was unsettling. You couldn't tell if it wanted to eat you or lick you to death.

Four times a day, for two weeks now, Annie had traversed this reptilian gaze as she drove to and from the Double Divide. They would go out at noon after Grace had done some schoolwork or spent a grueling morning at the physical therapist's. Annie would drop her off at the ranch, come back, hit the phones and the fax, then head out again at about six, as she was doing now, to collect her.

The trip took about forty minutes and she enjoyed it, especially, since the weather had turned, the evening ride. For five days the skies had been clear and they were bigger and bluer than she'd ever known skies could be. After the afternoon frenzy of phone calls to New York, driving out into this landscape was like plunging into an immense, calming pool.

The trip was a long L shape and for the first twenty miles, north along 89, Annie's was often the only car. The plains stretched endlessly away to her right and as the sun arced low, toward the Rockies on her left, the winter-worn grass around her turned to pale gold.

She turned west onto the unmarked gravel road that went in a straight line for another fifteen miles to the ranch and the mountain wall beyond. The Lariat left a cloud of dust behind it that drifted slowly away in the breeze. Curlews strutted on the road in front then glided away at the last moment into the pasture. Annie lowered the visor against the sun's dazzle and felt something inside her quicken.

In the last few days she had started coming out to the ranch a little earlier so that she could watch Tom Booker at work. Not that the real work with Pilgrim had started yet. So far it had been mostly physical therapy, building up the horse's wasted shoulder and leg muscles in the swimming pool. Round and round he swam, with a look in his eyes as if he were being chased by crocodiles. He was staying out on the ranch now, in a stall right by the pool, and the only close contact Tom had so far had with him was getting him in and out of the water. Even so it was dangerous enough.

Yesterday Annie had stood beside Grace and watched him get Pilgrim from the pool. The horse hadn't wanted to come out, fearing a trap, so Tom had walked down the ramp till he was up to his waist. Pilgrim had thrashed around and soaked him and even reared up over him. But Tom was totally unfazed. It seemed miraculous to Annie how the man could stand so calmly close to death. How could one calculate such margins? Pilgrim too had seemed baffled by this lack of fear and soon staggered out and let himself be ushered to his stall.

Tom came back to Grace and Annie and stood dripping before them. He took off his hat and poured the water from its brim. Grace started to laugh and he gave her a wry look that made her laugh even more. Then he turned to Annie and shook his head.

'She's a heartless woman this daughter of yours,' he said. 'What she doesn't know is next time she's the one going in.'

The sound of Grace's laughter had stayed in Annie's head ever since. On the way back to Choteau, Grace had told her what they had been doing with Pilgrim and the questions Tom had asked about him. She had told her about Bronty's foal, about Frank and Diane and the boys, how the twins were a pain but Joe was alright. It was the first time she'd talked freely and happily since they'd left New York and Annie had to try hard not to overreact and to just let it happen as though it were nothing special. It hadn't lasted. Driving past the dinosaur, Grace fell silent, as if it reminded her how nowadays she behaved toward her mother. But at least it was a start, thought Annie.

The Lariat's tires scrunched now' on the gravel as she came around the ridge and curved down into the valley under the wooden double D sign that marked the start of the ranch's driveway. Annie could see horses running in the big open arena by the stables and as she got nearer she could see Tom riding among them. In one hand he had a long stick with an orange flag on the end and he was waving it at them, making them run away from him. There were maybe a dozen colts in there and mostly they kept close to each other. There was one among them though who was always alone and now Annie could see it was Pilgrim.

Grace was leaning on the rail next to Joe and the twins, all of them watching. Annie parked and walked over to them, ruffling the heads of the dogs who no longer barked when she arrived. Joe smiled at her and was the only one who said hello. 'What's going on?' Annie asked. 'Oh, he's just driving them around some.' Annie leaned on the rail beside him and watched. The colts bolted and swerved from one end of the arena to the other, making long shadows on the sand and kicking up amber clouds of it that trapped the slanting sun. Tom moved Rimrock effortlessly after them, sometimes stepping sideways or backward to block them or open up a gap. Annie hadn't seen him ride before. The horse's white-socked feet made intricate steps without any visible guidance, steered, so it seemed to Annie, by Tom's thoughts alone. It was as if he and the horse were one. She couldn't take her eyes off him. As he came past, he tipped his hat and smiled. 'Annie.'

It was the first time he hadn't called her ma'am or Mrs Graves and to hear him, unprompted, speak her name pleased her, made her feel accepted. She watched him move off toward Pilgrim who had stopped like all the others at the far end of the arena. The horse stood separate and was the only one sweating. The scars on his face and chest stood out in the sunlight and he was tossing his head and snorting. He seemed as troubled by the other horses as he was by Tom.

'What we're doing here Annie, is trying to get him to learn how to be a horse again. All the others already know, see? That's how they are in the wild, herd animals. When they've got a problem, like they have now with me and this flag, they look to each other. But old Pilgrim here has plum forgotten. I'm the rock and they're the hard place. He thinks he hasn't got a friend in the world. Turn 'em all loose in the mountains and these guys would be fine. Poor old Pilgrim though, he'd be bear bait. It's not that he doesn't want to make friends, he just doesn't know how.'

He moved Rimrock in on them and lifted the flag sharply, making it crack in the air. The colts all broke away to the right and this time, instead of breaking left like before, Pilgrim went after them. As soon as he was clear of Tom though, he separated and again came to a halt on his own. Tom grinned. 'He'll get there.'

The sun had long gone by the time they had Pilgrim back in his stall and it was getting cold. Diane called the boys in for their supper and Grace went in with them to pick up a coat she had left in the house. Tom and Annie walked slowly over to the Lariat. Annie felt suddenly very aware of their being alone together. For a while neither of them spoke. An owl flew low over their heads toward the creek and Annie watched it melt into the dark of the cottonwoods. She felt Tom's eyes on her and turned to look at him. He smiled calmly and quite without embarrassment and the look he gave her wasn't the look of a virtual stranger, but of someone who'd known her for a very long time. Annie managed to smile back and was relieved to see Grace coming toward them from the house.

'We're branding here tomorrow,' Tom said. 'If you two want to come and give a hand.'

Annie laughed. 'I think we'd just get in the way,' she said.

He shrugged. 'Maybe. But as long as you don't get in the way of the branding iron it doesn't matter too much. Even if you do, it's a nice-looking mark. Back in the city you might be proud of it.'

Annie turned to Grace and could see she was keen but trying not to look it. She turned back to Tom.

'Okay, why not?' she said.

He told her they'd be starting around nine the next morning but they could show up whenever they liked. Then they said good-night. As she pulled away up the driveway, Annie looked in the rearview mirror. He was still standing there, watching them go.

Chapter Seventeen

Tom rode up one side of the valley and Joe the other. The idea was to pick up stragglers but the cows needed little more inducement. They could see the old Chevy down in the meadow where it always parked at feeding time and they could hear Frank and the twins hollering and banging the bag of cow cake on its lowered rear end for them to come and get it. They streamed down from the hills, calling in reply while their calves scrambled after them, calling too, anxious not to be left behind.

Tom's father used to raise pure Herefords, but for some years now Frank had raised a Black Angus-Hereford cross. The Angus cows were good mothers and suited the climate better because their udders were black, not pink like the Herefords, so they didn't get burned by the sun bouncing off the snow. Tom watched for a while as they moved away from him down the hill, then he turned Rimrock to the left and dropped over into the shaded bed of the creek.

Steam rose off the water into the warming air and a dipper took off and flew straight upstream ahead of them fast and so low that its slate wings almost skimmed the surface. Down here the calling of the cattle was muted then lost in the soft splashing of the horse's feet as he moved up to the top of the meadow. Sometimes along here a calf would get tangled in the thick willow scrub. But today they found nothing and Tom eased Rimrock back onto the bank, then loped him up into the sun at the top of the ridge and stopped.

He could see Joe on his brown-and-white paint pony way over on the other side of the valley. The boy waved and Tom waved back. Below, the cattle were funneling down to the Chevy, flooding around it so that it looked from here like a boat on a seething pool of black. The twins were tossing out a few pellets of cake to keep the cows interested while Frank clambered back into the driver's seat and started to pull slowly away back down the meadow. Lured by the cake, the cattle surged after it.

From this ridge you could see right down the valley to the ranch and the corrals to which the cattle were now being led. And as Tom looked, he saw what he realized he had been looking out for all morning. Annie's car was coming down the driveway, leaving a low, gray wake of dust. As it curved in front of the ranch house, the sun flashed on its windshield.

More than a mile separated him from the two figures that got out of the car. They were small and quite featureless. But Tom could picture Annie's face as if she were beside him. He saw her as she'd been last evening, as she watched the owl, before she sensed him watching her. She had looked so lost and beautiful that he'd wanted to take her in his arms. She's another man's wife, he'd told himself as the Lariat's tail-lights went off up the driveway. But it hadn't stopped him thinking about her. He nudged Rimrock forward and moved off down the hill to follow the cattle.

The air over the corral hung heavy with dust and the smell of scorched flesh. Separated from their mothers, who kept up a constant calling, the calves were moved through a series of connecting pens until they found themselves in a narrow chute from which there was no return. Emerging from here, one by one, they were clamped and lowered sideways onto a table where four pairs of hands went immediately to work. Before they knew it, they'd been given a shot, a yellow insect tag in one ear, a growth pellet in the other, then a burn on the butt with a branding iron. Then the table went vertical again, off came the clamp and suddenly they were free. They tottered off in a daze toward the call of their mothers, at whose udders, at last, they found comfort.

All of this was witnessed, with a lazy, regal disinterest by their fathers, five enormous Hereford bulls, who lay chewing in an adjoining pen. It was witnessed by Annie with something approaching horror. She could see Grace felt the same. The calves squealed terribly and got what little revenge they could by spurting shit down their attackers' boots or kicking any careless shin they found. Some of the neighbors who had come to help had brought children along and those big or bold enough were trying their hand at roping and wrestling the smaller calves. Annie saw Grace watching them and thought what a terrible mistake it was to have come. There was such an extreme physicality about it all. It only seemed to make the girl's disability more blatant.

Tom must have read this on Annie's face because he came over and quickly found her a job. He put her to work in the feeder pen to the chute alongside a grinning giant with reflector sunglasses and a T-shirt that said Cereal Killer . He introduced himself as Hank and gave Annie a handshake that made her knuckles crack. He said he came from the next ranch down the valley.

'Our friendly neighborhood psycho,' Tom said.

'It's okay, I already ate,' Hank confided to Annie.

As she got to work, Annie saw Tom go over to Grace, put his arm around her shoulders and lead her off, though to where, Annie had no time to see because a calf trod on her foot then kicked her hard on the knee. She yelped and Hank laughed and showed her how to shove them into the chute without getting too bruised or shat upon. It was hard work and she had to concentrate and soon, what with Hank's jokes and the warm spring sunshine, she started to feel better.

Later, when she had a moment to look, she saw Tom had taken Grace right to the front line and had her wielding the branding iron. To begin with she kept her eyes closed. But soon he got her thinking so hard about her technique that all squeamishness vanished.

'Don't press too hard,' Annie heard him say. He was standing behind Grace, with his hands resting gently on her upper arms. 'Just let it drop down lightly.' Flames flared up as the red-hot head of the iron touched the calf's hide. 'That's good, firm but gentle. It hurts, but he'll get over it. Now let it roll a little. Good. Now lift. Grace, that's a perfect brand. Best Double D of the day.'

Everyone cheered. The girl's face was flushed and her eyes were shining. She laughed and made a little bow. Tom saw Annie looking and grinned and pointed at her.

'Your turn next, Annie.'

By late afternoon all but the smallest calves were branded and Frank announced it was time to eat. Everyone started heading for the ranch house, the younger children running on ahead, whooping. Annie looked around for Grace. No one had said anything about them being invited and Annie felt it was time to leave. She saw Grace up ahead, walking to the house with Joe, the two of them chatting easily about something. Annie called her name and she turned.

'We have to go now,' Annie said.

'What? Why?'

'Yeah, why? You're not allowed to go.' It was Tom. He'd come up alongside her. They were beside the bull pen. The two of them had hardly spoken all day. Annie shrugged.

'Well, you know. It's getting late.'

'Yeah, I know. And you've got to get back and feed the fax machine and make all those calls and things, right?'

The sun was behind him and Annie put her head on one side and squinted at him, giving him a look. Men didn't normally tease her like this. She liked it.

'But you see, there's kind of a tradition here,' he went on,'that whoever makes the best brand has to give a speech after dinner.'

'What!' said Grace.

'That's right. Or drink ten jugs of beer. So, Grace, you better go on in and get yourself ready.' Grace looked at Joe to make sure it was a joke. Tom nodded toward the house, deadpan. 'Joe, you better show her the way.' Joe led her off, doing his best not to grin.

'If you're sure we're invited,' said Annie.

'You're invited.'

'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.'

They smiled at each other and the silence between them was filled for a few moments by the lowing of cattle. Their calls were gentler now that the frenzy of the day had passed. It was Annie who first felt the need to speak. She looked at the bulls lazing in the last of the sunshine.

'Who'd be a cow when you could lie around like these guys all day?' she said.

Tom looked at them and nodded. 'Yep. They spend all summer making love and winter just lying around and eating.' He paused, considering something as he watched them. 'On the other hand, not too many of them get to do it. Get born as a bull and you've got a ninety-nine percent chance of getting castrated and served up as a hamburger. On balance, I reckon I'd choose being a cow.'

They sat at a long table covered with a starched white cloth and laid with glazed hams, turkey, and steaming dishes of corn, beans, and sweet potato. The room it stood in was clearly the main living room but seemed to Annie more like a large hall that divided the two wings of the house. Its ceiling was high and its floor and walls were of dark, stained wood. There were paintings of Indians chasing buffalo and old sepia photographs of men with long moustaches and plainly dressed women with serious faces. On one side, an open staircase curved up to a wide, railed landing that overlooked the entire room.

Annie had felt embarrassed when they came in. She realized that while she had been out branding, most of the other women had been inside preparing the meal. But no one seemed to mind. Diane, who till today had never seemed overly friendly, made her feel welcome and even offered her a change of clothes. As all the men were equally dusty and muckstained, Annie thanked her and declined.

The children sat at one end of the table and the clamor they made was so loud that the adults at the other had to strain to hear themselves talk. Every so often Diane yelled at them to pipe down but it had little or no effect and soon, led by Frank and Hank who sat on either side of Annie, the uproar was general. Grace sat next to Joe. Annie could hear her telling him about New York and about a friend of hers who got mugged on the subway for his new Nike trainers. Joe listened with widening eyes.

Tom sat across from Annie, between his sister Rosie and their mother. They'd driven up from Great Falls this afternoon with Rosie's two daughters who were five and six years old. Ellen Booker was a gentle, fine-boned woman with perfectly white hair and eyes the same vivid blue as Tom's. She spoke little, just listened and smiled at what was going on around her. Annie noticed how Tom looked after her and talked quietly to her about the ranch and the horses. She could see from the way Ellen watched him that this was her favorite child.

'So Annie, you gonna do a big piece about us all in your magazine?' said Hank.

'That's right, Hank. You're the centerfold.'

He gave a great bellow of laughter.

Frank said, 'Hey Hank, you better get yourself some of that - what do they call it? Lipsuction.' 'Liposuction, you fool,' Diane said. 'I'll go for the lipsuction,' Hank said. 'Though I guess it depends who's doing the sucking.'

Annie asked Frank about the ranch and he told her how they had moved here when he and Tom were boys. He took her over to look at the photographs and told her who all the people were. There was something about this gallery of solemn faces that Annie found moving. It was as though their mere survival in this daunting land were in itself some mighty triumph. While Frank was telling her about his grandfather, Annie happened to glance back at the table and saw Tom look up and see her and smile.

When she and Frank went back and sat down, Joe was telling Grace about a hippie woman who lived farther up on the mountains. She'd bought some Pryor Mountain mustangs a few years back, he said, and just let them run wild. They'd bred and now there was quite a herd of them up there.

'She's got all these kids too and they run around with nothing on. Dad calls her Granola Gay. Came here from L.A.'

'Californication!' Hank chanted. Everyone laughed. 'Hank, do you mind!' Diane said. Later, over a dessert of pumpkin pie and homemade cherry ice cream, Frank said, 'You know what, Tom? While you're working on that horse of theirs, Annie and Grace here ought to move into the creek house. Seems crazy them doing all that shuttling to and fro.' Annie just caught the sharp look Diane gave her husband. It was obviously something they hadn't discussed. Tom looked at Annie.

'Sure,' he said. 'It's a good idea.'

'Oh, that's very nice of you, but really…'

'Hell, I know that old house you're staying in down there in Choteau,' said Frank. 'It's good as falling down around your ears.'

'Frank, the creek house isn't exactly a palace, for heavensakes,' said Diane. 'Anyway, I'm sure Annie wants her privacy.'

Before Annie could speak, Frank leaned forward and looked down the table. 'Grace? What do you think?'

Grace looked at Annie, but her face gave her answer and it was all Frank needed.

'That's settled then.'

Diane got up.'Ill make some coffee,' she said.

Chapter Eighteen

A quarter moon the color of dappled bone still stood in the dawning sky when Tom stepped out through the screen door and onto the porch. He stopped there, pulling on his gloves, feeling the cold air on his face. The world was white and brittle with frost and no breeze ruffled the clouds made by his breath. The dogs came rushing up to greet him, their bodies wagging with their tails and he touched their heads and with no more than a nod sent them racing off toward the corrals, nipping and jostling each other, their feet scuffing tracks in the magnesium grass. Tom turned up the collar of his green wool jacket and stepped down off the porch to follow them.

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—'

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 587