Chapter Twenty-five

Hank and Darlene normally held their barn dance on the Fourth of July. But this year Hank was scheduled to have his varicose veins fixed at the end of June and didn't fancy hobbling around so they'd hauled it back a month or so to Memorial Day.

There was risk involved. A few years back, two feet of snow had fallen this very weekend. And some Hank had invited felt a day set aside to honor those who'd died for their country wasn't a suitable day for a celebration at all. Hank said shit, come to that, celebrating independence was pretty dumb too when you'd been married as long as him and Darlene, and anyway, all those he knew who'd gone to Vietnam liked a damn good party, so what the hell?

Just to show him, it rained.

Rivers of it slid off billowing tarpaulins to hiss among the burgers, ribs and steaks on the barbecue and a fuse box exploded with a flash and snuffed all the colored lights strung around the yard. No one seemed to mind too much. They all just packed into the barn. Someone gave Hank a T-shirt which he immediately put on; it had ,' Told You printed on the front in big black letters.

Tom was late arriving because the vet couldn't get out to the Double Divide till after six. He'd given the little filly another shot and thought that would do it. They were still busy with her when the others left for the party. Through the open doors of the barn he'd seen all the kids piling into the Lariat with Annie and Grace. Annie had waved to him and asked if he was coming. He told her he'd be along later. He was pleased to see she was wearing the dress she'd worn two nights before.

Neither she nor Grace had spoken a word about what had happened that night. On Sunday he'd risen before dawn and dressed in the dark and seen Annie's blinds still open and the lights still on. He'd wanted to go on up and see if everything was okay but thought he'd leave it awhile in case it seemed nosy. When he'd finished seeing to the horses and came in for breakfast, Diane said Annie had just called to ask if it would be alright if she and Grace came with them to church.

'Probably just wants to write it up in her magazine,' Diane said. Tom told her he thought that was unfair and that she should give Annie a break. Diane hadn't spoken to him for the rest of the day.

They'd all driven to church in two cars and it was clear at once, to Tom at least, that something had changed between Annie and Grace. There was a stillness there. He noticed how when Annie spoke Grace now looked her in the eyes and how, after they'd parked the cars, the two of them linked arms and walked together all the way to the church.

There wasn't room for them all in one row, so Annie and Grace had sat a row in front where a shaft of sun angled down from a window, trapping slow convections of dust. Tom could see the other churchfolk looking at the newcomers, the women as much as the men. And he found his own eyes kept returning to the nape of Annie's neck when she stood to sing or tilted her head in prayer.

Back at the Double Divide later, Grace had ridden Gonzo again, only this time in the big arena with everyone watching. She walked him awhile then, when Tom told her to, took him up to a trot. She was a little tight at the start, but once she relaxed and found the feel, Tom could see how sweetly she rode. He told her a couple of things about the way she was using her leg and when it all clicked, he said to go ahead and move on up to a lope.

'A lope!'

'Why not?'

So she did and it was fine and as she opened her hips and moved with the motion he saw the grin break out on her face.

'Shouldn't she be wearing a hat?' Annie had asked him quietly. She meant one of those safety helmets people wore in England and back east and he'd said well no, not unless she was planning on falling off. He knew he should have taken it more seriously, but Annie seemed to trust him and left it at that.

Grace slowed in perfect balance and brought Gonzo to an easy stop before them and everyone clapped and cheered. The little horse looked like he'd won the Kentucky Derby. And Grace's smile was wide and clear as a morning sky.

After the vet had left, Tom showered, put on a clean shirt and set off through the rain for Hank's place. It was coming down so thick, the old Chevy's wipers all but gave in and Tom had to peer with his nose to the glass to negotiate a way through the flooded craters of the old gravel road. There were so many cars when he got there that he had to park right out on the driveway and if he hadn't worn his slicker he'd have been soaked by the time he got to the barn.

As soon as he walked in, Hank saw him and came over with a beer. Tom laughed at the T-shirt and even as he took off his slicker, realized he was already scanning the faces for Annie. The barn was large but still too small for all the folk packed into it. There was country music playing, almost drowned by the sound of talk and laughter. People were still eating. Every now and then the wind would drive a cloud of smoke from the barbecue in through the open doors. Mostly people ate standing up because the tables hauled in from outside were still wet.

While he chatted with Hank and a couple of other guys, Tom let his eyes travel the room. One of the empty stalls on the far side had been turned into a bar and he could see Frank helping out behind it. Some of the older kids, including Grace and Joe, were gathered around the sound system, going through the box of tapes and groaning at the embarrassing prospect of their parents trying to dance to the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. Nearby Diane was telling the twins for the last time to quit throwing food or she'd take them right home. There were many faces Tom knew and many who greeted him. But there was only one he was looking for and at last he saw her.

She stood in the far corner with an empty glass in her hand, talking with Smoky who'd come up from New Mexico where he'd been working since Tom's last clinic. It was Smoky who seemed to be doing most of the talking. Every so often Annie glanced around the room and Tom wondered if she was looking for anyone in particular and if so whether it might be him. Then he told himself not to be such a damn fool and went and got himself some food.

Smoky knew who Annie was as soon as they were introduced. 'You're the one done call him when we were doing the Marin County clinic!' he said. Annie smiled.

That's right.'

'Hell, I remember him calling me when he came back from New York saying there was no way he was going to work with that horse. Now here y'all are.'

'He changed his mind.'

'Ma'am, he sure must of. Ain't never seen Tom do something he didn't want.'

Annie asked him questions about his work with Tom and what went on at the clinics and it was clear from the way he spoke that Smoky worshiped the ground Tom walked. He said there were quite a few people now doing clinics and things but not one of them was in the same league, or even close. He told her about things he'd seen Tom do, horses he'd helped that most folk would have taken out and shot.

'When he lays his hands on them you can see all the trouble just kind of fall out of them.'

Annie said he hadn't done this yet with Pilgrim and Smoky said that must be because the horse wasn't yet ready.

'It sounds like magic,' she said.

'No ma'am. It's more than magic. Magic's just tricks.'

Whatever it was, Annie had felt it. She'd felt it when she watched Tom work, when she rode with him. In truth, she felt it almost every moment she was with him.

It was this that she had contemplated yesterday morning when she woke with Grace still sleeping beside her and saw the dawn spilling in through the faded drapes that now hung unmoving. For a long time she'd lain quite still, cradled in the calm of her daughter's breathing. Once, from a distant dream, Grace murmured something that Annie labored in vain to decipher.

It was then she'd noticed, among the pile of books and magazines beside the bed, the copy of Pilgrim's Progress Liz Hammond's cousins had given her. She hadn't opened it nor had she any idea that Grace had brought it in here. Annie slipped quietly from the bed and took it to the chair by the window where there was just enough light to read.

She remembered listening wide-eyed to the story as a child, captivated on a simple literal level by the story of little Christian's heroic journey to the Celestial City. Reading it now, the allegory seemed obvious and clumsy. But there was a passage near the end that made her pause.

Now I saw in my dream that by this time the pilgrims were got over the Enchanted Ground and entering into the country of Beulah, whose air was very sweet and pleasant; the way lying directly through it, they solaced themselves there for a season. Yea, here they heard continually the singing of birds and saw every day the flowers appear in the earth and heard the voice of the turtle in the land. In this country the sun shineth night and day; wherefore this was beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death and also out of the reach of Giant Despair; neither could they from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were within sight of the City they were going to, also here met some of the inhabitants thereof. For in this land the Shining Ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of Heaven.

Annie read the passage three times and read no farther. It was this that had led her to call Diane to ask if she and Grace could come to church. However, the urge - so wildly out of character that it made even Annie laugh - had little, if anything, to do with religion. It had to do with Tom Booker.

Annie knew that somehow he had set the scene for what had happened. He had unlocked a door through which she and Grace had found each other. 'Don't let her turn you away,' he'd told her. And she hadn't. Now she simply wanted to give thanks, but in a ritualized way that wouldn't embarrass anyone. Grace had teased her when she told her, asking how many centuries it was since she'd last seen the inside of a church. But she said it with affection and was plainly happy to come along.

Annie's head refocused on the party. Smoky didn't seem to have noticed her drifting. He was in the middle of some long, involved story about the man who owned the ranch he was working at down in New Mexico. While Annie listened she went back to doing what she'd spent most of the evening doing, looking out for Tom. Maybe he wasn't coming after all.

Hank and the other men cleared the tables out into the rain again and the dancing began. The music was louder now and still country so that, led by the most streetwise among them, the kids could keep up their groaning, no doubt secretly relieved at not having to dance themselves. Laughing at your parents was a whole lot more fun than having them laugh at you. One or two of the older girls had broken ranks and were dancing and the sight suddenly had Annie worried. Stupidly, until now, it hadn't occurred to her that seeing others dance might upset Grace. She made an excuse to Smoky and went to find her.

Grace was sitting by the stalls with Joe. They saw Annie coming and Grace whispered something to him that made him grin. It was gone from his face by the time Annie got there. He stood up to greet her.

'Ma'am, would you like to dance?'

Grace burst out laughing and Annie gave her a suspicious glance.

'This is entirely unprompted of course,' she said.

'Of course ma'am.'

'And not, by any remote chance, a dare?'

'Mom! That's so rude!' Grace said. 'What a terrible thing to suggest!' Joe kept a perfect straight face.

'No ma'am. Absolutely not.'

Annie looked again at Grace who now read her mind.

'Mom, if you think I'm going to dance with him to this music, forget it.'

'Then thank you Joe. I'd be delighted.'

So they danced. And Joe danced well and even though the other kids hooted he didn't turn a hair. It was while they were dancing that she saw Tom. He was watching her from the bar and waved and the sight of him gave her such a teenage thrill that at once she felt embarrassed because maybe it showed.

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.

Chapter Twenty-six

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.

Grace could see he'd finished tying the knots, but he went on pulling them and working at them and suddenly she saw what it was he'd made. It was a simple halter. She couldn't believe it.

'Are you going to try and get that on him?'

Tom gave her a grin and said in a stage whisper, 'Only if he begs me.'

Grace was too involved to know how long it took. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, but not a lot more. Every time Pilgrim came nearer, Tom would move off, denying him the secret and fueling his desire to know it. And then Tom would stop and with every stop reduce by a fraction the gap between them. By the time they'd twice circled the corral and Tom had worked his way back to the center, they were only some dozen paces apart.

Now Tom turned so that he stood at right angles, still calmly working away at the rope and though once he looked up at Grace and smiled, never did he look at the horse. Thus ignored, Pilgrim blew and looked to one side then the other. Then he took two or three more steps toward Tom. Grace could see he expected the man to move off again but this time he didn't. The change surprised him and he stopped and looked around again to see if anything else in the world, including Grace, could help him make sense of this. Finding no answer, he stepped closer. Then closer still, blowing and craning his nose to get a whiff of whatever danger this man might have up his sleeve and balancing the risk against a now overwhelming need to know what he had in his hands.

At last he was so close that his whiskers almost brushed the brim of Tom's hat and Tom must have felt the snuffling breath on the back of his neck.

Now Tom moved away a couple of steps and though the movement wasn't sudden, Pilgrim jumped like a startled cat and nickered. But he didn't go away. And when he saw Tom was now facing him, he calmed. Now he could see the rope. Tom was holding it in both hands for him to have a good look. But looking wasn't enough, as Grace knew. He'd have to get a smell of it too.

For the first time, Tom was now looking at him and he was saying something too, though what, Grace was too far off to hear. She bit her lip as she watched, willing the horse forward. Go on, he won't hurt you, go on. But he needed no urging other than his own curiosity. Hesitantly, but with a confidence that grew with every step, Pilgrim walked to Tom and put his nose to the rope. And once he'd sniffed the rope, he started sniffing Tom's hands and Tom just stood there and let him.

In that moment, in that quivering touch between horse and man, Grace felt many things connect. She couldn't have explained it, even to herself. She simply knew that some seal had been set on all that had happened in the days just passed. Finding her mother again, riding, the confidence she'd felt at the party, all this Grace hadn't quite dared trust, as though at any second someone might snatch it all away. There was such hope however, such a promise of light in this tentative act of trust by Pilgrim that she felt something shift and open within her and knew that it was permanent.

With what was plainly consent, Tom now slowly moved one hand to the horse's neck. There was a quiver and for a moment Pilgrim seemed to freeze. But it was only caution and when he felt the hand upon him and realized it brought no pain, he eased and let Tom rub him.

It went on a long time. Slowly Tom worked his way up until he'd covered the whole of his neck and Pilgrim let him. And then he let him do the same on the other side and even feel his mane. It was so matted it stood like spikes between Tom's fingers. Then, gently and still without hurry, Tom slipped the halter on. And Pilgrim did not balk nor even for a moment demur.

The only thing that bothered him about showing this to Grace was that she might make too much of it. It was always fragile when a horse took this step and with this horse it was more than fragile. Not the eggshell but the membrane within it. He could read in Pilgrim's eyes and in the quiver of his flanks how close he was to rejecting it. And if he rejected it, the next time - if there was one - would be worse.

For many days Tom had worked for this, in the mornings, without Grace knowing. He did different things when she was watching in the afternoons, mainly flagging and driving and getting the horse used to the feel of a thrown rope. But working toward the halter was something he wanted to do alone. And until this very morning he hadn't known whether it would ever happen, whether the spark of hope he'd told Annie about was truly there. Then he'd seen it and stopped, because he wanted Grace to be there when he blew on it and made it glow.

He didn't have to look at her to know how much it moved her. What she didn't know, and maybe he should have told her before instead of being such a smartass, was that it wasn't all now going to be sweetness and light. There was work to come that might make Pilgrim seem cloaked yet again in madness. But that could wait. Tom wasn't going to start now. This moment belonged to Grace and he didn't want to spoil it.

So he told her to come in, as he knew she must long to. He watched her prop her cane against the gatepost and come carefully with only the slightest sign of a limp across the corral. When she was nearly up to them, Tom told her to stop. It was better to let the horse come to her than her to him and with barely a nudge on the halter rope he did so.

He could see Grace biting her lip, trying not to tremble as she held her hands out below the horse's nose. There was fear on both sides and it was surely a greeting of a lesser kind than Grace must remember. But in the sniffing of her hands, then later of her face and hair, Tom thought he saw at least a glimpse of what they once had been together and yet might be again.

'Annie this is Lucy. Are you there?'

Annie let the question hang for a while. She was composing an important memo to all her key people on how they should handle interference from Crawford Gates. The basic message was tell him to go fuck himself. She'd switched the answering machine on to give herself peace so that she could find an only slightly more veiled way of saying it.

'Shit. You're probably out chopping off cow's balls or whatever the hell it is they do out there. Listen, I… Oh, just call me will you?'

There was a troubled note in her voice that made Annie pick up.

'Cows don't have balls.'

'Speak for yourself kiddo. So we were lurking there, were we?'

'Screening, Luce, it's called screening. What's up?'

'He fired me.'

'What?'

'The son of a bitch fired me.'

Annie had seen it coming for weeks. Lucy was the first person she'd hired, her closest ally. By firing her, Gates was sending the clearest possible signal. Annie listened with a dull sinking in her chest while Lucy told her how it happened.

The pretext had been a piece on women truck drivers. Annie had seen the copy and though predictably preoccupied with sex, it was a lot of fun. The pictures were terrific too. Lucy had wanted a big headline that said simply MOTHERTRUCKERS. Gates had vetoed it, saying Lucy was 'obsessed with sleaze'. They'd had a stand-up fight in front of the whole office during the course of which Lucy had told Gates bluntly to do what Annie was trying to find a euphemism for in her memo.

'I'm not going to let him do this,' Annie said.

'Kiddo, it's done. I'm gone.'

'No you're not. He can't do it.'

'He can Annie. You know he can and, shit, I'd had enough anyway. It's no fun anymore.'

There were a few seconds of silence while they both thought about that. Annie sighed.

'Annie?'

'What?'

'You better get back here, you know? And quick.'

Grace came home late, bubbling with all that had happened with Pilgrim. She helped Annie serve supper and told her while they ate how it had felt to touch him again, how he'd trembled. He hadn't let her stroke him as he'd let Tom and she'd felt a little upset at how briefly he tolerated her near him. But Tom said it would come, you just had to take it a step at a time.

'Pilgrim wouldn't look at me. It was weird. Like he was ashamed or something.'

'Of what happened?'

'No. I don't know. Maybe just of the way he is.'

She told Annie how, later, Tom had led him up to the barn and they'd washed him down. He'd allowed Tom to pick up his feet and clean some of the compacted filth out of them and though he wouldn't let his mane or tail be cleaned, they'd at least managed to get a brush to most of his coat. Grace suddenly stopped and gave Annie a look of concern.

'You okay?'

'I'm fine. Why?'

'I dunno. You looked sort of worried or something.'

'Just tired I guess, that's all.'

When they were almost through eating, Robert called and Grace went and sat at Annie's desk and told the same story all over again while Annie cleared the dishes.

She stood at the sink washing pans and listening to the frenzied clatter of a bug trapped among corpses he maybe recognized in one of the fluorescent lights. Lucy's call had cast a reflective shadow that even Grace's news had failed fully to dispel.

Her spirits had lifted briefly when she heard the scrunch of the Chevy's wheels outside bringing Grace back from the corrals. She and Tom hadn't spoken since the barn dance though he'd scarcely been out of her thoughts and she'd quickly checked her reflection in the glass door of the oven, thinking, hoping, that he'd come in. But he'd just waved and driven off.

Lucy's call had hauled her back - as in a different way Robert's did now - into what she knew with dulling acknowledgment to be her real life. Though what she meant by'real', Annie no longer knew. Nothing, in a sense, could be more real than the life they'd found here. So what was the difference between these two lives?

One, it seemed to Annie, was comprised of obligations and the other of possibilities. Hence, perhaps, the notion of reality. For obligations were palpable, soundly rooted in reciprocal deeds; possibilities on the other hand were chimeras, flimsy and worthless, dangerous even. And as you grew older and wiser, you realized this and closed them off. It was better that way. Of course it was.

The bug in the light was trying a new tactic, taking long rests then hurling himself at the plastic casing with doubled effort. Grace was telling Robert how, the day after tomorrow, she was going to help drive the cattle up to the summer pastures and how they'd all be sleeping rough. Yes, she said, of course she'd be riding, how else was she supposed to go?

'Dad, you don't have to worry, okay? Gonzo's fine.'

Annie finished in the kitchen and switched off the lights to give the bug a break. She walked slowly into the living room and stopped to stand behind Grace's chair, idly arranging the girl's hair on the back of her shoulders.

'She's not coming,' Grace said. 'She says she's got too much work to do. She's right here, do you want to talk to her? Okay. I love you too Daddy.'

She vacated the chair for Annie and went off upstairs to run a bath. Robert was still in Geneva. He said he would probably be flying back to New York the following Monday. He'd told Annie two nights ago what Freddie Kane had said and now, wearily, she told him about Gates firing Lucy. Robert listened in silence and then asked her what she was going to do about it. Annie sighed.

'I don't know. What do you think I should do?'

There was a pause and Annie sensed he was thinking carefully about what he was about to say.

'Well, from out there, I don't think there's a whole lot you can do.'

'You're saying we should come back?'

'No, I'm not saying that.'

'With everything going so well with Grace and Pilgrim?'

'No, Annie. I didn't say that.'

'That's what it sounded like.'

She could hear him inhale deeply and suddenly she felt guilty about twisting his words when she wasn't being honest about her own motives for staying. His voice, when he resumed, was measured.

'I'm sorry if that's how it sounded. It's wonderful about Grace and Pilgrim. It's important you all stay out there as long as you need to.'

'More important than my job, you mean?'

'Christ, Annie!'

'I'm sorry.'

They talked about other, less contentious things and by the time they said good-bye they were friends again, though he didn't tell her he loved her. Annie hung up and sat there. She hadn't meant to attack him like that. It was more that she was punishing herself for her own inability - or reluctance - to sort out the tangle of half-realized desires and denials that churned within her.

Grace had the radio on in the bathroom. An oldies station was doing what they kept calling a Major Monkees Retrospective. They'd just played 'Daydream Believer' and now it was 'Last Train to Clarksville'. Grace must have fallen asleep or have her ears underwater.

Suddenly, and with suicidal clarity, Annie knew what she was going to do. She would tell Gates that if he didn't reinstate Lucy Friedman she would resign. She would fax him the ultimatum tomorrow. If it was still okay with the Bookers, she would, after all, go on the damned cattle drive. And when she came back, she would either have a job or she wouldn't.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 675