The Horse Whisperer

Part Two

Chapter Six

It was in America that horses first roamed. A million years before the birth of man, they grazed the vast plains of wiry grass and crossed to other continents over bridges of rock soon severed by retreating ice. They first knew man as the hunted knows the hunter, for long before he saw them as a means to killing other beasts, man killed them for their meat.

Paintings on the walls of caves showed how. Lions and bears would turn and fight and that was the moment men speared them. But the horse was a creature of flight not fight and, with a simple deadly logic, the hunter used flight to destroy it. Whole herds were driven hurtling headlong to their deaths from the tops of cliffs. Deposits of their broken bones bore testimony. And though later he came pretending friendship, the alliance with man would ever be but fragile, for the fear he'd struck into their hearts was too deep to be dislodged.

Since that neolithic moment when first a horse was haltered, there were those among men who understood this.

They could see into the creature's soul and soothe the wounds they found there. Often they were seen as witches and perhaps they were. Some wrought their magic with the bleached bones of toads, plucked from moonlit streams. Others, it was said, could with but a glance root the hooves of a working team to the earth they plowed. There were gypsies and showmen, shamans and charlatans. And those who truly had the gift were wont to guard it wisely, for it was said that he who drove the devil out, might also drive him in. The owner of a horse you calmed might shake your hand then dance around the flames while they burned you in the village square.

For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubled ears, these men were known as Whisperers.

They were mainly men it seemed and this puzzled A

She read about an Irishman called Sullivan who lived two hundred years ago and whose taming of furious horses had been witnessed by many. He would lead the animals away into a darkened barn and no one knew for sure what happened when he closed the door. He claimed that all he used were the words of an Indian charm, bought for the price of a meal from a hungry traveler. No one ever knew if this was true, for his secret died with him. All the witnesses knew was that when Sullivan lead the horses out again, all fury had vanished. Some said they looked hypnotized by fear.

There was a man from Groveport, Ohio, called John Solomon Rarey who tamed his first horse at the age of twelve. Word of his gift spread and in 1858 he was summoned to Windsor Castle in England to calm a horse of Queen Victoria. The queen and her entourage watched astonished as Rarey put his hands on the animal and laid it down on the ground before them. Then he lay down beside it and rested his head on its hooves. The queen chuckled with delight and gave Rarey a hundred dollars. He was a modest, quiet man, but now he was famous and the press wanted more. The call went out to find the most ferocious horse in all England.

It was duly found.

He was a stallion by the name of Cruiser, once the fastest racehorse in the land. Now though, according to the account A

A

Something was happening to A

Grace tried to mask it from them - her parents, Elsa, her friends, even the army of counselors and therapists who were paid well to see such things -with a kind of dogged cheerfulness. But A

Quite why the life of a savage horse slammed up in a squalid, country stall should seem now so crucially linked with her daughter's decline, A

Everyone was going home when she got back to the office. She settled at her desk and Anthony gave her a list of messages and reminded her about a breakfast meeting she had been trying to avoid. Then he said good-night and left her on her own. A

Robert told her that Grace was doing her exercises. She was fine, he said. It was what he always said. A

'You sound tired,' he said. 'Heavy day?'

'No. I spent it reading about whisperers.'

'About what?'

'I'll tell you later.'

She started to go through the stack of papers Anthony had left for her but her thoughts kept sliding away into farfetched fantasies about what she'd read in the library. Maybe John Rarey had a great-great-grandson somewhere who'd inherited the gift and could use it on Pilgrim? Maybe she could place an ad in the Times to trace him? Whisperer wanted.

How long it was before she fell asleep she had no idea, but she woke with a start to see a security man standing at the door. He was doing a routine check of the offices and apologized for disturbing her. A

She called for a car and slouched dismally in the back as it took her all the way up Central Park West. The apartment building's green door-canopy looked colorless in the sodium glow of the streetlamps.

Robert and Grace had both gone to bed. A