The Horse Whisperer

Seeing them all standing there, A

'I'll have a beer,' Frank said.

It got better though. She opened a bottle of wine while Grace took Joe and the twins off and sat them on the floor in front of A

A

She led him into the house, apologizing before he even asked for one that there wasn't any beer. Tom said wine would be fine and he stood and watched her pour it. She handed him the glass and looked him full in the eyes for the first time and whatever she'd been going to say flew right out of her head. There was a beat of embarrassed silence before he came to the rescue.

'Something smells good.'

'Nothing spectacular, I'm afraid. Is your horse alright?'

'Oh yeah. Her temperature's ru

Before she could answer, Craig ran in calling Tom's name and telling him he had to come and see something they had on the computer.

'Hey, I'm having a talk here with Grace's mom.'

A

The spaghetti was a hit. Diane even asked for the sauce recipe and A

And she thought how good it was to hear the silence of this house filled with talk and laughter. The kids sat at one end and the four adults the other, she and Frank facing Tom and Diane. A stranger, it occurred to A

Grace was telling everyone about the things you could access on the Internet, like The Visible Man, a murderer in Texas who had been executed and donated his body to science.

'They froze him and sliced him up into two thousand little pieces and photographed each one of them,' she said.

'That's gross,' Scott said.

'Do we want to hear about this while we're eating?' A

'It's the National Library of Medicine, Mom. It's education, for Godsake, not some stupid beat-'em-up game.'

'Slice 'em up, more like,' Craig said.

'Go on Grace,' Diane said. 'It's fascinating.'

'Well that's it really,' Grace said. She spoke without enthusiasm now, signaling to everyone that her mother had, as usual, deflated not just her but the topic too of both interest and fun. 'They just put him back together again and you can call it up on the screen and dissect him, like in three-D, you know.'

'You can do all that right here on that little screen?' Frank said.

'Yes.'

The word was so flat and final that only silence could follow it. It lasted but a moment, though it seemed to A

'Lord have mercy,' Diane said. 'Frank Booker's body on view to the nation.'

'Oh, and what's wrong with my body may I ask?'

'Where d'you want us to start?' Joe said. Everyone laughed.

'Hell,' said Tom. 'With two thousand pieces, you could put them back in a different way and get a prettier result.'

The mood began to flow again and once she was sure of it A

The apple tart wasn't so great. A

Frank was complaining about the conservationists, the greenos as he called them, and how they didn't understand the first damn thing about ranching. He addressed himself to A

'And all these greenos flew up from Missoula with their choppers and consciences and all and said, sorry old buddy, we'll airlift him out for ya, but don't you go trapping or shooting him or we'll nail your hide in court. Damn thing's probably lazing by the pool now at some five-star hotel, you and me footing the bill.'

Tom was gri

'This guy's one of 'em, A

Tom laughed and saw A

'Shoot, shovel and shut the hell up,' he confided. 'The caring rancher's response to nature.'

A

'What do you think, A

'Oh, I don't have to live with it.'

'But you must have an opinion.'

'Not really.'

'Oh surely. You must cover this kind of thing all the time in your magazine.'

A

'I suppose I think every creature has a right to live.'

'What, even plague rats and malarial mosquitoes?'

Diane was still smiling and the tone was light but there was something beneath it that made A

'You're right,' she said after a moment. 'I guess it depends who they bite.'

Frank gave a roar of laughter and A

'Joe won't let me use the computer!'

'It's not your turn,' Joe called from where the others were all still huddled around the screen.