The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans

couldn’t. He started to cry. Just hung his head and stood there with his shoulders shaking. He was still holding Annie’s arms and she gently disengaged herself and held him the same way.
    “Go on. Tell me.”
    He took a long breath and tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling before he could look at her again. He made one false start then managed to say it.
    “They’re taking her leg off.”
    Annie would later come to feel both wonder and shame at her reaction that afternoon. She had never thought herself particularly stalwart in moments of crisis, except at work where she positively relished them. Nor did she normally find it difficult to show her emotions. Perhaps it was simply that Robert made the decision for her by breaking down. He cried, so she didn’t. Someone had to hold on or they would all be swept away.
    But Annie had no doubt that it could easily have gone the other way. As it was, the news of what they were doing to her daughter in that building at that very moment entered her like a shaft of ice. Apart from a quickly suppressed urge to scream, all that came into her head was a string of questions, so objective and practical that they seemed callous.
    “How much of it?”
    He frowned, lost. “What?”
    “Her leg. How much of it are they taking off?”
    “From above the—” He broke off, having to summoncontrol. The detail seemed so shocking. “Above the knee.”
    “Which leg?”
    “The right.”
    “How far above the knee?”
    “Jesus Christ Annie! What the hell does it matter?”
    He pulled away from her, freeing himself, wiping his wet face with the back of a hand.
    “Well, it matters quite a lot I think.” She was astonishing even herself. He was right, of course it didn’t matter. It was academic, ghoulish even, to pursue it but she wasn’t going to stop now. “Is it just above the knee or is she losing the top of her leg as well?”
    “Just above the knee. I haven’t got the exact measurements but why don’t you just go on down and I’m sure they’ll let you have a look.”
    He turned away to the window and Annie stood watching as he took out a handkerchief and did a proper job on the mucus and tears, angry at himself now for having wept. There were footsteps in the corridor behind her.
    “Mrs. Maclean?”
    Annie turned. A young nurse, all in white, darted a look at Robert and decided Annie was the one to talk to.
    “There’s a call for you.”
    The nurse led the way, walking in small rapid steps, her white shoes making no sound on the shining tiled floor of the corridor so that she seemed to Annie to be gliding. She showed Annie to a phone near the reception desk and put the call through from the office.
    It was Joan Dyer from the stables. She apologized for calling and asked nervously after Grace. Annie said she was still in a coma. She didn’t mention the leg. Mrs. Dyer didn’t linger. The reason she had called was Pilgrim.They’d found him and Harry Logan had been on the phone asking what they should do.
    “What do you mean?” Annie asked.
    “The horse is in a very bad way. There are broken bones, deep flesh wounds and he’s lost a lot of blood. Even if they do all they can to save him and he survives, he’s never going to be the same.”
    “Where’s Liz? Can’t we get her down there?”
    Liz Hammond was the vet who looked after Pilgrim and was also a family friend. It was she who had gone down to Kentucky for them last summer to check Pilgrim out before they bought him. She’d been equally smitten.
    “She’s away on some conference,” Mrs. Dyer said. “She’s not back till next weekend.”
    “Logan wants to put him down?”
    “Yes. I’m sorry Annie. Pilgrim’s under sedation now and Harry says he may not even come around. He’d like your authority to put him down.”
    “You mean shoot him?” She heard herself doing it again, hammering away at irrelevant detail as she had just now with Robert. What the hell did it matter how they were going to