When he reined up next to him, Frank told him to listen. For a few moments there was nothing. Then Tom heard it too, another frenzied call of horses.
'Where does this trail go?'
'I don't know. Ain't never been down here.'
Tom put his heels into Rimrock and launched him into a gallop.
The trail went up then down then up again. It was winding and narrow and the trees crowded so close on either side that they seemed to be whipping back the other way with a motion all their own.
Here and there one had fallen across the trail. Some they could duck and others jump. Rimrock never faltered but measured his stride and cleared them all without brushing a branch.
After maybe half a mile the ground fell away again then opened up under a steep, rock-strewn slope into which the trail had etched itself in a long upward crescent. Below it the ground fell sheer, many hundreds of feet, to a dark netherworld of pine and rock.
The trail led to what appeared to be some vast and ancient quarry, carved into the limestone like a giant's cauldron that had cracked and spilled its contents down the mountain. From this place now, above the hammering of Rimrock's hooves, Tom heard again the scream of horses. Then he heard another and knew,' with a sudden sickening, that it was Grace. It wasn't until he pulled Rimrock up in the cauldron's gaping mouth that he could see into it.
She was cowering at the back wall, trapped by a turmoil of shrieking mares. There were seven or eight of them and some colts and foals too, all running in circles and scaring each other more at every turn. Their clamor echoed back at them from the walls, only to redouble their fear. And the more they ran, the more dust they churned and the blindness only made them panic more. At the center, rearing and screaming and striking at each other with their hooves, were Pilgrim and the white stallion Tom had seen that day with Annie.
'Jesus Christ.' Frank had arrived alongside. His horse balked at the sight and he had to rein him hard and circle back beside Tom. Rimrock was troubled but stood his ground. Grace hadn't seen them. Tom got down and handed Rimrock's reins to Frank.
'Stay here in case I need you, but you're gonna have to make way pretty quick when they come,' he said. Frank nodded.
Tom walked to his left with his back to the wall, never taking his eyes off the horses. They swirled in front of him like a crazed carousel. He could feel the bite of the dust in his throat. It was clouding so thick that beyond the mares Pilgrim was only a dark blur against the rearing white shape of the stallion.
Grace was now no more than twenty yards away. At last she saw him. Her face was very pale.
'You hurt?' he yelled.
Grace shook her head and tried to call back to him that she was okay. But her voice was too frail to carry through the din and the dust. She'd bruised her shoulder and twisted her ankle when she fell but that was all. All that paralyzed her was fear -and fear more for Pilgrim than herself. She could see the bared pink of the stallion's gums above his teeth as he hacked away at Pilgrim's neck, where already there was the black glint of blood. Worst of all was the sound of their screams, a sound she'd heard only once before, on a snowy, sunlit morning in another place.
She saw Tom now take off his hat and step out among the circling mares, waving it high in front of them. They skidded and shied away from him, colliding with those behind them. Now they'd all turned and he moved in quickly behind them, driving them before him, away from Pilgrim and the stallion.
One tried to break away to the right but Tom dodged and headed it off. Through the dust cloud Grace could see another man, Frank maybe, moving two horses clear of the gap. The mares, with the colts and foals at their tails, bolted past and made good their escape.
Now Tom turned and worked his way around the wall again, giving space to the fighting horses, Grace supposed, so as not to drive them nearer to her. He stopped more or less where he'd been before and again called out.
'Stay right there, Grace. You'll be okay.'
Then, without any sign of fear, he walked toward the fight. Grace could see his lips moving but couldn't hear what he said over the horses' screams. Perhaps he was speaking to himself or maybe not at all.
He didn't stop until he was right up to them and only then did they seem to register his presence. She saw him reach for Pilgrim's reins and take hold of them. Firmly, but without any violent jerking of his hand, he drew the horse down off his hind legs and turned him from the stallion. Then he slapped him hard on his rump and sent him away.
Thus thwarted, the stallion turned his wrath on Tom.
The picture of what followed would stay with Grace till the day she died. And never would she know for sure what happened. The horse wheeled in a tight circle, tossing his head and kicking up a spray of dust and rock shards with his hooves. With the other horses gone, his snorting fury had dominion of the air and seemed to grow with each resounding echo from the walls. For a moment he appeared not to know what to make of the man who stood undaunted before him.