Текст книги "Rider at the Gate"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

The snow came down so thick there was no telling they were on the road, except the lack of trees in front of them, and that could almost as well mean a drop off the mountain if they missed a winding of the road.

It wasn’t a time to hurry, no matter how cold. It was a time to have made camp, if they’d planned to spend the night in the open.

There couldn’t be that much farther to go to Tarmin. He wasn’t completely sure of his distances, but they ought to be there by now. They hadn’t seen further signs of destruction. The snow was too thick and coming down too hard, now—but the ambient had been damned quiet. Damned quiet.

he insisted to Burn.

Burn thought, he would have expected Burn would think,

But Burn was as confused as he was by the silence, and thought instead,

And the ambient was cold. So cold and still.

Then– wasn’t, quite.

he said to himself, spirits lifting. Somebody else was out in the hills, on the trail—or maybe in Tarmin itself, where he’d promised Burn they’d come by nightfall.

But he still found himself shying off from the thought. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’tbe sure. The ambient, vague and strange and silent as it generally was, began to conjure thoughts of a warm fire already made, and a companyof riders. Too good to be true.

It didn’t make sense with what he’d seen, evidence of dead riders—at least of a dead horse.

But riders might well be out hunting the rogue. Riders out of Tarmin village might be looking for it—and a bunch of them, in this storm, might be sitting safe behind Tarmin walls, trying to beacon him in through the whiteout of the blizzard, sensing a sane rider and a sane horse, and not the threat the rogue posed.

Maybe Cassivey had even done what he promised and called up to Tarmin to warn the villages. Even Shamesey might have. One lowland agency surely could have had the basic common sense to phone a warning of what the villages up here faced; and if that was the case, even if there’d been trouble here, then he could hope he came welcome, at a fire he didn’t have to build, and a sane barrier between him and the dark.

He wantedthat. He was in one hell of a fix if Tarmin was shut to him – or lost.

He was spooked, was all. He’d spooked badly at Shamesey gates, and he hadn’t any patience at all with himself – he couldn’t afford it in the Wild, with the snow coming down in what was unquestionably now a full-scale, high-country blizzard – and a rogue somewhere in the question. Damned sure that there was trouble on the mountain, but he’dbetter sound sane to Tarmin riders, or they wouldn’t let him in. They’d leave him outside till they could get sober sense out of him, and that risked Burn. Calm down, he said to himself. Calm waydown.

A couple more rises and falls of the road, a bending against the flank of the mountain ridge – and he could smell wood smoke in good earnest. It wasn’t at all as noisy as he thought a village Tarmin’s size should be – but it was all right, he said to himself: the heavy fall of snow and maybe a bad night last night could have sent a lot of the village to bed early, and left the rider camp on watch.

Burn saw Burn was picking up something that came through to him as a liveliness in the otherwise silent ambient.

Burn called out suddenly, that sharp, high challenge to another horse that shook Burn’s sides, and there was a instantly in the ambient as Burn imaged

Something came back to him – a familiar echo, he wasn’t sure from where or when, but he’d known that feeling. Burn said and answered it

A shot came off the rocks near him, ricocheted and whined. Burn jumped in utter startlement and a second shot splintered bark off an evergreen.

Instant, too, the image that came back, and

Damn, he knewthose horses.

Jonas. Luke.

Hawley.

He didn’t consciously think. It hit his gut and it hit Burn’s simultaneously, and Burn slid immediately into fighting mode, ready to settle accounts.

“” Guil sent, and Burn shied away from the challenge– imaged < gun!> and jumped into a run as a gunshot echoed off the mountain and shattered bark right next to them. They were at the village gates—snow-hazed, shadows of men and horses were there. It was

Burn took him past. He ducked down and hung on, trusting Burn to get them clear.

“ Guil!” someone yelled, far behind him. “Guil, damn your stupid hide!”

He didn’t look back. He rode low and Burn ran hellbent for as much distance as he could put between them and ambush—raced panting and reckless through the deep white of the road.

Signal shots, had been Danny’s first thought when he heard the gunfire—

He’d run out onto the porch, and then—then heard what sounded like an exchange of fire.

he thought.

Harper. Nobody else. Harper was up here on the mountain for one reason, and he hadn’t given up his hunt—it wasStuart; and it was Harper, too.

“What’s wrong?” Carlo and Randy were on his heels, coatless as he was as he ran down the street, rifle in hand, Cloud running along with him, and past him.

But he couldn’t answer, he was hearing he was hearing taking off into the blizzard, he was hearing and while were headed for

“Damn,” he said, and spun about and yelled at Carlo: “Get your coats. Get mycoat! Come on!” He could see Cloud wasinto it, because there was in the air, and Danny didn’t wait for coats or the boys or a second, reasoned thought. He put on a burst of speed with the cold air burning his lungs, the pistol trying to escape its holster, and the snow hitting his eyes so he couldn’t see. The street was a straight line—if he stumbled over things in the snow he didn’t want to know what they were. He ran until he was close enough for Cloud to have to recognize he was in the situation. He wanted < Cloud!> loud and clear.

Luke and Hawley were mounting up to ride out. Right in the gateway he grabbed Cloud first by the mane to stop him from going out with the other two, then got a hand against Cloud’s chest and shoved him back.

“Dammit!” he yelled at Luke and Hawley. He meant two senior fools going out into the whiteout and leaving the gates open on him and two village kids. He was mad. He wanted He wanted They had no right, dammit. Harper was out there in the whiteout. Harper was near the village for all he knew.

But he couldn’t catch them. He couldn’t leave the boys.

The two boys came running up out of breath, carrying their coats, and his, and rifles. He was too hot right now to need a coat, but he put it on anyway, put on his scarf and hat that the boys had brought, and took the rifle they handed him. Cloud was fidgeting back and forth, wanting but his rider wasn’t about to go off into the whiteout to find a pack of double-crossing sons of bitches.

Stuart—God knew what Stuart thought.

Or what kind of line he’dfallen for from Jonas.

Stuart’s friends. He couldn’t swear it wasn’t Jonas who’d fired.

“Our riders,” Carlo panted, “didn’t come back.”

“I know, I know.” He wanted

Then he had a cold, clear impression they weren’t alone. and before he could say a word, he knew it was Cloud went on guard facing that direction, projecting and

What came back was and what came shadowlike out of the blowing white right in front of them was two riders coming to the gate.

Danny sent, and the boys moved while he put a round in the chamber and lifted the rifle to his shoulder, shaking in the knees, but not in the steadiness of his aim, which was right for center of the shorter one he mentally labeled

he got back.

“The hell– shut it!” he screamed at Carlo, and kept his aim while the riders moved for the gate and two scared kids shoved the heavy gates shut and dropped the bar.

“Kid!” he heard Harper yell, the other side of the gates. “Kid, open up. Open it, or we’ll leave you for the rogue!”

“Son of a bitch! Open the gate!”

“You had your chance, Harper! You want supplies, we’ll give you supplies, right over the wall. But hell if I owe you anything but a cold bed in hell! Go find a shelter. You and Quig go tuck in for the winter and hope to hell I don’t come after you myself!”

He sent that to them. That was what he remembered. And they didn’t like it.

Stuart had been there. Stuart had been that close to the gates and spooked off. He’d felt Stuart’s presence and Stuart might not know anything right now except someone here had shot a gun off at him. Jonas and company had gone after Stuart and might not intend to come back—which left him with Harper and Quig, sitting here in the biggest, most attractive stationary target the rogue had, if the Goss kids were right about their sister.

In that light he could useHarper’s help. He could use a couple of good shots and he didn’t want to think of anybody dying out there in the Wild the way all Tarmin village had died.

But Harper wasn’t interested in anything but Harper—Harper was damn crazy, dead set on shooting Stuart, for reasons that had gotten further and further from any reasonable fear of Stuart’s going rogue. Harper wanted into Tarmin gates because if the Westmans came back Harper might shoot all of them and have the supplies, and spend all winter hunting Stuart, if Stuart didn’t get him in his gunsights first.

There was no dealing with this man.

came back through the gate.

Danny sent. Cloud added,

“Who are they?” Randy asked. Randy’s teeth were chattering and he tried not to show it. Cloud was sending into an angry ambient, and violence shivered over his skin and down into his gut. “They’re not who we’re looking for. Are they? Where did Jonas and them go?”

“These two are thieves.” Danny said. “Damned bandits, is all. They’re up here hunting Stuart for some crazy grudge. I hope to God he got away clear.” It dawned on him Jonas might have kited out like that in honest fear that Stuart or his horse might have been hit and need help out there in the storm. Luke would have gone after his brother—no fault in Luke for that, or Hawley for going to protect him. But right now he wished Tarmin had a gun-box the way Shamesey had, because, damn, he’d dust Harper and Quig right off their doorstep.

“Kid,” Harper said, from the other side of the gate.

“My name’s Dan Fisher, Harper, get it straight.”

“Look—” Harper said. “Call yourself anything you like. One horse is no match for this thing. Who’s that with you? Kids?”

“You just camp right there, Harper. We need bait.”

“You’re real damn brave on the other side of that gate!”

“You’re real damn stupid, Harper. That’s why you’re on the other side of that gate.” God, he hadn’t lost a bit from his bad-boy days and Randy thought it was wildly funny. Harper clearly didn’t. Carlo looked a shade more maturely worried.

But Cloud sent into the ambient, loud as Cloud could be.

“You damn fool!” Harper said.

“Camp out there. Be our guests.” He was thinking, And wasn’t altogether confident of that fight going the way he’d like.

“You listen to me,” Harper said. “You listen. I know what I’m talking about. My own brother—my brotherwent that way. You hear me?” “You son of a bitch, you hear me? Your friend Stuart knows about it. Sodamn righteous!”

“Maybe you can talk to Jonas,” Danny said. “Convince himyou’re a good guy.” Give the son of a bitch at least the idea of talking it out, if it didn’t naturally occur to dim brains. “He might think you were worth it. Or he could let you camp out there. Who knows?”

“My brother, kid. His name was Gerry Harper. You hear me? Took that hit in the head, him and the horse– ‘Oh, we can make it through the pass, yeah, we can make it.’ Stuart talks a good game to the truckers, but he’s never on the end of the cable when it breaks. – Gerry Harper. You hear the name, kid?”

“That’s a real sad story, Harper, but it doesn’t get you in here.”

“You listen to me. I shot him. Ishot him. Who’s going to pull the trigger on this one? You better get a manin there—you hear me? You hear me, kid? That thing’ll have you for breakfast.”

“Hasn’t yet. If you want to shoot it, shoot it from out there where itis! You don’t rough me up and threaten my horse and ask my charity, you damn jerk! —And Watt’s dead! You hear me, Harper? Watt’s dead out there. If you want to do something really useful, ride up to the High Loop villages and get some help down here!”

“Quit being an ass and < open this damn gate!>”

“No.” He was shaking. Shot his brother, it was now. He was dealing with a crazy man.

“Kid, —”

“You’re losing ground with me, Harper. I said I had a name. You keep forgetting it.”

“Fisher, then.” The ambient was wholly uneasy. There was complete lack of worry in the voice. “You can be a fool if you like.”

Damn, he thought, realized he’d gotten caught up in the images and dived into the image to mask himself, signaled the boys away from the gate, farther and farther. Cloud drew back with them, mad and still wanting

he sent, and Cloud stopped following and willingly turned back to

“I’m a fool,” he said to the boys, not trusting his ability to keep his intentions and his worries out of the ambient. But he had Cloud’s attention occupied with a nerve-jangling flare of He looked at the guard-post, where, if he climbed it, he might get a shot, but he couldn’t go thinking about it. “Rider gate, Carlo. Fast. Can you get a shot off from there?”

Carlo looked mortally scared.

“ Ican’t do it,” Danny said. “Cloud and I’ll keep him talking. Scare them off. Put shots around them. Whatever. Fire fast. Spook them out away from the wall—I’ll get up there—” A cut of his eyes to the guard-post aloft—and down, as he grabbed Carlo’s arm. “Don’t for God’s sake get shot. Or let them in.”

Carlo didn’t want to. Danny jerked his arm. “They can hearme any second, dammit! Do it!”

“Yeah,” Carlo agreed then. “—Randy, stay with him.”

Carlo didn’t stop to argue: Carlo went—Randy tried to run after him, but Carlo grabbed him, jerked him hard and sent him back.

Danny wished, but Cloud wasn’t in position to carry it to Carlo—he wasn’t getting this organized; he had Randy in his charge—he had to hope Carlo remembered.

Thenhe thought of vermin maybe occupying the rider camp– vermin a rider took for granted would clear his path. Carlo wasn’tprotected that way, Carlo was a damn brave village kid—with no horse to seewhat was going on before he opened that outer gate. Hell with his plan for climbing the gate-tower: if Carlo went down on any account Harper and Quig could take the rider camp and haveTarmin, with just him and Randy left.

He grabbed Randy by the coat and didn’t wait to explain—he dragged Randy with him half the distance to the rider-side gate, until they were far enough from the front gate he knew Cloud couldn’t hear—“Don’t think about Carlo!” he said. “The horse carries it! Stay here! Dammit, don’t budge!”

Randy was trying to get a breath, trying to get words out– Randy grabbed his arm and hung on and Danny swung and knocked the kid across the snow. He didn’t have words, didn’t have time—he aimed his rifle skyward and fired off two rounds and the shots echoed off the mountain above, shocking the silence.

He didn’t hear Harper and Quig now. But something else was coming through the ambient—something ominously considerable.

Damn, he thought. Damn! His heart was speeding. Now he didn’t know where Harper and Quig were. Cloud had left the front gate. Cloud was coming—but there wasn’t a damn thing Cloud could do from midvillage, and he’d not used his head, God help them.

He raced down the village street with Cloud at his heels and cut over to the camp gate—Carlo had shut it. Give the kid credit– he’d shut it. He flung the latch open and dived past the center-post, leaving a mad, frustrated horse behind him trying to get past a barrier that made that door human-only, Cloud making panic-sounds, sending out into the ambient as Cloud’s rider chased down Carlo’s rapidly filling tracks, white on white, past the horse den, breakneck through the blowing snow. He let off two more rounds at the sky to warn Carlo and Jonas at once, saw Carlo at the rider gate, just then opening it wide to the driving snow.

“Carlo!” he yelled. “ Get out of the way!”

Carlo turned, confused—looked at him and started to shut it again.

In the same moment a snow-hazed figure showed up in that gateway and Danny skidded to one knee, brought the rifle up and fired without stopping to see who it was.

Stupid, wrong, his brain told him. It might have been Stuart. Jonas. God knew. He’d probably missed. He’d scared hell out of Carlo, and the gateway, after his one shocked blink, held only blowing snow. He knelt there sighting down the gun and shaking as Carlo, only belatedly realizing he wasn’t the target, had the presence of mind to grab the gate and shove it to.

A shot from past Danny’s shoulder hit the log wall by Carlo and splintered the wood.

He knew it was Randy even before Carlo yelled at the kid, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, dammit! God! What are you doing?”

Randy didn’t fire another round. Cloud was making a sound he’d rarely heard Cloud make, a squalling, spitting fit. The den wall thumped to Cloud’s temper as Danny used the rifle butt to get his shaky legs under him.

His lungs were burning. Carlo was yelling against the wind at his brother, something about Put the damn rifle down, it was all right. Carlo was coming toward him and Randy was spooked, he got that in the ambient along with Cloud’s temper.

He didn’t know how his knees were staying under him. He bent over, rifle and all, leaned against his knees and tried to get his breath, short of wind in the high altitude, aware of Carlo coming past him, Randy running to Carlo, betrayed and scared and hurt.

“I hit the kid,” he gasped, straightening up, and threw the situation into the ambient, because he didn’t have the wind to talk and he was hearing Cloud all too well. He went into a coughing fit and got it under control. He had a stitch in his side. “Did the man go down?” was what he wanted to know, whether the man he’d shot at had dropped, whether he’d killed somebody—whether they still had Harper to contend with—

But the pressure in the ambient, that thinghe’d been feeling, was gone. The gunfire might have spooked it off.

“Did he go down, Carlo, dammit?”

“I don’t know,” Carlo said. “I think you got him.”

He couldn’t hear anything but Cloud’s panic and outrage. If there was a rider down, his horse should be doing something, feeling something. Harper’s horse should. He had a bad feeling about things out of control in every direction, and walked back where the kids were and where Cloud was, Cloud on the far side of the camp gate and mad and scared.

Carlo had Randy by the shoulder, too, saying something about “Told you to stay put, dammit!” and Randy was paper-white and on the edge: Randy had been

“Kid,” Danny said, and lost his voice again. He clapped Randy on the back. “Danger you’d leak Carlo to the bad guys. —Sorry. Sorry I hit you. They could have heard you—understand? Sorry.”

Randy had a hand to his bloodied mouth, tears freezing on his white, cold-blotched face. He still looked to be in shock, but the ambient eased.

“Did you shoot him?” Randy asked.

“Dunno.” He still couldn’t breathe. He was getting the shakes enough for them to notice. “Pretty sure I missed. Damned mess. Sorry. < Cloud, dammit, quiet.>”

Cloud was trying to shoulder the obstructing gate-post down. But there was only Cloud out there on the village side. Danny went through the gate and moved Cloud back with a push on his chest.

Cloud had blood on his shoulder where he’d tried to force the narrow gate, and his breath steamed in great puffs on the bitter wind.

Danny flung his arm about Cloud’s neck and apologized in a cheek-to-cheek way that didn’t need the kind of confused, angry force Cloud was sending out, just

Cloud had never found himself on the wrong side of a barrier like that. Cloud was so scared he was trembling, too, and he was spitting froth mixed with blood—he’d bashed his lip on the post, Danny decided, and was sorry. But he couldn’t have done anything else— he told Cloud,

Big shiver out of Cloud. The boys had come through to the camp side behind him. They could get the side gate shut and latched on thisside, then, but the main gate still scared him. He wanted and walked in that direction, shaking too much to run.

He wasn’t in the least cold. He was sweating, and his chest burned from the thin winter air. He could get

Cloud didn’t disagree.

Then somebody fired a shot that rang far off across the mountainside, and they stopped still.

Second shot, from out there.

Distance made them blind and deaf to the origin—the mountain echoed it until even Cloud didn’t know where it was.

He waited for a third shot. It didn’t come. The boys were But was in Randy’s thoughts. The brothers didn’t want that. The darkness that had been around the image last night wasn’t there, this time.

was there.

“Cut it out,” Danny said sharply, “shut down. Quiet, dammit. It’s probably just Jonas signaling he’s coming back. Maybe he’s bringing Stuart.”

He fervently hoped so. More, he hoped they’d just shot the rogue, and that the boys’ blonde sister was coming back with them, and they’d find Stuart, and they’d tell Harper go to hell and take his sad stories with him.

Cloud stayed beside him as they went to the gate—closed and latched the door on the store while they were at it, because the boys had left it wide open, let all the heat out and burned up a load of wood besides endangering their supplies—“Sorry,” Carlo said. But he didn’t blame the boys, and latched it and went on.

They didn’t go into the gate house. Randy thought they should go in where it was warmer, and set up a fuss about it—but Danny said a flat no, and tried not to image what was in there. He climbed up to the tower and down again when he found he couldn’t see anything better in the blowing snow—if he’d gone up there he couldn’t have gotten a clear target anyway; so everything about his plan was stupid, and he came back down to Carlo and Randy fast, before they got to investigating anything in the gate house.

He tried not to think about while he was doing it. But there were. Bones and dead people were all up and down the street. The snow was just covering them, that was all, burying them

And he wished—he prayed to the God who didn’t hear riders– that Jonas would find Stuart and get him back here so they could all be safe and the senior riders would know what to do to save their lives.

He’d only covered his mistakes. He didn’t know who he’d shot, he didn’t know anything: he was down to admitting that, even to himself.

Chapter xx

THE AMBIENT WAS CLEAN NOW. THE SNOW AND THE TREES WERE A silence no other presence breached.

Guil thought. He’d long since slid down from Burn’s back and walked beside Burn, Burn with head hanging, still coughing occasionally from the cold air. Moisture from Burn’s jaws, frozen on his chest, glistened in the blued grey of the snowfall. Burn still kept expecting his rider’s expectation to the contrary.

But there wasn’t any safety in lingering. Guil kept a hand on Burn’s side, he imaged. and he tried not to think beyond that, or to wonder about human motives, because Burn was taking in everything and he couldn’t stop it.

They’d gone off the road. They came down to it again, both still walking. It didn’t take hard guessing—just careful footwork on the steeps, and down again in the same direction. No knowing whether Jonas was following them or not.

But he’d heard faint shots back in the direction of the walls, and another couple closer, that he thought might be the searchers signaling each other—they weren’t close enough to be firing at him, but that didn’t mean safety.

Jonas had yelled at him to come back, called him a fool.

And maybe he was. Maybe there was a real good explanation—like a nervous guard. But shooting at him wasn’t confidence-inspiring.

Most of all, he didn’t know what in hell Jonas was doing sitting in a village surrounded by tattered scavengings, after he’d shown no sign of coming up here.

He damn sure wasn’t going to risk Burn going back to give them another try. And considering things Jonas hadn’t told him about Aby’s dealings back at Shamesey gate, he wasn’t at all sure what had made Jonas take another trip up the mountain.

Jonas had gotten his convoy to Shamesey. He was free to go back with no one knowing—or giving him specific orders, unless he’d alsogotten them from Cassivey; and he didn’t think so.

Jonas was much more distinguished by what he hadn’tdone: Jonas hadn’t come out that night to bring him what was his at Shamesey gate.

Jonas hadn’t said—I’ll go with you up the mountain, Guil.

Jonas hadn’t said, in sum, anything about his gear, the bank account, Hawley, the gold shipment, or his own intentions to be here.

Jonas had wanted around him, and not given him damned much at Shamesey—just walled himself off and tried to bottle up the rogue-feeling so it didn’t spread: that was a service, but it was, as they said in the hills, a real cold supper. He didn’t say he’d have been more in control of himself at Shamesey if Jonas had given him even an I’m sorry; but Jonas hadn’t buffered anything he gave him: just—flung it at him. “Aby’s dead, Guil.”

Nowdid Jonas come to help?

Hell.

Jonas knew about the gold, was one good bet.

But—that came back to the same question: what in hell did a rider do with that kind of money? A village could steal that much. A village could loot the truck. A rider couldn’t find anything to do with it, couldn’t be safeif he had that kind of stash, couldn’t keep from rousing curiosity if he didn’t work—and had the better things that money could buy. There was no damn wayhe could use the pure metal for one thing. He’d have to fake nuggets or corrupt an assayer, —or somebody he’d forever be vulnerable to. It wasn’t something a rider would do.

Get himself in good with Cassivey? Get Aby’s job? Thatwas much more likely.

Thatwas a rider motive.

He checked Burn over head to hoof and head to tail once they reached the level ground of the roadway, in case Burn should have been hit or cut in their mad dash away from Tarmin and neither of them know it. Burn was his only worry. Burn’s welfare and the quiet of the mountainside was the only thing that occupied his brain: they were all that had to make sense at the moment.

Burn was wanting but Burn was running on fragile strength right now, too, having carried him much more than Burn ordinarily would. They’d gone since dawn; they’d had one real night of rest since the climb up; somebody, most likely Aby’s summer’s-end partners and the cousin who’d raided their bank account, had shot at them for reasons he still didn’t figure; and until things made better sense to an aching head and a tired body, he figured to stay ahead of the questions and just take care of the business he’d come to do: get the rogue that was surely responsible for the scavenged remains and dead horse he’d seen back there at the rider-shelter, and thenfigure whether or not to talk to Jonas.

Then let Jonas keep Hawley Antrim out of his reach. Andlet him explain the situation at Tarmin village.

There were, in his mental map of the lower side of the Tarmin road, two shelters available, one midway, one just short of the Climb that went up the steep to the High Loop. The middle one they could make. They could do it, just hit a staying pace and keep moving.

Meanwhile the snow was coming down thick. It melted on Burn’s overheated back as fast as it fell, sticking on Burn’s mane and making a fair blanket on his black hide in only the time he’d stood still being checked over. The track they’d plowed downhill was fast vanishing under new snowfall.

He walked, Burn beside him.