Текст книги "Rider at the Gate"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

And it didn’t travel. It strengthened, there and not-there, consistently strengthened, while he and Burn stayed still.

Horse. Horse, he was almost certain. Strengthening presence meant it was coming straight toward the shelter.

Single horse.

He grabbed up the rifle, cursed himself as he checked its action—long overdue precaution. He’d used the piece for a walking-stick. God knew what he’d done to it the time he’d gone down and bruised his knee. But it worked. He had a bullet ready.

He waited, conscious of that sketched image staring out across the room over his head. He felt the tension in Burn, felt—now and again—the sense of something reaching out blindly into the dark, feeling about it, looking.

A lonely something. A desperate someone. Burn didn’t make the young-horse mistake of reaching back. They waited, quiet for a long, long while, anxious—but he began to want the thing, began to think about and and wanted that thing to come in, come to the gun-slit at the front of the cabin; get it over with, get it finished, the first night he was on the ridge.

He got up from the floor. He stood listening into the ambient, quiet, careful, not wanting Burn to commit too far, too dangerously out into that dark.

But it knew now that they were there. It skittered across his mind, canny, and scared, and desperate. He wanted to use his ears—hear it coming toward the door—but the wind screamed that single note across the roof, covering all sound else. He could feel it coming closer, and closer, and filling all the ambient, there and not there. He went to the wall, where the gun-port was—hesitated to unlatch it until he was reasonably sure what he was dealing with.

he felt it. Then:

Burn made a strange soft sound. entered the ambient.

Another thump. Hard. Two. Burn immediately grew excited, throwing his head and imaging back as, over the shriek of the wind came an unmistakable nighthorse sound outside the door, a female’s sound. Burn did a little sideways dance as Guil left the wall and grabbed a fistful of mane with his free hand.

“Burn, dammit, shut up.” He got a breath. quiet.> God,

“Let me in!” It was hardly a voice. It was maybe a rag of a human voice past the wail of the wind. The ambient was howling

Burn jerked the mane out of his hand,

“Open the door!” the voice outside cried, thin and breaking. “Dammit!”

A blow thumped against the door. He saw He saw and Most of all he felt in, something behind them—>

“There’s a rogue loose!” he yelled back. “How do I know it’s not you?”

“I’m not, you damn fool! God! Open the door! I left my camp, I smelled the smoke—I’m freezing out here, we’re both freezing. Open the damn door!”

They didn’t feel insane. Bush wisdom held that sometimes a rogue seemed entirely normal. Then wasn’t.

Burn was going crazy behind him, on totally different grounds, Burn was

But that was the mistake every victim made in the Wild. The voice outside, someone in desperate, mind-shaking need—the reason to open the door.

“God! Let me in! I’m not any damn rogue! Let me in, you damn coward! Open this door!”

Burn believed it. He began to believe it, telling himself it was still early in the season, there could still be a rider out, and he could find somebody frozen to death on his step.

It was a woman, he was sure it was a woman, by the horse and by the pitch in the voice when it cracked—and he’d no wish to deal with female horses or female riders; Burn was going crazy on him, Burn was going to go for the mare if he let them in—

“Open up!” Another thump of a fist. And he didn’t see what else to do. He set the rifle aside, drew his pistol for closer range—then lifted the latch, gave the door a shove, and put his shoulders against the front wall.

The door dragged outward with a gloved hand pulling it. Then a horse, as forward as Burn, forced her head in—surged through, a snow-blanketed darkness that met Burn in the middle of the room and dodged him in a perimeter-threatening dance around and around a second time as Burn sniffed after and the mare gave him a surly, warn-off.

He’d glanced at themlike a fool—anxious about the horse. He glanced back a confused eyeblink later face to face with a muffled, snow-mantled and angry rider—as the mare shook herself from head to tail and spattered the whole room with snow and icewater.

“Who are you?” the rider demanded to know, and slammed the door shut. A gloved hand pulled off the hat and ripped the scarf off a head of dark hair, a pair of dark eyes, a wind-burned and pretty face—which was no comfort to a man hoping he hadn’t just let two killers into the shelter with him and his horse. “What are you doing here?”

“My name’s Stuart,” he said, and didn’t put away the gun. “Out of Malvey district. Who are you? The proprietor?”

“Tara Chang. Out of Tarmin village.” Teeth were chattering. Hard. “Malvey’s a far ride. What are you doing up here?”

“The rogue killed my partner. I’m afraid it’s got your village.”

A tremor of distress hit the ambient, but not strongly. The situation at Tarmin was no surprise to her.

But it was about all her constitution seemed able to bear. The bled out and she walked over to the fire—sank down on the hearthstones in a precipitate collapse of the legs, head down, gloved hands in hair. “Hell,” she said, and the pain in the ambient drew the mare over to nose her rider’s back.

The gun didn’t seem so reasonable as it had. He wasn’t sure. He kept expecting an explosion, a sudden shift into insanity. But with none in evidence, he put the gun back in holster, carried the rifle back to the far side of the fireplace, the side he determined to sit on—and thought of and

“Yeah,” she said. Her eyes were pouring tears. She hadn’t gotten her gloves off. God knew about her feet. Or her horse’s.

he thought.

She approved of that. She leaned and got the bottle of spirits– uncorked it and took a swallow.

You weren’t supposed to do that. It was stupid when you were cold, but she didn’t take another. He put on another pan of water to heat, and with a wary glance at the woman sitting on the hearth, eyes shut, cradling the bottle in her lap, decided he’d better fill water buckets again—his and the horses’.

Which meant the door opening, however briefly, and a cold gale swirling for a moment about the room while he packed one and then the other bucket with snow.

Burn didn’t care. Burn was nosing about the mare as he came back in, pulled the door shut, and set the buckets on the hearth.

Interested—God. “Burn, let her alone, you damn fool! She’s damn near frozen!”

Damn fool, he thought, and poured the woman tea in one of the shelter’s cups. “The water barrel’s frozen solid,” he said. “It’ll warm up by tomorrow, maybe.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“I’ll rub your horse down. She’ll be all right. Gloves off. Boots off. There’s aromatic rub and there’s snow for water.”

“Yeah,” she said, and started pulling gloves off with her teeth. He took the salve, of which he didn’t have but half left, and started in on the mare’s legs, while Burn licked the ice off the mare’s back. The mare nipped Burn. But not hard.

“God, save it,” he muttered to Burn. “There’s problems. God!”

Burn sent him and and he got a feeling that he didn’t know words for, but it involved pushing himself on a woman when she hurt. The rider was upset, the mare was upset—

“Let her the hell alone, Burn, you damn fool, give her a chance to catch her breath.”

“Flicker,” Chang said from the hearthside. “Name’s Flicker.”

He caught the image. A lot like Shadow, only light, not dark. She was picking up the other business, too, and while neither of them was acutely embarrassed—she was no junior—he felt himself pushed and set upon by his own horse. In most respects he and Burn were a match. Not in this.

“Sorry,” he said, and squatted down, arms on knees, as far away from her as he could and still feel the fire. “My horse is a fool. You want to quiet it down?”

“They’re all right.”

“Are you? Hands and feet?”

“All right.” Her feet were bare. She wiggled toes, and meanwhile downed a piece of biscuit—she’d found them; chased it with spirit-laced tea.

She seemed to be. So he got up and got several of the shelter’s blankets down from the shelf, and he didn’t invite approaches. She and her horse seemed all right, he was entirely sorry he’d given her a hard go-over and kept her out in the cold—but wherever she’d walked from, those feet hadn’t been cold as long as his had, and Tarmin’s troubles weren’t just today’s event. A day ago—at least. She’d been somewhere safer than he had.

She mumbled, “Two days. I think it’s two days.” She gave a shiver, and poured more of the spirits into the tea. Offered the bottle to him.

He wanted more awareness than that while he slept, though he was very glad to see she would sleep soundly.

She gave him a narrow look, thinking, Or that was the uncharitable way his mind interpreted it.

“No,” he said, taking offense. But her thoughts were skittering about so fast he couldn’t catch them, a lot about people he didn’t know, a lot about a camp he thought must be Tarmin, about a jail and an alarm in the night.

Not comfortable thoughts to sleep with. There was when they got loose, and but he didn’t think—he didn’t thinkit was an unnatural anger, or an unnatural pain. It just resonated too well with his own, that left him touchy and on the edge.

She took a precautionary look toward the door, then wrapped her two blankets around herself, with a persistent thought about a man—a rider—

He understood that, God, he wished he could put a damper on that feeling, smooth it down, ease the pain, distance the memories. It was her lost partners she’d looked to find when she’d smelled the smoke and come battering at the door.

<“Who areyou?”> with so much anger—

Then it went away. Guil got a breath. The horses did, snappish and dangerous in a closed space.

While Tara Chang sat in her blankets, rested her head on her jacketed arm and stared bleakly into the fire.

Guil sat there a moment—asking himself what he’d let in and what was over there with Burn.

Grief, he decided. A day old, no more. A loss that racketed off his own, and left him raw-nerved. He probably made it worse for her—couldn’t help but make it worse for her.

he sent, kept it up until the horses had calmed down, until he saw the woman sigh and settle, and felt the ambient quiet enough to dare let go and try to relax.

The mattresses on the bunks might have warmed if he’d dragged them over and left them an hour or so at the fireside; but right now he was exhausted and the hearthstones were warmer. He took his own couple of blankets, laid his pistol down, wrapped in them and lay down in the fire-warmth, head on his much-abused hat and scarf, that he stuffed under him from where he’d dropped them.

He was still cold—as if ice had gotten clear into the core of him, and another wave of it was coming out to chill his skin. He lay there by another heavy-coated, living body, as cold as she was, with no erotic notions whatsoever and wondering if he dared shut his eyes.

But in a few moments of quiet, Burn and the mare were back to their quiet muttering of grunts and sniffing and sneezing—

The mare was tired, snappish, and out of sorts. Burn, going too far, nearly got something important nipped. He heard the row. More, he felt it, and twitched into a spasm of cold chill, knees drawn up, and wishing intensely that Burn would quiet the hell down.

The woman in front of him was a solid sleeping lump now. Two drinks, as tired as she looked to be, and probably the roof could fall on her unnoticed.

Probably it was safe to shut his eyes and get some sleep. He didn’t have any reason to doubt her. Burn didn’t doubt the mare, and kept at his courtship, somewhat more gingerly—which didn’t make Burn’s rider more comfortable. Guil turned over, arranged his arm over the gun and belt beside him.

In very remote case, he was sure. But he didn’t believe in deliberate chances.

Meanwhile the horses were bickering, Burn was exhausted, sore, and impatient, having made the one perilous try at a chilled, sore-footed, sore-backed mare, and settled to a sullen male posturing– imaging male horse,> until Burn’s male rider was

Burn wouldn’t. The mare was on her feet. Burn was Burn wasn’t going to lie down in the presence of any If Burn deigned

“God.” Guil took several deep breaths, and imaged, < Horses lying down,> loud and mad. Which was fit to wake his own bedmate. So he sent, Lying down mare.>

The mare settled down fairly abruptly, imaging—he was sure it was the mare—

Burn postured, Burn circled twice, lifted and flagged his tail, preened a foreleg, finally—

Guil sent furiously.

Burn preened the other foreleg, and gracefully, gracefully, settled to a noble resting posture—not damned comfortable, but, hell, Guil agreed, asking himself if he’d ever in his human life possibly been such an ass.

He grew warm, finally. He shut his eyes, drifted toward sleep, listening to another shifting-about with the horses. Horses didn’t mind resting their legs, but give it about an hour and a healthy horse would be up to sleep a while standing; and down again, when he tired of that—they weren’t quiet sleeping partners, unless the night was very cold indeed.

Which it wasn’t, with the fire going.

And now—

Now Burn wanted

God.

But Burn had to. It wasn’t Burn’s fault. Sex failed and the other urge of nature took over. You couldn’t ask Burn to wait. You could want to shoot him—but, hell, you woke up, took your gun to guard the door, you got up—

He let Burn out. He stood there against the wall, freezing in the brief blast of cold air, testing whether human beings could nap standing up—he could manage it.

But now that Burn was outside, the mare wanted

Fine. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. He opened the door and Burn wanted in where it was warm. Immediately. Burn came in, radiating cold, covered with snow. Shook himself.

Guil shut his eyes, folded his arms tightly to keep himself from folding over in the middle, braced his heels, and waited for the mare. While the wind shrieked over the loose shingle.

In not so long the mare wanted back in and he wearily opened the door, accepted another horse shaking herself and spattering snow about, as he shut the door and double-checked the latch, arguing with himself that the mare was perfectly sane, that possibly now that the horses were settled, he might settle.

Chang was staring at him over the top of the blankets.

“God,” she said, and collapsed. for a moment. She’d wakened and been confused where she was.

“Sorry.” He came back, gathered his blankets around him and sat down—lay down, shivering, and put the gun beside him.

“We’re not the rogue,” the woman said.

“We aren’t either,” he said, laid his head on his makeshift pillow and wrestled the blankets up to his neck.

“I knew that.”

“How?”

“Because I know who is.”

“God.” He wanted desperately to shut his eyes and sleep. And he didn’t want to believe what he was hearing. It complicated everything.

But it felt true. Everything about the woman felt true—and disturbing.

“A kid.”

“Village kid,” she said. “Name’s Brionne Goss.”

“Kid’s dead, if she’s out in this.”

The woman didn’t answer. There was too much of of “My partners went out after her. Didn’t come back.”

He remembered the rider shelter north of the village. Remembered and shied off from that image too late, sending sending all he understood to give.

For a long, long moment the air was thick with emotions. The mare came over and trod on the blankets, nosing her rider’s leg. Burn came, disturbed, and Guil sat up to lay a restraining hand on the offered nose. Pushed at it. he wished, and with the mare near the woman, there was no coherent thought in the ambient, just roiling, dark, disturbance.

Burn made a quiet, disturbed sound—next to a warning. Guil sent, and got to one knee, and slowly to his feet, wanting to get provocation out of the mare’s reach. It was hard even to breathe, let alone to think. He backed Burn up, wanting

Then leapt into the ambient, grotesque, horrid, in her sight, in her mind, and and flew around the room. Burn reared—Guil grabbed trailing mane and skidded and held on as Burn shied.

Held him. Burn stood trembling with anger. Chang had the mare, had hold of her, scared, and

Guil urged at her, at Burn, at everything in reach. He reconstructed it out of the dark. He sent and felt, finally, Chang’s help quieting the mare. Chang wanted But she got it under control, got the horse quiet.

“Small room,” he said. “Easy. Tight space here.”

“That your idea of a joke?” Meaning the image.

“I didn’t do it. Didn’t doit. Haven’t even made my mark up there. Swear to you. Didn’t make me damn happy either. Throw a blanket over it.”

She got a breath or two. Thought about and didn’t do it. She was calmer. She calmed the mare, who was still throwing off Chang was doing the same, shaky and still

It was cold on this side of the room. He wanted He wasn’t going close to her horse. He had enough trouble keeping Burn still.

For a moment things stayed as they were, balanced on a knife’s edge of Chang’s temper and his nerves. Then he felt the anger unwind, slowly, slowly, into a quieter disturbance. A few more breaths.

She shook at the mare’s neck, wanting and thought She was shaken and upset. She wanted—

He understood—he didn’t expect her to get that much steadiness back, not that fast. He wished he’d thought to cover that damned thing.

“It’s stupid,” she said, shaky-voiced. “Not that good a drawing. I ate your damn supper, I’ve no right to chase you off your own fireside.”

He wasn’t sure. Burn wasn’t sure. Burn snorted and got between them, with him holding onto Burn’s mane most of the way. But he ducked past Burn’s neck, about the offer. Flicker had her ears laid back. He wasn’t confident the woman was all that steady.

“I knew,” she said, “God, I knew, I just—”

–hadn’t let it get loose, he thought, and stayed where he was as she made another effort and took a furtive wipe at her eyes. She turned deliberately and stared at the image on the wall. Stayed that way for a long moment, then patted the mare on the shoulder, jaw tight, eyes aswim with moisture, and went back to the fireside.

He stood there. He didn’t know what else to do. She straightened hers, she straightened his. The horses were confused at this flapping of blankets and shadows, uneasy, not knowing clearly what the disturbance was. had been in her mind and his. It wasn’t good.

She finished tidying up. Stood there in front of the fire and lost her battle. A man’s face was in the ambient, and she couldn’t breathe– hecouldn’t, and then the mare was coming at him, scored a nip on his sleeve as Burn snaked a neck past, defending him.

He cast about for a broom, a stick—and shedived in and grabbed the mare’s mane—he flung himself in Burn’s way, shoving at his chest, she was shoving at the mare—holding, pushing, until they had a perilous quiet established. The bottle had gone spinning across the hearth, unbroken. The blankets were almost in the fire.

She was shaking. He was. They had it broken up, stood there reassuring horses until everything was quiet, inside—while the wind kept screaming its two notes into the spooked, treacherous dark. She wanted wanted and he put his own agreement behind it.

Dangerous as hell. She was scared. He was scared. There were scars on the walls. There was blood drawn, minor nips, but it wasn’t a time to push the horses. She put a cold hand in his, they made a tentative peace, pats on the shoulder, a demonstration of nonhostility while the horses were bickering and threatening each other. She’d pulled herself together. She’d used her head. He turned a pat into an arm around the shoulders, a quick, comradely squeeze with nothing behind it but thanks for her good sense, but she flinched away from it, and the ambient was still queasy.

In what seemed a second thought, then, she caught his arm and had him sit by the fire, shoved blankets at him and wrapped herself in her own. Her hands shook, holding the blanket under her chin. she was sending, a calm-sending.

“I’m fine,” she stuttered. “F-F-Fine.”

A fool would breach that calm-sending. He said with feeling, “It’s all right, woman. Just breathe.”

“Didn’t have a choice about being in here. They’re dead. They’re all dead. I th-thought I was handling it. Th-Thought Vadim at least—m-might have made it. He was the best. He was the best, but he—” “He’d g-go after that damn k-kid. Him and Chad. Both.”

He didn’t want to stir it up. But he asked himself and it couldn’t help but be a question.

She shook her head. “No.” “Flicker. Flicker got me out. Wasn’t thinking. Left my damn g-gun. I didn’t do too well.”

“Doing damn all right, woman. You’re alive.” He was of her calm. He was glad of her lifeafter the thing he’d just felt. He felt the shakiness still in her, knew there wasn’t a way in hell to reach into a woman’s private thoughts and patch anything, no matter if he wanted to, no matter how good his intentions—couldn’t prevent her doing what she’d do, wasn’t right to want to. If he’d learned one thing from Aby, that was true.

He’d not held on to her. He’d not tried to change her.

And she’d died.

She reached out and laid her hand on his knee, shook at him to get his attention, her face glistening with tears, as his was. “Name’s Tara,” she said, pointed reminder.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Aby?”

You couldn’t hear words in the ambient. He didn’t know how she came up with the name. But was in her imaging, too.

“You knewher,” he said.

“A lot of years. Last winter. When she stayed over. You’re thatStuart. HerStuart.”

He nodded. Wanted more of that image. Desperately wanted the missing pieces of Aby’s life. The questions he couldn’t answer.

“She’s dead?” She hadn’t known. “What in hell happened?”

He threw it into the ambient. It was easier than talking about what words didn’t say anyway.

“I saw the wreck.” “I’d no idea—God.”

“So I’m going after that thing. Get it stopped.”

“By yourself?” Then “Like hell you are.”

“I’d rather,” he began on

She shook her head, now, “Two of us. That much more chance.”

He wasn’t happy about it. He wanted her safe. Didn’t want any more dying.

“I need a gun,” she said. “You can’t use two at once.”

“Woman, —”

“Name’s Tara.”

“Guil,” he said. “ Myguns.” That was damn selfish. He was being a jerk. But he wasn’t getting killed, either. “I’ll hand you one for backup. When it matters.” He’d admitted she was going with him. He didn’t see anything else to do but give her a gun and send her off alone. Which meant she’d still hunt it.

“All right,” she agreed after a moment. “All right.” She wasn’t mad. She didn’t blame him. Damn brave woman, he thought, going out there not knowing if she’d have a gun if he was incompetent.

She didn’t feel like somebody who’d panic. She’d known Aby. That was something.

“We’ll get it,” he said. He didn’t know, after that. Didn’t have any plans, after that.

Except Cassivey’s orders. Except next spring.

She sat there staring at the fire. He wrapped the blankets around his shoulders and looked at it too.

The horses wandered back to their courtship. She sat there remembering her village and her partners and trying for quiet.

Finally she lay down on her side and pulled the blanket up to her ears. He did the same, listening to the horses— Burn having settled to better manners. The mare was still scatter-witted, concerned for her rider, a cold-water bath for Burn’s attentions.

He wasn’t sorry. He really, really wanted rest from emotional images and emotional situations. She didn’t think about him. It was all, all as she sat there, still as the frozen dead.

Clenched fist. Steady stare. For a long, long time no thought but the patterns in the fire. She’d reached the angry stage.

Best help he could be, he decided, was do the same, image nothing but

She let go a sigh and lay down. Her concentration wobbled. He kept seeing and the horses settled,

One wasn’t tempted to linger in the necessaries in the morning: the small add-on joined by a too-efficient door to the main cabin had no heat but the natural insulation, one suspected, of snow piled up over the roof—and one was very glad to be back inside and back in front of the fire.

Tara Chang took her turn while he put tea on and toasted biscuits over a renewed fire. Horses were hungry—horses had to be let out for their own necessities, and let back in out of the howling gale.

It was still whiteout outside. If Jonas had gotten back to shelter in Tarmin, depend on it that Jonas was going to stay put, postponing all questions until the storm had stopped, and hell if he wanted to see Jonas right now—he’d enough on his mind without dealing with Hawley.

“Autumn’s definitely over,” Tara said, shivering her way inside, and shutting the door fast.

“Looks like.” He was uneasy. He wanted to keep the light mood she attempted, but he’d thought of Hawley and Jonas and his mind wanted to go ranging after questions he didn’t want to ask himself. He was cooking a taste of bacon for the horses, to go with and he’d make hot mash, but He was being very firm about that. He had water heating for the mash. Which Burn liked adequately well. He wasn’t in the least remorseful about the biscuits.

Tara made the mash, perfectly nice mash, mixed grains. A little bacon to flavor it.

Riders sat and toasted biscuits, and ate slowly, because it was certain they weren’t going anywhere while the wind was howling like that.

He thought about Shamesey, in a long silence marked by horses bashing buckets against the baseboards. He thought about winter drifts, and evergreen, and high villages.

“Verden,” she said. And he guessed it was Verden he was thinking about.

Where Aby’d spent no few days.

“Guys I’ve worked with, Aby’s crew, they’re back at Tarmin holed up. Guy who drew that thing—” He indicated the picture overhead. “You could go back there, if anything happened to me. They’re all right, I mean, I think you’d be all right with them. They’re probably after the thing too, but if something did happen—”

“I don’t miss.”

“I’ve been known to,” he said. He hated infallibility. Considered it lethal. “I’ve decided you’re right. One human hasn’t a chance. So if anything happens, you go back, get Westman. Tell him—” He decided against what he’d like to say, which was Go to hell.

“I’m not going to tell him a damn thing. I know who you mean. I don’t like those guys.”

Didn’t exactly surprise him. He didn’t exactly like them, himself, but he couldn’t find a cause against them.

It occurred to him that why was a reasonable question.

“What’s the matter with them?”

“Just—stand-offish. Just not damn friendly.”

“That’s Jonas. And his horse.”

She flung some small dark bit into the fire. Bark chip, maybe. There was a lot of it on the stones. She didn’t talk for a moment. She wasn’t happy with things. “Aby said—”

She couldn’t leave that hanging.

“What?”

“Said she was worried. I don’t know what about. I don’t know what had happened. The last time, this last trip, before she went with them up to Verden with the trucks, she rode over to us, said—God, she said she wasn’t staying around them longer than she had to, they were into her business… that was what she said.”