Текст книги "Cloud's Rider "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“I think you damn well know,” Carlo said.

“You’re done, boy. This is your stupid fault. No question.”

“We’ll see.”

“Big threat.”

He found his temper coming up. And he wouldn’t let it. “All right, all right, big joke.”

“Beat him up!” Randy said. “You don’t have to take that off him!”

“Little brother’s got more guts than you have.”

“Yeah,” he said matter-of-factly.

About that time Van Mackey and his wife were coming back, and the cursing from the corridor was loud and clear. The sand hadn’t prevented slippage altogether. He went to the door and said, “Watch those steps.”

“What in hell happened here?” Van Mackey came stamping up through the doorway and looked at a forge floor glistening with standing water and ice. “The tank give way?”

“The kid left the tap askew,” Rick said with a sneer.

“No,” Carlo said. “No, sir, I don’t think so.”

“Like hell,” Rick said, and his mother, in the doorway behind Van:

“Shut up.”

“ Meshut up! The damn brat flooded the place! It’s pure luck nobody broke their—!”

“I want to talk to you,” Van said.

“For what? Theyleft the tap open.”

“Liar!” Randy said, but Carlo didn’t say a thing, thinking all in a flash that if Rick’s ploy didn’t work and Rick’s papa beat hell out of him and Rick wanted to come back at him, Rick had better not come at Randy.

Because he knew now how to get Rick, every time. Rick was devious but not bright, and anything that went wrong around here was notgoing to be the fault of two boys Rick’s rather wanted on the good side of. Rick was about to get the shit beaten out of him and hadn’t figured yet why that was.

Rick’s papa ordered his son into the corridor, shut the door, and an argument started that could melt the ice out there. Van was shouting, the wife was shouting—Rick was shouting his innocence.

Then there was a lot of slamming of doors and shouting and screaming, the subject of which they couldn’t hear but Carlo could guess.

Randy stared. Randy just stared.

“I guess he’s getting it good,” Randy said finally. There wasn’t the triumph Randy might have showed. It sounded pretty bad in there.

Carlo understood that, in his own gut. Sounded like home. Their own household. The sounds were the same, the yelling was the same—only this time he was safe outside and just listening to it, and Randy was hearing it, and remembering.

The old cold fear was back. Not of Rick Mackey. Just—fear, the same fear he’d had when his father had used to corner him and Randy. They’d never done right. They’d learned a whole lot of lessons in the forge that had everything to do with avoiding blame and nothing to do with justice or eversatisfying their father.

He didn’t want to hear it. He squeezed Randy’s shoulder and thought he’d like to go back to the tavern and have another beer, and maybe not lie down to sleep with the upset in the stomach he was feeling right now.

But he couldn’t. He had Randy to think of, and he had a damned fool girl trying to make a play for him for reasons his sixteen years told him weren’t on the up-and-up. And, dammit, he hadn’t seen Danny since he’d yelled at Danny and Danny had walked off.

He heard a door slam. He heard someone leave the house in a fit of temper and hoped to God whoever was bound out didn’t skid on the ice. But whoever it was went out, and didn’t break his neck, and he’d bet it was Rick or Van going to the tavern—where he consequently didn’twant to be.

“Time to get to sleep,” he said. “Get some rest.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Then we can pitch pennies, for who gets to fillthe water tank.”

“Rick’ll have to fill it. Betcha.”

“Might be. But if he doesn’t, you do.”

“Wait a minute,” his little brother said. “Where’s the deal that youdo it?”

“You’re learning,” he said. “Not much, but you’re learning.”

“Hell,” Randy said, and Carlo cuffed Randy’s ear, not hard, but because he was the senior brother and somebody had to tell a fourteen-year-old not to cuss, not to drink, and not to be impressed with Azlea Sumner.

Fact was, he didn’t feel like sleep, either. And he had some actual pennies, or at least change chits from the tavern, since, the barman said, the village was short on coin and tavern chits would buy you stuff anywhere in town.

Best use for them was pitch-penny.

And he played against his brother until they’d both calmed down and gotten sleepy; and finally they lost one of their pennies in the forge, and that was it. He told Randy give it up and go to sleep, and he sat down after he’d gotten Randy into his blanket and tucked into his own, with his back against the warm stones.

Van came in late. He knew it was Van. He heard the shouting break out again.

He really wanted a couple of beers. Tonight after a lapse of a number of nights he had the vision back again, the gunshot, the sound, the anger—

God, the anger. It was the Mackey house that conjured it for him, but it was there and it was real. It colored the space behind his eyes with red, and filled his ears with his mother’s screaming.

He couldn’t let their father hit him again. He couldn’t let their father hit Randy.

You damn pig! was the last thing his father had ever said. The night had exploded—just—exploded. He didn’t know when he’d picked up the gun. He didn’t know why he had. He didn’t know anything but his mother screaming—screaming at him a second time across the village crowd gathered in front of the marshal’s office. Murderer, she’d called him.

He was, he knew that. He was eldest. He’d picked up the gun. Their father always kept it by the fireplace, and he’d grabbed it up, he must have—but he hadn’t wanted to pull the trigger. His anger had.

Just like your father, their mother would say when he lost his temper as a child. Just like your father.

Meaning the first time he’d lost his temper as a man against a man—

He’d shot his father.

Danny offered reasons and said he wasn’t a killer, that it was the rogue sending anger into the village—but he knew it was his fault; and he didn’twant to fight Rick. He didn’t want to fight anybody, ever again. Just do his job, that was all he wanted.

“You awake?” Randy asked out of the dark, while the fight went on the other side of the wall.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like it here. Whycan’t we go to Danny?”

“Because we’re not riders.”

“I could hearthe horses. I could hear it plain as plain the other night. I likedit.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s not for us.”

“You say. Yousay. Youdon’t know what I am. Youdon’t run my life!”

“Yeah, well, kid, I’m just trying to get you to grown-up and then you can find a horse if you want one. But meanwhile Ineed you. Ineed you. Does that matter at all?”

“That’s a cheat. You don’t need me.”

“Who the hell else am I doing this for? Who’d I haul up this damn mountain besides—besides our sister, who’s not my reason.” Luckily it was dark. Tears didn’t show. “Kid, I’m tired. I’m really tired.”

“You should have beat hell out of him.”

“Well, I don’t want to. And that’s my business.”

“I could catch that horse.”

“You’re a damn fool.” Of a sudden he had a terrible notion of Randy actually going out the gate, and he sat up on his cot, swung his feet off the side and grabbed hold of Randy’s arm. “Don’t you think about it! Don’t you think about it, or damn you to hell, Randy Goss! Don’t you double-cross me like that and get yourself killed– because that’s what will happen!”

“I’m not going to,” Randy said. “Let go. That hurts.”

He’d held too hard. He bent over and hugged his brother. Ruffled his hair in the dark. “I love you,” he said. He didn’t know if he’d ever said it to anybody. He didn’t know if anyone had ever said it to him. “You’re a good kid.”

“Not a kid,” Randy complained.

“Not grown yet, either. I want to see you get there. All right?”

“Yeah,” Randy said, embarrassed, Carlo was sure, and hegot back on his own cot and pulled the covers over him.

Randy should have something good out of his life. Randy was smart. He was quick with people—like in church. Randy’d realized what he had to do, and he’d done it with a passion, and madepeople like him.

That was a gift. That was a real gift. He wished he had it.

Hellwith this horse business, Randy was cut out for dealing with people and having a wife and kids he’d spoil rotten, if he just figured out that was the way families were supposed to work.

Because there wasgoodness in Randy. Randy was going through that stage of being too tough to think straight, but there was a good kid there, a good heart that deserved friends like he’d been lucky enough to have, guys that were dead down in Tarmin, names that just—didn’t exist anymore.

He gave a long breath, realizing it was the first time he’d been able to think calmly about what had happened, having learned fast in all those days with Danny how to keep his mind offtroubling subjects—and now really believing that nobody in the village could possibly hear his thoughts.

He hadn’t realized until now he’d been scared of that. But he had been. Fear was a good teacher.

And when Danny had said he’d confessed to the riders all those things he’d not admitted out loud, he’d just blown up. Just blown up, in total startlement. Danny hadn’t come back. He didn’t know how Danny took it. Danny hadn’t come back, and he and Randy went to church where Danny couldn’t go. What had thrown them together was unraveling, and Danny probably thought—

–probably thought that it was a good thing, finally, to bein the rider camp, among people with whom he’d been able to tell the truth. And a good thing that he and Randy and Brionne were on this side of the wall, and that the world was back in order.

He’d no doubt that Danny would keep his promise in the spring and help him and Randy get where they needed to go. But by that time there’d be a decent, god-fearing distance between them, and he’d be—

Damn lonely.

But he’d get the shop back. He’d train Randy in the trade. The neighbors couldn’t tell what they’d known. They were dead. There was no one—

A jolt hit his heart.

The jail record. Court records. All of that was intact down in Tarmin. Food and leather was gone. Paper—wouldn’t be unless weather got to it.

All of those records. The court clerk had been writing that night, and that record was down there, in the judge’s office.

He thought he might throw up.

Everythingwas ruined if that record was there. He had to get there. First. Somehow. Somebody had to, that he could trust—somebody like Danny, who could find those books and just get rid of them, or if he could go withDanny, who’d be under pressure from everybody in the village wanting to go down there, and the Mackeys and a whole lot of other people finding himthe obstacle to their ambitions. Those records could give them everything they wanted.

He knew they’d written him down for murder. He didn’t know, on account of Randy’s age and his statement, whether they’d written him down the same. But they’d locked Randy up with him. Age hadn’t deterred the law from that.

And the Mackeys—if they had that to use—they’d have no scruples.

All right, he said to himself. All right. There was time. There was all winter to figure it out. He could trust Danny. He could ask Danny for help. He could hope Danny wasn’t angry at him.

The whole night had assumed a chancy, awful feeling. As if—as if the veneer of recent days had started to peel away a layer at a time—and tonight the undersurface was showing through.

He didn’t hear the sending now. He heard a single, faraway shot, but didn’t think the shot had hit anything. It felt scary out there. Real scary.

He’d rather be afraid of the dark out there than think the thoughts he was left with tonight. He all but wished the horse wouldcome back, and give him some other worry tonight, and give him some excuse to go to the rider camp with something other than what he could think of to say, like—

Danny, I know I was an ass. And there’s a favor I have to ask you.

A really big favor.

Like—get meto Tarmin. And notthe rest of the village.

He felt—a falling, then. Tasted very strongly. He twitched, maybe the remnant of the shivers—maybe just the edge of a nightmare.

After that, there was just and that was somehow less terrible than that short, sharp inhalation of blood that he could still smell– he’d never known blood had a smell. But after Tarmin he had a sense for it.

After Tarmin he dreamed of that smell—and didn’t want to, tonight.

Didn’t want to sleep at all. Just wanted to ride that feeling,

Then he didsee and he knew what had caught him in his dreams, and what carried him along, buffeted by evergreens and blinded by falling snow.

It remembered too. And it carried him in a long, dizzy, heart-pounding flight along the snowbound road, back the way they’d come, he was sure of it.

It had a den there, where a slide had taken trees down. It had a shelter. That was where it was going—until it faded on him, and left him wandering that wilderness and then the dark of the forge, with his eyes wide open.

A sound rasped breathily in the night beside him. Randy was snoring.

Chapter 17

The sun did come up.

There’d been no gunfire in the Mackey house. Rick showed up for work sullen and sulking, but cowed and not saying a word– so, charitably, Carlo didn’t. The water still soaked the floor, but it wasn’t standing in puddles, and it went away when they stoked up the furnace and the heat got up.

There was work to do. Winter was a time for large orders from the various logging companies and a time to make odds and ends of hardware and other items the miners called for, ranging from ordinary metalwork to things that would have been better welded—if they’d had the means. They were the manufactory for metal and wooden barrels, mining rockers and screens, water tanks and fuel storage. They made chain and hooks. They made latches and braces, tie rods and occasional machine parts for which they had a few special tools, but not the quality that Tarmin, which had an actual machine shop, could turn out. That was anotherbusiness lying vacant down there, among other odds and ends about which Carlo didn’t want to think, this morning.

Van even showed up to do actual work instead of leaving the shop to Rick’s slovenly management this morning. Van even wanted to talk, and once they got down to business, it developed they each knew things the other didn’t—there were tricks Van Mackey knew that their father hadn’t. He could learn from this man, Carlo thought, unlikely as it seemed, and after the storm of the night before, things were relatively peaceful. Randy had something on his mind—that meant the bellows worked with unusual steadiness while Randy stared off into space.

But Randy was no more cheerful than he was. It was a grim look. He tried to keep his own face as pleasant as possible.

He wishedhe hadn’t yelled at Danny. He had to go over there.

Maybe he could go over at quitting time and see him. With Randy in tow.

Which he didn’t want. He didn’t want Randy to know what the score was, and if he went into the camp, there were the horses to reckon with, and the likelihood they’d spill everything on their minds not only to Danny but to all the riders.

Thatwouldn’t do.

He could send Randy over to Danny. Randy was scattershot, but he was a lot less likely to spill truly important things.

And what in hell was he going to sayto Danny once he had him over here?

It didn’t add up to too much more than asking Danny to double-cross the people he was living with and go solo with him.

That was a secret almost impossible for a rider to keep. Anysecret was hard for a rider to keep. Danny had proved that to him. That was the whole point of the quarrel they’d had.

He couldn’t hand Danny a secret of their running off together and expect him to keep it.

Which meant he couldn’t tell Danny at all. That was what it boiled down to. He just couldn’t talk to Danny until much closer to time to go down there. He had to hold onto the matter, keep calm, not—

Tongs slipped. He recovered them.

“That’s all right,” Van Mackey said.

“All right, hell!” Rick said. “Anything he does is ‘all right’!”

“Shut up,” Van said.

“I had it coming,” Carlo said.

“And youshut up!” Rick yelled. “Damn you!”

“I said shut up!” Van yelled, and Rick stormed toward the door. “Sleep in the barracks tonight!” Van yelled after him. “Get a taste of it!”

Rick left the door open. Without a word Randy left his work and closed it.

Randy was scared of loud arguments.

So was he. His gut had knotted up.

“Don’t be too hard on him,” he said to Van. It was real hard to think of something good to say about Rick, but he felt obliged to try, for peace in the household. “I want to get along with him.”

Randy shot him a look.

Which he ignored.

“Huh,” was all Van Mackey said. In Carlo’s less than charitable estimation, Van Mackey didn’t even believe it was necessary to get along with his son.

Snow had been coming down since the middle of the night, and generally, was the impression Danny had from Ridley, that circumstance would stop a hunt: but not this hunt, for one reason, because the hunters had been pent in too long and the weather promised no better tomorrow, and secondly, because it was a hunt for a horse, a species that, along with several of the largest predators, didn’tden up except in weather much worse than this.

So they went out: and that was what they were after—he, and Ridley, and four of the most experienced hunters in Evergreen, because somethinghad been active last night; at least something they couldn’t quite be sure of had been prowling about near the walls of the village, probably over on the opposite side from the camp, which meant certain houses in the village could hear very well and the camp couldn’t.

But whatever it had been, it had had to climb a rocky terrace to achieve that vantage, and it had spooked the horses enough that Slip just wouldn’t be worked with this morning until it was clear they were going and

and was all Danny could get out of Cloud; and Cloud wasn’t quite as eager as Slip to be out in the snow Meaning that Cloud didn’t like the hunters, and imaged them in ways his rider had to amend in a constant battle of images, but Cloud never cared for his rider’s reputation, no.

Personally, Danny was resolved in his mind that they hadto do something about the horse, and he was very glad Ridley accepted him after difficulties with that he didn’t want to argue out with Cloud in hearing of the other horses and least of all with the hunters in range.

Their going out on the hunt, though, necessarily left Callie alone in camp with Jennie, a pregnant mare, and a skittish two-year-old colt, in charge of guarding the village—and it justifiably made Ridley anxious the further they went from village walls.

They were casting far afield today. It made himanxious. He had his complete kit with him, pack and weapons and all.

And if at any point it looked on this snowy day as if the village was in some kind of difficulty regarding that horse that might require other riders’ help, then he was fully prepared to use their trek out as the launch of a run toward Mornay. He was fully prepared to go on to the shelter tonight and reach Mornay tomorrow, to bring back reinforcement for the camp.

But from all they’d seen so far there was nothing either to indicate the horse was still about, or that any other game was. They’d sent the hunters up on the heights, but with the snow-fall they hadn’t seen any tracks, and he personally knew that the horse, if that was what it had been, was damned canny.

He wasn’t afraid, exactly, if he had to go on to Mornay alone. His real danger and Cloud’s had been when he had horseless adolescents and Brionne Goss in his company. A horse and rider alone and armed, with nobody to protect but each other—that was a whole different story, the way Spook-horse wasn’t that likely to go after four middle-aged men and two armed riders—if it had turned predatory and not simply lonely.

In that matter, Cloud wasn’t worried at all. Cloud was Cloud could beat Spook-horse in a fight: Cloud would say so if Danny hinted otherwise.

And for days now Cloud had been thinking of and wanting

So this morning as they set out, and while he’d shoved the rider camp gate shut with Ridley serene on Slip’s back, his own silly fool of a horse had been cavorting through the drifts in a circle in front of the wall, careless of the fact a drift might mask a dip or a boulder.

Cloud fortunately led a charmed existence.

“Come back here!” he recalled yelling. In front of four stolid and senior hunters, “Dammit!”

Cloud didn’t care if his rider looked the fool in front of the others. Cloud didn’t care if the whole village turned out to watch.

But Cloud, giving up his notion of as they trekked farther and farther down the road, grew pleased just with moving through the snowy weather this morning.

And with the wind carrying enough snow by noon to gray the trees, they still found nothing, seeing no game and hearing none, so the hunters, for whom this was the first chance to hunt since the storm, fell to grumbling and believed the horse in question was lairing down one of the logging trails down the face of the mountain.

“A lot of territory,” Ridley said to that.

Ridley had no disposition to take off into what Ridley mapped in the ambient as a maze of trails and clearings. Be patient, Ridley said. We’ll find it sooner or later.

But the hunters still grumbled. And while Ridley rode to the lead, and the sun was a bright spot in the white all around them, Danny joined him and found a chance to talk in some privacy.

“Just let me go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll go on to Mornay. I’ll be fine.”

“No proof now the horse is still here.”

“No proof it isn’t. Just let me go from here. I’ll sleep at the shelter tonight and I’ll be in Mornay noon tomorrow.” He had a bad feeling about the silence, little experienced as he was up here. Becauseof that lack of experience he wanted to take every available precaution, and he still felt responsible. He trusted the map they’d given him as simple and direct as such a telling could be, and, always depending on the weather, believed he could be relatively sure of a fast trip. “I’ll come back the same day. I’ll bring a senior rider back and two of us will be safe on the road no matter what. Tomorrow night back in the shelter and we’ll be here to help you noon after tomorrow.”

Ridley shook his head. “No. No taking one of them out of their winter plans if we’re not finding anything. Winter has yet to set in hard and fast, but it’ll get bitter cold when it does. It has to get down the mountain to survive. It may have begun to think in that direction.”

“Nothing says to me it’s gone. And what are the hunters going to do?”

“See if we can bag something,” Ridley said. There hadn’t been a sign of game, not a track above the size of a flitter. “That’s what would make these men feel better. Circle out ahead. See if that young horse of yours can scare something up.”

“I’ll try.” Cloud had caught the notion of and there was no holding him once he understood they were for a space, however so small. Cloud gave a whip of his tail and broke into a jog to get good distance between them and the rest.

It wasn’t long before Cloud, canny wretch, had scared up a wooly-spook, inoffensive creature, but fat, and worth a bit for hides. It ambled out, helpless, and Danny half wanted to tell it run, get away, escape.

The hunters shot it. They were happy. The less affluent of the village had meat and the hunters had a hide that would make a couple of good winter coats, not a bit of it idle luxury.

They took a while to skin and dress it. The blood drew vermin, several, two of which they bagged.

Bushdevil. He felt a lot better about that. Argumentative, chew your arm off, no saving graces.

They packed up, then.

He asked Ridley if he should come back or go on, and Ridley said to come back to Evergreen. That there was no evidence of anything but bad weather. Nothing of the horse they feared was out there.

Open air camp. Wasn’t too bad. They’d gotten their deep cold last night, which had frozen beyond the chance of a melt turning the rocks slick or a fog soaking their blankets, and, Guil thought, he’d just rather move on, now that the weather had settled. Tara agreed. So they’d moved not toward a camp Tara wasn’t sure of finding, but straight on toward Evergreen, as Tara had it set in her direction-sense. At least there were shelters around the town that they could reach tonight.

Tonight, in the bitter cold Tara had cut evergreen boughs for the horses and for themselves, and the horses were bedded down, and they were, on Flicker’s side. Even amorous horses weren’t going to stir in this cold, with the snow coming down as it was. There were limits to any reasonable desire to expose warm spots to the cold, and Guil was quite glad, with the considerable generation of heat the mare provided, just to be warm tonight.

They had rifles by them, sidearms, food and all in their nest in the snowstorm, and if anything came up on them they’d blow it to hell.

“Quiet out there tonight, too,” Tara said. “I wish that meant anything.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Listening for what’s not is pretty tricky.”

“If it’s a horse it’s the damn spookiest one I ever met.”

“Yeah,” Guil said.

“Once in a great while in these woods,” Tara said, “you get something really strange, being on the edge of the deep Wild. Have you ever been out there?”

She meant into the territory where settlements weren’t. Where human settlements werewas a pretty tiny patch, whether you reckoned it locally or against the world as wide as he’d seen from the high mountains.

“Been into it,” he said, and painted her a He painted her He painted her

She came back with and from somewhere he’d never been He guessed it was on

“Yeah,” she said, warm against his side, drinking in all the things he thought were prettiest.

He’d never met a woman but his mother and Aby who’d been able to show him the vast deeper Wild in their minds. He’d never met any woman but them who wanted those sights, wanted to hold them steady, like holding something up to the sun to see it plain.

Border woman. He’d found her as a villager. But he knew now what she was—like himself, one who rode the edges of the world. Who was, except the question of those kids, as intrigued by the oddness out there as he was. It was something neither of them had seen. And they weren’t spooked, either of them: neither were their horses, who had seen oddness in other places across the wide edge.

Respectful, oh, yes. But Burn wanted a closer look at it. If they were on a convoy job, he’d have said, No, fool. And this was almost that case: but the kids they were trying to match courses with and thisthing were in the same direction.

So was Evergreen village.

Real, real quiet out there. No game. Nothing with any sense about it that wasn’t also, like the other dedicated predators, lying very still tonight and measuring the threat against the threat they posed.

Exactly what they were doing.

Carlo was very glad when quitting time came, and gladder still that Van went off to wash up and didn’t invite him to a beer in the house or in the tavern.

He wasn’t glad at the prospect of Rick Mackey being in the tavern. But that was where they had to eat.

“You stick close to me,” he said to Randy, and put a length of iron chain into his coat pocket.

“You going to fight him?” Randy asked hopefully, and he restrained himself from shaking the kid till his teeth rattled.

“No,” he said quietly, and shepherded the kid out the door, down the street, up the steps and into The Evergreen.

“Hey, Carlo!” came the voice he didn’t want to hear. “Come sit over here! Tell us about your sister!”

“That’s Rick!” Randy said, with the disposition to go that direction; Carlo in a sudden panic grabbed Randy by the arm and went instead to the bar, where the bartender was maintaining a watch on the outburst. “Need a beer, a tea, and two suppers. Usual tab.”

“I’ll shut him up,” the bartender said. “I don’t recommend you go over there.”

“No such intention.”

“Beer and tea,” the bartender said, and drew one off tap and poured the other from the pot. “If you beat hell out of him, do it in the street.”

“See?” Randy said. “He thinks you should.”

“I’ll talk with you about it,” Carlo said, picked a table farfrom Rick Mackey and set the beer and the tea down. “If you’ll listen. I’m telling you—”

“I know what you’ll say. Get along with everybody. He’s going to do something.”

“Fine. He’ll be sorry if he does. Just you stay out of his way. All right?”

They went and picked up a good-smelling stew, and sat down.

He truly hoped for Danny to show up. He’d feel better if he could just talk with him, not on business, not about secrets, just to know that he could still count on him.

The noise in the other end of the room subsided. He guessed the bartender had made the point about starting fights. He thought he should be particularly careful going home tonight. He debated about another beer, and had it anyway, since the only trouble in his world was having another, and another.

Three was his limit, and he stuck to it, and shared a sip now and again with his brother. The bar didn’t allow gambling in the establishment, but they provided cards for people who wanted to play for drink chips or toothpicks or whatever.

He sent Randy after cards and since Rick was the guy he was wanting to keep an eye on, he sipped beer and he and Randy played for toothpicks. The place grew empty of families.

Rick, also on the Mackey’s tab, was still in the tavern when he and Randy left for the evening. Rick, having started earlier, was alone, passed out at the table, harmless or close to it, and as they went out onto the street, the snow was coming down thick and fast beyond the edge of the porch.