Текст книги "Cloud's Rider "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“It’s crazy,” the boy gasped. “It’s crazyout there. They want to kill him, and he didn’t do it!”

“We’ll prove it, then,” Ridley said: the village called on them and the horses to untangle conflicting testimonies, sometimes outright scaring the guilty into confession—but they weren’t usually as clear to the mind as this boy’s impressions came,

came very loud just then. couldn’t be still against the challenge that was pouring around them, and the boy just stared toward the rider-gate until Dan came running back, out of breath, with—

“He’s gone outside!”

“You’ve got to go after him!” the boy cried. “Danny, you got to find him—he didn’t doit! I was with him! They’re lying!”

“You,” Dan said, already running for the barracks, “stay in the camp.”

Dan intended to go find the kid. Ridley had no doubt of that– at the same time that another certainty was running over his nerves,  and < blood on snow> shivered through the ambient.

“That damn horse!” Callie cried.

Dan Fisher was headed to get his gun and his gear. It didn’t take him long to run back again. Fisher was going after the horse and the boy—and he, dammit, had a camp and a village in his charge with a real problem outside his walls and a worse one in the middle of the village. He was staying behind, he had no question of it, same as if a chain bound him here.

While the ambient rang with loneliness and terror.

“Get the Goss kid on to Mornay if you reach halfway,” he told Fisher, as Fisher swung up on Cloud’s back, and the rest of them headed around end of the den to help open the gate. “In Mornay he’s out of reach and out of trouble. Sort it out in the spring.” They reached the gate and he flung the bar up. Callie and Randy and Jennie pushed it wide. “There’s one shelter on your way—he’ll surely know it, if he gets there! Hope to hell he doesn’t go on the logging trails!”

“Yes, sir,” Fisher said.

“Go fast! If you catch him before halfway come back and we’ll organize a trek over. If it’s a long run—good luck to you! Come back when you see a chance and bring us word how you are!” He gave a slap to Cloud’s rump and Fisher was off.

That left him with one rider fewer. And one scared kid more.

Breath wouldn’t come any longer. Legs wouldn’t run anymore. Carlo sprawled downslope, plunged through snow and into snow until the mountainside finally gave him up again, just casually tumbled him out of a snowy embrace and into the snow-drifting air.

He lay on his back, facing the light—a light coming through the branches of evergreens, out in the deep woods, alone, with the snow coming down on his eyes, and himself with no inclination even to blink. He’d been lucky so far. Luck wouldn’t last. Wild things didn’t go on the move much while the snow was coming down. That was why he’d lived this long. He thought he was afraid. He was too numb, now, to know what he thought.

He couldn’t let the accusations go the way they had the last time, with Randy swept up and jailed with him. Couldn’t go to the rider camp gate. The mob would have piled up there and trapped Randy—God hope that he’d run there. He’d led them off from that, and then he’d seen the outside gate, and meant to go to the camp from the outside, and get Danny to help him.

But he’d forgotten that when he got there. With all the woods in front of him, he’d just run and run and run, free of all of them, drunk on it, not using his brain—

He wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t being chased anymore. He was back in the snow, in the woods out of which he’d come to Evergreen village, as if it closed a circle, somehow, and set things back at the point of change.

Foolish thought. Delirious thought. He was in dreadful danger, having run out here unarmed and alone—he’d done something self-destructive and stupid, and he didn’t understand himself.

Except he was back on the road. When the day of the climb up here, despite the pain, proved the best day he’d lived, what could he say about himself? He knew the rest of the life ahead of him, shut in the forge, working with and for the Mackeys, wasn’t alluring. The only time he’d ever felt free and doing something for himself was the association he’d had with Danny.

Now his future didn’t even look to be going back to Tarmin, to live his life down there. It looked to be jail. Again. Locked up. With Rick Mackey to lie and swear he was guilty. Give Rick credit for brains. Not much. But enough to get everything he wanted.

Maybe that was why he’d gone crazy for a moment—until he went off a cliff. The fall and the landing was a sobering thing, that could persuade him he ought to go back and face the charges and try to prove he was innocent.

If he lived to get there. If—God—if Randy hadn’t followed him.

If Randy had followed instructions for once in his life and gone to Danny—Danny would come after him. Danny was probably already out the rider-gate and looking for him, if he just made a little noise—in all this quiet.

Then something made a sound. A horse sound.

And his world—expanded.

he thought with relief, and had that sense of wherethat told him as a sound came to him, of something moving. He lay still, asking himself wildly how he was going to explain things to Danny, how he was going to ask Danny to go with him, prematurely, in the winter, down to Tarmin, to get at those damned records—because he had a chance again.

came treading softly up to him, and it appeared to him incongruously upside down as he lay on his back. It– he—lowered its head and blew warm horse breath over his face—spooked up when he moved and turned and scrambled backward on his hands and knees.

was its name.

He saw > It was inside out—or outside in.

And if Danny was right it was a killer. Or could become so—on any provocation.

He got up very slowly, trying not to startle it. Danny had said, never startle Cloud, and he thought—maybe—if he just backed away very, very carefully and got to a tree—

The horse edged forward, leaned to smell over his gloved hands, got through his guard to smell his face, his snow-caked coat and trousers, his coat again and his face. The ambient was there. Spook-horse was Its friendliness could change in the instant it realized it wasn’t his rider.

“Stupid horse,” he said, trying to back away, knowing his thoughts were in themselves betraying him. He looked for a tree whose branches he could reach. And didn’t see one. “Stupid horse.” It was nuzzling his hands again, forcing its way closer. “What do you want?”

Then it dawned on him.

The horse following them up the mountain in the winter season. The horse persisting in harassing the village, even at risk of being shot. The horse— and to the village walls at night—

It wanted its rider. It wanted arider. Thatwas what it wanted.

“Stupid horse.” He kept backing, losing ground, cast a look back to make sure there wasn’t another cliff, and it got its nose past his hands to blow breath in his ear. Which brought his head around and his chin into collision with its spooked head-toss as it backed off. He saw stars for a second, and found it coming forward again, pushing at his hands.

“Stupid horse, you’ve got the wrong one of us. It’s my brother that wants you. Not me. I’m a blacksmith. I’m not a rider. Go away! Leave me alone!”

The black nose got past his protective hands, and nudged him full in the face, desperate for something, but Danny had told him the truth—he didn’t hear everything in a horse’s sending; and he didn’t know what it was thinking—or expect it when of a sudden the damn horse licked him on the face, across the nose and bashed his lip when he flinched. He put out his hands in self-defense and it butted against them, rubbing its face on his gloved palms, with that odd sound and that feeling Danny had said was

“Damn fool,” he said to it, but to appease it he rubbed its cheek with his hands—otherwise it was going to rub its head on himand bash his face again. Thatled only to a harder push and a loss of balance. He went down backward in the snow and the horse nosed him in the face, or the hands, when he pushed at it, radiating and He couldn’t get up without its nose in the way. He got as far as his knees and had its head in his middle, butting him until he patted its neck and used it for a wall to lean on getting up.

“I’m not it, silly fool. I’m not.”

But it wanted. It and he’d been with Danny long enough to know that if a horse wanted to reach his rider, he’d go through or over anything remotely possible, and this horse wanted with that kind of intensity. It wasn’t in its mind any longer. It was something else—he didn’t know what, but it wasn’t any longer, either.

Neither was he It had him, and he had it; and he couldn’t be as scared as he’d been or as desperate as he’d been or as lonely as he’d been, while the creature he’d most feared was most interested in rubbing its face against him.

he kept seeing, but not a threatening shape, just a fast-moving shadow through the trees, horse here, horse there—the eye couldn’t track it.

“Spook,” he said to a back-turned ear, his arm at the moment encircling its neck from below. He was there instead of the person it most wanted, whoever that was. He was there because he’d happened into its path, was all, when Randy had wanted it, when maybe his sister had, in her untouchable dreams. It might get him back close to the village, might save him, but certainly he hadn’t a right to it—

Which, he realized all of a sudden was his answer to every question of everything he’d ever had a chance for—he hadn’t a right. He was the oldest. He had the responsibilities, he always had been the responsible one. He had to learn the craft. He had to stay and work. He had to go to Evergreen. He had to see to Brionne’s life. To Randy’s future. To the forge down in Tarmin. All those things. Only thing he’d ever done right, only thing good anybody ever said about him, was he was responsible, and what could he do now? He was a stand-in for his brother with this creature. It wasn’t responsible to have notions of accepting it himself.

was the ambient right now. It was powerfully persuasive. It was so, so attractive to believe it could make a mistake like that, and that he might accept it and just not go back again to being responsible.

Couldn’t. Randy wouldn’t forgive him.

It could keep him safe, though, till he could deal with the charges and prove—whatever he could prove to the village.

It could—it could take him clear to Tarmin. It knew the way up and down the mountain. It could fight off predators. It could guide him, hunt for him, protect him—he didn’t needanything he didn’t have in his hands right now.

And the world around him had expanded so wide, and the smells had become so clear—he didn’t know how much he’d lost when he’d left the ambient for the Mackeys’ forge and the living he owed his brother.

If he stayed too long, he said to himself, if he let himself get used to it, he didn’t know how he’d give it up.

“God, I don’t know about horses. I don’t know how to ride. You’ve really made a mistake, horse. I swear to you I’m not it.”

Didn’t make a difference. Spook was still there. Still wanting, exploring with a curious soft nose the gloved hands he put up to save his face from being licked raw. Hands failed. The horse butted him in the chest and wanted him to

There weren’t words. He felt presumptuous even to try what it wanted him to try. Danny if he were here would call him a fool.

But Danny wasn’t here.

And he had no notion how to do the flashy move Danny could do, grabbing the mane and swinging up: he knew where that would land him. So he tried the way Danny would when things were chancy, and just bounced up to land belly-down across the horse’s back and tried, with the horse beginning to move, to straighten himself around astride.

Too far. He made a frantic grab after a black and cloudy mane that like finest wool went almost to nothing in his hands—stayed on for maybe a hundred meters, breathless with what he’d done, was doing, could do. But when the course turned uphill he slid right off over Spook’s rump.

To his surprise he landed on his feet, in a position to look uphill as the horse reached the top and looked down at him as if to say, God, I’ve picked a fool.

He slogged up the snowy incline, panting, and tried again—got on, and fell off more slowly, still clinging to two fistfuls of mane, when Spook picked up the pace.

Definitely there was a knack of balance he didn’t have.

But he got on again.

He wanted to go back and find Danny. But Danny was and Spook didn’t wantto find Danny. He suddenly had that image. He couldn’t just ride into Danny’s sights—when Danny thought Spook was a danger to the village. He couldn’t go back and get Spook killed for no reason.

He knew now as long as the village chased him, Randy had a chance to do what he’d told Randy to do if things got bad—go get Danny’s help; with Randy staying in the rider camp, the marshal at least couldn’t include a fourteen-year-old in a murder charge.

He had to talk to Danny. But on his terms. After he’d had time to think what to do, what he wanted, where he was and where he wanted to go.

Spook had hit a rhythm and broke into a run that didn’t pitch him off. They’d reached a road—the road, aroad, he didn’t know– where there was easy moving and for a hundred meters or so he was withSpook, and no longer fighting for balance—it was just there. It was wonderful, wild, and rightin a way he’d never found anything just happenfor him.

Until the stop that almost pitched him over Spook’s shoulder.

Dannywas there. On Cloud. With a

Spook saw it, too. Spook swung around and bolted and he didn’t know how he stayed on, except the double handful of mane, both legs wrapped tight and his head ducked down because he swayed less that way.

“Carlo!” he heard Danny yell at him. “Carlo, it’s all right, come back!”

Couldn’t take the chance. Couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t.

was the only safety. It was what Spook knew. Or he did. He’d have trusted Danny. But Spook was afraid. And he thought now he should have been.

“Damn it!” Danny cried. “Carlo!”

But Carlo wasn’t hearing him. Couldn’t hear him, maybe. Or Spook-horse’s state of mind was contagious.

Chase him, maybe. But push him on a mountain road with no-knowing-what ahead—no. he wanted of Cloud, and tried sending into the ambient,

Cloud didn’t think so. Cloud’s mind conjured and Which wasn’t the case, but that was where Spook had consistently been, long enough that it was part of Cloud’s thinking.

Which he had to calm down. Cloud was of a mind to right now, and that wasn’t what he wanted.

he thought, patting Cloud’s neck as they walked along the well-defined track in the snow. “It’s all right,” he told Cloud. He didn’t know how far Carlo might make the chase—but he was willing to go that far. He’d come out with his kit, his cold-weather gear and his guns. He was equipped. He’d taken longer than he wanted getting onto Carlo’s trail.

He’d known when had hit the ambient that he’d been too late, and he’d only come up on them because they were so obsessed with each other, in that way of new pairings, that they wouldn’t have heard a herd of horses coming.

He’d made his mistake when he’d hesitated—one way or the other, shoot fast or don’t shoot. Spook wasn’ta green horse from the mountains, playing tag with echoes of gunshots and sprays of dirt on the hillside, the way Cloud had done with the gate-guards down in Shamesey two years ago. Spook very well knew what guns were, and he’d had one rider shot to death.

Wasn’t going to have a gun pointed at him, no. And he’d been asking himself down to the moment the pair turned up in front of him whether he was going to be obliged to shoot the horse to save Carlo.

The lingering question was, should he have, and whether he’d just stood back and let somebody he was supposed to protect go off on a horse that had last belonged to a crazy man.

Chapter 19

It might have been a quick turnaround—out after the kid, and back again, with a live kid or a dead one, and then maybe a chance for negotiation with the village authorities, or an expedition to Momay.

But neither had happened, and Ridley made a trip over to the villageside, through the little gate, this time, and without Slip, to talk to Eli Peterson.

“No luck so far,” he said to Peterson when he met him on the street in front of the pharmacy.

“I feel bad about it,” Peterson said. “I don’t think the boy did it, fact is.”

“Fact is, I wouldn’t take the Mackeys’ word for a sunrise I was watching.”

“The girl, however,” Peterson said, “the sister—”

“What?”

“Says the brother shot their parents, down in Tarrnin. Says the boy was in jail.”

Ridley drew a slow breath. “I’ve been aware of it.”

“And didn’t say?”

“Fisher told me all about it. Fisher thinks the boy’s innocent.”

“He’s not a judge! Neither are you!”

“ I’masking you—let that matter lie. None of us were inTarmin. None of us can imagine how it was. What I caught from the Fisher boy—you wouldn’t want to see. Look at what happened this morning! I had a terrified boy running into the camp—”

“The words flew out of my mouth and the damn miners were after somebody. They didn’t give a damn who. —How’s the kid taking it?”

“I’m keeping him. At least till his brother gets back.”

“You think he’s coming back?”

“Eventually.”

“Something youknow?”

“Fisher’s still gone. Fisher would come back if it was useless. The boy’s with him. I’ll be willing to bet. And the younger boy’s been through too much as is.” He hadn’t told Peterson the central matter. He thought about it, decided finally on half a truth. The snow was still falling and passersby aboveground were all but nonexistent on this cold day—except a batch of kids sledding the snow-pile across the street on a piece of board. “That horse that’s loose—can’t tell for certain, but I think the older boy’s contacted it. I don’t know what to expect.”

“You mean you think he’s teamed up with it? As a rider?”

“It’s possible. I don’t say it’s going to work. Or that he’s going to survive it. He could fall off, break his neck—the horse could kill him.”

“Do they dothat?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of it happening. A horse that’s just too spooked. A rider that’s the wrong rider. Things like that. This isn’t nice and controlled like Rain and Jennie. The kid could break his neck, the horse could go off a cliff—or the kid could come back here and then spook right along with the horse. I have to tell you this—don’t take to account anything the sister says. She’s not right. She’s not innocent. I don’t know how else to warn you. I had to get my horse out of there this morning. She spooked my horse.”

“Scared Slip?” Peterson was clearly dubious.

“Marshal, if I’d kept Slip there to deal with her—she’d have spooked the villageout the gates. Lorrie-lies and goblin-cats aren’t as scary as what’s in that girl’s mind.”

Peterson seemed to get the idea, then.

“She’s not right,” he repeated to Peterson. “She’s been associated with the rogue down at Tarmin. She’s dangerous.”

“How—dangerous?”

Fisher had left him with a set of truths—and a situation. As camp-boss, he had a privilege to deal with things in camp. And he didn’t pass blame—or legal matters—on to the village marshal. “Fact is—she was on the Tarmin rogue’s back. And she’s a lot safer with you than with us, is what I’m comfortable saying on the matter.”

“That’s not damn all you owe me to say, rider-boss!”

“Keep her away from the horses. This spring—we’ll find a way to get her down to someplace safe. Anveney would be my advice. No horses in Anveney.”

“Good lovin’ God. What have you handed us? Whatam I dealing with?”

“Marshal, the situation arrived on us on the sudden, on a junior rider’s best guess what to do. And with that horse out there, and what’s gone on—I’d say Darcy Schaffer’s got a real problem on her hands.”

Peterson was mad. He couldn’t blame him for that. Peterson walked off from him as far as the edge of the walk.

“What were my choices?” Ridley asked while Peterson stared off into the white.

“We could have put her with somebody else than Darcy Schaffer!”

“Yeah,” Ridley said. “Counting that we’ve got to get that girl out of Evergreen—I’d say just about anybody else. But the girl could get better by spring.”

“Better than what, rider-boss? Better than happened down in Tarmin?”

It was a question.

Serious question.

“I didn’t have all the information at the start.” Beingrider-boss he didn’t on principle want to pass the blame. But he wasn’t going to have it attach to Callie, either. “Callie was doubtful. I was too inclined to go easy. I should have held Fisher to account, I didn’t until I had clearer indication—and when I did get the truth it was a little damn late. I don’t see he could have done better than he did, given the situation. That’s what we’ve got for the winter.”

“And this is the younger kid of the same family you’ve got in camp right now!”

“Scared. In love with the horses. Willing to learn—maybe. Maybe some horse will have him. I don’t know. Maybe even Shimmer’s foal. And if that horse has taken his brother it may solve our problems for the winter, if we can move him on, say, to Mornay and get that influence out of here. Or settled. A rider might calm that horse right down.”

Peterson looked unhappy. But Peterson came back and met him close up. “Your guess. —No, dammit, your horse-guided opinion! You think the Goss boy is guilty or innocent of the business on Darcy’s doorstep?”

“Better than a guess. My horse knowsthe Goss kid, at least from one meeting. Nothing on that porch led me to the Goss kid. Nothing whatsoever. Everythingpersuades me that the sister is a problem. He isn’t. Neither is the younger boy or I wouldn’t have him near the horses.”

“There’s talk that Darcyagreed to pay Riggs a lot of money.”

“I’d sooner suspect miners and money for Riggs’ disappearance. It makes a lot more sense. It wasn’tthe Goss boy.”

“Riggs otherwise had no money.” Peterson said. “And I’m inclined to think it’s possible. Story is, Riggs was hiring men to claim property for the girl. Riggs had this notion of marrying her.”

“She’s a kid.”

“Yeah. And, your better-than-guess aside, there was reason for her brother to take offense. That much is true. —Then I ask myself– well, couldn’t the Mackeys wantto see the Goss boys charged and out of the picture? But that doesn’t benefit them too much, while the girl’s with Darcy. Unless they contracted to run the Tarmin shop for the girl. And between you and me and the rest of the village, Rick Mackey couldn’t run that shop or thisshop on his own, and if it came down to Mary Hardesty, she’s a businesswoman but she’s no decent smith, and without her, Van Mackey won’t stay sober. Business is all she likes, work has to get done and the Goss boy, the older one, is the only likely one there is. So where’s their motive?”

“On villageside and away from my business,” Ridley said. “I don’t try to figure what the Mackeys do. I’m sorry for Carlo Goss. I wish him well and far away. I’ve got my hands full with the younger kid. You’ve got the girl on your side of the wall and I’d say, soon as spring, we pack her on the first truck down with a strong dose of yellowflower and get her somewhere besides Tarmin.”

“Darcy won’t at all take to that.”

“Then maybe Darcy can do something with her head. But she didn’t do it on the porch this morning. I tell you, marshal, my horse and I were right out in the middle of that crowd. Same one that went for that boy. There was a reason things went the way they did.”

“You’re saying—what?”

“That the miners might have killed him. That thatwas why things went so bad so fast. Maybe it was why the boy ran for his life and went out those gates rather than stay in the village. He’d felt it once before this.”

“At Tarmin, you mean?” Peterson was taking acute alarm. And Ridley didn’t want that.

“The girl can’t do any damage,” Ridley said, “unless there’s a horse near her.”

“Or a bear or a cat or any damn thing—how in hell do we get her out of here down a road in company with a bunch of riders on horses we’re not supposed to let her near?”

“Yellowflower. I’m serious. Asleep, she’s fine. Dreams don’t do much. In my observation. —Marshal, I had no choice, even if I’d known. Those kids would have died if I’d sent them on. At least two of them would have. And at Mornay it would have been the same risk if that girl was there, and maybe worse. Mornay’s a smaller enclosure, more chance of sendings getting over the wall—if she were there. Play the hand close and we’ll get her out of here come spring—and I’d advise we do it whether or not she improves. I’d say the village should buy out any share she’s got in Tarmin, pay her and Darcy in goods, and get them both out of here.”

“Our only doctor, dammit.”

“Who hasn’t been doing much the last year. And I’m sorry about Faye. I know Darcy blames me. But if Faye’d done what she was told, Fayewouldn’t be dead. That’s hard, and I’m sorry to say so, but that’s the way it is. The kid left the secure area and went off on her own exactly the way the Goss boy’s done—only the boy this morning had urgent reason and Faye was after her own pleasure. Besides her father was in attendance the same as I was and she slipped off from him, too. I’m not personally responsible for either one and in both cases I’m doing what I can—including sending a rider out there to deal with the Goss kid, including coming over here and personally warning you that the doctor’s resentment toward me is reaching the girl, and that the girl doeshear the horses and everything of like kind out in the Wild. If you believe one thing I say, believe this: the Goss girl has a real capability for setting off a mob or a village-wide panic of exactly the kind that opened Tarmin’s gates and doors. If the doctor were likely to listen to me, I’d say keep that kid on yellowflower every time we have a problem near the walls. Which having metthe doctor’s mind directly this morning I don’t think she will—”

“You’re saying Darcyhears the horses?”

“I’m saying all of you did, marshal. Everybody in town.”

“Not me.”

“Some of you clearer than others. Youwere thinking about your job and you didn’t panic. Some were looking for somebody to blame and they did. I’ll assure you Slipdidn’t think of going after that boy. But upset, yes, my horse was upset. And a lot of people beingupset did exactly what they’d naturally do if they were upset. The law stood firm and the boy ran and the miners chased him. —And the girl threw a tantrum. Am I right? At the far end and down by the gate I was farther than I usually am from the main street when I’m in camp. I’m flat guessing what she did and what you felt. But am I right?”

“Yeah. You are.”

“I didn’t have to hear it to make a guess. And what I did hear while I was there wasn’t good.”

“At that range?”

“You can pick up a few things. The world’s never quiet. It’s never really quietwhile there’s a horse anywhere about. And damn right that girl’s noisy. I’m real serious. My notion is she doesn’t listen worth a damn, but once she’s in contact with the Wild she’s real pushy with her images, real stubborn in what she sees. And it’s not just my horse: it’s everythingall over the mountain, things so quiet you don’t ordinarily hear them or if you do you don’t know you’re hearing them. She sends better than some and she doesn’t listen. That may be more than you want to know about the horses, but that’s the worst combination of talents you can own to go around them, and I don’t want Slip near her.”

“You had an obligation to tell us about the girl beforewe made certain decisions!”

“What would you have done different—besides not put that girl with Darcy?”

“That’s about it.”

“Then that’s the one we’ve got to deal with, isn’t it? If the Goss boy takes to that loose horse—it could be settled and we could have a peaceful winter, once that attraction is away from her. I told Fisher get him on to Mornay if he can catch him, and that’s stillthe best thing to do.”

“Do you hear him now?”

“I’m not near the horses.”

Villagers never seemed to get that straight. Or cases like the Goss girl confused them. Hejust wished Darcy Schaffer’s house was on the other side of the street because, knowing there was trouble in the village, Slip was a curious and a suspicious horse who might put out extra effort to know what That Girl was up to.

And thatmeant horses carrying the girl’s troublesome images further than ordinary into the Wild. Get a panic started among the horses and they’d hear it in distant Anveney.

“Well, keep me posted,” Peterson said.

“I will,” he said, uneasy in knowing the man on the villageside who knew him best and who had the village version of his job didn’t really to this day know what the abilities and the limits of the horses were. John Quarles was, ironically, his other best phone line to the village—but John just trusted the Lord and didn’t try to understand things. You went and told Peterson when you wanted somebody on villageside to worry. You told John when you wanted somebody to nod sagely and assure you things would be all right.

Neither worked in this case.

So he had had nothing to do but go back to the camp, and to stay around the den where he could keep his finger on the pulse of the ambient, and that meant currying Slip, since his hands were idle, and trying to keep him calm. Callie and Jennie did the same, all of them hanging about the den where rumors could fly—or be sat upon, fast, before they spread to the village on the impulse of several nervous horses.