Текст книги "Cloud's Rider "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Danny had said you didn’t hear the horses if you weren’t near them. That people might send a little—they must—but they were deaf as stumps without a horse to send to them. You didn’t hear other humans without a horse or something in the bushes—and if you did it was bad, because littlecreatures didn’t have the brain to intrude real easily. Sending sightwas their real defense and their hunting tactic. If you got something strong coming at you—it was big, and big regarding anything in the Wild meant predator.

He just wanted peace from all of it.

He began to shiver. He thought that was a good sign, maybe a sign he could be horrified again, and not just accept images as they came. But the shivering made his travel-bruised joints hurt and it might disturb Randy. In the warmth and the smells of the forge, he could blink and think he was in his father’s forge in Tarmin and that nothing he remembered had ever happened—but that was dangerous, too: it wasn’tthat forge, and Tarmin didn’t exist anymore. Nothing could ever bring Tarmin back the way it was. It was lost.

Nothing could bring their beliefs back, or their innocence… certainly not his. Maybe Randy’s. He hoped Randy had a chance to forget.

And for him—he’d find a niche for himself. A smith could always find work—he and Randy had nothing but what they stood in, but they had no debts, either. They could work slave wages if they didn’t fit in here, just stay until they had a stake, then move on with a truck convoy in the summer to wherever some settlement needed a fair-to-middling smith. A whole village could grow up around a couple of enterprising craftsmen, where miners and loggers could know they could get equipment fixed, and some cook set up shop, and they put up walls to protect the facilities– and then—then miners and loggers came to do their drinking and their rest-ups because it was a safe place. That was the way a lot of villages had begun.

And the two of them would do all right. Randy was at that gawky, all-elbows-and-thumbs stage that didn’t in any sense look the part of a smith, but Randy would put on muscle given another year, the same as he had, by working the bellows. You did that, you did the rough work, get the job going—the master smith would step in to finish it. Damn right, you put on muscle fast.

Hands weren’t in good shape. If Mackey who owned this place gave him a chance he’d rest up. But if not, if not—he’d take what he could get. He was fighting for survival in this place just as surely as he had been on the road that brought them here. The house, the forge, the money and the respectability so Randy could have a wife and kids and a normal life, getting as far as possible from what had happened down there. That was what he’d fight for.

Everything right this time. He’d see to it.

Danny set himself on the edge of the bed, and Ridley tipped him back into it while Callie watched from the open doorway.

“Made it to the mattress this time,” Ridley said, and flung at least five kilos of blankets atop him.

“Yeah,” he said. They’d had warming bricks on the mattress. He felt apt to pass out from the heat.

But he’d done that already and had a sore spot on his head to prove it. His eyes wanted to shut, heat or not, and he wished they’d just go away.

But they didn’t. They hadn’t. They’d gotten him up after they’d determined he might be concussed, they’d kept him awake sitting in the chair in the common room, talking about the camp, talking about local custom—anything butTarmin and the trip up—being sure, they said, that he didn’t have a skull fracture.

He’d heard that staying awake after a crack on the head was a fairly good idea. But Cloud had dumped him harder than that and his skull had survived. He was just godawful tired. But if his fingers and toes all made it through the event, and they seemed to be going to, he was happy.

And they hadn’t thrown him out into the snow. And they let him go back to bed.

“Pretty good job you did,” Ridley said, lingering at his bedside– which made him wonder if they were going to continue the sleepless treatment. It was morning outside. He was relatively sure it was bright morning. And he so wanted to go to sleep.

“Yeah,” he said. Yeah covered most everything. And he’d already forgotten the question.

Callie’s voice: “Damn good for your first time in the mountains.”

“I had a fair map,” he said. You didn’t ever, as a junior, attempt to take credit for what a senior had done—or pretend to have done what you hadn’t. “And good advice.” Which he wished he’d understood at the start rather than the end of the trek. But he’d lived to learn.

So had the kids.

“Who gave you the advice?”

“Tarmin rider.” His heart rate kicked up a notch. He’d wondered when they’d start asking on the matter of Tarmin, and here it came. The ambient was quiet, the horses were snug in their den, the dark-eyed little girl with the lively curiosity was safely in her room. They might be about to go after answers on the subject they’d danced all around for at least an hour.

And if they didn’t like what they heard—they could still throw him out.

“Who?” Ridley asked. “Who survived?”

“Tara Chang.” He thought by their expressions it was a name they knew. “The others—didn’t make it. Friend of mine—Stuart—he’s down there. With Tara. Near Tarmin.” He wasn’t tracking well. The mind was trying to sink into deep, deep wool. He tried to sort out what they must assume. What he’d said and not said.

“How did she survive? What happeneddown there?”

“Dead.” His tongue was getting thick. He was thinking about and but there wasn’t any horse to carry the ill-assorted baggage of his mind and he was both protected by and held to words that wouldn’t contain half his thoughts. The kid was in bed, but if a horse got curious, even asleep she might pick something up. He hadn’t remotely counted on a kid in the camp—even if he’d come in to consult in advance what to do with Brionne, there’d have been the kid—

Which, with what he remembered, didn’t make him comfortable winter company. Maybe he should hit the road.

But he hadn’t told them—

“Fisher.”

“Don’t want to think now. Tomorrow.”

Ridley sat down on the bedside and Ridley’s hand closed hard on his shoulder. “Hate to be inhospitable, Fisher, but we have a village missing. The horses are out of range. So just tell us the rest of it.”

You couldn’t swear when a horse was listening. You could just swear to when it was sending. He was scared of being pushed, scared of spilling just enough to make them want more and more and more, until they got more than they wanted to hear, for more than he wanted to give. He was scared of spilling stuff that was his, and stuff that was the Goss kids’ business, and Tara’s and Guil’s as well.

But he was in real sorry shape to survive now if the Evergreen riders told him go on, get away from their village—just another day, he’d be all right—

Something had stalked them here—he thought it had. But he couldn’t swear to it. It was so, so dangerous, imagination. A rider kept it in his pocket and only took it out on sunny days with no shadows.

Ridley’s hand insisted and hurt his shoulder, shaking at him gently. “I want answers now, Fisher. Hear me?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t even remember exactly what information of all he held that Ridley had actually asked. “What was the question?”

“To what happened down at Tarmin.” Ridley’s mild voice grew angrier. “To who you are, where you came from, how the hellyou got up here in the first place, and how safe is your horse?”

That was the most dangerous accusation. Cloud’s safety. That question scared him. He shook his head, and even the pillow hurt the back of his skull. “Horse is fine. No problem with us.”

“Ask him what brought him up from the flatlands?” Callie asked, coming close to his bed. “What cause to be here in the first place? Was there a convoy down there?”

“Friend’s partner died up here. He came for her. I came—came for him. He was pretty shaken up.”

“Names,” Ridley said. “His. Hers.”

“Guil Stuart. Aby Dale.”

“Oh, damn,” Callie said with what seemed real sadness, and Ridley’s hand let up its vise grip on his arm. “Not Aby,” Callie said. “We just sawher.”

“Last convoy down. She was in the way. Just—” He didn’t want to go into all of it. Most of all he didn’t want to think about Tarmin tonight. There was too much white in his mind, and winter was such a dangerous time. Dreams turned real when the wind was howling like that outside, and the horses carried the worst imaginings. “Just—she died. They said—they said a rogue horse spooked the convoy. And Guil came up here to get it.”

“But it got Tarmin?”

“Up at the gates—just—people opened doors. I was in the woods looking for Guil, and I heard it go—and—I don’t want to tell this around the kid.”

“She’s asleep,” Ridley said. “Keep going. Horses aren’t hearing you. You just happened into Tarmin when a rogue happenedon the mountain. And where’s this other guy and why isn’t heup here?”

Rogue horse—was rare as legends and campfire stories. And they shouldn’tbelieve a pile of coincidences. But he couldn’t begin to tell them the connecting strings without giving them leads to other things. He just strung it together as best he could.

“Gunshot. This guy—Harper—not from this mountain—he thought—thought, I guess, I mean, he’d seen a rogue once before, or he thought he had, and he wasn’t real right in his head. He really, really hated Stuart. The rogue wasn’t him, you know, it wasn’t Stuart, but everything just got tangled up in his head. I knew this guy was on his track, and Harper—Harper just—just went crazy. Tried to kill Guil.”

“Before the rogue got Tarmin,” Ridley said. “Is Guil this rogue? Is Harper?”

“Horse. Rogue horse.” Danny forgot and shook his head. “Harper’s dead. It’s dead. Shot it. Guil shot it.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“Yeah.”

There was a little easing of tension.

“You came in with a damn spooky feeling,” Ridley said.

“Yeah.”

“So what wasit?”

“Horse—followed us. Maybe five, six horses loose down there.”

“Followed you up the mountain. Through that?”

“Kids with me—nobody alive down there. None without horses. Can’t go down the mountain, snows down there… avalanches…”

“And?” Ridley asked. “Fisher? You’re not going to sleep until you talk. What happened with the rogue? What happened to that girl?”

“It was just—” He didn’t wantto lie. He didn’t dare tell the truth. “Just—when Tarmin went down—kids hid out. I rode in. Searched for survivors. Babies. Old people. There wasn’t anything. —I feltit go, understand me? I feltit go, I don’t want to remember it in this camp, I don’t want to remember it near the horses.”

“Damn,” Callie said.

“I’m all right. My horse is all right.”

“And those kids?”

He let his eyes shut, closing out the questions. They could hit him. They could toss him into the snow. He had to keep the lid on things until he could get his story straight. He didn’t need to pretend to drift toward sleep. His mind kept going out on him—and he didn’t trust them—didn’t trust them not to call a horse close to him—outside the wall.

“What about the rogue horse?” Callie came to stand over him. “How bad is this kid, Fisher? What happened?”

“Just—” He had ultimately to tell them all the truth. But not tonight. Not tonight. The girl was beyond the wall. The gates were shut. It was daylight. “Just—the kid was affected. Keep her inthe village. Don’t bring her near the horses. Had a hell of a time on the road. My horse is all right. Didn’t ever come near the rogue. Couldn’t think about Tarmin, though, I didn’t want to think about it all the way up. And the kids kept remembering it, spooking my horse. Didn’t help. Didn’t help at all.”

They had no more questions for a moment. He didn’t open his eyes to see, but he thought he’d answered everything.

“Jennie’s eight,” Callie said, nothing else, but he understood what she meant. As if a whole village on her hands wasn’t reason enough in itself to worry about him orCloud in the camp.

“I’ll leave if you like. Give me a day or so.”

“Not saying that,” Ridley said.

Decent, goodpeople. He’d had all the way up here to imagine the godawful situations a lone junior could get into, including finding himself in some shelter alone with a bunch of guys older and rougher and maybe far crazier. Winter came down and bunched people up in shelters at the same time the horses were in rut, and memories and sex flew thick as falling leaves through present time.

You didn’t want to get in with a rough crowd, damn, you didn’t, and he hadn’t wanted to scare Carlo and Randy about that possibility. He’d held his own nerves together and was so, so relieved to find himself with a solid, sensible lot of people with an ordinary little girl—

But he’d never… never thought about a little kid exposed to the outspillings of his mind… he just… wasn’t safe…

“Here.” Callie came near, but it was Ridley’s voice, and a smell of vodka. He’d been out, or almost out. They’d had time to go and come back again, and Ridley nudged his hand with a glass. “Drink it.”

They’d done it to him before, and he’d hit his head on the fireplace. “Drunk won’t help.”

“Panic won’t either. Just calm down. An eight-year-old in the next room—we’re a little protective. You understand? There’s yellowflower in it. Drink it.”

Understood Ridley’d shoot him before they let him spook the camp, or hurt the kid or Callie.

They’d shoot him before they let him go off the mental edge, the way Spook’s rider had gone. Harper should have had somebody a long number of years ago, someone who’d hand him a glass of yellow and figuratively hold a gun to his head and say straighten out or I’ll blow your brains out.

Might have saved a lot of people.

Might have saved Harper himself.

He drank it. At least three fast mouthfuls.

“You think that horse followed you all the way?” Ridley asked. “Or where did you lose it?”

“Don’t think it came near the village. But it could be on the road.”

“Must have a real strong notion what it wants.”

“Yeah,” he said, and felt a rush of fear—what it wanted.

“I’d hate to have to shoot it. But I will if it comes around.”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “I know. Five, six, loose, though.” He had no idea. Predators could have gotten some, but it could be more than six.

“Bachelors are the fools. Mares with the lot?”

“Mare down with Tara.” He recalled Stuart, and the cabin, and Tara’s mare, and the vodka and yellow began to hit him like a weight. “Yeah. Tara’s mare. But there’s a stallion with her.” He wanted it quiet, quiet, just barricade it out of his mind. He’d held his sanity this far—but he felt himself not able to hold onto the vodka glass, and it burned his raw throat when he took another sip. “You better take it. I’m going to spill it.”

Ridley took the glass back. Danny couldn’t even coordinate his fingers to turn it over to him. His head spun, and his temples pounded, and that and the cough went with the altitude.

He hadn’t slept in a bed since Shamesey.

Couple with a kid wouldn’t put on him or rob him.

Nice little girl. Cute kid. He missed Denis—he really missed Denis. Last time he’d met Denis he’d hit him. He’d ridden out of Shamesey without a word to his family. He really wished—wished he hadn’t done that.

Dark, then. He thought they’d blown out the light.

The morning—it wasmid-morning now, though the sun hadn’t even been a faint suspicion in the sky when the party had come in– settled down finally to quiet, except for the wind and the snow still going on outside. Ridley made a late, late breakfast for himself and Callie. Jennie was still sleeping like the dead after her unprecedented night wide awake in the den.

Young Fisher was asleep, too, and might not get out of bed for three or four days, by the look of him. He was anxious to get Fisher over to Peterson and see what else he knew.

Fearhad come up the mountain with those kids. Fear had lent them the strength to do what only a couple of young men could do, in making (Ridley didn’t question that part of the story) the whole trek from midway in one day and most of a night, up that iced slant. It was the kind of thing young folk could do, maybe once in their lives—and that some didn’t survive. And the trouble they brought wasn’t going to bed as quickly or as easily as Dan Fisher had.

But the kids—including the problem the girl posed—were disposed of to the village side of the wall, out of the reach of their horses, Fisher wouldn’t stir for thunder, and that was enough to let him and Callie at least draw breath and have their breakfast and a following cup of tea in quiet, mental and otherwise.

All the same Callie had to go look in on Jennie—just checking.

And that, from Callie’s partner, required at least a look up when Callie came back. He generally disapproved Callie’s hovering over the kid. Today there was reason.

Callie—who was used to reading his mind, literally so when Slip and Shimmer were in question—didn’t tell him Jennie was all right when she came back into the main room. Callie didn’t give him a bit of information, meaning he’d have to go look in for himself or he’d have to ask her, dammit.

“She all right?”

“She’s fine.” Callie went to the fireside and poured herself a cup of tea.

It was their hardest argument, how much exposure to the realities of life, sex, and death was too much too soon for their daughter, and when they shouldn’t baby her. It was certain as sundown and sunrise that Jennie would take off on a horse and go long before either of her parents thought she was ready. Kids always did. Young horses didn’t knowtheir young riders were too young, or that two horse years and eight human years didn’t exactly make a mature decision.

They’dbeen worrying about Rain. But with this arrival in the camp they knew there could be much worse going on. He’d heardof rogues, and in the tales that ran among riders, if you got one in a district you could have others.

And dammit, Fisher offered to trek out of here, but the kids he’d escorted were here. There was no way in good conscience to pass that mess on to Mornay village, which was smaller than Evergreen and less equipped than they were to handle the kids.

Especially the girl.

Tarmingone?

There’d been five riders down there. Fiveriders hadn’t been enough, against what had come down on Tarmin.

And these kids survived?

“It’s quiet out there,” Callie said as she joined him by the fire. “I’d think the horses would have been out and about.”

If there were any intrusion into their hearing, that was what Callie meant, specifically—if that loose horse Fisher had talked about had come in. There’d been a disturbance before they’d put Fisher to bed, a little queasiness in the ambient—but it might have been a bushdevil, something stirred out of a burrow nearby. They hadn’t heard anything they could be certain of.

“Just hope the quiet lasts,” he said as Callie warmed her cup with a dollop from the pot. He truly didn’twant to have to kill a horse– but, dammit, he was defending a daughter. “If that stray comes in– I don’t know. The horses down the mountain may attract it back down. I hope so.”

“It could have been us, you know that?” Callie had been upset since he’d brought Fisher into the barracks. He’d seen it in every line of her body. She’dbeen dealing with the village kids—including the girl. “What got Tarmin could have come to Evergreen instead.”

“Well, the last rider in Tarmin must have done something right. It’s dead. He swears they did get it, Callie.”

“ Ifwe’ve heard the truth,” Callie said. “We’re leaning an awful lot on Fisher’s word.”

“He’s got no motive to lie.”

“The hell he hasn’t! He brought that girl up here, in her condition—what kind of judgment is that?”

He had to think of Jennie. “I’m not sure I could have let her die. And she was getting worse.”

“And they’ve got a horse after them. We have his wordthe rogue is gone. We don’t know that’s not what chased him up the mountain! He had walls down there, shelters near Tarmin—and why did he leave there? Because the girl would have died? Or because something was chasing him?”

“We have his wordit ever existed in the first place, Callie. If he was a thoroughgoing liar, why would he have to tell us anything?”

“In case the phone lines aren’tdown for the winter here. In case we’d already got a message from Tarmin! In case we listened to him and caught how damn scared he is! In case we asked why he didn’t go down the mountain if that’s where he’s from? Look at the girl, for God’s sake! He said—when she came out of it—she shouldn’t be near the horses. What did he mean by that, except that she’s not safe here, she was spooking him and his horse, and Idon’t think she’s safe even in the village!”

He didn’t have an answer for that—not one Callie couldn’t knock down. Callie wasn’t a trusting woman. And she’d formed conclusions it was well to listen to.

“The lines going down early this year,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t just the ice on the lines, you know? As crazy as things have felt for weeks, the way things feltout there when he was coming in with those kids—oh, I believe him when he says there was trouble at Tarmin. I don’t believe him when he says the rogue situation’s done with. And he’s under this roof and that girl’s just the other side of the camp wall!”

“Are you saying we should put him out? The little I did catch from him while we were in the den—I believe he’s honest; I also think he’s young, he’s skittish, he’s holding stuff in, but I don’t think he’s actually lying to us. I think he’s told us what he feels safe telling and I don’t blame him for not letting all he remembers loose on a night like that.”

“I wish I thought he wasn’t lying.”

“Wish I had an answer for you,” Ridley said. But he didn’t.

And by now he’d had time to realize that not only did they have a winter problem, they were facing a spring and summer and years down the road problem, and the very scary prospect of not just Evergreen but all the villages on the mountain going into next autumn without supplies.

Much of their supply source for equipment and half their trade with the lowlands was a company down in Anveney town that might—who knew the minds of townfolk?—be very reluctant to send even the usual number of trucks up here without some hard dealing. The main source they had for food was Shamesey. Oil and gas came from the south. One truck lost, when Aby Dale had died– that happened. But Tarmin gone?

That was the staging area for all trucks going up to the High Loop and it was the depot for supplies, the warehouses for trade goods that were just too heavy to ship up: warehouses for everything coming down off the mountain and everything that had to be sent up—some items by oxcart, as things moved when the villagers were paying the freight; and some by truck, when the trucks hauling company loads had space and the item wasn’t too heavy.

Food for the High Loop villages stayed in warehouses in Tarmin before it moved up the Climb by oxcart. They were going to be eating a lot of bushdevil and willy-wisp if they couldn’t get lowland beef and pork. Flour already cost twice what it did in Tarmin, which was already three times its cost in the lowlands.

Gasoline and freight costs could easily quadruple for Evergreen.

And the oxen that made those runs—the only transportation for goods that didn’t run at Anveney’s cost for fuel—he didn’t need to ask young Fisher what their fate had been once those gates were open. They were gone. The menthat drove those teams were gone along with everything else edible that wasn’t cased in steel or locked behind it.

Tarmin gone meant nolocal goods moving until they replaced the oxen and the drivers. And oxen with experienced drivers didn’t exist except over on Darwin Peak—a far journey—or down in Shamesey district, which had a long-running feud with Anveney, which hadno oxen. Anveney was Rogers Peak’s primary contractor—and the best source of people with the nerve to leave the big towns and venture into the High Wild.

“I tell you,” he said, “we’d better spend less time sitting in camp this winter, do a little extra hunting, store whatever we can. It’s going to be a long year.”

Callie shot him a look that said he’d caught her attention. “Think Cassivey will deal hard?”

That was the company in Anveney.

“Will snow fall this winter?” was his counter. “He’s a townsman. I tell you, if we don’t get some ox-teams up here it’s going to be a cold, damn expensive next winter, or we’re going to make a lot of trips with wheelbarrows up and down that road.”

“Shamesey’s going to know we’re in trouble. And they’lljack the price. It’s not going to be easy this summer.”

“They’ll rebuild Tarmin,” he said, and as he said it a thought came to him, the glimmering of an idea that, yes, Tarmin hadto exist: Anveney and Shamesey were as dependent on Rogers Peak as Rogers Peak settlements were on them, and even if they had help from Anveney’s most desperate—it wasn’t townsmen from the flat-lands that were going to be able to bring it back to life.

Chapter 8

Hearing Randy stirring, Carlo stretched the kinks out of his back; he’d been sleeping fitfully, coatless and in his stocking feet, leaning against the stones of the low furnace wall. The stretch stopped in a dry-air cough.

“You all right?” Randy asked.

“Yeah.” Carlo took a drink from the metal cup and then took a stale, crumbling biscuit off the fireside wall and offered it to him. “You want a biscuit? Saved it from the rider camp. There’s no tea, but there’s hot water. Tastes awful but it feels pretty good on the throat.”

Randy didn’t look enthusiastic—less so when Carlo got up and poured him a cup of hot water from the pot he’d set on the coals.

“Isn’t anybody going to feed us?” Randy asked. “Where iseverybody?”

“This is what we’ve got.” Carlo kept his temper down, kept his voice calm and reasoning. The kid had a temper of his own and he didn’t want to provoke it. “The guy they waked up to put us in here wasn’t real happy. He’s the blacksmith. And I get the impression he’d just as soon we weren’t here, but the marshal put us here, and that’s that, I guess, till they straighten things out.”

“Well, askhim where we can get something.”

“Kid, —we don’t have any money. Tarmin credit isn’t worth anything because there isn’t a Tarmin anymore. We won’t have any money to live on if we don’t get a job here, and right here in this place with this guy who doesn’t want us here is about the best job I’m going to be able to get, and the best you’regoing to be able to get. So eat the damn biscuit. I saved it for you and I’mhungry. There’s the ham you carried up the Climb.”

Randy took the biscuit, got into his coat pocket, took out the greasy packet of thawed ham and opened it. “Maybe we should have gone to Shamesey.”

“We don’t knowtowns. We don’t know anything about the flat-lands.”

“Danny would be there.”

“Danny wouldn’t be there. He’s not a town rider. He travels. And maybe he’s done all for us he wants to do.” He remembered that duck of Danny’s head. But going down to Shamesey and asking Danny’s help to do it wasn’t an idea he wouldn’t consider—if all else failed.

“But—” Randy said.

“Are you ready for another hike through the snow? Next village? Maybe the next after that?”

“No.” A quiet, dejected no.

“If it happens—” Carlo said. “If it happens this place doesn’t have room for us, we’ll move. Thenwe’ll think about it. —If we have to.”

Randy took a bite out of the stale biscuit sandwich and washed it down with hot water. The kid looked on the verge of tears. Carlo’s throat was sore, his ears hurt and he was so stiff he could hardly move.

“I did knock quietly a while back—” Carlo nodded toward the door that didn’t lead outside, but to the smiths’ house, unlike their arrangement down in Tarmin. “The house is catty-angled to that door. In a passageway. And they’re not answering. It’s daylight, but they’re not stirring around much.” Carlo took a look to the side where the outside door showed light in the cracks. “But they weren’t going to fire up today because of the storm. Maybe tomorrow.”

“On a lousy biscuit?”

“ Best we can do, all right?” He shouldn’t have raised his voice. “I’d say go back to sleep. Your stomach won’t feel hungry that way. If we can’t raise the house and work something out by tomorrow, I’ll go out and see if Danny can slip us something and then we’ll see where we cango or how we deal with these people. All right?”

Randy considered the half biscuit he had left, much more forgivingly. “You want part of it?”

“Had mine.”

“The stuff on the sled was ours.”

“We threw everything off the sled. Remember?”

Maybe Randy didn’t remember. The kid looked entirely dejected.

“Yeah, but—”

“Best we can do, I’m telling you.”

Fact was, they’d only had the ham in their pockets because Danny had argued them into it, in case they got separated. He’d just never imagined it might be in Evergreen that they’d need it.

“I should have asked the riders,” he said to soften the tone. “I should have thought of it when we left the camp, but we had enough carrying you, and I didn’t know where we were going. Didn’t know they’d be so hard-ass and not feed us, to tell the truth. —And right now I don’t want to be gone from here in case the owner comes in to talk to us. It was hard enough getting in here in the first place.”

“Where’s Brionne?”

“With the doctor. A widow. Has a big house. She’s all right. Well, —as all right as she’s likely to be.”

“She doesn’t deserve it.”

“She’s off our conscience. We did what we could do. Wedon’t have to worry about her, all right?”

“Maybe we should go to the camp and ask Danny for our stuff.”

“I want to be here, hear me? Danny’s there if we absolutely need him—but we don’t know howthe rider camp and the village get along. Let’s just not muddy up thisdeal till we know what we’re doing here.”