Deep, deep trouble, Danny began to say to himself, and in that inattention put his foot in a hole. He went down, and made Carlo fall. For a moment they both lay there, neither with the strength to move.
Then Cloud broke the force of the wind, coming up to shove with his nose at his back, and slowly, shaking at Carlo to move him, Danny began to get up. Hed gotten snow into his cuffs. He tried to get rid of it, got his feet under him somehow.
Need to rest, Carlo gasped.
You got a kid freezing faster than you are. His bodys thinner. Get up. Now!
Carlo moved, and got to his knees, and got on his feet.
They struggled along what, for they knew, was indeed a logging trail. There wasnt any sense of climbing or descending, no way to tell they werent walking to some dead-end clearing out across the broad face of Rogers Peak.
, the image kept coming to him:
didnt work. Cloud didnt understand anything Cloud couldnt picture and silence didnt translate when Cloud was distraught.
, came back to him. Then came:
Rogue-image.
, Danny countered desperately.
But that was a trap. It was easy to get to thinking about that and justnot to come back from that image. And anything that faltered, anything that hesitated in the Wild, anything that took a wrong path and broke a legit died.
When Men had come down to the world in their ships, horses had been the only thing that had come snuggling up to humans, wicked as they were, being the Beasts that God had sent on the settlers
And some of them had to take the gift and be damned to save the rest, because the rest without horses, without riders, wouldnt have made it.
Youre going to hell, his father had yelled at him.
But what he was doing was not wicked. Trying to get these boys to safety was not evil.
Slow down! he yelled at Cloud, as Cloud began to widen the lead on them, breaking the way through the drifted snow, making a path for them.
But Cloud wouldnt stop. Cloud threatened and wanted
Carlo didnt say anything about what Cloud was sendingmaybe he heard, maybe he didnt. But he moved as if he had heard, and pulled desperately on his polegot up without urging when his feet stumbled on the deep snow.
It wasnt just a sending. The sound of a bell came unmistakably, now. Cloud was still breaking the path ahead of them, thinking and and
Were going to make it, Danny began to say to himself, half in tears. Were going to make it.
But
Rider-shelters out in the wilderness didnt have bells, did they?
God, had he led them not past one shelterbut past two? That was a village gate bell.
Had the junior rider in his blind, stupid desperationjust led them all the way to Evergreen?
The den was not only the safest place to be: it was the only place they could do anything besides stand watch in the guard-stations above the wallswhich Callie reported the marshal and five men were doing, now, on the village side of the wall.
And by a stretch of awareness, once the horses caught the notion of the marshal on guard from Callie, the villageside guards were near enough to the den that the horses were vaguely aware of them as a force.
That was useful. That meant there couldnt be alarm over there villageside without them in the camp hearing it.
Better than villageside guns against the Wild, the horses were wary and watching against a sending so moiled and confused. With Slip and Shimmer on guard, nothing harmful would insinuate a sending close enough to make either the guards in the village or them in the rider camp do something stupid, which was generally how you died in the Wilda gate opened, a latch forgotten. Haste. Confusion. Short-term memory overpowering a humans long-term thought.
Ridley didnt intend to make mistakes here. That was what they all said to each other, including Jennie, but Ridley paced and fretted, and Slip made frequent forays outside to sniff the wind and threatened, until Callie, sitting on a straw bale, said, Quiet, for Gods sake, and Shimmers irritation came through with it.
It could very well be miners, Ridley said finally, and leaned against the post by her. But I dont recognize that horse. Do you?
Road drifted shut, maybe, Callie said after a momentmeaning some rider could be coming to them instead of back to his own village. A road drifted beyond the strength of a single horse to clear itthat was one explanation, and a rider would indeed go to the nearest village. Maybe a hunting party had gotten caught out and couldnt make it back to Mornay village, which was nearest to them down the roadthe land-sense was too diffuse yet to pin the direction down.
Possible too, if somebody had been in longer-lasting trouble out there, a bad storm could be exactly when a party dug in might make their break and run for the nearest village, hoping the predators would stay put in dens. It would be a terrible risk. But hed heard of miners taking that measure without a rider.
Exceptthis party had a horse.
He didnt want to think about dire possibilities in too specific images: the night was chancy enough and they had a scared and sleepy kid on their hands.
Theyre coming in, Callie muttered. Its getting stronger the last while.
Mama? Jennie said, and stirred awake in a frightened jerk.
Hush. Callie stroked Jennies hair. Nothings happening.
I had a bad dream, Jennie said, and Rain came close and nosed at her. Jennie reached out and patted him, and tucked down again where it was warm.
They couldnt lie to Jennie. They couldnt hold her out of what was happening or protect her from iteight years old, and there was so very little time in which to learn all she had to know to surviveincluding when it was time to be scared, or angry, or how to keep herself in check to hold onto the horses and not let them spook, because in Shimmers and Slips reckonings, let alone in Rains, Jennie was all of a sudden and in this crisis a serious presencewhen she wasnt drifting off asleep.
Just last fall shed still been , and even lately Shimmer still protected her that way; but Shimmer was pushing Jennie away tonight the way Shimmer shoved Rain aside, who was her last, now-grown foal.
Young horse. No brakes on his sensing things. No self-protection. He belonged with a herd, not in a winter den with a pregnant mare, a stallion in rut, and a kid herself years from puberty in close mental contact with a horse that was in the throes of it. He didnt like it under ordinary circumstances.
But he could no longer blame Rain for the sending out there. It was real, and Callie was right, it was coming in: they could all feel the sense of getting closer by the passing minute.
And it was from the direction of the Climb, not from the direction of Mornaythat was increasingly sure in the sending the nearer it came. If it was a rider from anywhere on the High Loop, theyd have had to have ridden past Evergreen to get to that side of the village.
Up the Climb, Callie said faintly. Why on earth?
So Callie heard it the same way, and became certain of the direction at the same moment he did.
The rider with that horse had to be crazy, Ridley thought. Shimmer was Slip was
And though right and justice said that once they were reasonably sure they were hearing any rider they ought by all means to beacon him in from such a storm, the skittery character of the sending still made Ridley reluctant to reach out to it.
Maybe it was just Rains young nerves. Maybe it was the distance over which they were picking things up, impressions maybe carried by wild creatures snugged down in their dens, things of little brains and little accuracy about an image.
But knowing for certain enough that it was another rider: , he imaged out into the dark, laying himself open to whatever danger might lie in a sending coming back at them. , he promised that presence.
Callie made up her mind, too. She joined him, with, and said, Ill go tell the marshal theres strangers comi
ng.
Plainer and plainer to human ears, the ringing of a storm-driven bell, and the delirious dream of Danny struggled to keep his feet and keep moving; but even believing safety was in front of them, Carlo was fast failing him, losing not the will but the strength to fight his body upright against the wind. Carlo might fall and freeze in all but sight and hail of shelter.
, Danny began to think. But that meant because neither of them could carry him, and it meant , if he left Carlo to defend his brother and sister from vermin and went ahead for help.
He held to Clouds mane in the deep snow, gripping the travois pole with a right hand that had lost all feeling. His feethe didnt even know.
, he sent for all he was worth, and drove all his efforts toward that bell that rang louder and loudertoo tired himself to pull the travois alone, unable to go faster than Carlo could go.
A beautiful image began to come clearer and clearer to him:
There were They promised the preachers Heaven after their day and night of hell, and to reach it, Danny began to believe hed have to stand still and try to beacon help to them. Breath came raw and cold. Feet faltered repeatedly.
Then out of the bitter cold and the swirling snowa dark barrier loomed up among the evergreens like a wall across the world, logs and snow, and waiting for them behind it.
Carlo saw it, too. Cloud did, and all but pulled them through a succession of drifts by the grip Danny had on his mane.
, he was picking up from Carlo.
There wasnt anything of But there hadnt been enough of all up the mountain, in Dannys reckoning. It was everything for Randy. Everything for Brionne and not damn well enough of self-preservation.
Listen to me. Danny struggled to have a voice at all as, letting Cloud go, he struggled toward paradise and the gate in that solid wall. He said it as fiercely as he could, before thoughts scattered again toward safety and comfort, and before he lost his chance, with distance, to put his own pain between them and eavesdroppers: Listen to me. You shut it down, Carlo. You shut it down entirely everything that happenedand you shut Randy down. Theyre riders. Theyll kill us as soon as look at us if you go acting crazy in a winter camp. Same way Tara threw us out. So you shut up.
Were here, Carlo said, seeming bewildered. We made it to the shelter.
Were not in a damn shelter. This is the village, do you understand me? We havent got any place we can put your sister but in the rider camp till the camp boss passes on us and we cant let her wake up, you understand me?
Yeah, Carlo said faintly. Yeah. I do.
You let me do the talking and you keep her as far away from the horses as you can get. You dont think about anything down the mountain. You dont think about it till youre over villageside. Think about Think about water. Keep Randy quiet. Got it?
He wasnt sure Carlo understood everything Carlo said he did. Hed intendedgetting to the shelterhaving time to figure out a course of next action in that top-of-the-ridge cabin theyd missed. Hed had in mind a slower, more reasoned approach to the villages up here.
And they were here.
He kept his mind as blank of further guesses as he could manage, set the calm image in Carlos mind, and in Randys, in such consciousness as he felt there:
The gates opening! Carlo said.
, Danny gathered in the ambient, information coming to him freely and abundantly now that he entered the close vicinity of other horses.
Information was pouring at him now, as they met the muffled figures in the storm-glow, as three wary horses came out to stand by their riders. The seniors of the set were understandably protective and suspicious, wanting the kid , and the horses were on guard, hearing, he knew, the spook-voice that had chased them, relayed from every creature denned-up tonight.
<Loose horse back there,> Danny said, first offthey must have caught their fear and desperate urgency, and that wild, troubled sending that chased them.
But he wasnt sure then at what point theyd met or when the man had gotten hold of his arm or when hed let go the travois in favor of the woman taking it.
They were inside the rider camp, that was all that was clear to him, attached to a village that had to be Evergreen itself.
Danny didnt know whether it was his own thought or Carlos or a sending out of the darkand after that just saw a confusion of
Then Carlo was overwhelming the ambient with and as they lugged the travois along the path between the horse-den and the camp wall. All through the ambient then, fierce and strong in the milling-about of horses, came , and and , and as they came.
Danny said, being all but held on his feet, Behave, Cloud, dammit, in the thread of a voice he had left, and managed somehow to keep the lid on trouble. He made shift to veer off toward Cloud, but he wasnt doing at all well at keeping his feet on his own. He persistently got the image of a man and a woman and a kid as the only riders there were, several fewer than hed have expected and with every right to be skittish at them splitting up, one of them wanting the den, the other wanting the barracks
But for a giddy moment he asked himself if hed really made it or whether he wasnt after all hallucinating, not safe inside the wooden walls of a rider haven but lying back there in the snow somewhere.
Didnt know how theyd done it. Couldnt believe yet it was Evergreen.
He didnt know how theyd come this farexcept theyd been walking through treesexcept, as the scale of things hed expanded shrank again, it had been that very turnthat turn he thought hed mistaken
God, they must right then have been at the top of the road. Theyd been right on the cabin they were looking for. That wasnt the turn. It was the truck park. Where the cabin had been. His estimate of time and distance hadnt been off.
God help a fool. Hed been there, and walked past shelter in the whiteout.
You all right? The man had his arm, helping him walk.
Yeah.
But he kept in mind his own warning to Carlo, and on a night like this, with strangers out of a storm when no reasonable people would be out and about, he didnt want to act like a spook. He just wanted , wanted and he imaged , in case the riders hadnt realized from Carlos mind that there were two more lives in their company than it seemed. Clouds welfare was absolutely foremost for him now. And he had to stay upright long enough to do that.
I can take care of your horse, the man said. Theres mash cooked. We heard you coming. How are your feet?
No worse than the last hour, he said. And my horse got me here. Ill see to him. He didnt want to think about his feet. He might be crippled for life. Bound to camp. Cattle-sentry. He couldnt think of worse he could do to Cloud, including them freezing to death. Theres a shotgun. Take it and the shells. All I can pay you. Promised ham to my horse. Got to pay him off.
This way. The man didnt argue with him or bargain for shelter. He was aware of , knew the horse belonged to the man, and he knew the and another were ambling off instead toward the rider barracks where Carlo was going, where the woman and the kid were going, as protective of them as the stallion was of the man.
The stillness of the air, then, the dark inside the den, the mere cessation of the wind itself were like warmth as they came inside the safe, insulated stalls. It left him breathless and blind except for Clouds senses, lingeringly deaf from the wind, except for Clouds hearing, mentally lost, except for Clouds presence and Clouds sense of They must, Danny thought giddily, use it like straw up here where straw didnt grow. That was a nice touch. He liked that.
And he was wandering, and staggering.
He knew when Cloud found a water pail that wasnt frozen. He knew that Cloud drank, and then they both were blinded when the rider watching over them cut on an electric torch. In that beam of light he saw details of a smallish den, snug and warm, stalls and a sheltered heap of meadow hay that had never grown
on this height: had to have been trucked up here. Had to cost as much as flour. But it meant life to the villages.
And when the rider set that light in a bracket aimed at the roof and stopped blinding him, he saw a village rider muffled up in a riders fringed leather coat and woolen scarf and broad-brimmed hat tied down against the wind. Could have been a mirror of him.
Names Ridley, the man said. Callie, my partner, shes got your partners.
Village kids, he corrected that impression. Tarmin village. On that, he ran out of voice. He needed water. He pulled his gloves off fingers that had no feeling, dipped his hands into water that at least was above freezing, and that felt hotand drank what Cloud had drunk, a sip or two, and a splash over his face to warm it.
But even that was too much. He thought for a moment hed throw it up again, somewhere between the pain and the load on his stomach. He leaned on a stall post, just breathing until the waves of nausea passed.
Meanwhile the rider called Ridley had gotten warming-blankets and thrown them over Cloud, and at that he had to move, because he wouldnt have anybody else taking care of Cloud. He thanked Ridley in his shred of a voice, took up the job himself, and rubbed and rubbed Clouds cold body and colder legs to get the blood moving.
The effort warmed both of them, set him panting and coughing, made his nose bleed and made him sick at his stomach. Hed been in such misery he hadnt felt the altitude headache in the last push toward that faint sound of a bell, but now it came back, so blindingly acute he shut his eyes as he worked. Ridley gave him salve to use, and he rubbed it down Clouds legs and checked Clouds feet Ridley helped in that, which was good, because Ridleys fingers could feel the spots between the hooves and his still couldnt.
Looks pretty good for where hes been, Ridley said after hed inspected all four sets of hooves. Tarmin rider, are you?
He didnt want to talk details. Not tonight. He was sniffing back blood that otherwise dripped from his nose. Kids are. Im from Shamesey. He rubbed salve vigorously into Clouds rear right pastern and down over the tri-fold hoof, which Cloud obligingly lifted and let him tuck against his knee. Long story. Tell you inside. Working upside down made him cough, threatened him with losing all the water hed swallowed, and the blood was drowning him.
Cloud's Rider Page 7