probably thought that it was a good thing, finally, to be in the rider camp, among people with whom hed 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.
Hed 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 thered be a decent, god-fearing distance between them, and hed be
Damn lonely.
But hed get the shop back. Hed train Randy in the trade. The neighbors couldnt tell what theyd 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. Paperwouldnt 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 judges office.
He thought he might throw up.
Everything was ruined if that record was there. He had to get there. First. Somehow. Somebody had to, that he could trustsomebody like Danny, who could find those books and just get rid of them, or if he could go with Danny, whod be under pressure from everybody in the village wanting to go down there, and the Mackeys and a whole lot of other people finding him the obstacle to their ambitions. Those records could give them everything they wanted.
He knew theyd written him down for murder. He didnt know, on account of Randys age and his statement, whether theyd written him down the same. But theyd locked Randy up with him. Age hadnt deterred the law from that.
And the Mackeysif they had that to usetheyd 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 wasnt angry at him.
The whole night had assumed a chancy, awful feeling. As ifas if the veneer of recent days had started to peel away a layer at a timeand tonight the undersurface was showing through.
He didnt hear the sending now. He heard a single, faraway shot, but didnt think the shot had hit anything. It felt scary out there. Real scary.
Hed rather be afraid of the dark out there than think the thoughts he was left with tonight. He all but wished the horse would come 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 theres a favor I have to ask you.
A really big favor.
Likeget me to Tarmin. And not the rest of the village.
He felta falling, then. Tasted very strongly. He twitched, maybe the remnant of the shiversmaybe 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 hed never known blood had a smell. But after Tarmin he had a sense for it.
After Tarmin he dreamed of that smelland didnt want to, tonight.
Didnt want to sleep at all. Just wanted to ride that feeling,
Then he did see , 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 theyd 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 goinguntil 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
Ť ^ ť
The sun did come up.
Thered 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 didnt. The water still soaked the floor, but it wasnt 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 weldedif theyd 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 another business lying vacant down there, among other odds and ends about which Carlo didnt want to think, this morning.
Van even showed up to do actual work instead of leaving the shop to Ricks slovenly management this morning. Van even wanted to talk, and once they got down to business, it developed they each knew things the other didntthere were tricks Van Mackey knew that their father hadnt. 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 mindthat 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 wished he hadnt 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 didnt want. He didnt 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 theyd spill everything on their minds not only to Danny but to all the riders.
That wouldnt 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 say to Danny once he had him over here?
It didnt 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. Any secret was hard for a rider to keep. Danny had proved that to him. That was the whole point of the quarrel theyd had.
He couldnt hand Danny a secret of their running off together and expect him to keep it.
Which meant he couldnt tell Danny at all. That was what it boiled down to. He just couldnt 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.
Thats 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 you shut 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.
Dont 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 Carlos less than charitable estimation, Van Mackey didnt 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, becau
se it was a hunt for a horse, a species that, along with several of the largest predators, didnt den up except in weather much worse than this.
So they went out: and that was what they were afterhe, and Ridley, and four of the most experienced hunters in Evergreen, because something had been active last night; at least something they couldnt 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 couldnt.
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 wouldnt be worked with this morning until it was clear they were going and
and was all Danny could get out of Cloud; and Cloud wasnt quite as eager as Slip to be out in the snow Meaning that Cloud didnt 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 riders reputation, no.
Personally, Danny was resolved in his mind that they had to do something about the horse, and he was very glad Ridley accepted him after difficulties with that he didnt 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 villageand it justifiably made Ridley anxious the further they went from village walls.
They were casting far afield today. It made him anxious. 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 theyd seen so far there was nothing either to indicate the horse was still about, or that any other game was. Theyd sent the hunters up on the heights, but with the snow-fall they hadnt seen any tracks, and he personally knew that the horse, if that was what it had been, was damned canny.
He wasnt afraid, exactly, if he had to go on to Mornay alone. His real danger and Clouds 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 otherthat was a whole different story, the way Spook-horse wasnt that likely to go after four middle-aged men and two armed ridersif it had turned predatory and not simply lonely.
In that matter, Cloud wasnt 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 hed shoved the rider camp gate shut with Ridley serene on Slips 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 didnt care if his rider looked the fool in front of the others. Cloud didnt 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. Well 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. Ill go on to Mornay. Ill be fine.
No proof now the horse is still here.
No proof it isnt. Just let me go from here. Ill sleep at the shelter tonight and Ill be in Mornay noon tomorrow. He had a bad feeling about the silence, little experienced as he was up here. Because of that lack of experience he wanted to take every available precaution, and he still felt responsible. He trusted the map theyd 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. Ill come back the same day. Ill 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 well be here to help you noon after tomorrow.
Ridley shook his head. No. No taking one of them out of their winter plans if were not finding anything. Winter has yet to set in hard and fast, but itll 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 its gone. And what are the hunters going to do?
See if we can bag something, Ridley said. There hadnt been a sign of game, not a track above the size of a flitter. Thats what would make these men feel better. Circle out ahead. See if that young horse of yours can scare something up.
Ill 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 wasnt 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. Wasnt too bad. Theyd 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, hed just rather move on, now that the weather had settled. Tara agreed. So theyd moved not toward a camp Tara wasnt 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 Flickers side. Even amorous horses werent 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 theyd blow it to hell.
Quiet out there tonight, too, Tara said. I wish that meant anything.
Yeah, he said. Listening for whats not is pretty tricky.
If its a horse its the damn spookiest one I ever met.
Yeah, Guil said.
Once in a great whi
le 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 werent. Where human settlements were was a pretty tiny patch, whether you reckoned it locally or against the world as wide as hed 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 hed never been He guessed it was on
Yeah, she said, warm against his side, drinking in all the things he thought were prettiest.
Hed never met a woman but his mother and Aby whod been able to show him the vast deeper Wild in their minds. Hed 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. Hed found her as a villager. But he knew now what she waslike 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 werent 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, hed have said, No, fool. And this was almost that case: but the kids they were trying to match courses with and this thing were in the same direction.
So was Evergreen village.
Real, real quiet out there. No game. Nothing with any sense about it that wasnt 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 didnt invite him to a beer in the house or in the tavern.
He wasnt 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.
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