Shortly after lunch, they rode into a town that had a large livery stable, so Karl dismounted in front of it and went inside to see if he could buy some extra feed for the horses. The stable master offered to sell him several bales of hay and four bags of oats.
While the men were loading the hay and oats, Joan sat on her wagon seat, daydreaming. After a bit, she felt someone’s eyes on her, so she slowly looked towards the inn. A man was standing beside the door, staring at her. The second their eyes met, a shock of recognition flashed through her. That man was the bandit that they had captured the night of the raid.
He sauntered over towards her wagon and just as he drew close enough to pose a threat, he reached out and stroked one of her horses. “She’s a beauty. Reminds me of a mare I had last year. Gentle with my children but she had a strong heart. Had to put her down after she broke her leg running through a field outside of Billows. Tore my heart out,” he said as he continued to rub her horse’s head. “Ever been to Billows, ma’am?”
Joan’s heart was beating so hard and fast that she felt sure that he could hear the thuds and see her pulse jumping. “No, not to my knowledge. But we’ve been through so many towns along the Pooley River that I really don’t know.”
“Oh, Billows isn’t on the Pooley River, ma’am. It’s several days north, in Brendolanth. Are you sure you’ve never been there? You sure do look familiar.”
With that special bond that some married couples develop, Karl sensed his wife’s distress and walked around the end of the wagon towards the front. As soon as he saw the bandit, he knew what had upset her. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked as he continued towards the front of the wagon.
“No, that’s all right. I was just admiring your horse here,” the man said. “Well, guess I’ll be on my way. Have a nice day, ma’am.” Then he nodded towards Joan, turned, and entered the stable.
“You recognized him, didn’t you?” Joan whispered to Karl.
Karl nodded. “We’re going to finish loading and then we’ll ride out of town as if nothing happened,” he said quietly. “I don’t think he’s sure about us. Remember, it was dark.”
“Not when he saw us in the dry goods store,” Joan mumbled. “What’s he doing down here? You don’t think he’s looking for us, do you?”
“No. That would be too much of a coincidence,” Karl whispered. “I can’t see him setting out to track us down. He didn’t strike me as a much of a thief, much less a bounty hunter.”
“And since you’ve known so many of them …” Joan argued.
Karl laughed and told her she had a point. Then he walked towards the back of the wagons to see if everything had been loaded.
“All loaded. Want to grab some scog before we head out?” Chris asked as he nodded towards a nearby tavern.
“Not this time. Let’s mount up,” Karl said quietly. “I’ll explain later.”
Darrell raised his eyebrows and asked, “Trouble?”
“Could be,” Karl answered.
Within a couple of minutes, the Tellurians were headed out of town on the eastbound road and they didn’t stop until they had put about ten miles between themselves and the town. Then Karl pulled up and signaled for everyone to stop and gather around.
“While we were loading the hay and oats, Joan had an interesting encounter,” Karl said as he nodded towards her.
Joan explained about the bandit, the flash of recognition that she was sure she saw in his eyes, her brief conversation with him, and the creepy feeling that he knew about the bounty. “I can’t point to anything that makes me so sure he knows, but he does. Sounds crazy, I know.”
“No it doesn’t,” Steve said. “Flashes like that are often right. So the question is what do we do now?”
“I think we should plan to put as many miles between us and him as we can, and as fast as we can,” Karl answered. “I had hoped to take tomorrow off and rest the horses, but I don’t think that’s a good idea now. Maybe in a couple of days.”
“Right,” Darrell agreed. “Well, we have a couple more hours before dark. I say we move on and set up camp at sunset.”
By the time they set up camp that night, it was dark. They dug a fire pit so that the flame wouldn’t be quite so visible, and tethered the horses close by. After dinner, they quickly settled down for the night, hoping to be back on the road by daybreak.
The next morning was windy, with clouds blowing in and out, but no rain or snow. By lunchtime, the clouds had settled into a thick overcast. Late that afternoon they came across an evergreen forest that bordered the river for several miles. According to the map, their road headed south for about a mile, circled around the forest, and then rejoined the river.
About halfway along the forest, Karl rode into the woods to see if he could find a good spot for a campsite. He found two adjoining circular clearings close to the river bank. They could tether the horses in one and set up their camp in the other.
After everyone had followed Karl into the clearing, Darrell said, “I think this would be a good place to take a day off. If that bandit did recognize us and was going to try to collect on the reward, don’t you think he would have done something about it by now?”
“Probably. I sort of expected him to make a move last night,” Karl agreed. “Let’s set up for two nights, and then if we feel uneasy tomorrow, we can move on. I’ll string up a small corral for the horses while the rest of you set up camp.”
The strain of expecting an attack at any moment had taken its toll. No one had slept well the night before and they were all exhausted. Shortly after dinner, everyone headed towards bed except Theresa, Steve, and Darrell. They had the first watch. All three of them spent the hours of their watch strolling around the campsite, afraid that they would fall asleep if they sat down. Finally, it was midnight and time to change shifts.
As soon as Chris and Kevin got up, they settled down near the fire to get over the shock of leaving their warm bedrolls for the icy cold wind sweeping down from the north. The sky was still overcast. The clouds completely blocked out the moon and stars, making the night even darker.
Around 1:00, Chris said, “I’m going to walk over and check on the horses. How about sending up your seeing eye and having a good look around while I’m gone, okay?”
“Okay. Am I looking for anything in particular?”
“I don’t know. Just look.”
“This is the first time you’ve suggested that I do that since we left Rainbow Valley. Are you sensing something?”
“I’m not sure. The feeling’s there, but it isn’t very strong. Maybe it’s just reaction to the last couple of days. It’s probably nothing,” Chris said as he stood up and shook his head. “Forget I even mentioned it.”
“Why don’t you wait a minute and let me take a look around?”
Chris shrugged and sat back down to wait for Kevin to finish checking out the area.
“Whoa, what have we here?” Kevin mumbled to himself. “Chris, I think you’re right on target. Let me see. We have three camps strung out along the road. One is west of us near the edge of the woods, where the road and river are fairly close together. One is east of us, about a mile up, where a rather large stream cuts through the woods, and the third is south of us, about where we entered the woods from the road. In other words, we’re surrounded. They must have been following us most of the day and spotted the smoke from our campfire this evening.”
“What are they doing?” Chris whispered.
“Nothing right now. There are about six or seven men in each camp, as close as I can tell. A few appear to be sleeping in bedrolls, so I may have missed one or two, but mostly, they’re just huddled around their fires, waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe daybreak. Maybe for a break in the clouds so that they’ll have a little more light when they attack us. Our friend from Billows probably isn’t too anxious to charge in blind, but they’re definitely ready for a fight. I see swords, bows and arrows, an
d a few clubs,” Kevin said as he continued to look through his seeing eye. Then he looked at Chris and said, “If they were hunters, they wouldn’t be traveling in that large a group, and they wouldn’t be camping on the road. I think we can safely assume that they’re after us.”
“Next question. What are we going to do?”
“Well, I could take them out right now, but I really don’t want to do that.”
“I’m not sure it would be a good idea anyway,” Chris said. “Rolan’s already after us because of Taelor. If he finds out that one of us is a sorcerer, he’s going to be even more interested in us. Maybe we can ‘sneak away’ in the night.”
“I’m all for that, but how? We’re boxed in to the east, west, and south, with a river on the north. Wait a minute. Let me check out the other side of the river.” Then Kevin focused his seeing eye on the north side of the river. Not only were there no bounty hunters, there was a nice thick evergreen forest bordering the north bank, with a road running parallel to the river on the other side of the woods.
“If we could get to the road on the other side of the river, we could do it. We could actually sneak away into the night,” Kevin mumbled. “Now, how can I get us from here to there? The wagons won’t be a problem, but what about the horses? How can I get them across the river quietly?”
“Could we try tying something over their eyes? I don’t know that it’ll work, but that’s what they always did in the movies,” Chris said with a shrug.
“Let’s get Karl. He knows more about horses than we do.”
“We might as well get everyone up. We’re either going to have to vanish or fight. This is a royal pain,” Chris muttered angrily as he began walking towards the sleeping tarps. “Everyone’s beat. We really could have used a day off,”
As Chris explained the situation, adrenaline started flowing, and all signs of exhaustion disappeared. Within minutes, everyone was up, dressed, and armed.
As they gathered around the fire, Karl said, “Chris said something about moving us to the other side of the river. How are you going to do this?”
“I’m not sure. I can move the wagons, no problem. It’s the horses I’m worried about. We need to get them to the other side of the river without the bounty hunters hearing anything,” Kevin explained. “Chris suggested covering their eyes. We can do that, but how are they going to react if I pick them up?”
“Not well. They’re going to fight you. It won’t be quiet and it won’t be easy. Are you sure you can handle a fighting horse?”
“No, I’m not sure of anything except that we’re going to have to fight if we stay here. We could defeat them easily enough, but I’d rather not advertise the fact that one of us is a sorcerer.”
“Wait a minute. There’s a way we might be able to do it,” Karl said. “It’ll take a little longer, but I think it’ll be safer all the way around. I have a couple of platforms that Blalick and I built. One is anchored under the old minstrel wagon, and the other one’s under the new wagon. I was thinking along the lines of using them to roll the wagons across washed out areas or deep mud, but I think we might be able to use them with the horses. They’re about six feet long and three feet wide. I could stand on the platform with the horse and hold his head while you ‘float us’ across. They’re used to crossing rivers on ferries, and a lot of the time they end up standing right at the edge. As long as they’re standing on something solid, they should be able to handle it.”
“It won’t bother them to see the water passing by?” Chris asked.
“We’ll have a scarf ready to use as a blinder in case one of them starts getting jittery. Let’s try it with mine first. The water won’t bother him and I know he’s a strong swimmer, so if anything goes wrong, he should be able to make it out of the river okay.”
Darrell and Steve helped Karl unfasten the platform that he had stored under the bottom of the old minstrel wagon. Once they had that one free, Darrell, Steve, and Chris said that they’d get the other one so that Karl could get his horse and see if his idea was going to work.
While Karl was bringing his horse down to the river bank, Kevin floated the heavy platform over to the edge of the bank and held it steady so that Karl could lead his horse straight onto it. Once Karl and his horse were standing on the platform, Kevin eased it out over the water. He held it about a foot above the water and slowly moved it across the river. When it reached the other side, he held it snug against the opposite bank so that Karl could walk his horse off the platform and onto solid ground.
Then Kevin quickly floated the platform back to his side of the river where Joan was waiting with the mare that she usually rode. After she and her horse were standing on the platform, she covered her horse’s eyes with a dishtowel. As the platform began to move, Joan whispered, “When we reach the other side, wait for Karl. I’ll stay with the horses over there. He can come back and help you.”
By the time Kevin had floated Joan across the river, Darrell and Chris had the other platform ready, and Steve had another horse ready to cross. Within thirty minutes, all of the horses were on the north side of the river with Joan.
While the others were busy with the horses, Theresa cleaned out the coffee pot, rinsed out the mugs, gathered up the bedrolls and sleeping tarps, and stored everything in the wagons. Then Kevin told her to climb up on her wagon seat and get ready to cross the river.
“Kevin, have you given any thought as to where you’re going to land the wagons?” Karl asked. “The woods are pretty thick over there. We had trouble getting the horses through.”
Kevin nodded and said, “The wagons are going over the tops of the trees and landing on the road. I thought you might want to go over first so that you could help Joan handle the horses when the wagons start floating in.”
“Good idea,” Karl agreed and closed his eyes. Kevin lifted him over the woods and set him down about three feet from Joan. She didn’t see him until he was almost close enough to touch.
Joan laughed quietly. “I think this is going to work. It’s dark enough out here that no one can see what we’re doing.”
“If we can keep the horses quiet,” Karl whispered.
A couple of minutes later, a black shadow began to descend towards the road. The wagon settled so gently and quietly that the horses barely noticed. A few minutes later, the old minstrel wagon drifted down with Steve on the seat, followed shortly by Darrell and the new wagon.
While they were busy hitching the horses to the wagons and getting ready to move out, the two wooden platforms floated down with Chris standing on top of them. Kevin still hadn’t joined them by the time they had the platforms secured under the wagons, and Chris was beginning to get concerned.
“I wonder what’s keeping him,” Chris mumbled. “I thought he was coming right behind me,”
“He’ll be all right, Chris,” Joan said. “He can take care of himself. He’s a sorcerer now.”
“I know. That’s part of the problem. I know he’s got something up his sleeve, and I don’t like it when I don’t know what’s going on.”
After a couple of minutes, Kevin drifted down beside Chris. “I have an idea,” he said quietly. “Get the others over here while I do a quick check on the bounty hunters.”
When Chris had everyone together, Kevin said, “The bounty hunters are still at their camps. I don’t think they noticed anything, but when they storm our camp tomorrow morning, it isn’t going to take them long to figure out that we must have crossed the river, and then they’ll be right back on our trail. I’ve been trying to come up with some way to convince them that we’re dead so they’ll give up and go home.”
“Sounds good, but how are you going to do that?” Darrell asked.
“How about having a tornado hit right about daybreak and sweep through our camp? You know, one of those really ferocious ones that clears everything out of its path. If I brought it down the road, scattering them as it approaches, and then swept it through the middle of our camp before letting it bre
ak off, it would look like it got us, the wagons, the horses, everything, but to make it look real, I’ll need to scatter a little debris around the campsite. What have we got that we don’t need? Any pots or dishes? Does anyone have a shirt or maybe a pair of boots that they don’t want anymore?”
“Sort of like what the submarines used to send up to make the destroyers think they’d been sunk,” Darrell said with a nod. “I like it. I bet we can find a few odds and ends that we could live without, especially if it gets those guys off our trail. Let’s see what we can come up with.”
Within a few minutes, Kevin had a fairly large assortment of everyday items to use as debris. He was about to head back to the south side of the river when Chris stopped him and said, “Look, I know you’re thinking of doing this on your own, but I know how you are when you’re working with storms. If the bounty hunters attack while you’re stirring things up, you’ll never even know it. I’m going to go with you to keep an eye on your back while you’re off in the clouds.”
“It’s too risky,” Kevin whispered. “I’ve never tried maneuvering one this close before. I could get us both killed,”
“I know that, but your chances of pulling this off are better if I’m there, and you know it. You need my eyes and ears,” Chris whispered back.
“All right, but let’s get everyone else out of the way,” Kevin sighed. Then he spoke up loud enough for the others to hear him. “Chris is going to have to stay here and help me, but I want the rest of you out of harm’s way so that I don’t have to try to cover you, too. Karl, how far do you think you can travel by daybreak? Can you get ten miles?”
“I don’t know. It’s pretty dark out here, but the road seems to be fairly decent. If we don’t drop a wheel in a hole we should be able to get about eight anyway,” Karl answered. “At any rate, we’ll do the best we can, and we’ll stay on this road, wherever it’s heading.”
The Master's Chair (The Chronicles of Terah) Page 60