Gordath Wood

by Patrice Sarath

  Kate knelt in the mud and touched her little horse’s neck, wet and cold. “Mojo?” she whispered. He was so still. How could it be him? She began to stroke his mane over and over. “Modgie?”

  Someone came up beside her. Kate didn’t turn around. She couldn’t take her hand away from Mojo’s mane. Her fingers twisted in the long black hair, her other hand pressed flat against his rain-soaked neck.

  Grayne said, his voice sore and tired, “The general wants you.”

  She ignored him. After a moment he reached down and pulled her to her feet. He looked down at her, his face soiled and stubbled and his armor streaked with blood and dirt. He made an odd gesture, as if he meant to push back her tangled hair but thought better of it.

  “One minute,” she croaked through her broken throat.

  He hesitated, then nodded, and she knelt once more. But when she touched Mojo again, she felt nothing.

  Under a heavy rain the camp bustled with activity as men kept coming in, wounded, bloodied, many screaming, others silent. Grayne pulled her out of the way of two men carrying a third on a pallet. The man moaned, his voice gurgling.

  The general stood surrounded by his officers, still in their bloodied armor, in the middle of the camp, as Kate and Grayne approached. She could hear shouting.

  “I blame you for this, Marthen!” a big, burly man shouted, blood soaking into his thinning hair. “You and this girl of yours! You knew this was going to happen, and you threw us right into it!”

  “I thought the army you brought me was better trained than to run at the sound of a loud noise and weapons that were no more lethal than a crossbow,” Marthen said. His voice was raised. Kate had never heard him raise his voice. “The next time—”

  “The next time? You can’t think we can face him again on the field like that! We go around to Temia!” the burly lord almost shrieked.

  “Don’t you think that’s what he wants us to do?” Marthen snapped. “Try to ambush him by coming in from the north? You can say good-bye to your short war.”

  “I want a war I can win, General! Not a slaughter, with these weapons that can kill a man from thrice the distance a crossbow can fly!”

  “If we go around by Temia, it will be a slaughter, only we’ll be penned up on the wastelands in winter! How long do you think we’ll last with fall approaching and winter snows in less than a half month!”

  “We can’t win against these weapons!”

  “We can’t win in Temia!”

  “We engaged you to obey our command!” the lord shrieked. His face was purple. At his rage, Marthen’s voice turned to ice.

  “You engaged me to command your army and to win your war. Not to be countermanded at every turn by your fears and whims. If you don’t like it, find another general.”

  His words fell on sudden silence. Kate watched as the officers moved uncertainly, except for Lord Terrick; she couldn’t tell who he was madder at, Marthen or the other lord. He stared daggers at both of them.

  Never taking his eyes off the other man, Marthen nodded curtly. “If that is all, my lords, I suggest we rest ourselves and restore our bodies and spirits. We have other battles to prepare for.”

  Dismissed, the lords drifted away, trying to avoid each other’s eyes. Marthen snapped his fingers at Grayne, and the lieutenant pushed her forward. Marthen’s face was drawn and stubbled, and his armor streaked with blood and dirt. He waited until she was close, then reached out and grabbed her by the front of her shirt, almost lifting her from her feet. Kate gasped.

  “You will tell me everything you know,” he said, his voice calm and quiet, belying the rage in his eyes.

  Kate, Marthen, and Grayne sat in Marthen’s tent, hastily erected in the army’s new encampment. The orderly served them, providing meat and flatbread, and a hot drink like coffee, with a flavor Kate couldn’t place. Grayne, as always, sat silently in the corner of the tent. Marthen ate and drank, but he stared at her the entire while, a muscle jumping in his cheek.

  “They’re guns,” she said. “It sounded like they are fully automatic. ” Her mom’s last big case, the one that all the reporters called about, was about modifying semiautomatics into automatic rifles and how these weapons were currency in parts of the world.

  She knew Marthen didn’t want to hear about her mom’s last case.

  “Look, I don’t know much about them. But I know something. They need bullets that have to be specially made. Unless the people who brought the guns brought enough bullets, they’ll run out, and I don’t think they will be able to make them here.”

  Marthen exchanged a look with Grayne.

  “What are they made of?” he asked, and Kate bit her lip and plunged on.

  “Lead, and umm, other metals. And gunpowder. The thing is, you need a whole manufacturing process, and you have to make them just right, or they won’t work.”

  She hoped that was the case. She hoped that Tharp’s army didn’t have someone squirreled away making bullets by hand. She sipped her drink and waited. Marthen swirled his cup absently. He looked up at Grayne.

  “Send out the scouts,” he said. “Have them scour the battlefield, and ask the crows if they picked up one of these guns. Bring it to me if you can find one. Head out toward Red Gold Bridge after, and see if you can take a prisoner. Find out if they are making these bullets.”

  Grayne nodded. “Yes, sir.” He had barely touched his sandwich or drink. Now he stood, set down his meal on the ground next to his stool, bowed, and slipped out. Kate looked down at her drink, hoping to be dismissed as well. She remembered what Tiurlin had said and felt her bones turn to water.

  “What else did you neglect to tell me that will turn up in our next battle? Airplanes? Tanks?”

  “I—” She suddenly regretted being so talkative the night before.

  “The next time I am taken by surprise by weapons I should have known about, Kate Mossland, you may consider my protection revoked.” She opened her mouth to protest when his curt gesture cut her off. “Go to your tent, and pray you remember more about these weapons tomorrow than you did tonight. ”

  She got up and set down her cup, but her hand was shaking so much that it fell over and spilled the rest of her drink onto the ground. Hastily she bent and set it right, fumbling to make it stay. She felt that she spent long agonizing moments until it propped up against the campstool leg, and she fled beneath his gaze.

  Her tent was dark and cold, and she curled beneath a thin blanket, shivering. Kate wept into her hands, trying to make no noise. She had owned Mojo since she was ten years old. He had been her constant companion for the last five years, sprightly, spirited, and sweet. Even when other girls her age were moving on to agile Thoroughbreds, the better to win points in the Juniors competitions and go on to Nationals, she stuck with him.

  Now she had to let him go, if she were going to survive.

  If she were going to get home.

  In the dark tent, Kate whispered, “Go play, Mojo.” It was what she used to tell him when she turned him out in the fields at Hunter’s Chase. Go play, Mojo. And he would light out for the pasture, bucking a little for the fun of it.

  The evening shadows stretched long over Daw Road where it cut across the trails, dipping and turning through the woods, its surface broken up into gravel, asphalt, and dirt. Joe drove along between tumbledown stone walls that ran along either side of the road. Wild rosebushes, their flowers dried and brown but still exuding a sweet scent, climbed all over them. Poison ivy crept low to the ground, and elderberry bushes hung lush and green over the road. Huge stone houses, many with barns and paddocks, were set back almost into the woods, lush lawns sweeping down to the narrow road, dark asphalt drives flowing through the grass.

  Finally, when the road turned to dirt for good, he pulled up into the overgrown driveway of the sagging little house at the end of the road and turned off the engine. He sat for a moment, listening to the buzzing cicadas and the ticking of the engine. In the distance he could hear the sounds
of highway traffic. At length he got out, shut the door, and walked on up the overgrown walk.

  The front porch steps were crumbling concrete with a rusted rail. He knocked on the peeling door and waited, looking around. There was no answer. He turned the doorknob. The door moved, but the lock held. He knocked again, then leaned over to peer through the picture window, cupping his hands around his face to block out the reflection.

  He could just make out an old armchair and a table, but the place was obviously deserted. Glancing around, he bounded down the porch and went around back.

  The grass stood taller in the back, waving in the breeze. Several rusty barrels were shoved against the back of the house where the basement rose from the ground, the cinder blocks flaking with faded paint. Away from the house, a rope hung from a tree, a hook swinging from the end over another barrel.

  It was a crude abattoir. His father had something like it back home. Shoot the pig, hoist it over the barrel, let it bleed. Farming was an ugly business. Joe doubted that Mark Ballard was doing much farming out here.

  Cautiously he peered into the barrel. The interior smelled of decay, but the blood was long dry. Joe jerked back and looked around. Along a leaning split-rail fence was a good selection of deer skulls.

  “Shit,” Joe whispered. Poaching he could understand; hell, back home, there were plenty of folks who called it putting meat on the table. But he wondered if the owners of those million-dollar homes knew that Ballard was hunting out-of-season deer right in their own backyards.

  Had Lynn come across Ballard poaching the night she disappeared? Would Ballard kill her if she had? What about Kate? Joe’s stomach knotted.

  A car was coming. The distant sound barely registered over the incessant buzzing of the cicadas. The sound of the engine faded in and out as the car negotiated the narrow, winding road. Joe ran to the Impala, jumped in, and started it. It fired at once, a miracle, and he threw it in gear, backing out in a spray of dust. He continued on past the house as fast as he dared, the Impala’s aging shocks bouncing mightily over the terrain. The road quickly petered out into a grassy trail with two deep ruts, and the Impala trundled along wildly. A turnoff in the woods appeared up ahead, and Joe slewed the car around, fishtailed, then straightened it out in a sunny clearing. Ruthlessly Joe mowed down brush, then wedged the car into a grove of trees, their wide trunks giving him just enough room to park among them, and stopped. Shrubs and bushes swayed and closed together behind him. Joe looked in the rearview mirror and saw green. He opened the car door and waited. He could hear the other car, still creeping along, then the engine idling, then stopping. After taking one more look at the Impala to see how well it was hidden, Joe walked back, hiding behind the brush.

  He watched as someone got out of the car and went up to the front door, unlocked it, and went in. He recognized the car, a green Jaguar, but he wasn’t sure from where. Then, as the driver came back out, carrying two gun cases, it came clear: Garson. Joe ducked down as the restaurateur opened the trunk and wedged the rifles in, looking around nervously as he did.

  Even from a distance Joe could tell when Garson’s gaze sharpened. The dust from Joe’s wild flight had not quite settled, and dust motes floated hazily in the air in a long-ago wake. Garson closed the trunk and walked to the end of the driveway, stopping to look at the tire tracks with a frown. He looked straight at Joe’s car. Joe held his breath. Shit, he thought. He’s seen my car. He saw it just the other day. He’s gotta know it’s me.

  Garson took a few tentative steps toward the woods, then stopped. He looked reluctant, dithering. Joe risked turning his head to look back where he had lodged his car, and his eyes went wide.

  The Impala was gone.

  Joe squeezed his eyes shut, then looked again. Nothing.

  “Mark!” Garson called, starting out assertively, but then faltering. “Is that you?” He took another step forward.

  The woods remained silent. Garson made a face, danced indecisively one more time, and then turned and walked back to his car. Joe crouched in the underbrush, hardly breathing. Finally he heard the car door snick closed and the engine start up with a confident purr. The Jag backed out, turned, and went back the way it came.

  Only when the sound of the engine died away did Joe stand up, glancing back once or twice at where he had left his car. Still there. Optical illusion, he thought. His stomach was sick with relief, and he headed back to the house. Garson had locked the door again, but tucked into the concrete of the basement on the side of the house was a little window. Joe kicked it in. It broke with a tinkling crash, and he punched out the shards before sliding inside into the cool darkness.

  The basement held a cool, moldy smell. Pale light streamed in from the window, and as his eyes adjusted, he could see a little better. A furnace and water heater hulked in a dark corner. Lumber, scrap metal, and paper, all broken-up pieces of the house’s former life, littered the floor, and several stacks of flat, narrow boxes were piled under the stairs. He recognized them immediately. He opened one to make sure, and the arranged cartridges gleamed dully up at him. Joe set them down.

  He had to swallow twice before his throat loosened enough for him to call out, “Lynn? Kate?”

  Silence. The basement pressed on him. A flight of stairs led to the first floor and creaked when he started his ascent. He pushed open the door at the top. Gray light came in from the un-curtained windows, and the fear he had experienced in the basement receded in the daylight.

  “Lynn?” he called out again, but he could sense the house’s emptiness. Still, Joe began to search methodically. The living room held nothing except for the table and armchair he had seen from outside. A kerosene lamp sat on the edge of the table. Joe threw a light switch anyway, just to check. Nothing. No electricity, or water, either. Sitting on the edge of a large wilderness area like the trails, it was a poacher’s dream. No wonder it had never come up that Mark liked to hunt.

  Something gleamed on the floor, caught in a sullen sun-beam from the window. Joe bent and picked it up: an old, battered penny. He slipped it into his pocket.

  He finished the rest of his search quickly. The bathroom and kitchen were both filthy. There was one bedroom; it was stale with beer, cigarette smoke, and ashes, littered with magazines and clothes strewn everywhere. Joe picked up a magazine at random—Penthouse—and let it fall, then caught sight of another hunting catalog, Mark’s name on the address label. He wondered why Mark moved into town and wondered where he was now. In Colorado? Or hiding out on the trails, waiting for some unsuspecting kid on her pony to run across him?

  The place was making him sick. Joe tossed the catalog down and left, this time through the front door, letting it bang with all of his anger. His head cleared a bit when he got out into the fresh air, but by the time he walked back to where he left his car, his nausea increased. He shook his head, trying to clear it. The sun pierced his eyes, and he winced, thinking he might even throw up.

  With relief he saw light reflect off the chrome fender of his car where it sat between the three massive tree trunks, mostly concealed by the gently swaying weeds. Joe got in and sat still in the heat, sweating, and resting his head against the seat back. After a bit he leaned forward to start the engine, fumbling with the key, but stopped when movement caught his eye.

  A man stumbled toward him from out of the woods. He reached out one hand, the other clasped to his side, and croaked something Joe didn’t get. The man put his hand on the window, then slid out of sight.

  Joe scrambled out the passenger side, kicking hard against the recalcitrant door, and came around. The man lay crumpled on the ground, his pale face turned up to the sky, his eyes rolled back. Joe knelt and tried to straighten him out. The man’s breath was shallow, his skin hot. Mud and streaks of old blood covered his long shirt, and his trousers were shredded from deadheading through the woods. Joe fingered the material; it was coarse and thick, the weave loose and irregular. The laces were frayed and torn at the man’s throat, and the stitc
hing had worn away. Joe could see the man’s feet where the leather had split on his old, heavy shoes. The man groaned.

  “Okay, hold on, just a minute,” Joe said. He struggled to lift the man’s shoulders, and the man caught at him feebly. Joe stopped, staring down at the man’s fingers, clutching threads of gray mane intermixed with blue yarn.

  Lifting the man was like lifting a dead weight. Joe managed to get him slumped in the backseat, then had to drive to three trophy houses before finding one where someone would answer the door. Even then, the housekeeper eyed his dusty clothes and old car with alarm before consenting to call 911.

  Joe’s heart sank when he saw Spencer with the response team. The detective took one look at him and tsked.

  “You again,” the detective said.

  Behind them, the EMTs worked to stabilize the man.

  “Yeah, me.” Joe looked at him, arms folded across his chest. His nausea was gone, but he had a splitting headache. “You gonna listen to me or arrest me?”

  Spencer just looked at him. “Okay. Go.”

  “Did you see his hands? He’s got horsehair and blue yarn between his fingers. That’s what they braid horses’ manes with around here to make them fancy for horse shows.”

  “Show me,” Spencer said. He convinced the paramedics to let him see, and grouchily they stepped back long enough for a look. The man, with an oxygen mask and IV, was unconscious, his hands limp. The threads of long gray and white hair still wound through his fingers, and a bit of yarn hung onto them.

  “I watched Lynn braid that horse’s mane and tail the morning of the show,” Joe said. “That’s Dungiven’s.”

  “All right,” Spencer said. Carefully he took the strands of hair and fluff and put them in a plastic bag. He muttered something under his breath. “Too bad he couldn’t have held on to the horse,” he said. “Ever seen him before?”

  Joe shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “The horse has got to be around somewhere then.” He sighed, then gave Joe a look. “That still doesn’t answer what you’re doing out here.”