Cloud's Rider

Chapter 17

The sun did come up.

There’d 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 didn’t. The water still soaked the floor, but it wasn’t 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 welded—if they’d 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 didn’t want to think, this morning.

Van even showed up to do actual work instead of leaving the shop to Rick’s slovenly management this morning. Van even wanted to talk, and once they got down to business, it developed they each knew things the other didn’t—there were tricks Van Mackey knew that their father hadn’t. 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 mind—that 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 hadn’t 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 didn’t want. He didn’t 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 they’d spill everything on their minds not only to Danny but to all the riders.

That wouldn’t 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 didn’t 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 they’d had.

He couldn’t hand Danny a secret of their running off together and expect him to keep it.

Which meant he couldn’t tell Danny at all. That was what it boiled down to. He just couldn’t 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.

“That’s 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.

“Don’t 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 Carlo’s less than charitable estimation, Van Mackey didn’t 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, because it was a hunt for a horse, a species that, along with several of the largest predators, didn’t den up except in weather much worse than this.

So they went out: and that was what they were after—he, and Ridley, and four of the most experienced hunters in Evergreen, because something had been active last night; at least something they couldn’t 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 couldn’t.

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 wouldn’t be worked with this morning until it was clear they were going and

and was all Danny could get out of Cloud; and Cloud wasn’t quite as eager as Slip to be out in the snow Meaning that Cloud didn’t 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 rider’s 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 didn’t 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 village—and 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 they’d seen so far there was nothing either to indicate the horse was still about, or that any other game was. They’d sent the hunters up on the heights, but with the snow-fall they hadn’t seen any tracks, and he personally knew that the horse, if that was what it had been, was damned canny.

He wasn’t afraid, exactly, if he had to go on to Mornay alone. His real danger and Cloud’s 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 other—that was a whole different story, the way Spook-horse wasn’t that likely to go after four middle-aged men and two armed riders—if it had turned predatory and not simply lonely.

In that matter, Cloud wasn’t 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 he’d shoved the rider camp gate shut with Ridley serene on Slip’s 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 didn’t care if his rider looked the fool in front of the others. Cloud didn’t 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. We’ll 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. “I’ll go on to Mornay. I’ll be fine.”

“No proof now the horse is still here.”

“No proof it isn’t. Just let me go from here. I’ll sleep at the shelter tonight and I’ll 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 they’d 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. “I’ll come back the same day. I’ll 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 we’ll be here to help you noon after tomorrow.”

Ridley shook his head. “No. No taking one of them out of their winter plans if we’re not finding anything. Winter has yet to set in hard and fast, but it’ll 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 it’s gone. And what are the hunters going to do?”

“See if we can bag something,” Ridley said. There hadn’t been a sign of game, not a track above the size of a flitter. “That’s what would make these men feel better. Circle out ahead. See if that young horse of yours can scare something up.”

“I’ll 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 wasn’t 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. Wasn’t too bad. They’d 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, he’d just rather move on, now that the weather had settled. Tara agreed. So they’d moved not toward a camp Tara wasn’t 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 Flicker’s side. Even amorous horses weren’t 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 they’d blow it to hell.

“Quiet out there tonight, too,” Tara said. “I wish that meant anything.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Listening for what’s not is pretty tricky.”

“If it’s a horse it’s the damn spookiest one I ever met.”

“Yeah,” Guil said.

“Once in a great while 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 weren’t. Where human settlements were was a pretty tiny patch, whether you reckoned it locally or against the world as wide as he’d 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 he’d never been He guessed it was on

“Yeah,” she said, warm against his side, drinking in all the things he thought were prettiest.

He’d never met a woman but his mother and Aby who’d been able to show him the vast deeper Wild in their minds. He’d 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. He’d found her as a villager. But he knew now what she was—like 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 weren’t 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, he’d 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 wasn’t 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 didn’t invite him to a beer in the house or in the tavern.

He wasn’t 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.

“You going to fight him?” Randy asked hopefully, and he restrained himself from shaking the kid till his teeth rattled.

“No,” he said quietly, and shepherded the kid out the door, down the street, up the steps and into The Evergreen.

“Hey, Carlo!” came the voice he didn’t want to hear. “Come sit over here! Tell us about your sister!”

“That’s Rick!” Randy said, with the disposition to go that direction; Carlo in a sudden panic grabbed Randy by the arm and went instead to the bar, where the bartender was maintaining a watch on the outburst. “Need a beer, a tea, and two suppers. Usual tab.”

“I’ll shut him up,” the bartender said. “I don’t recommend you go over there.”

“No such intention.”

“Beer and tea,” the bartender said, and drew one off tap and poured the other from the pot. “If you beat hell out of him, do it in the street.”

“See?” Randy said. “He thinks you should.”

“I’ll talk with you about it,” Carlo said, picked a table far from Rick Mackey and set the beer and the tea down. “If you’ll listen. I’m telling you—”

“I know what you’ll say. Get along with everybody. He’s going to do something.”

“Fine. He’ll be sorry if he does. Just you stay out of his way. All right?”

They went and picked up a good-smelling stew, and sat down.

He truly hoped for Danny to show up. He’d feel better if he could just talk with him, not on business, not about secrets, just to know that he could still count on him.

The noise in the other end of the room subsided. He guessed the bartender had made the point about starting fights. He thought he should be particularly careful going home tonight. He debated about another beer, and had it anyway, since the only trouble in his world was having another, and another.

Three was his limit, and he stuck to it, and shared a sip now and again with his brother. The bar didn’t allow gambling in the establishment, but they provided cards for people who wanted to play for drink chips or toothpicks or whatever.

He sent Randy after cards and since Rick was the guy he was wanting to keep an eye on, he sipped beer and he and Randy played for toothpicks. The place grew empty of families.

Rick, also on the Mackey’s tab, was still in the tavern when he and Randy left for the evening. Rick, having started earlier, was alone, passed out at the table, harmless or close to it, and as they went out onto the street, the snow was coming down thick and fast beyond the edge of the porch.

“Wait till he comes out,” Randy suggested. “And bash him.”

“Fair,” he said. “You ever hear the word?”

“Fair, with him? He doesn’t fight fair. Why should we?”

“Little brother, you want snow down your pants?”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Randy swept a handful off the porch rail and started a snowball.

Carlo dived off the porch and ducked. And scooped up snow and had a big one ready when Randy threw at him.

Randy ran, stopped, and flung one that caught Carlo. His caught Randy. They stopped all strategy in the matter, stood and made snowballs and pelted each other until they were both powdered from head to foot and out of breath from laughing and swearing.

“I’ve got a handful of snow,” Carlo said, and Randy, knowing its potential destination, ran for the forge, past the evergreen.

Carlo stalked him.

“No fair, no fair,” Randy said, at bay beside the doors. “I haven’t got the key.”

“Oh, now fair counts!” Carlo bent, made a good snowball and stood up.

Randy’s caught him fair in the face. His caught Randy on the side of the head.

Then they’d run out of snowballs and breath, and he gained sense enough to realize how late it was. The village was quiet. It was a deserted, lightless street, no light from the Mackeys’ house, either.

“Everybody’s gone to bed,” he said. “Way late.”

“Spooky,” Randy said, and waited, bouncing a little with anxiety as Carlo opened the door with the key.

Randy went across the darkened forge and threw a log on the banked fire, huddled down by it and started brushing snow off as he undid his coat.

Carlo had a last bit from his pocket. And delivered it to the back of Randy’s neck.

Squeal of indignation.

“No fair!”

“That’s twice you’ve called fair. You give?”

“Bully,” Randy said.

“Yeah.” He figured the kid would learn a little finesse. At least in snow fights. “But that’s enough. If we wake the Mackeys up, we’ll be in the street. No kidding.”

“Yeah, just you wait,” Randy said.

He gave Randy a hug. With no snow involved. They hauled the cots they used out of the storage area.

He could hardly last long enough to hit the mattress.

Tired, tonight, real tired. His mind was quiet, finally. He thought he could sleep, now, and felt it coming on thicker by the minute.

Something had made a sound. Darcy levered herself out of bed, thinking she’d might have heard Brionne call out. She searched for her slippers and her robe without clearly thinking, in her concern for Brionne and those stairs.

“Are you all right?” she called out. “Honey, are you all right?”

“Mama?” the thin voice came to her, likewise alarmed.

Something crashed at the front door. Someone yelled.

Someone was trying to break in, rattling the door handle—she could hear it. She knew as if she could see it.

She ran to Faye’s room, and the child was out of bed, on her way downstairs, crying out something, she couldn’t tell what.

“Stay here!” Darcy cried. “Stay here!”

She ran to the stairs and took them clinging to the bannister, put out her hands in the dark and felt her way along the wall to Mark’s office door—walked blind then to his desk, pulled open the topmost drawer and took out the gun—the gun that she never touched, never wanted to touch again; but it comforted her hands right now.

She listened. But the rattling and banging had stopped. She sat and listened in that stillness. The dark seemed alive it was so heavy and so dreadful.

The commotion had been on the public entrance porch. If it was drunken miners, the disturbance wouldn’t necessarily cut her off from the passages—she could take Faye, she could go that way, and reach the marshal, or a neighbor—but it was too risky. It was quiet out there, maybe because they’d given up, maybe because the intruders were thinking of trying another way in. But she had strong doors, and if a whole crowd of miners had gotten to warring with the loggers or some such foolery, there might be riot in the passageway as well. There was a passageway entry off the street, not far from her door—as well as the direct access by the kitchen door. She was scared to try to go for help, and hoped that Constance and Emil, next door, might have heard. Emil was a big man. If Emil flung open the shutters and shouted in his deep voice to get the hell away—if there was anybody conniving in the shadows out there, they’d move.

“Mama?”

Faye was on the stairs, coming down in the dark.

Not knowing her way. Giving out a high, female voice that might only incite drunken fools. She kept her finger off the trigger for fear of tripping in the dark, and recrossed the cold floor to the office doorway.

“Here I am,” she said in a calm, easy voice. “It’s all right, honey. I’m right down a short hall. Just some drunks. Put your hand on the wall and just walk along it. I’m right here.”

“I know.” It was a quavery, scared voice. But closer. In the dark she could see the pallor of the nightgown as the girl inched her way toward her. She knew when the girl reached her, and reached out her hand and found chill fingers.

“Somebody wants in,” Brionne said. “He wants in because I’m here. Do you hear it? It’s scary.”

“They’re not going to get in,” Darcy said firmly. “I have a gun, sweet. Don’t grab it. Just stay close by me. If anybody breaks in, they’ll be sorry.”

Desperate hands clutched her. A frightened, shivering body pressed against her.

Silence followed. Then a dreadful sound above them, a sliding and scrabbling as if something had gone along the roof. The girl cried out, and Dairy’s heart jumped.

Then she laughed. “It’s snow, honey. It’s just snow sliding off the roof. It’s all right. Sometimes it does that, around the stove-pipe.”

The girl wasn’t so sure. But Darcy put an arm around her for reassurance.

“Tell you what. Let’s go to the kitchen where it’s warm. I’ll make some tea and we’ll have some of that cake. How’s that?”

The girl didn’t say anything, but she let herself be drawn along at Darcy’s left side.

They reached the kitchen and Darcy carefully laid the gun down on the counter while she lit the oil lamp and got out the tea canister. The house stayed quiet. The child pulling back a chair at the kitchen table made a loud screech on the boards, and she stopped and looked apprehensively at the roof.

“I heard something,” she said.

“I think you’re imagining, honey. Go ahead. Sit down. I’ll put on tea. Do you want a big piece or a little piece?”

“Either’s fine.” The girl’s eyes were still toward the ceiling. “I hear it, don’t you?”

“No, honey. I don’t.”

“It wanted in.”

“Don’t think about it.” She dipped up water from the kitchen barrel and set the kettle on.

There was no more snow sliding. The house stayed quiet. The wind blew, and snow would be coming down. It was the buildup on the steep roof that had slid.

She was worried about the kitchen door, the one that led to the passages. She listened for footsteps out there, but everything was quiet. She thought still about going after the marshal and taking Faye with her.

Brionne—with her.

But they were all right here. It was quiet.

And there were five rounds in the gun. She knew. Mark had only needed one.