Cloud's Rider

Chapter 19

It might have been a quick turnaround—out after the kid, and back again, with a live kid or a dead one, and then maybe a chance for negotiation with the village authorities, or an expedition to Momay.

But neither had happened, and Ridley made a trip over to the villageside, through the little gate, this time, and without Slip, to talk to Eli Peterson.

“No luck so far,” he said to Peterson when he met him on the street in front of the pharmacy.

“I feel bad about it,” Peterson said. “I don’t think the boy did it, fact is.”

“Fact is, I wouldn’t take the Mackeys’ word for a sunrise I was watching.”

“The girl, however,” Peterson said, “the sister—”

“What?”

“Says the brother shot their parents, down in Tarrnin. Says the boy was in jail.”

Ridley drew a slow breath. “I’ve been aware of it.”

“And didn’t say?”

“Fisher told me all about it. Fisher thinks the boy’s innocent.”

“He’s not a judge! Neither are you!”

“I’m asking you—let that matter lie. None of us were in Tarmin. None of us can imagine how it was. What I caught from the Fisher boy—you wouldn’t want to see. Look at what happened this morning! I had a terrified boy running into the camp—”

“The words flew out of my mouth and the damn miners were after somebody. They didn’t give a damn who. —How’s the kid taking it?”

“I’m keeping him. At least till his brother gets back.”

“You think he’s coming back?”

“Eventually.”

“Something you know?”

“Fisher’s still gone. Fisher would come back if it was useless. The boy’s with him. I’ll be willing to bet. And the younger boy’s been through too much as is.” He hadn’t told Peterson the central matter. He thought about it, decided finally on half a truth. The snow was still falling and passersby aboveground were all but nonexistent on this cold day—except a batch of kids sledding the snow-pile across the street on a piece of board. “That horse that’s loose—can’t tell for certain, but I think the older boy’s contacted it. I don’t know what to expect.”

“You mean you think he’s teamed up with it? As a rider?”

“It’s possible. I don’t say it’s going to work. Or that he’s going to survive it. He could fall off, break his neck—the horse could kill him.”

“Do they do that?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of it happening. A horse that’s just too spooked. A rider that’s the wrong rider. Things like that. This isn’t nice and controlled like Rain and Jennie. The kid could break his neck, the horse could go off a cliff—or the kid could come back here and then spook right along with the horse. I have to tell you this—don’t take to account anything the sister says. She’s not right. She’s not innocent. I don’t know how else to warn you. I had to get my horse out of there this morning. She spooked my horse.”

“Scared Slip?” Peterson was clearly dubious.

“Marshal, if I’d kept Slip there to deal with her—she’d have spooked the village out the gates. Lorrie-lies and goblin-cats aren’t as scary as what’s in that girl’s mind.”

Peterson seemed to get the idea, then.

“She’s not right,” he repeated to Peterson. “She’s been associated with the rogue down at Tarmin. She’s dangerous.”

“How—dangerous?”

Fisher had left him with a set of truths—and a situation. As camp-boss, he had a privilege to deal with things in camp. And he didn’t pass blame—or legal matters—on to the village marshal. “Fact is—she was on the Tarmin rogue’s back. And she’s a lot safer with you than with us, is what I’m comfortable saying on the matter.”

“That’s not damn all you owe me to say, rider-boss!”

“Keep her away from the horses. This spring—we’ll find a way to get her down to someplace safe. Anveney would be my advice. No horses in Anveney.”

“Good lovin’ God. What have you handed us? What am I dealing with?”

“Marshal, the situation arrived on us on the sudden, on a junior rider’s best guess what to do. And with that horse out there, and what’s gone on—I’d say Darcy Schaffer’s got a real problem on her hands.”

Peterson was mad. He couldn’t blame him for that. Peterson walked off from him as far as the edge of the walk.

“What were my choices?” Ridley asked while Peterson stared off into the white.

“We could have put her with somebody else than Darcy Schaffer!”

“Yeah,” Ridley said. “Counting that we’ve got to get that girl out of Evergreen—I’d say just about anybody else. But the girl could get better by spring.”

“Better than what, rider-boss? Better than happened down in Tarmin?”

It was a question.

Serious question.

“I didn’t have all the information at the start.” Being rider-boss he didn’t on principle want to pass the blame. But he wasn’t going to have it attach to Callie, either. “Callie was doubtful. I was too inclined to go easy. I should have held Fisher to account, I didn’t until I had clearer indication—and when I did get the truth it was a little damn late. I don’t see he could have done better than he did, given the situation. That’s what we’ve got for the winter.”

“And this is the younger kid of the same family you’ve got in camp right now!”

“Scared. In love with the horses. Willing to learn—maybe. Maybe some horse will have him. I don’t know. Maybe even Shimmer’s foal. And if that horse has taken his brother it may solve our problems for the winter, if we can move him on, say, to Mornay and get that influence out of here. Or settled. A rider might calm that horse right down.”

Peterson looked unhappy. But Peterson came back and met him close up. “Your guess. —No, dammit, your horse-guided opinion! You think the Goss boy is guilty or innocent of the business on Darcy’s doorstep?”

“Better than a guess. My horse knows the Goss kid, at least from one meeting. Nothing on that porch led me to the Goss kid. Nothing whatsoever. Everything persuades me that the sister is a problem. He isn’t. Neither is the younger boy or I wouldn’t have him near the horses.”

“There’s talk that Darcy agreed to pay Riggs a lot of money.”

“I’d sooner suspect miners and money for Riggs’ disappearance. It makes a lot more sense. It wasn’t the Goss boy.”

“Riggs otherwise had no money.” Peterson said. “And I’m inclined to think it’s possible. Story is, Riggs was hiring men to claim property for the girl. Riggs had this notion of marrying her.”

“She’s a kid.”

“Yeah. And, your better-than-guess aside, there was reason for her brother to take offense. That much is true. —Then I ask myself— well, couldn’t the Mackeys want to see the Goss boys charged and out of the picture? But that doesn’t benefit them too much, while the girl’s with Darcy. Unless they contracted to run the Tarmin shop for the girl. And between you and me and the rest of the village, Rick Mackey couldn’t run that shop or this shop on his own, and if it came down to Mary Hardesty, she’s a businesswoman but she’s no decent smith, and without her, Van Mackey won’t stay sober. Business is all she likes, work has to get done and the Goss boy, the older one, is the only likely one there is. So where’s their motive?”

“On villageside and away from my business,” Ridley said. “I don’t try to figure what the Mackeys do. I’m sorry for Carlo Goss. I wish him well and far away. I’ve got my hands full with the younger kid. You’ve got the girl on your side of the wall and I’d say, soon as spring, we pack her on the first truck down with a strong dose of yellowflower and get her somewhere besides Tarmin.”

“Darcy won’t at all take to that.”

“Then maybe Darcy can do something with her head. But she didn’t do it on the porch this morning. I tell you, marshal, my horse and I were right out in the middle of that crowd. Same one that went for that boy. There was a reason things went the way they did.”

“You’re saying—what?”

“That the miners might have killed him. That that was why things went so bad so fast. Maybe it was why the boy ran for his life and went out those gates rather than stay in the village. He’d felt it once before this.”

“At Tarmin, you mean?” Peterson was taking acute alarm. And Ridley didn’t want that.

“The girl can’t do any damage,” Ridley said, “unless there’s a horse near her.”

“Or a bear or a cat or any damn thing—how in hell do we get her out of here down a road in company with a bunch of riders on horses we’re not supposed to let her near?”

“Yellowflower. I’m serious. Asleep, she’s fine. Dreams don’t do much. In my observation. —Marshal, I had no choice, even if I’d known. Those kids would have died if I’d sent them on. At least two of them would have. And at Mornay it would have been the same risk if that girl was there, and maybe worse. Mornay’s a smaller enclosure, more chance of sendings getting over the wall—if she were there. Play the hand close and we’ll get her out of here come spring—and I’d advise we do it whether or not she improves. I’d say the village should buy out any share she’s got in Tarmin, pay her and Darcy in goods, and get them both out of here.”

“Our only doctor, dammit.”

“Who hasn’t been doing much the last year. And I’m sorry about Faye. I know Darcy blames me. But if Faye’d done what she was told, Faye wouldn’t be dead. That’s hard, and I’m sorry to say so, but that’s the way it is. The kid left the secure area and went off on her own exactly the way the Goss boy’s done—only the boy this morning had urgent reason and Faye was after her own pleasure. Besides her father was in attendance the same as I was and she slipped off from him, too. I’m not personally responsible for either one and in both cases I’m doing what I can—including sending a rider out there to deal with the Goss kid, including coming over here and personally warning you that the doctor’s resentment toward me is reaching the girl, and that the girl does hear the horses and everything of like kind out in the Wild. If you believe one thing I say, believe this: the Goss girl has a real capability for setting off a mob or a village-wide panic of exactly the kind that opened Tarmin’s gates and doors. If the doctor were likely to listen to me, I’d say keep that kid on yellowflower every time we have a problem near the walls. Which having met the doctor’s mind directly this morning I don’t think she will—”

“You’re saying Darcy hears the horses?”

“I’m saying all of you did, marshal. Everybody in town.”

“Not me.”

“Some of you clearer than others. You were thinking about your job and you didn’t panic. Some were looking for somebody to blame and they did. I’ll assure you Slip didn’t think of going after that boy. But upset, yes, my horse was upset. And a lot of people being upset did exactly what they’d naturally do if they were upset. The law stood firm and the boy ran and the miners chased him. —And the girl threw a tantrum. Am I right? At the far end and down by the gate I was farther than I usually am from the main street when I’m in camp. I’m flat guessing what she did and what you felt. But am I right?”

“Yeah. You are.”

“I didn’t have to hear it to make a guess. And what I did hear while I was there wasn’t good.”

“At that range?”

“You can pick up a few things. The world’s never quiet. It’s never really quiet while there’s a horse anywhere about. And damn right that girl’s noisy. I’m real serious. My notion is she doesn’t listen worth a damn, but once she’s in contact with the Wild she’s real pushy with her images, real stubborn in what she sees. And it’s not just my horse: it’s everything all over the mountain, things so quiet you don’t ordinarily hear them or if you do you don’t know you’re hearing them. She sends better than some and she doesn’t listen. That may be more than you want to know about the horses, but that’s the worst combination of talents you can own to go around them, and I don’t want Slip near her.”

“You had an obligation to tell us about the girl before we made certain decisions!”

“What would you have done different—besides not put that girl with Darcy?”

“That’s about it.”

“Then that’s the one we’ve got to deal with, isn’t it? If the Goss boy takes to that loose horse—it could be settled and we could have a peaceful winter, once that attraction is away from her. I told Fisher get him on to Mornay if he can catch him, and that’s still the best thing to do.”

“Do you hear him now?”

“I’m not near the horses.”

Villagers never seemed to get that straight. Or cases like the Goss girl confused them. He just wished Darcy Schaffer’s house was on the other side of the street because, knowing there was trouble in the village, Slip was a curious and a suspicious horse who might put out extra effort to know what That Girl was up to.

And that meant horses carrying the girl’s troublesome images further than ordinary into the Wild. Get a panic started among the horses and they’d hear it in distant Anveney.

“Well, keep me posted,” Peterson said.

“I will,” he said, uneasy in knowing the man on the villageside who knew him best and who had the village version of his job didn’t really to this day know what the abilities and the limits of the horses were. John Quarles was, ironically, his other best phone line to the village—but John just trusted the Lord and didn’t try to understand things. You went and told Peterson when you wanted somebody on villageside to worry. You told John when you wanted somebody to nod sagely and assure you things would be all right.

Neither worked in this case.

So he had had nothing to do but go back to the camp, and to stay around the den where he could keep his finger on the pulse of the ambient, and that meant currying Slip, since his hands were idle, and trying to keep him calm. Callie and Jennie did the same, all of them hanging about the den where rumors could fly—or be sat upon, fast, before they spread to the village on the impulse of several nervous horses.

The younger Goss boy, Randy, hung about there, too, being very quiet.

And very unhappy.

“You think he’s still alive?” Randy asked finally, coming up to him as he was brushing Slip’s tail.

“Pretty sure so,” he said. “Pretty sure he’s with that horse.”

“I hope he is,” Randy said. And he heard from the kid right then and and knew that both choices came with real pain.

“A rider’s pretty damn selfish,” he said to Randy, “when it’s him and his horse. If you can let that horse go, he’d never be yours. That’s the truth, kid.”

“If Danny finds Carlo he’ll get him to Mornay.”

“He’ll get him there if he can. You stay here. No going back to the Mackeys.”

“I’ve got to get the house down in Tarmin. That’s Carlo’s house.”

“If Carlo’s gone to be a rider, son, there’s nobody but the Mackeys to go with you.”

“But he wants to be a blacksmith.”

“Not now. You hear it out there.” Couldn’t hear it now too distinctly: horse-sense said it had gone on in the general direction of Mornay, which was very good news. “You don’t ever unchoose that. Lose one horse—you’ve got to find one and some horse has got to find you, or you’re better off dead.”

There was a long silence, Randy sitting on a rail by the manger, wiped his eyes. “He won’t want me if he’s got that horse.”

“Not the same way, maybe. A horse happens along and a partner happens along both for reasons you don’t exactly choose to happen, and sometimes who happens and why just doesn’t make sense to you. Don’t say won’t. Don’t say can’t. Say—there’s something waiting for you.” It was what he’d said to himself before he met Callie. It was what he’d said to Jennie. And Jennie had proved that true, no question about it.

The boy looked up at him. “You think? You think maybe?”

“I think you better be ready if it comes. Can’t say when. Neither could your brother. Just think good thoughts about him now and most of all think about him staying on that horse. It won’t leave him. But it’s bad country to get thrown. Worry about that if you want to worry about something.”

“He’ll show Rick Pig. He’ll come back and he’ll show him.”

“If he comes back with that horse he’ll take orders like any rider in this camp, kid. The way he’ll take orders over at Mornay if Danny can get him there.” He liked the boy. But you never let a kid think he was on equal footing when you might have to lay the law down and make it stick. “You get one thing straight: you don’t do anything toward the village without consulting the camp-boss, including insulting the village folk. That’s the first lesson you learn, or you better clear out and stay out of my sight, right down that road you took to get up here. Danny Fisher ran that line right close, and I know why he did it; and he knows he’s on my tolerance. So you get it straight: if you stay in this camp, you do what you’re told and you do it when you’re told, and if you don’t, Slip here will tell me.”

“Yes, sir,” Randy said.

“Good you learn that.”