Destiny's Road

26 The Last Climb

Next morning was a bleery-eyed scramble. They didn't have to look like a restaurant as long as they didn't look like a prison camp! Four visitors would be returning through here... any minute now...

They appeared near noon. They'd stayed to fish up a breakfast. Jemmy guessed right: he had coals going, and he'd saved a dozen of Winnie's eggs and several big mushroom caps.

The fishers wanted tea, and were mildly put off because it was herb tea, licorice picked from the spice patch. There was, of course, no bread. Admitting that was embarrassing.

After they were gone Rafik told Barda, “You could have charged them more.”

“They'll talk. We want customers,” Barda said. “What is an inn with no guests? A birdfucking halfway house!”

Jemmy asked Rafik, “How much whole-wheat flour would that buy?”

“Sack and a half. Last night's take would buy five or six. But we could have charged more,” Rafik said, and Andrew's face was growing red with his laughter.

It was a trivial sum, of course. Barda's list had grown:

one full set of decent clothing - 600

poured stone, 10 tonnes - 2000

glass panes - 700

flour - 100

silverware 200 - 1000

paint - 500

chairs up to - 2000

tables up to - 4000

soap - 100

curtains - 500-1000

advertising - ???

napkins, ~l0th(logo?) - 200

washer - 5000

cookware:

stew pots - 50

teapot - 20

butcher's table! - 1500

or make one tea guide spot and power account - 8850

line wire - 4000

When Jemmy went to fetch wood for the pit, Andrew was there. “I found grain,” he said.

“What, you mean before we crossed the last ridge?”

“Well, yes, in that last valley, but not where you were. We followed you on the ridge. Just before the sun came up I was looking back. It was all yellow. Earthlife yellow. It's not far from the Swan. I can show you.”

“What kind of grain?”

“Two or three kinds. I went back to check, day before yesterday. Grain. Why would the settlers bring anything that looks that much like wheat and isn't?”

Jemmy thought it over while he and Andrew collected deadwood. They'd been here nine days, and they hadn't had to chop down trees for firewood, but the day would come.

He said, “Then all we need is a mill.”

“I'll show you next time I go out, you want to come.” Andrew moved off, dragging a log.

There was just too much wrong with that.

Grain: right. Barda's daddy, or his daddy or his, would have planted wheat and rye around the Swan. But it was a great find. Why wasn't Andrew taking the credit in his usual booming voice? Or demanding some favor in return? And when had he had the chance to check it out?

He found Willametta on the hill above the Swan. “Willya? Did you see any grain hereabouts before you got to the inn?”

Willametta looked around. Her windbreaker had become a bag for onions and mushrooms. “I didn't.”

“Did Andrew?”

“No. Why?”

“Any idea where Duncan's got to?”

She'd seen his worry. “It's all going fine, isn't it? Why are you turning weird now? I haven't seen Duncan Nick since breakfast.”

“Maybe I started weird. How would you like to go to Destiny Town?”

“What?”

“Somebody has to buy stuff. It sure isn't me, not with this accent!”

She smiled. “I guess I could stay out of trouble. Do I look like a living woman now?”

“Close. Let's test that.” He took the bag she'd made of her windbreaker and set it down.

“Jeremy, Destiny people won't see this much of me.”

“Speaking for the felons assembled, we're relieved to hear it.”

Conversation deteriorated.

Winnie looked into the wood, grinned at them, and passed on. Then dashed back, scooped up Willametta's windbreaker, and ran away laughing. They were in no condition to chase her down.

Too many of them had spent too much of the day arguing possibilities. Nevertheless the arguments had culled Barda's list into what they needed most that cost least. By the red light of evening's coals it had all evolved into a plan.

Someone was going to have to go into town.

At some point that person had become Andrew.

He was going alone. “You were right, Jeremy. One of us is just skinny. Two together look like walking dead.”

“Our bones aren't showing through so much now,” Jemmy agreed. “You can pass. Most of us could.”

“But not you. You'd make a mistake.”

“Not Barda either. Barda, the places that sell supplies for an inn would all know your face.”

Barda grinned. “They'd all tell me how wonderful I look. All that lost weight.” She looked down at her windbreaker. It was too dark to see food stains, but she said, “I'd kill a prole for a stack of napkins.”

“How high?”

Felons were tottering off to their beds. Duncan Nick wasn't among them. Duncan hadn't come to dinner. Jemmy hadn't seen him since breakfast. It bothered him most because he'd been expecting it.

Andrew said, “Come with me at dawn, I'll show you where the grain is.,'

He'd been expecting that too. “Not dawn,” Jemmy said. “I'll clean up from dinner and set up breakfast first. I'll start after that and catch up.”

They went into the inn. They left the hall lights on all the time now. Unbelievable luxury, and Spiral Town saw none of it. Felons and merchants took it for granted, and nobody wondered why, nobody but Jemmy Bloocher.

The ninth day had a lid of dark clouds.

Jemmy watched Andrew leave. His pack looked heavy. Jemmy waved; but there were things he had to do before he set off after Andrew.

Cleaning out the pit wasn't one. Those ashes would get to be too much of a good thing, but for now they were authentication of the restaurant's age.

There were squirrels and songbirds about. They did some of the cleaning up of spilled food. When Jemmy, Amnon, and Winnie finished the job, they left scraps in the wood.

Curious looks followed his departure. His pack was light. He'd hidden the gathering's trove of speckles. He didn't want to be carrying that down the Road.

He crossed the bridge and moved immediately to the center of the Road.

The river ran on his right, chuckling unseen. Jemmy moved briefly to its edge: a curve of melted rock flowing straight down into rushing water, He moved back to center. He'd considered climbing to the ridge, but that would have slowed him, and... he could be overreacting. Seeing murder in every face.

Willametta was no creature of evil. She would have been free of the Windfarm in less than a year. She'd followed Andrew for love, it seemed.

And Winnie's story, told by others, was that she'd killed a man because it was the only way to be rid of him. She had scars and broken bones to show for their time together, and he'd stalked her after she ran to Destiny Town. Maybe Destiny justice would have imprisoned him. Maybe she'd kill quicker next time a man gave her a hard time. She was probably no threat to a man like Jemmy.

Barda would never do anything to hurt the Swan.

But the Windfarmers were felons. Duncan Nick was legitimately a thief, and Dolores's first impulse had been to use a prole gun on the toolshed, and Andrew Dowd- Murder in every face.

The Road straightened after a time. Now Jemmy could see several klicks ahead, though a dip hid part of it. Then he was over the dip, watching Andrew hike along the river's edge. Now, by a small blackbronze tree, he stopped and looked down into the water.

Then moved on.

Jemmy followed. Andrew must have expected Jemmy to start later. He hadn't looked back. Jemmy lost him around a curve, and couldn't see him when that stretch of Road reappeared.

The Road stayed a steady twenty-five meters wide, with a jagged bluff on the left, river and bluff on the right.

Where he'd seen Andrew stop, Jemmy, with his breath gone fast and the hairs rising on his neck, edged to the water and looked down.

The rock was split. A Destiny fisher tree's oversized roots were prying the rock apart. Jemmy moved back to center and, after a moment, kept walking.

Left and ahead, the red rock turned ragged and jagged: a steep slope with deep cracks half-filled with loose landslide-shattered rock. Okay. Jemmy called, “Hoy, Andrew!”

No answer came, but Jemmy turned in a quick circle, and Andrew was ten meters behind him, laughing. “How on Earth did you get past me?”

“Don't know. Did you stop for lunch?”

“No, a quick dip.” Andrew strolled toward Jemmy. But his hair was dry, and Jemmy turned and ran straight at the red rock cliff.

Finding Andrew behind him had been a shock, but he'd already picked his path and he took it now, straight up the cliff, avoiding the loose rock. He didn't look back until he reached a flat spot as wide as his foot. Andrew was just below him and climbing fast, his pack swinging like something heavy and broken.

Jemmy climbed, breathing hard through a grin. He'd done this the whole length of the Crab. He could see his path, and there wasn't any better on this stretch.

A hundred and twenty meters up, the rock turned sheer. He edged sideways toward a heap of shattered rock standing at a forty-degree slope. He paused there to glance back.

Andrew paused too, blowing hard, teeth showing in a laugh. He shouted, “I thought you brought the lunch!”

“Just a watermelon,” Jemmy called. “Hope you brought a knife!”

“You bet!”

“Seen Duncan lately?”

“Lately, yes!” Andrew lunged toward him, panting like a bellows now, across red rock and onto red scree. Jemmy climbed with some care. He thought he could climb faster than Andrew, but a slide would be bad might be bad for Andrew too, but the game was to live.

The peak of the rockslide was sheer again but for a notch of sorts, a setting for his feet and a hold for his left hand. Jemmy set himself before he looked back.

Andrew was far below and making little progress.

Jemmy threw a rock at him. Then another, and another, without waiting.

They fell in front of Andrew, all three. He wasn't throwing hard enough, but his aim was good. Andrew screamed something foul... fowl, actually. Jemmy caught the echo.

Jemmy screamed back, “It's the law!,” and he set himself and hurled. Andrew threw too, but his rock fell far short. His second throw started him sliding, and he flattened himself against the scree and tried to stay there. Jemmy's falling rock hit him-somewhere-and so did the next, and Jemmy threw three more before he had to stop for breath.

Andrew was sliding. He couldn't stop. Jemmy hadn't planned on that. By now Andrew Dowd might have come to believe the unbelievable: that Jemmy Bloocher could beat him at climbing. If the slide didn't kill him, Andrew would have a chance to rest, to hide, to run now and kill him later.

There was just no help for it. Jemmy spread himself as flat as possible and crawled backward down the scree.

Andrew was out of sight. He couldn't have edged off the scree, though. Last time Jemmy saw him, those rocks were carrying him right to the bottom. Now Jemmy edged off to the side, onto solid rock, and looked down. Andrew was far below.

Jemmy began throwing.

Andrew got a little farther. But the rocks were hitting him, and he had to strike back. It was in his bones. He scrambled backward and reached bottom in a near landslide, crawled out from under, braced himself against a rock projection and started throwing.

It was not a fair contest.

Andrew gave up: turned his face to the rock and took the hits, and suddenly leapt up and threw three, and curled up again. Jemmy, with his arm hanging like a lead weight, started down.

He hadn't picked the quickest path this time, but the route that would keep Andrew in sight. Wherever he could stop he threw a rock. At the end he was walking toward Andrew, knowing that Andrew would uncurl and charge him with that great weed cutter they'd found in the outbuilding. He stopped out of knife's range and threw rocks from point blank until he knew that Andrew was dead.

The weed cutter was under him.

The pack wasn't on him. He pulled Andrew's body out of sight from the Road, rolled some rocks over it and left it there.

Jemmy found the pack when he'd nearly reached the Road. Andrew hadn't tried to hide it. He never expected Jemmy to live to find it, and he'd wanted to be rid of the weight.

Winnie and Amnon were doing nothing much at the bridge. Jemmy stopped in the middle and spilled the pack in front of them.

Winnie said “Yeep!” and covered her mouth. Amnon said, “What in isn't that Andrew's... no birdfucking allowed.”

“It's the law. I thought you'd better see this,” Jemmy said. “I don't recognize most of it. Is this what I think it is?” He held up a stack of thin paper printed with holograms: little windows into a composite view of Sol system, sun and planets and moons blazing against black.

“It's money,” Winnie said.

Jemmy fished among half-familiar things. A wide silver belt buckle. Handfuls of rings and ear crescents, jeweled and elaborately shaped. A tiny statue group: old men and a kibbitzer around a chess set, in inset jade. A malachite cube. “What's this? And this, and this?”

“I never actually saw-”

“That's a phone.”

“And I think that's a book, an old holy book. And that's a lighter.”

At a touch, a point on the lighter turned white hot. Jemmy kept it. “All right. We have to give the rest of this to Barda. Will you come with me?”

Amnon said, “We're supposed to be guarding-”

“I'll stay,” Winnie said. “You go, Amnon.”

“That's Andrew's pack,” Amnon said.

Jemmy repacked the pack, holding out the malachite cube and two ear crescents. He said, “Not anymore. Andrew tried to kill me. I won.”

“Andrew's dead?”

Jemmy looked at Amnon. He hadn't considered the big man a threat. “How do you feel about that?”

Amnon rubbed his jaw. “I guess we all knew he'd try to kill you. That stuff with the prole gun. You won?”

“Yeah. Winnie, here.” He gave her the ear crescent and helped her fit it. “You shouldn't wear it much. Maybe not at all. In Destiny Town they might know where it came from. Here, well, you know.”

“Thank you.” She kissed him.

Once upon a time... twelve days ago?... Amnon had handed a monstrous weapon back to Jemmy. And Jemmy had to trust someone.

“Amnon, I want to look uphill for... something, and then I want to talk to Barda. Will you come? I'm afraid to be alone.”

Jemmy stopped at the big outbuilding. He'd hidden the communal speckles and some personal stuff in the bushes around back. He collected them now, and picked up a shovel.

Then up toward the lake.

The fresh new outhouses were closer to the inn than the old ones. Jemmy wondered if that was a mistake. Today they were conveniently close. In a few years, when they got ripe... or when the pit began leaking into the groundwater... and so his mind was led to the old outhouse middens.

Here, the men's. Now, where had the fern's gotten to? His nose led him to a patch of bare earth. He called, “Amnon, did someone set you to filling this in?”

Amnon shook his head. He was standing well back.

Now, who would have done hard labor here without first trying to get Amnon to do it?

Jemmy dug. The smell drove Amnon farther back.

He hadn't dug far when he uncovered a hand. He cleared enough to find Duncan Nick's face. The shovel set the head flopping loose.

“Amnon, his throat's cut. Take my word?”

“Sure!”

“I want to cover this up and leave it alone, at least till we talk to Barda. Got a better idea?”

“Want help?”

“No. You do everything else around here.” He shoveled the dirt back. Not too deep. Now where was Amnon? Standing well back, maybe retching a little; trying to ignore the whole scene, stench and all.

Jemmy stooped over his pack. His back was to Amnon. He fished into the speckles bag and flung a handful of speckles over the mound; closed the bag and swung the pack onto his shoulders in a smooth turn that brought Amnon into view. Amnon had noticed nothing.

“Amnon?” He gave Amnon the malachite cube. “You heard what I told Winnie. Don't show it around.”

“Okay. What if I wanted the rest of what's in there?” Jemmy laughed. “Well, you've already got a shovel.” You had to trust somebody.

Barda was in the kitchen, and every cabinet was open. “Just wondering where to put things,” she said, and looked around. “Isn't that... ?”

Jemmy spilled the contents of the pack across the kitchen floor. “You tell me. Is that Duncan's loot?”

She stared. “No birdfucking allowed!”

''It's the law.''

“Yes. Yes, of course it must be... that birdfucker must have hidden it here, and then they took him off to the Windfarm. Of course he wanted us back here. With just the least of that we could have... Jemmy, tell me what happened.”

Jemmy told it. Barda listened with a face like stone. At one point she asked, “Andrew just strolled toward you and you scrambled up a cliff?”

“I did.”

“But why? I mean, yes, I remember you argued about the prole gun, but we all stopped him killing the ones who wouldn't go. Jemmy, what will we do without Andrew?” Barda wondered miserably.

She looked up. “Sorry.”

Jemmy said, “Here's how I saw it. Andrew can't kill the chef and still keep the Swan going. What would he have if he didn't have the Swan?”

He waved at the treasure heaped on the floor. “Every time you cried about not having the money for something to make the Swan a real inn, I saw Duncan Nick not saying anything. The rest of us all said something inane. Duncan Nick and his friends with no names hid out here after they robbed some houses. One of them might have it, or your proles might have the loot, or they gave it back to the owners. Or maybe Duncan Nick hid it at the Swan. And maybe Duncan told you in private... ?”

Barda shook her head.

“Or told Andrew? Then you'd have money and we'd all be set. But that isn't what happened. Duncan took seven days to get himself a little less pale, a little better fed.

“Now, Andrew knew Duncan much better than I do. If Icould see all that, Andrew might just wait for Duncan to grab the loot and run.

“I saw Duncan missing for a day. I saw Andrew set off for town to buy supplies. They'd have to come back in his pack, of course. So why was his pack already full of heavy stuff? And he'd set me up to join him, alone. He was clearing up a loose end, Barda.”

“So you lay in wait.”

“Barda, he was lying in wait, and I thought I knew where, and I still missed him. He must have been under the roots on the fisher tree.”

She studied him a little longer, then said, “You're rich now. You could why didn't you run?”

“Where?”

“All right. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it all back.”

“Duncan's in the old fern latrine pit with his throat cut. We covered it up again. It's none of the Parole Board's business.”

“No.”

“Someone still has to go in and buy supplies,” Jemmy said. “Amnon and Winnie?”

“You told them both about this. Why?”

“I wanted someone with me when I brought you this. I thought maybe you'd do anything for the inn.”

“Such as?”

“It's early,” Jemmy said. “I'm going to get some fish for dinner.” He set Andrew's pack beside the loot of three houses, and left. Barda's eyes bored into his back.

He still didn't know.

If Andrew was to be sent to Destiny Town with everybody's money, then Andrew had to want to come back. He had authority here, and nowhere else. Still... would Barda have offered him more? Say, the life of a man who snatched a gun away from him?

Jemmy didn't know, and it wasn't ever going to matter.

He passed a few people, and waved and went on. The men's old cesspit hadn't been filled in. Jemmy stopped and sprinkled speckles around the edge, and was reminded that he couldn't leave yet.

When he reached the lake, Willametta Haines was perched on a perfect rounded white rock, fishing. Jemmy took up position beside her. He handed her the speckles bag. “Would you take this, please?”

“Why? You're the chef.”

“Accidents happen. I don't want to get it wet.”

She took it. “What're you doing?”

“Going to circle the lake.”

“Want company?”

He said, “Sure.” Then he handed her an ear crescent, a tiny snake made of silver wire.

“Where did you get this?”

He fitted it onto her, and then he told her.

She scrambled backward. A safe distance away, she threw the ear crescent at the lake water and ran.

He waited until she was out of sight. Then he kept walking, around the lake and uphill. He kept the pole, awkward as it was. There would be lakes and rivers.

He didn't expect to be hunted. Jemmy Bloocher disappears after admitting that he's killed the trusty. Did he run? Or did someone take offense? Who cares? But anyone who tried to follow Jemmy would surely expect to find him on the Road.

Uphill he climbed. Swan Lake nestled in another wrinkle in the fabric of the land, another crest with another valley beyond. From the crest he could look into the next valley. Earthlife colors, then Destiny black along the bottom, then Earthlife again.

That day and the next three, he stuck to the crest. He made forays into the valley to hunt and gather. In time he descended to the Road. When he met the caravan he was welcome: he had money. He'd saved out half before he gave the rest to Barth.