Rider at the Gate

Chapter XX

THE AMBIENT WAS CLEAN NOW. THE SNOW AND THE TREES WERE A silence no other presence breached.

Guil thought. He’d long since slid down from Burn’s back and walked beside Burn, Burn with head hanging, still coughing occasionally from the cold air. Moisture from Burn’s jaws, frozen on his chest, glistened in the blued grey of the snowfall. Burn still kept expecting his rider’s expectation to the contrary.

But there wasn’t any safety in lingering. Guil kept a hand on Burn’s side, he imaged. and he tried not to think beyond that, or to wonder about human motives, because Burn was taking in everything and he couldn’t stop it.

They’d gone off the road. They came down to it again, both still walking. It didn’t take hard guessing—just careful footwork on the steeps, and down again in the same direction. No knowing whether Jonas was following them or not.

But he’d heard faint shots back in the direction of the walls, and another couple closer, that he thought might be the searchers signaling each other—they weren’t close enough to be firing at him, but that didn’t mean safety.

Jonas had yelled at him to come back, called him a fool.

And maybe he was. Maybe there was a real good explanation—like a nervous guard. But shooting at him wasn’t confidence-inspiring.

Most of all, he didn’t know what in hell Jonas was doing sitting in a village surrounded by tattered scavengings, after he’d shown no sign of coming up here.

He damn sure wasn’t going to risk Burn going back to give them another try. And considering things Jonas hadn’t told him about Aby’s dealings back at Shamesey gate, he wasn’t at all sure what had made Jonas take another trip up the mountain.

Jonas had gotten his convoy to Shamesey. He was free to go back with no one knowing—or giving him specific orders, unless he’d also gotten them from Cassivey; and he didn’t think so.

Jonas was much more distinguished by what he hadn’t done: Jonas hadn’t come out that night to bring him what was his at Shamesey gate.

Jonas hadn’t said—I’ll go with you up the mountain, Guil.

Jonas hadn’t said, in sum, anything about his gear, the bank account, Hawley, the gold shipment, or his own intentions to be here.

Jonas had wanted around him, and not given him damned much at Shamesey—just walled himself off and tried to bottle up the rogue-feeling so it didn’t spread: that was a service, but it was, as they said in the hills, a real cold supper. He didn’t say he’d have been more in control of himself at Shamesey if Jonas had given him even an I’m sorry; but Jonas hadn’t buffered anything he gave him: just—flung it at him. “Aby’s dead, Guil.”

Now did Jonas come to help?

Hell.

Jonas knew about the gold, was one good bet.

But—that came back to the same question: what in hell did a rider do with that kind of money? A village could steal that much. A village could loot the truck. A rider couldn’t find anything to do with it, couldn’t be safe if he had that kind of stash, couldn’t keep from rousing curiosity if he didn’t work—and had the better things that money could buy. There was no damn way he could use the pure metal for one thing. He’d have to fake nuggets or corrupt an assayer, —or somebody he’d forever be vulnerable to. It wasn’t something a rider would do.

Get himself in good with Cassivey? Get Aby’s job? That was much more likely.

That was a rider motive.

He checked Burn over head to hoof and head to tail once they reached the level ground of the roadway, in case Burn should have been hit or cut in their mad dash away from Tarmin and neither of them know it. Burn was his only worry. Burn’s welfare and the quiet of the mountainside was the only thing that occupied his brain: they were all that had to make sense at the moment.

Burn was wanting but Burn was running on fragile strength right now, too, having carried him much more than Burn ordinarily would. They’d gone since dawn; they’d had one real night of rest since the climb up; somebody, most likely Aby’s summer’s-end partners and the cousin who’d raided their bank account, had shot at them for reasons he still didn’t figure; and until things made better sense to an aching head and a tired body, he figured to stay ahead of the questions and just take care of the business he’d come to do: get the rogue that was surely responsible for the scavenged remains and dead horse he’d seen back there at the rider-shelter, and then figure whether or not to talk to Jonas.

Then let Jonas keep Hawley Antrim out of his reach. And let him explain the situation at Tarmin village.

There were, in his mental map of the lower side of the Tarmin road, two shelters available, one midway, one just short of the Climb that went up the steep to the High Loop. The middle one they could make. They could do it, just hit a staying pace and keep moving.

Meanwhile the snow was coming down thick. It melted on Burn’s overheated back as fast as it fell, sticking on Burn’s mane and making a fair blanket on his black hide in only the time he’d stood still being checked over. The track they’d plowed downhill was fast vanishing under new snowfall.

He walked, Burn beside him.

Hawley was the one who’d felt something when they broke the news. Hawley at least had cared.

Hawley hadn’t said about the money. Though, granted, Hawley wasn’t damned bright: Aby’s mother’s half-sister must’ve screwed a post to get Hawley—he’d maintained that for years. Aby’d argued he wasn’t that dim, but, damn, he’d far undershot it. Hawley pulling what he’d pulled at the bank—God, what did you do with a man like that?

He wanted to pound Hawley’s head in right now, if only because Hawley was the easiest problem to puzzle out, and probably the one of the three with no malice: Hawley got ideas and got himself in trouble, not thinking things through, not remotely adding it up why he was going to make people mad. You wanted to beat his head in, but you didn’t somehow ever get around to doing it, because to make it worth a human being’s time, Hawley had to understand why you were mad at him—and, dammit, you had a better chance explaining morals to a lorry-lie.

At least you knew where Hawley was on an issue. You could even call him honest, he was so stupid about his pilfering.

Jonas, on the other hand—if Jonas was coming up here with honest intentions, meaning nothing else on his mind than paying debts to Aby, it needed more reasons than he’d ever pried out of the man. Shadow was a spooky, chancy horse, and Jonas was that kind of a man—you had to get Luke alone and a few beers along if you wanted the truth. Jonas and that horse were both spooks. In a minute and twice on a weekday, yes, Jonas would opt to keep the truth to himself. Jonas, even to his partners, especially to outsiders to that threesome, parted with information the way a townsman parted with cash money, piece at a time, and always, always to Jonas’ advantage.

Jonas always did his job. Letter of the contract. Depend on it.

Jonas come up here out of belated remorse? Loyalty? —Friendship? Not to him.

And where was Hawley, if Jonas was involved?

Hell, ask Jonas what Hawley thought. Hawley always did.

crept up into Cloud’s awareness, first, a noisy presence through the palisade walls and the gate.

Danny imaged hard, the instant he picked up Jonas’ party at all.

appeared almost immediately after had to be that disturbance around them. Cloud snorted and wasn’t sure he wanted them back, but the boys were glad enough to realize they weren’t on their own any longer. And—which he had trouble admitting—he was.

“Is that the riders?” Carlo wanted to know without his saying anything. “Is that Jonas? Are you warning them?”

“Yeah,” he said, trying to steady down his images and his nerves before he had to deal with Jonas.

“Are they coming back?” Randy wanted to know—Randy had a sore cheek, but Randy wasn’t hurt otherwise, and Randy had maybe learned to stay away from a horse when there was something you didn’t want shouted to minds all over the area. Randy had figured a number of things out, maybe, and at least wasn’t mad at him anymore.

“Yeah, they’re coming in. I don’t think Harper’s stayed around in range, or he’s real quiet out there.” He put a hand on Randy’s shoulder and squeezed, feeling the shivery excitement in Randy’s mind. “Just calm down. If you want to go around horses you have to keep it down all the time, all right?”

“Yeah,” Randy said; and took a deep breath. “Are they going to shoot? Are they going to find this Harper guy?”

“Just be ready to open the gate,” Danny said to the boys; he kept thinking of and ambush. “Fast.”

But was gone from the ambient and had been since the gunshot at the gate, spooked out, elusive as any four-footed ghosty.

“Have they found the man?” Randy asked. “The man Harper was shooting at?”

“Stuart?” he said. “No, the blurry one’s probably Jonas. He’s not real noisy. They’re coming up on the gates. Be ready. They’ll come in and we shut it behind them fast as we can. Harper’s a coward. He’ll lie low if he’s outnumbered. But he could try shooting at them.” He was sending as clearly as he could—he couldn’t put any time sense with it, he couldn’t tell Jonas it was now and not then he was worried about.

Randy handled the latch, and he and Carlo hauled at the door, moving a blanket of snow along with it. They hauled hard, making a horse-wide fan of it as Luke and then Hawley rode in, their faces stung red with cold above their scarves, snow thick on them and their horses. Then Jonas came in last and

“Harper was here!” Danny said. “Harper and Quig. We shot at them.”

“Explains the gunshot,” Jonas said, and slid down.

“What about Stuart?”

“Man’s a damn spook,” Jonas said. “Couldn’t stop him. Wouldn’t listen.”

“He thinks we were shooting at him,” Luke said. “Lit out up and over a slope somewhere—couldn’t track him in this stew.”

came through. So did the fear of

And from Hawley, Danny thought, the more pleasant image of

Jonas asked.

He didn’t want to confess how entirely stupid he’d been, but was something Jonas needed to know.

“Hit him?”

“Could have. Could have hit Quig. That’s the other guy. But I’m not sure.”

“You’d know,” Jonas said matter of factly, and the ambient went queasy with while Jonas’ personal shell around it was cold as ice. Jonas took his hat off and dusted it against his leg. “Get us inside. Damn near frozen.”

was Burn’s judgment on the situation, and Guil patted Burn on the neck as he walked beside him, too numb and too sore to be coherent.

Snowed on. Shot at. Chased. Yelled at for a spooky fool. His feet were numb. His head hurt.

Burn snorted, shook his neck, throwing off a warning to the neighborhood — a dangerously loud sending out into the ambient, considering the danger they knew was on the loose up here.

But Burn always thought he owned the territory. Guil caught a fistful of mane in the middle of Burn’s neck and yanked it to distract him from challenging everything in reach.

He was still damned mad.

Wouldn’t really have thought it of Jonas — wouldn’t have thought that Jonas would miss, for one thing, but the snow had been blowing hard. Gust of wind, snow in the eyes… nobody was perfect.

Or it could have been an overexcited villager, thinking that he was the rogue: spooked villagers could shoot at any damn thing they thought they saw.

Could have, could have. The fact was Aby was dead and he didn’t know he was in any sense justified in his increasingly dark suspicions of Jonas — but somewhere between the headache and the ache in his leg, he was on the irrational edge of very damned mad.

Give Jonas credit—he’d lay odds Hawley hadn’t run straight to inform his partners about the bank. On a day in town with the horses a long way off, even dimbrain Hawley could conceivably have done something Jonas and Luke didn’t know about.

And ask where Hawley put the funds—maybe the cold air was waking his brain up—but he bet to hell there was another bank account. Hawley Antrim could have one. The bank women didn’t ask about brains, just if you had money. Hawley could have put most of it right back in his account, right there in Anveney.

And ask why Aby had used a bank at Anveney—and why Hawley knew it.

She hadn’t been able to level with her partner—that was what. She’d hammered home to her partner that the account existed and he should use it. He hadn’t known—God!—that it was in event of something happening to her, as if she’d known she ran risks more than the ordinary. Just so casual—Use the bank, Guil. It’s safe.

In the absence of her partner on her end-of-season run, she’d had to get a crew she could trust not only not to make off with the cargo but not to spill every damn thing they knew in village camps; granted there wasn’t anybody closer-mouthed or closer-minded than Jonas and Luke. Hawley—Hawley was moderately discreet because he didn’t have two thoughts a day—but he supposed, hell, he’d probably have picked Jonas and his lot himself, given Aby’s situation and Jonas showing up.

Jonas in breaking the news to him had told him about the rogue, imaging just That was how he’d gotten it. The he’d gotten from Luke, but no real chain of events from Jonas. No side information—and that was typical Jonas: you got things through that horse of his that flitted, that shifted, that you just couldn’t quite focus on. A nest of willy-wisps wasn’t as echoey as Jonas when he and that horse shaped you something out of memory. Clear and crisp-edged—Shadow wasn’t. Shadow enjoyed Shadow enjoyed You didn’t want to linger in Shadow’s ambient in a situation like that with Burn in striking range.

Two damn dominant males, Burn and Shadow.

Burn took high offense at the mere comparison with Shadow.

“Easy.” He gave a tug at Burn’s mane, set his hand on the back of Burn’s neck and shook it as Burn sucked winter air into his nostrils,

God.

Burn imaged happily, sniffing the wind and looking for mates while the wind blasted at them cold as the floors of hell. He was trying to figure who’d just tried to kill them, and Burn skittered off onto and running on nervous energy by now—while his was flagging. Hell, he thought, maybe he and Jonas were crazy as the horses.

God knew if Aby and Jonas had had anything going between them. He couldn’t imagine it. But maybe there was that in the ambient. He’d not picked it up.

He wouldn’t be offended—he didn’t think he was. Jonas was potentially more serious than Aby’s occasional others.

But—no. He didn’t think so. Not Jonas. For the damn-all major thing—Jonas wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t put himself that close and that off-guard to Aby’s questions.

A wally-boo called. He took it for reassurance. He had the rifle slung to his shoulders, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He took one out, in the wicked gust of snow-laden wind down a fold of the mountain, to pull his breath-sodden scarf up around his nose. It was freezing with the moisture of his breath and sagging down to his mouth. He jerked it behind his head, tugged it down tight inside his collar, thinking about that sweater he could have bought in Anveney—thinking about frostbite, and asking himself whether the oil on his boots was holding out.

Maybe some sense of obligation had actually gotten to Jonas, Aby having paid her life for it.

Or maybe—maybe Cassivey had talked to more than one man, made a deal with more than one man regarding that cargo.

Damn.

Damn!

That distracting notion took the trail-sense out of his legs. His foot wobbled into a hidden hole. He recovered himself a few steps, but he’d hurt the sore leg. The cold had clearly gotten to his brain. He was frozen between the consideration that maybe he ought to go back and find out what Jonas wanted—and the equally valid thought that that had been no signaling shot that had blasted bark off a tree. Jonas hadn’t fired at him when he’d chased him…

Burn swung his head around and bit him above the knee, not hard, but enough to wake him up. Burn insisted.

Wasn’t fair. Wasn’t fair to weight Burn down. he thought: the shelter couldn’t be far. He’d cut across the mountain where a horse could go and a truck couldn’t, and he didn’t know how much time he’d taken off the trek, but he had to be far closer now to the next way-stop than he was to go back to the village.

Didn’t dare to do it again, how-so-ever. Shaky legs had no business on a mountain. Damn near killed themselves doing it once.

And there was a chance of coming down to the road a second time some distance past the shelter. A chance, if the storm worsened, of freezing to death on the mountainside.

But he was limping. And speed was harder and harder.

he imaged; and Burn didn’t want to. Burn would carry him carrying it. Burn didn’t like the pack. It tickled.

He argued, he imaged but Burn, remembering that, just wanted right then.

Guil insisted. and Burn still wouldn’t.

He stopped. Burn offered to bite him on the leg again and he offered,

Burn wasn’t happy, but Burn finally carried it—

he sent back,

For a considerable distance further that even dominated in Burn’s searching the scents the storm brought. But was what Burn smelled. once. The ambient was healthier where they were.

But night was also coming down fast. The sunglow was leaving the sky behind the mountain wall. The temperature was dropping fast and the wind had a shriller voice as it howled among the evergreens.

Burn imaged.

But a high-country shelter was, Guil swore, going to be there— ransacked like the last one or whole, he didn’t care, as long as it was whole walls, a door that would latch, and a supply of wood.

Jonas would probably be after them; Jonas could show once the weather cleared and they’d talk and have some answers.

They’d talk with him behind a wall with a gun-port and Jonas out in the yard telling him what the deal was with Cassivey, that was how they’d talk.

But he had to get there. Had to get there. Legs had to last. Lungs had to last.

As the light dimmed and dimmed, until they were walking in a murk defined by tree-shadow and the ghostly white of the clear-cut.

There was ham, there was yeast bread. Danny knew how to make it, and nobody else claimed the knack. He hoped Harper could smell it out there on the wind and Harper was real, real hungry.

He truly, truly hoped Stuart had made it to the next shelter.

Jonas thought something he couldn’t catch. Luke had another slice of bread.

“I’ll bet,” Luke said, “that Harper’s pulled back to the north-next shelter.”

“Could,” Jonas said.

The boys just ate their supper.

There wasn’t a sign of Harper, though he thought they all kept an ear to the ambient. He ate his supper without a qualm.

It was only afterward when he began to think again about and that man vanishing in the jolt the gun made—that he really worried he’d hit Quig.

He didn’t think he ought to worry. But he did.

He sat in a warm spot near enough the stove it overheated his knees. He rubbed the warmth of overheated cloth into his hands, and didn’t want to move.

“You think you did shoot him after all?” Carlo asked, squatting down near him.

“I don’t know. I could have.”

Carlo didn’t say anything else about it. Carlo was thinking about his father. About About he couldn’t deal with. Carlo was quiet, and Randy came up and sat down by him, all of them scared. The banging went on down the street, where the wind hadn’t yet hammered whatever-it-was to flinders.

“When the snow stops,” Carlo said, “are they going to go after this Stuart guy again?”

“Probably.” He rubbed his knees again. The heat was back. It was almost too uncomfortable.

“What happens to you,” Carlo asked then, careful around his edges, “—if you go with a rogue and they shoot it?”

“Dunno. I really don’t.”

“Do they know?” A slide of Carlo’s eyes toward Jonas and the others. “I mean—”

Cloud moved in, put his head on Danny’s shoulder, and Danny scratched Cloud’s chin without thinking about it.

“Yeah,” Danny said. was insistent in the air. “It’s not a good time to think about it, all right? I don’t know what happens. Harper isn’t any genius. He just got spooked bad.”

“Go to sleep,” Jonas said, and it was like a bucket of ice water on the ambient. Things just—stopped, the way old Wesson could get your attention.

But it scared everybody. Cloud had jerked his head up, too, and Cloud was surly, feeling it as

Jonas got up and walked over to the stove, towering over them, his face and himself half in shadow from the flue pipe.

“No gain,” Jonas said, “to some questions. She could freeze. She could fall off. Could be she’s sane. Could be she isn’t. But if you get her back she won’t be the same as she was. Plain truth.”

The air was cold around the fire. Just—cold.

“She’s thirteen,” Carlo said in a shaky voice. “She’s just thirteen.”

“Horse can’t count,” Jonas said. “Rogue doesn’t care, mountain doesn’t care. Storm out there doesn’t care. And we won’t know.”

“Ease off him,” Danny said. “Jonas, it’s their sister, for God’s sake.”

“No difference.”

“Maybe riders get dropped under a damn bush, but village kids come with sisters, Jonas—sisters and brothers and and damned right it matters! You grow up with somebody and you got ’em even if you don’t damn well like ’em!”

Didn’t know who that was. Jonas all of a sudden flared up—was just and and they were ; Danny couldn’t make sense of it, but his heart had jumped.

“Clean up,” Jonas said.

“The hell. You clean up. I cooked it.”

Horses were was in the ambient.

“Hawley,” Jonas said. “You want to pick up the site?”

“Yeah,” Hawley said, and the air was quieter.

Carlo had gone tense. Randy was stiff and scared-looking, huddled against him. Danny felt a flutter in his heart and got up from where he was sitting, went over and calmed Cloud down, trying not to think real-time, thinking about

But papa never got his fingernails clean, never bothered too much because it was back to the shop after supper. Papa worked real hard.

That last was Carlo. It was Randy, too. They’d gotten up. They came over to join him, still but picking up on it, maybe, that when the air went like that in a camp you left things alone, really alone, fast.

The ambient grew quieter and quieter, as if the whole world was freezing. Even the hardier creatures on the mountain had sought shelter from the storm, and the nightly predators had evidently decided on a night to stay snug in their burrows.

There was a time you thought you had to give it up and try to tuck in somewhere, and if you didn’t, you somehow kept going. And after you were mind-numb and still walking on that last decision there came a time the body kept working and the brain utterly quit: Guil caught himself walking without looking, a second after he slid on a buried rut and had the bad leg go sideways. Burn just forged ahead.

The leg could be broken, for all Guil could feel—it was numb from toes to knee, the knees and ankles were going, and Burn, damn him, just kept on plowing through the snow.

<“Burn!”> he yelled, straining a throat raw with cold, thin air. That started him coughing, and still Burn didn’t stop.

It was a betrayal he’d never in his life expected. Burn had never left him.

Females, maybe, delusions of females—only thing that he knew would distract Burn to that extent.

Then:

He got up, he slogged ahead in the trail Burn broke for him. He stumbled and he used the rifle for help staying on his feet, but, damn, it was there, it was solid in the dark, he could see it with his own eyes, tears freezing his lashes and his lids half-shut. Burn was a

Burn agreed, pleased with himself. Burn was already up at the entry to the cabin, nosing the door, having gotten, over a lifetime, damned clever with latches and latch strings.

“Hell, Burn, you’ll ice it breathing on it, you fool—” He could hardly talk, but he set the rifle against the wall and squeezed up beside Burn, got a grip with stiff, gloved fingers on the latch chain, and pulled.

The latch lifted. Getting a snowbound door was a matter of kicking the snow clear and the ice clear, getting a grip on the handle and pulling the door so you had a crack to get your hands into.

Another tug outward and Burn got his jaw into the act, stuck just his chin through the door and started pulling back, working his head in and forcing it wider.

Outward-opening. Always outward opening, all the shelters. You had a snow door, even a roof trap you could use if the snow piled up and you had to, but outward gave you better protection against spook-bears, who always pushed and dug.

“Come on, Burn, Burn, give me some room, you fool, it’s still blocked—”

Ice broke. It moved, and Burn wasn’t taking any nonsense. Burn got a shoulder in, and more ice broke—Burn’s rider’s foot was a narrow miss as Burn shoved his way in with thoughts of and a warning of

Clean shelter. No vermin. Nothing moved in the dark inside.

He had an idea how the locals set things up now. He retrieved the rifle, got the door shut—pulled his right-hand glove off with his teeth and put his fingers in his mouth to warm them.

They hurt, God, they hurt so much tears started in his eyes and added to those frozen to his eyelashes. Burn came and breathed on him, that was some help when the shakes started, enough that he was able to get into his pocket and get the waxed matches.

He got one lit—the thumbnail still worked, even if he couldn’t feel the thumb.

Better yet, he was able to hold onto the match as it flared and showed him a cabin like any rider shelter—showed him the mantel, and besides a charred slow-match, a lantern with the wick ready and the chimney set beside it.

He lit it on one match, blinked the tears from his eyes and felt that one little flame as a blazing warmth in a world gone all to ice and wind.

The fire was laid and ready. He lit the slow-match from the lantern, lit the fire from the match, and squatted there fanning it with his hat until he was sure beyond a doubt he had it going. The wind was all the while moaning around the eaves like a living thing and thumping down the chimney. He chose to take a little smoke until the fire was strong enough for the snow-dump that sometimes came when you opened the flue—there was almost certainly a snow-shield on the chimney, but when he finally pulled the chain, he still got ice. It plummeted onto the logs, hissed, and knocked some of the inner structure flat.

It didn’t kill the fire, only flung out a white dusting of ash. He stayed there in the warmth and light with Burn going about sniffing this and that—he pulled off his left glove and checked his fingers over for frostbite—felt over his face and his ears, which were starting to hurt, with fingers possibly in worse condition.

But he wasn’t the only one cold and miserable. He put his fire-warmed gloves back on, wincing with the pain, wrapped a scarf around his head and, taking a wooden pail from the corner, cracked the door to get snow from outside, packed it down with his fists and came back to the fire to melt it. While he waited for that, he delved into the two-pack and got out the strong-smelling salve that by some miracle or its pungent content wasn’t frozen solid.

Burn was amenable to a rub-down, even if it took precedence over bacon, and Guil peeled out of his coat, called Burn over near the fire and rubbed on salve barehanded, chafed and rubbed until he’d broken a sweat himself, despite the cold walls and floor.

Burn was certainly more comfortable. Both of them were warmer. He thought his fingers might survive. He pulled off his boots and the cold socks, and applied the stinging salve to his feet, relieved to find the boots hadn’t soaked through, that feeling was coming back, at least an awareness of his feet, and a keen pain above the ankles. He wasn’t altogether sure he hadn’t gotten frostbite. Couldn’t tell, yet. And the toes wouldn’t move. Couldn’t afford to go through life with unsound feet. God, oh, God, he couldn’t—limping along on the short routes where the horse could do all the walking.

He didn’t want that for a future. He was more worried about his feet than about gunfire—so anxious that Burn in all sympathy came over and breathed on his feet, licked them, once, but the salve tasted too bad.

He’d have been safer and smarter, he thought now, to have camped in the open. He’d have been warmer sooner. A blizzard like this could pile up snow in drifts high as a shelter roof—it might not let up with morning or even next evening. The wind screamed across the roof—there was a loose shingle up there or a flashing or something that wailed a single rising and falling note on the gusts, a note you either ignored or let drive you crazy; but he was so glad of warm shelter tonight he told himself it was music.

Burn made another try at his feet. Burn was half-frozen and had a fearsome empty spot inside. be open.>

“Hell,” Guil moaned, and crawled over, stretched out an arm as far as he could reach and dragged the pack up close—fed Burn and himself jerky and a couple of sticky grain sweets, the kind he kept for moments like this, except his mouth and Burn’s had been too dry too long out there, and Burn’s throat was too raw, his tongue too dry to enjoy it.

But maybe, maybe there was a little bit of feeling in his feet. He tried moving his toes. Couldn’t quite get all of them to work, but some did that hadn’t—and finally, finally, he got movement out of them all.

Guil sighed then, with vast relief—took a pan out, thinking of other comforts, took his knife to thoroughly frozen bacon, having to lean on the blade to get through it.

There was water, finally. There was oil for biscuits—Burn got the bacon squares; he nipped a couple for himself.

By then his feet and hands had begun to hurt. Really hurt.

But the toes wiggled quite nicely, and he sat there content to watch that painful miracle while the biscuits nearly burned.

Meanwhile Burn, with water to drink and with the ambient a lot less and had his head blissfully in the grain bin, fending for himself in the absence of more bacon.

Guil thought, and offered Burn the first biscuits out of the pan.

They disappeared without hesitation. He made more, got one for himself out of the next pan. Burn got six. He found he hadn’t as much appetite as he had thought—but before he lay down he stood up, hobbled painfully over to the door and pulled the latch-cord in to protect their sleep.

Then he stirred up more biscuits for the morning, put them on to bake over the coals; and after what felt like a second, Burn had to wake him up off the warm stones to get him to take them out. Burn knew when he smelled it.

He ate one more biscuit then, put the rest by, and in shaky self-indulgence, made hot tea, assured now his teeth wouldn’t crack if he drank it.

Among his Anveney purchases was a little metal flask of spirits, for steeping medicines, as he intended, not the luxury of drink.

But the shelter came, courtesy of the maintenance crews, for which he blessed their kindness—equipped with a bottle on the mantel, and he poured about a third spirits into his second cup of tea; sipped it ever so slowly, letting it seep into dry mouth and dry throat and burn all the way down.

It was the first time he’d looked at the rider board, up above the mantel. His heart nearly stopped.

Some not-so-bad artist had filled a large area of the board with a horse head, all jagged teeth, staring eyes, wild mane, ears flat to the skull.

Rogue horse. A warning to anybody who came here.

And he knew the sketch artist beyond a doubt when he saw, above it, the mark that was Jonas Westman.

Jonas had been in this place, on his way to Tarmin, Jonas and his partners—sitting here where he sat. They’d laid the fire he’d used.

Made that ghastly image.

But that wasn’t the total source of disturbance. He was feeling something—faint, dim sense of presence.

—Something in the ambient, no image brushing the surface of his thoughts, just a whisper of life outside the shelter that sent his hand reaching for the rifle.

It had Burn’s attention, too—head up, ears up, nostrils flared, as he stared toward the door.

was the first thought that came to him.

But the sending didn’t seem to come from several horses. It wasn’t strong, it wasn’t loud and it shifted and eluded his conception of it, at times completely disappearing.

Shadow could feel that way—alone.

But Shadow wouldn’t be alone. And he wasn’t sure what it was. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t some passing cat—but no cat in its right mind would be out in a blizzard.

And it didn’t travel. It strengthened, there and not-there, consistently strengthened, while he and Burn stayed still.

Horse. Horse, he was almost certain. Strengthening presence meant it was coming straight toward the shelter.

Single horse.

He grabbed up the rifle, cursed himself as he checked its action—long overdue precaution. He’d used the piece for a walking-stick. God knew what he’d done to it the time he’d gone down and bruised his knee. But it worked. He had a bullet ready.

He waited, conscious of that sketched image staring out across the room over his head. He felt the tension in Burn, felt—now and again—the sense of something reaching out blindly into the dark, feeling about it, looking.

A lonely something. A desperate someone. Burn didn’t make the young-horse mistake of reaching back. They waited, quiet for a long, long while, anxious—but he began to want the thing, began to think about and and wanted that thing to come in, come to the gun-slit at the front of the cabin; get it over with, get it finished, the first night he was on the ridge.

He got up from the floor. He stood listening into the ambient, quiet, careful, not wanting Burn to commit too far, too dangerously out into that dark.

But it knew now that they were there. It skittered across his mind, canny, and scared, and desperate. He wanted to use his ears—hear it coming toward the door—but the wind screamed that single note across the roof, covering all sound else. He could feel it coming closer, and closer, and filling all the ambient, there and not there. He went to the wall, where the gun-port was—hesitated to unlatch it until he was reasonably sure what he was dealing with.

he felt it. Then:

Burn made a strange soft sound. entered the ambient.

Another thump. Hard. Two. Burn immediately grew excited, throwing his head and imaging back as, over the shriek of the wind came an unmistakable nighthorse sound outside the door, a female’s sound. Burn did a little sideways dance as Guil left the wall and grabbed a fistful of mane with his free hand.

“Burn, dammit, shut up.” He got a breath. quiet.> God,

“Let me in!” It was hardly a voice. It was maybe a rag of a human voice past the wail of the wind. The ambient was howling

Burn jerked the mane out of his hand,

“Open the door!” the voice outside cried, thin and breaking. “Dammit!”

A blow thumped against the door. He saw He saw and Most of all he felt in, something behind them—>

“There’s a rogue loose!” he yelled back. “How do I know it’s not you?”

“I’m not, you damn fool! God! Open the door! I left my camp, I smelled the smoke—I’m freezing out here, we’re both freezing. Open the damn door!”

They didn’t feel insane. Bush wisdom held that sometimes a rogue seemed entirely normal. Then wasn’t.

Burn was going crazy behind him, on totally different grounds, Burn was

But that was the mistake every victim made in the Wild. The voice outside, someone in desperate, mind-shaking need—the reason to open the door.

“God! Let me in! I’m not any damn rogue! Let me in, you damn coward! Open this door!”

Burn believed it. He began to believe it, telling himself it was still early in the season, there could still be a rider out, and he could find somebody frozen to death on his step.

It was a woman, he was sure it was a woman, by the horse and by the pitch in the voice when it cracked—and he’d no wish to deal with female horses or female riders; Burn was going crazy on him, Burn was going to go for the mare if he let them in—

“Open up!” Another thump of a fist. And he didn’t see what else to do. He set the rifle aside, drew his pistol for closer range—then lifted the latch, gave the door a shove, and put his shoulders against the front wall.

The door dragged outward with a gloved hand pulling it. Then a horse, as forward as Burn, forced her head in—surged through, a snow-blanketed darkness that met Burn in the middle of the room and dodged him in a perimeter-threatening dance around and around a second time as Burn sniffed after and the mare gave him a surly, warn-off.

He’d glanced at them like a fool—anxious about the horse. He glanced back a confused eyeblink later face to face with a muffled, snow-mantled and angry rider—as the mare shook herself from head to tail and spattered the whole room with snow and icewater.

“Who are you?” the rider demanded to know, and slammed the door shut. A gloved hand pulled off the hat and ripped the scarf off a head of dark hair, a pair of dark eyes, a wind-burned and pretty face—which was no comfort to a man hoping he hadn’t just let two killers into the shelter with him and his horse. “What are you doing here?”

“My name’s Stuart,” he said, and didn’t put away the gun. “Out of Malvey district. Who are you? The proprietor?”

“Tara Chang. Out of Tarmin village.” Teeth were chattering. Hard. “Malvey’s a far ride. What are you doing up here?”

“The rogue killed my partner. I’m afraid it’s got your village.”

A tremor of distress hit the ambient, but not strongly. The situation at Tarmin was no surprise to her.

But it was about all her constitution seemed able to bear. The bled out and she walked over to the fire—sank down on the hearthstones in a precipitate collapse of the legs, head down, gloved hands in hair. “Hell,” she said, and the pain in the ambient drew the mare over to nose her rider’s back.

The gun didn’t seem so reasonable as it had. He wasn’t sure. He kept expecting an explosion, a sudden shift into insanity. But with none in evidence, he put the gun back in holster, carried the rifle back to the far side of the fireplace, the side he determined to sit on—and thought of and

“Yeah,” she said. Her eyes were pouring tears. She hadn’t gotten her gloves off. God knew about her feet. Or her horse’s.

he thought.

She approved of that. She leaned and got the bottle of spirits— uncorked it and took a swallow.

You weren’t supposed to do that. It was stupid when you were cold, but she didn’t take another. He put on another pan of water to heat, and with a wary glance at the woman sitting on the hearth, eyes shut, cradling the bottle in her lap, decided he’d better fill water buckets again—his and the horses’.

Which meant the door opening, however briefly, and a cold gale swirling for a moment about the room while he packed one and then the other bucket with snow.

Burn didn’t care. Burn was nosing about the mare as he came back in, pulled the door shut, and set the buckets on the hearth.

Interested—God. “Burn, let her alone, you damn fool! She’s damn near frozen!”

Damn fool, he thought, and poured the woman tea in one of the shelter’s cups. “The water barrel’s frozen solid,” he said. “It’ll warm up by tomorrow, maybe.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“I’ll rub your horse down. She’ll be all right. Gloves off. Boots off. There’s aromatic rub and there’s snow for water.”

“Yeah,” she said, and started pulling gloves off with her teeth. He took the salve, of which he didn’t have but half left, and started in on the mare’s legs, while Burn licked the ice off the mare’s back. The mare nipped Burn. But not hard.

“God, save it,” he muttered to Burn. “There’s problems. God!”

Burn sent him and and he got a feeling that he didn’t know words for, but it involved pushing himself on a woman when she hurt. The rider was upset, the mare was upset—

“Let her the hell alone, Burn, you damn fool, give her a chance to catch her breath.”

“Flicker,” Chang said from the hearthside. “Name’s Flicker.”

He caught the image. A lot like Shadow, only light, not dark. She was picking up the other business, too, and while neither of them was acutely embarrassed—she was no junior—he felt himself pushed and set upon by his own horse. In most respects he and Burn were a match. Not in this.

“Sorry,” he said, and squatted down, arms on knees, as far away from her as he could and still feel the fire. “My horse is a fool. You want to quiet it down?”

“They’re all right.”

“Are you? Hands and feet?”

“All right.” Her feet were bare. She wiggled toes, and meanwhile downed a piece of biscuit—she’d found them; chased it with spirit-laced tea.

She seemed to be. So he got up and got several of the shelter’s blankets down from the shelf, and he didn’t invite approaches. She and her horse seemed all right, he was entirely sorry he’d given her a hard go-over and kept her out in the cold—but wherever she’d walked from, those feet hadn’t been cold as long as his had, and Tarmin’s troubles weren’t just today’s event. A day ago—at least. She’d been somewhere safer than he had.

She mumbled, “Two days. I think it’s two days.” She gave a shiver, and poured more of the spirits into the tea. Offered the bottle to him.

He wanted more awareness than that while he slept, though he was very glad to see she would sleep soundly.

She gave him a narrow look, thinking, Or that was the uncharitable way his mind interpreted it.

“No,” he said, taking offense. But her thoughts were skittering about so fast he couldn’t catch them, a lot about people he didn’t know, a lot about a camp he thought must be Tarmin, about a jail and an alarm in the night.

Not comfortable thoughts to sleep with. There was when they got loose, and but he didn’t think—he didn’t think it was an unnatural anger, or an unnatural pain. It just resonated too well with his own, that left him touchy and on the edge.

She took a precautionary look toward the door, then wrapped her two blankets around herself, with a persistent thought about a man—a rider—

He understood that, God, he wished he could put a damper on that feeling, smooth it down, ease the pain, distance the memories. It was her lost partners she’d looked to find when she’d smelled the smoke and come battering at the door.

<“Who are you?”> with so much anger—

Then it went away. Guil got a breath. The horses did, snappish and dangerous in a closed space.

While Tara Chang sat in her blankets, rested her head on her jacketed arm and stared bleakly into the fire.

Guil sat there a moment—asking himself what he’d let in and what was over there with Burn.

Grief, he decided. A day old, no more. A loss that racketed off his own, and left him raw-nerved. He probably made it worse for her—couldn’t help but make it worse for her.

he sent, kept it up until the horses had calmed down, until he saw the woman sigh and settle, and felt the ambient quiet enough to dare let go and try to relax.

The mattresses on the bunks might have warmed if he’d dragged them over and left them an hour or so at the fireside; but right now he was exhausted and the hearthstones were warmer. He took his own couple of blankets, laid his pistol down, wrapped in them and lay down in the fire-warmth, head on his much-abused hat and scarf, that he stuffed under him from where he’d dropped them.

He was still cold—as if ice had gotten clear into the core of him, and another wave of it was coming out to chill his skin. He lay there by another heavy-coated, living body, as cold as she was, with no erotic notions whatsoever and wondering if he dared shut his eyes.

But in a few moments of quiet, Burn and the mare were back to their quiet muttering of grunts and sniffing and sneezing—

The mare was tired, snappish, and out of sorts. Burn, going too far, nearly got something important nipped. He heard the row. More, he felt it, and twitched into a spasm of cold chill, knees drawn up, and wishing intensely that Burn would quiet the hell down.

The woman in front of him was a solid sleeping lump now. Two drinks, as tired as she looked to be, and probably the roof could fall on her unnoticed.

Probably it was safe to shut his eyes and get some sleep. He didn’t have any reason to doubt her. Burn didn’t doubt the mare, and kept at his courtship, somewhat more gingerly—which didn’t make Burn’s rider more comfortable. Guil turned over, arranged his arm over the gun and belt beside him.

In very remote case, he was sure. But he didn’t believe in deliberate chances.

Meanwhile the horses were bickering, Burn was exhausted, sore, and impatient, having made the one perilous try at a chilled, sore-footed, sore-backed mare, and settled to a sullen male posturing— imaging male horse,> until Burn’s male rider was

Burn wouldn’t. The mare was on her feet. Burn was Burn wasn’t going to lie down in the presence of any If Burn deigned

“God.” Guil took several deep breaths, and imaged, <Horses lying down, > loud and mad. Which was fit to wake his own bedmate. So he sent, Lying down mare.>

The mare settled down fairly abruptly, imaging—he was sure it was the mare—

Burn postured, Burn circled twice, lifted and flagged his tail, preened a foreleg, finally—

Guil sent furiously.

Burn preened the other foreleg, and gracefully, gracefully, settled to a noble resting posture—not damned comfortable, but, hell, Guil agreed, asking himself if he’d ever in his human life possibly been such an ass.

He grew warm, finally. He shut his eyes, drifted toward sleep, listening to another shifting-about with the horses. Horses didn’t mind resting their legs, but give it about an hour and a healthy horse would be up to sleep a while standing; and down again, when he tired of that—they weren’t quiet sleeping partners, unless the night was very cold indeed.

Which it wasn’t, with the fire going.

And now—

Now Burn wanted

God.

But Burn had to. It wasn’t Burn’s fault. Sex failed and the other urge of nature took over. You couldn’t ask Burn to wait. You could want to shoot him—but, hell, you woke up, took your gun to guard the door, you got up—

He let Burn out. He stood there against the wall, freezing in the brief blast of cold air, testing whether human beings could nap standing up—he could manage it.

But now that Burn was outside, the mare wanted

Fine. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. He opened the door and Burn wanted in where it was warm. Immediately. Burn came in, radiating cold, covered with snow. Shook himself.

Guil shut his eyes, folded his arms tightly to keep himself from folding over in the middle, braced his heels, and waited for the mare. While the wind shrieked over the loose shingle.

In not so long the mare wanted back in and he wearily opened the door, accepted another horse shaking herself and spattering snow about, as he shut the door and double-checked the latch, arguing with himself that the mare was perfectly sane, that possibly now that the horses were settled, he might settle.

Chang was staring at him over the top of the blankets.

“God,” she said, and collapsed. for a moment. She’d wakened and been confused where she was.

“Sorry.” He came back, gathered his blankets around him and sat down—lay down, shivering, and put the gun beside him.

“We’re not the rogue,” the woman said.

“We aren’t either,” he said, laid his head on his makeshift pillow and wrestled the blankets up to his neck.

“I knew that.”

“How?”

“Because I know who is.”

“God.” He wanted desperately to shut his eyes and sleep. And he didn’t want to believe what he was hearing. It complicated everything.

But it felt true. Everything about the woman felt true—and disturbing.

“A kid.”

“Village kid,” she said. “Name’s Brionne Goss.”

“Kid’s dead, if she’s out in this.”

The woman didn’t answer. There was too much of of “My partners went out after her. Didn’t come back.”

He remembered the rider shelter north of the village. Remembered and shied off from that image too late, sending sending all he understood to give.

For a long, long moment the air was thick with emotions. The mare came over and trod on the blankets, nosing her rider’s leg. Burn came, disturbed, and Guil sat up to lay a restraining hand on the offered nose. Pushed at it. he wished, and with the mare near the woman, there was no coherent thought in the ambient, just roiling, dark, disturbance.

Burn made a quiet, disturbed sound—next to a warning. Guil sent, and got to one knee, and slowly to his feet, wanting to get provocation out of the mare’s reach. It was hard even to breathe, let alone to think. He backed Burn up, wanting

Then leapt into the ambient, grotesque, horrid, in her sight, in her mind, and and flew around the room. Burn reared—Guil grabbed trailing mane and skidded and held on as Burn shied.

Held him. Burn stood trembling with anger. Chang had the mare, had hold of her, scared, and

Guil urged at her, at Burn, at everything in reach. He reconstructed it out of the dark. He sent and felt, finally, Chang’s help quieting the mare. Chang wanted But she got it under control, got the horse quiet.

“Small room,” he said. “Easy. Tight space here.”

“That your idea of a joke?” Meaning the image.

“I didn’t do it. Didn’t do it. Haven’t even made my mark up there. Swear to you. Didn’t make me damn happy either. Throw a blanket over it.”

She got a breath or two. Thought about and didn’t do it. She was calmer. She calmed the mare, who was still throwing off Chang was doing the same, shaky and still

It was cold on this side of the room. He wanted He wasn’t going close to her horse. He had enough trouble keeping Burn still.

For a moment things stayed as they were, balanced on a knife’s edge of Chang’s temper and his nerves. Then he felt the anger unwind, slowly, slowly, into a quieter disturbance. A few more breaths.

She shook at the mare’s neck, wanting and thought She was shaken and upset. She wanted—

He understood—he didn’t expect her to get that much steadiness back, not that fast. He wished he’d thought to cover that damned thing.

“It’s stupid,” she said, shaky-voiced. “Not that good a drawing. I ate your damn supper, I’ve no right to chase you off your own fireside.”

He wasn’t sure. Burn wasn’t sure. Burn snorted and got between them, with him holding onto Burn’s mane most of the way. But he ducked past Burn’s neck, about the offer. Flicker had her ears laid back. He wasn’t confident the woman was all that steady.

“I knew,” she said, “God, I knew, I just—”

—hadn’t let it get loose, he thought, and stayed where he was as she made another effort and took a furtive wipe at her eyes. She turned deliberately and stared at the image on the wall. Stayed that way for a long moment, then patted the mare on the shoulder, jaw tight, eyes aswim with moisture, and went back to the fireside.

He stood there. He didn’t know what else to do. She straightened hers, she straightened his. The horses were confused at this flapping of blankets and shadows, uneasy, not knowing clearly what the disturbance was. had been in her mind and his. It wasn’t good.

She finished tidying up. Stood there in front of the fire and lost her battle. A man’s face was in the ambient, and she couldn’t breathe—he couldn’t, and then the mare was coming at him, scored a nip on his sleeve as Burn snaked a neck past, defending him.

He cast about for a broom, a stick—and she dived in and grabbed the mare’s mane—he flung himself in Burn’s way, shoving at his chest, she was shoving at the mare—holding, pushing, until they had a perilous quiet established. The bottle had gone spinning across the hearth, unbroken. The blankets were almost in the fire.

She was shaking. He was. They had it broken up, stood there reassuring horses until everything was quiet, inside—while the wind kept screaming its two notes into the spooked, treacherous dark. She wanted wanted and he put his own agreement behind it.

Dangerous as hell. She was scared. He was scared. There were scars on the walls. There was blood drawn, minor nips, but it wasn’t a time to push the horses. She put a cold hand in his, they made a tentative peace, pats on the shoulder, a demonstration of nonhostility while the horses were bickering and threatening each other. She’d pulled herself together. She’d used her head. He turned a pat into an arm around the shoulders, a quick, comradely squeeze with nothing behind it but thanks for her good sense, but she flinched away from it, and the ambient was still queasy.

In what seemed a second thought, then, she caught his arm and had him sit by the fire, shoved blankets at him and wrapped herself in her own. Her hands shook, holding the blanket under her chin. she was sending, a calm-sending.

“I’m fine,” she stuttered. “F-F-Fine.”

A fool would breach that calm-sending. He said with feeling, “It’s all right, woman. Just breathe.”

“Didn’t have a choice about being in here. They’re dead. They’re all dead. I th-thought I was handling it. Th-Thought Vadim at least—m-might have made it. He was the best. He was the best, but he—” “He’d g-go after that damn k-kid. Him and Chad. Both.”

He didn’t want to stir it up. But he asked himself and it couldn’t help but be a question.

She shook her head. “No.” “Flicker. Flicker got me out. Wasn’t thinking. Left my damn g-gun. I didn’t do too well.”

“Doing damn all right, woman. You’re alive.” He was of her calm. He was glad of her life after the thing he’d just felt. He felt the shakiness still in her, knew there wasn’t a way in hell to reach into a woman’s private thoughts and patch anything, no matter if he wanted to, no matter how good his intentions—couldn’t prevent her doing what she’d do, wasn’t right to want to. If he’d learned one thing from Aby, that was true.

He’d not held on to her. He’d not tried to change her.

And she’d died.

She reached out and laid her hand on his knee, shook at him to get his attention, her face glistening with tears, as his was. “Name’s Tara,” she said, pointed reminder.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Aby?”

You couldn’t hear words in the ambient. He didn’t know how she came up with the name. But was in her imaging, too.

“You knew her,” he said.

“A lot of years. Last winter. When she stayed over. You’re that Stuart. Her Stuart.”

He nodded. Wanted more of that image. Desperately wanted the missing pieces of Aby’s life. The questions he couldn’t answer.

“She’s dead?” She hadn’t known. “What in hell happened?”

He threw it into the ambient. It was easier than talking about what words didn’t say anyway.

“I saw the wreck.” “I’d no idea—God.”

“So I’m going after that thing. Get it stopped.”

“By yourself?” Then “Like hell you are.”

“I’d rather,” he began on

She shook her head, now, “Two of us. That much more chance.”

He wasn’t happy about it. He wanted her safe. Didn’t want any more dying.

“I need a gun,” she said. “You can’t use two at once.”

“Woman, —”

“Name’s Tara.”

“Guil,” he said. “My guns.” That was damn selfish. He was being a jerk. But he wasn’t getting killed, either. “I’ll hand you one for backup. When it matters.” He’d admitted she was going with him. He didn’t see anything else to do but give her a gun and send her off alone. Which meant she’d still hunt it.

“All right,” she agreed after a moment. “All right.” She wasn’t mad. She didn’t blame him. Damn brave woman, he thought, going out there not knowing if she’d have a gun if he was incompetent.

She didn’t feel like somebody who’d panic. She’d known Aby. That was something.

“We’ll get it,” he said. He didn’t know, after that. Didn’t have any plans, after that.

Except Cassivey’s orders. Except next spring.

She sat there staring at the fire. He wrapped the blankets around his shoulders and looked at it too.

The horses wandered back to their courtship. She sat there remembering her village and her partners and trying for quiet.

Finally she lay down on her side and pulled the blanket up to her ears. He did the same, listening to the horses— Burn having settled to better manners. The mare was still scatter-witted, concerned for her rider, a cold-water bath for Burn’s attentions.

He wasn’t sorry. He really, really wanted rest from emotional images and emotional situations. She didn’t think about him. It was all, all as she sat there, still as the frozen dead.

Clenched fist. Steady stare. For a long, long time no thought but the patterns in the fire. She’d reached the angry stage.

Best help he could be, he decided, was do the same, image nothing but

She let go a sigh and lay down. Her concentration wobbled. He kept seeing and the horses settled,

One wasn’t tempted to linger in the necessaries in the morning: the small add-on joined by a too-efficient door to the main cabin had no heat but the natural insulation, one suspected, of snow piled up over the roof—and one was very glad to be back inside and back in front of the fire.

Tara Chang took her turn while he put tea on and toasted biscuits over a renewed fire. Horses were hungry—horses had to be let out for their own necessities, and let back in out of the howling gale.

It was still whiteout outside. If Jonas had gotten back to shelter in Tarmin, depend on it that Jonas was going to stay put, postponing all questions until the storm had stopped, and hell if he wanted to see Jonas right now—he’d enough on his mind without dealing with Hawley.

“Autumn’s definitely over,” Tara said, shivering her way inside, and shutting the door fast.

“Looks like.” He was uneasy. He wanted to keep the light mood she attempted, but he’d thought of Hawley and Jonas and his mind wanted to go ranging after questions he didn’t want to ask himself. He was cooking a taste of bacon for the horses, to go with and he’d make hot mash, but He was being very firm about that. He had water heating for the mash. Which Burn liked adequately well. He wasn’t in the least remorseful about the biscuits.

Tara made the mash, perfectly nice mash, mixed grains. A little bacon to flavor it.

Riders sat and toasted biscuits, and ate slowly, because it was certain they weren’t going anywhere while the wind was howling like that.

He thought about Shamesey, in a long silence marked by horses bashing buckets against the baseboards. He thought about winter drifts, and evergreen, and high villages.

“Verden,” she said. And he guessed it was Verden he was thinking about.

Where Aby’d spent no few days.

“Guys I’ve worked with, Aby’s crew, they’re back at Tarmin holed up. Guy who drew that thing—” He indicated the picture overhead. “You could go back there, if anything happened to me. They’re all right, I mean, I think you’d be all right with them. They’re probably after the thing too, but if something did happen—”

“I don’t miss.”

“I’ve been known to,” he said. He hated infallibility. Considered it lethal. “I’ve decided you’re right. One human hasn’t a chance. So if anything happens, you go back, get Westman. Tell him—” He decided against what he’d like to say, which was Go to hell.

“I’m not going to tell him a damn thing. I know who you mean. I don’t like those guys.”

Didn’t exactly surprise him. He didn’t exactly like them, himself, but he couldn’t find a cause against them.

It occurred to him that why was a reasonable question.

“What’s the matter with them?”

“Just—stand-offish. Just not damn friendly.”

“That’s Jonas. And his horse.”

She flung some small dark bit into the fire. Bark chip, maybe. There was a lot of it on the stones. She didn’t talk for a moment. She wasn’t happy with things. “Aby said—”

She couldn’t leave that hanging.

“What?”

“Said she was worried. I don’t know what about. I don’t know what had happened. The last time, this last trip, before she went with them up to Verden with the trucks, she rode over to us, said—God, she said she wasn’t staying around them longer than she had to, they were into her business… that was what she said.”

He bit his lip. Found his pulse racing. to know. “Did she say what that business was?”

“I don’t know. Only—you know, they don’t run the Tarmin shipment uphill and then down again, they just set a date and our trucks meet them and join up at the downhill. So she gave us the date. And two of our guys, Barry and Llew, they took the trucks out with one of our road repair crews. And you know, usually when the convoys join the convoy boss sorts out who’s going where in the line—”

“Yeah.” That was normal.

“Some bosses, after they sort the trucks out, camp there that night. Aby did, usually. But they didn’t ever stop. My partners were behind our trucks, and they just started rolling, and our guys, they stayed with the repair crew, ready to move them up when the trucks had cleared the road. But the whole convoy was just on down the mountain. Never did even see the riders. —It’s not that unusual if there’s weather threatening. There’s a truck pullout a couple of hours on down. And some bosses just had rather make the time. Aby’d said she didn’t want to spend time with them. I guess we all assumed she was anxious to get down—down the mountain. But she wasn’t with them, was she?”

“No. She wasn’t.” He was very careful with his edges. “They were spooked. That’s their story. The rogue showed up and spooked the convoy, sent Aby and Moon right off the mountain.”

“I took supplies and more crew up to the road repair just a few days ago. They’d found the wreck Our guys thought it could be a month old. They had no idea.”

He was getting madder, and madder. Burn was disturbed. He tried to calm himself.

“Jonas knew,” he said. And then broke a promise Aby’d died keeping: “There was gold on that truck. Whole year’s shipment.”

She wasn’t knocked-down surprised. Mildly, maybe. “They said it went with the convoy before.”

“They.”

“Rumors. There are always rumors. But—”

She was confused. Thinking about

“Jonas imaged me about a rogue spooking the trucks,” he said. “A rogue killing Aby. —Hell of a coincidence, isn’t it? A rogue— and that one truck—the one with the gold?”

“The rogue’s real,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, and sat staring into the fire until he’d calmed himself from the attempt to add that up.

Sometimes things just happened. Sometimes the luck was just against you. But bet on it that Jonas Westman knew what was in that truck. Lead truck, it had been: he resurrected that from the image he’d gotten. Aby’d gone over the edge. It had.

That was Tara Chang’s memory. The way it had been when she’d visited the site. No bones. Nothing. What died in the Wild vanished before morning.

A lot of riders went that way. Just disappeared. Just gone.

The storm was still piling up snow in Tarmin streets—drifts were halfway up the windows, and they opened the door to shovel their way out—Danny worked up a sweat, and the village kids, shoveling with less fury but longer duration, made it to the porch.

Not senior riders. It was juniors’ work. Senior riders sat warming their feet inside.

Juniors carried the wood. Filled the water barrel with clean snow that floated white in black water. Seniors complained about the length of time the door was opened, and burned more wood.

Something had turned last night. Danny tried not to think about it, but there was something unpleasant in the ambient, and Cloud was surly and snappish enough to match Shadow’s disposition.

“What are they mad about?” Randy asked when they were out on the steps.

“Missing Stuart, probably.” It wasn’t the truth. He wasn’t sure what was the truth; but something had gone skewed from the moment Jonas lectured them last night on false hopes, and that image had come to him which he didn’t want to think about.

So he went back in. They had the storm shutters set back for the daylight hours, barred them only at night—and he’d found books, ten of them, the whole that the store offered for sale. He sat down by the window in the white light reflected from the snow, and read about

He found a strange lot of attention on him then. The boys were staring. Jonas and Luke and Hawley were. And the horses.

It was funny, he’d never read around the horses before. He’d just gotten into the habit of picturing things in his head since long, long ago, when mama would read to him and Sam and papa.

Sam never got good at it. Sam wanted to be down in the shop. Sam didn’t want to study. Sam wanted to marry somebody who read.

Mama had read aloud.

“You can go on,” Luke said, meaning he wanted more, but Luke wasn’t going to admit it out loud. So he read to them.

It was an easy place to dive into, full of images. The horses were confused, but they liked some of it, he guessed—Cloud kept trying to fix the images so they looked more like Cloud understood, which wasn’t a real help; and sometimes his audience did the same, until the images were something they more agreed on. Jonas cut in, on the king’s side. You could guess. The boss-man couldn’t be a fool. The story had to bend until the boss-man found some vindication.

He read until his eyes were tired, and until he was at a place and a turn of the story that he could shut the book and think about it and nothing else—like wanting the storm to end, so they could go out and go find Stuart before Harper did. And stopping the rogue so they could find someplace safe, and quiet, and he and the boys wouldn’t have to take orders.

He sat by the fire and had himself a snack—he never in his life thought he could get tired of ham.

“Could go on another day,” Carlo said. “Never knew it longer. But it could, I guess.” Carlo ducked his head,

“Quiet,” Danny said, feeling the disturbance. “Calm down. Say words. Don’t picture things.”

“When they go out of here, after him, I mean, are you going with them?”

He’d shifted thinking about that. He’d begun thinking differently since last night. And he was scared.

“I don’t know.” He tried to think about the stove, whether it needed cleaning out: they’d been About the story. “I really don’t know.” He owed Stuart. He didn’t trust what was going on. put the boys in danger; going put the boys out there where their was.

“She’s our sister,” Carlo said urgently. “She might listen to us.”

“She might not. You want your brother to be there?”

Carlo was scared, too. Cloud moved up and nosed in between them, jealous of anything that wasn’t him. Danny shoved him with a hand on his chest, not even thinking about it. Carlo put his hand on Cloud from the other side. Cloud didn’t offer to bite.

“I want her alive,” Carlo said, and it was the truth. “I don’t like her. But I want her out of this.”

“What about Randy?”

“Is here safe?” Carlo asked. “Even if you stayed, is here really safe?”

It wasn’t. Not with Harper loose. Not with a lot else that was going on. But he couldn’t avoid Jonas.

There was leisure for shaving, for washing clothes to dry in front of the fire—not damn much else to do. They washed up the pans they’d used and then, with the wind still howling over the roof, Tara spent a long, long time working over Flicker’s mane and tail.

That made Burn jealous.

Mud, hardly. But he owed Burn on this trip. He got up and combed until Burn’s tail and mane were drifting silk. Brushed a perfectly good nighthorse hide until Burn was starting to complain of pain.

“Pretty fellow,” Tara said, and stroked Burn did have male muscle and a healthy sheen that made ripples when he flexed it. As he did. Of course.

With Tara

Hell, Guil thought, seeing desertion and conspiracy. He wasn’t feeling at all sociable this afternoon, if it was afternoon. He was stuck inside, under roofs, with the hearing company of a woman he liked, to whom he was bound to be polite, while irreconcilable facts were churning around in his head and he was wanting to shoot Jonas Westman for suspicions he couldn’t fix in any world of fact.

So he skulked off with his surliness and his suspicions to clean his guns, which could take a considerable time if it needed to; and he took all the time and care he could justify at it.

But a man could only spend so long oiling guns and doing mending and washing dishes, while two fool horses were at a whole damned afternoon and evening of foreplay. It was going to be a lot worse come nightfall—he only hoped to God the storm kept going long enough to let two lovelorn horses get it worked out and at least quieter. He didn’t want to imagine the rogue coming calling when the ambient was as erotically charged as it was—particularly since Tara was sure, at least in the ambient she’d relayed, that the rogue was female.

A scary situation if you were the one on the damn lunatic autumn-hazed male. He couldn’t hold Burn. No way in hell he could hold Burn from going right off a cliff, the same way Aby couldn’t have held Moon, on that road, with an edge too close.

A tightness hit his chest. He was a lot better. He really was. Temper wasn’t helping it. Suspicion that Aby’s death didn’t need to have happened if people had been sane—wasn’t helping it.

Aby’d been carrying secrets all right, secrets that the villagers had guessed and a horse would pick up on. Aby’d been carrying just too damn much without her partner. She’d picked up something from Jonas she didn’t like. She could have thought it related to the gold. She was trying to protect Cassivey’s contract—and if the word got gossiped about, Cassivey wouldn’t be happy.

Jonas might not be after the gold as money. But the deal Aby had with Cassivey—Jonas could want that real bad. Aby and her regular partner hadn’t been together much in the last two years. Maybe Jonas had just gotten ideas and that was why Jonas wouldn’t face him at Shamesey. Aby’s good living off Cassivey sure as hell explained Jonas coming back up here. She was making money. She was making a lot of money; by what Cassivey was paying him, she was stuffing it in that bank account hand over fist, —and for what? What did a rider need, beyond her supplies and her guns and her winter-over?

Time.

God. Time.

They talked about going into the hills and not working for a while. And they’d always made just about enough for winter-over. They spent too much. He’d spent too much. He hated towns. Hated the crowding, the noise—hung about them for her sake. She’d said—hadn’t she?—that someday they’d make the money, buy the time, take the break to go back to the high country—and he’d known it would never happen.

Aby had pleaded with him to join her at Anveney. He’d refused. She’d gotten mad. And hurt. And they hadn’t talked about it. But winter at Shamesey let her do those jobs at Anveney. And make money she wasn’t spending.

That was what she’d been doing with her secrecy. That was why she’d been hurt. The big plan. The trip back to the south. The year off work. And Jonas moved in on her.

Tara sank slowly down on her haunches in front of him and rested her elbows on her knees, chilled hands in front of her mouth. The air was scarily tense. The wind screamed a steady song into the world.

Good man, Tara thought. Honest man.

And so damn much so much —which he was so, so careful to contain in himself—all the signs of someone who’d been with the horses so early and so long that, hurt and hit, he had only the instinct to hold pain close and kill it, before it killed him, his horse, his partner.

She knew. She was smothering a lot of it herself. And she didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t intrude where only that partner ever had. Different from her—who’d had a set of lovers, interchangeable and easy. But with Aby Dale—and him—she got images of Of Of a whole life—

Fights. Reconciliations. Arguments.

Love had never changed, in all of it.

“Listen,” she said, in the face of his skittish suspicions. “Don’t— don’t shoot Jonas Westman. All right? You don’t know. If he shows up—and he could, when the storm quits, don’t—”

“My business.”

“Yeah,” she said, and knew when to back off. She began to get up.

He caught her wrist. Not hard. Didn’t have words framed— just—image.

“At you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Now—I think so. But I’ve known them a lot of years. I don’t know how to think. Maybe they just knew there was a secret. Maybe they were prying at it. Maybe they were just worried about her. —Maybe—I don’t know how she thought, you know? —I don’t know.”

“I don’t either,” she said, and was going on to say—But Aby would care what happens to you. I don’t want you to do something you could be sorry for—

She was almost to saying— I could care. I don’t want you hurt.

But another image overrode.

“Hell,” she said. It was Flicker. But it was Burn, too. One had the idea, and then the other did.

Guil shook his head, and then looked up.

In silence. Or near silence. The screech of the wind on the shingle had sunk away to an occasional flutter.

“Storm’s letting up,” she said. “Or we’re covered up over the roof.”

Burn was pawing at the floor. Nudging the latch with his nose.

“Damn, Burn. Hold it, can you?” Guil got up, snapped the loaded cylinder closed and gave it to her as she got up.

Meaning guard the door.

He went and shoved the latch up.

The door wouldn’t budge. Burn shoved it, and it gave a little. Not much.

“Well,” she said, meaning it had to be the snow-door, which meant moving a table, and unscrewing two heavy bolts that held a wooden bar as thick as her arm. Bear-bars, they called them. With reason.

She moved the table, he unscrewed the bolts, and pulled the door open on a shoulder-high wall of snow with dark above it and a wind still fit to blast cold air and snow into the room.

Burn pawed at it, got purchase and began digging furiously. “Burn!” Guil yelled in protest, nothing availing, and Tara got the snowshovel and began making a heap of it on the floor. Coats were definitely in order.

“Damn,” Guil complained, pulling his on, and then took over the shoveling, piling the stuff in the middle of the board floor as first his horse, then Flicker behind him broke their way through a considerable drift. The wind was cold. A pile of snow in the room was quickly sending a trail of icemelt across the boards to a low corner under the bed. It was disgusting. And Tara inhaled a cold gust, shrugging into her coat, and felt like chasing out after the horses and breathing the free wind herself.

The horses had broken through into the night outside. They nipped each other and plowed through small snowbanks because they were there, they did their essential business when the urge took them, marking the area as theirs—and got to flirting with shadows, tails up, snow flying, while two humans froze, shoveling out the snow two horses had kicked into the room.

in,> Guil insisted, when they’d cleared everything but white traces of the shovel edge and a huge wet spot off the boards of the floor.

There was no sympathy. There was a rogue out there somewhere in the woods, and two fool horses wanted to play tag through brush that masked holes and drop-offs. Tara sent furiously.

Thirsty work, shoveling or digging. That drew the rascal, who came shaking her mane and shaking herself once she was inside, a spatter of quickly melting snow; Burn was right behind, hardly slower to spatter them and the room, with a whip of his tail to finish it—and no question in the world what was on both minds now. Flicker got her drink, from the bucket they kept full; and Burn moved in for a few gulps of water while two frosted humans were securing the snow-door to keep the heat in the room and the bears out.

But before they were done, the ambient was awash in and and there seemed to be a second source of heat in the room.

Two half-frozen humans went to the fire, nonetheless, to warm their chilled hands—impossible to ignore what was going on in the room, impossible not to feel the heart speeding and sensitivity increasing in areas one politely—desperately—tried not to think about.

And did, because it was impossible to believe a man and woman in the same room with those two were going to clench their teeth till daybreak.

She tried to concentrate on the fire. But she looked at him the same moment he looked at her, and it was like one thought, awareness of each other—impulses shooting through the parts in question. He was trying but she didn’t think he was winning. She wasn’t. Air seemed very scarce in the vicinity.

“Oh, hell,” she said, or something like, and he was a degree closer and she was—they might both have leaned. A thickly padded hug gave way to a totally mindless intention, mouths meeting mouths and breathing finding some way to happen.

Burn and Flicker were down to basics; but humans had clothes to go, and bare skin in a chilled room, and blankets that somehow the other party was sitting on, that resisted being wrapped around fast enough to keep the chill away, so her rear was cold, but she didn’t figure out where the end of the blanket was, and didn’t care.

After that—after that were explosions, intermittent rest, and a quieter trial or two, with the horses quiet enough to let them feel their way around each other’s sensations, new to each other, and old as their experiences, and full of ghosts.

He was thinking through half of it. She was thinking, now and again—but not that she didn’t care. They were both confused, and so much was still recent with them that neither of them could straighten out where they were.

But within the ambient, human heartbeats began to be in unison—which bothered the horses, whose hearts beat in a different time. A feeling ran through her like electricity, coming from his hands, coming from the air—the horses found their own preoccupations, but he was he was the sole shuddering link keeping them both from flying off into the dark…

was safety.>

that was his personal terror.

Then Fright at first, then a long, pleasurable, leisurely descent until they were breathing together, settled together.

Hands held matching hands. Fingers clenched. The floor and the room still tried to come and go until the horses drifted to sleep, finally, themselves exhausted, and left them in a leaden, blind dullness of senses, just the physical touch, fingers on fingers, arm against arm.

They didn’t talk. He just touched. That it kept on to its own unaided and less acute conclusion meant something, she wanted to think, if only that they each wanted the kind of human contact you got alone in barracks, in the few places riders found to do things the blind, strange way humans did alone—for different reasons. Like companionship. Like sensation in that blind, numb state, far from the horses, when the world seemed so scarily quiet.

It was an autumn craziness. It meant not a damned thing.

And did. He’d let her inside, all the while afraid he might have let Aby’s killer inside with him.

He’d let her close to him—all the while skittish and wary of the betrayals he expected, and had gotten, from men who should have helped him.

Gold; and motives for accidents that weren’t accidents—a boxful of gold hadn’t mattered in his thoughts; it was his partner. It was only his partner.

Damned if she was going to ride off from him.

They were going out of here tomorrow. They were half dug out, only had to get the main door clear and bolt the snow-door tightly shut—in case Aby Dale’s working partners wanted the shelter tonight.

They could go to hell. But you didn’t leave a shelter so somebody else couldn’t use it. Even the likes of them.

Fingers squeezed hers. With the horses asleep, higher things didn’t come through. Worry could.

She turned her head. Stuart looked asleep. She kept watching. He gave no sign he wasn’t. But he turned over and faced the fire then. So she suspected he hadn’t been.

Truck. Rolling down the mountain. Faster and faster.

Horses snorted. Danny waked with his heart thumping, the boys were awake—everybody in the room was awake, the ambient still awash with terror, and the remembrance of

He suddenly felt spun over on one arm with the realization it wasn’t a dream—that somebody was coming at him,

Cloud squealed a warning and dived for the man. Bit. Hard— and everybody was scrambling for their feet—horse hit the stove and recoiled with a squeal of pain and rage.

<“Calm down!”> cut through the anger: Jonas; and Shadow. It was Froth that had gotten singed, not bad, but it hurt, and Luke was trying to get Froth quieted, while Danny got his hands on Cloud and tried to keep Cloud from going for Ice.

“It’s that damn kid,” Hawley yelled. “It’s that kid making the trouble, it’s been him since Shamesey. We’re leaving him. Him and the village kids. We don’t need him.”

Cloud wanted Hawley’s coat was all that had saved him as it was.

“I didn’t do anything,” Danny said. “I’m sorry if you think I did, but I didn’t. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Hawley,” Jonas said. “Hawley, what’s the picture? What’s going on?”

It had become a quiet, all but breathless night—the wind, Danny suddenly realized, was quiet. He had his hands on Cloud,

“Fisher?” Jonas said coldly.

“I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think anything.” The boys were thinking of Carlo was holding on to Randy, wanting

“Hawley,” Luke said. “What did you do? What did you do, Hawley?”

“I didn’t do a damn thing. I was watching them when we stopped, that was all, the line was that was all.”

“Line was leaking,” Jonas said. “What line was leaking?”

Hawley didn’t say. But Danny didn’t think Hawley needed to say.

“Hawley,” Jonas said, and Shadow was a flickering, smothering loud, God, he was loud. “I want the truth, Hawley. Once this trip, I want the truth.”

“They thought we were thieves! Piss on ’em, I said, you want I should stop us here, and no, they said—”

“Hawley,” Jonas said.

“Hell, it’s him making it up! I didn’t take any damn money!”

“Hawley. Aby’s dead. Aby’s you son of a bitch. What happened?”

Ice was on the verge of attack. Shadow was. Froth was on edge with pain. Danny wanted Quiet,> with all the strength Cloud had; joined Shadow’s fight for the ambient, and Ice backed up, shook his head, snorted in confusion.

“They gave him money,” Luke said, “they didn’t want to stall up there, they’d been spooks all during the trip. They didn’t want us to put a hold on that truck and leave it in the village, and they gave him money. Didn’t they, Hawley?”

“I said I thought they ought to tarp that truck and leave it there, but they didn’t like it, we knew what they had in that cab, they were being damn spooks about it. Aby was giving off like crazy she didn’t trust anybody, all trip long—it wasn’t my damn fault, Luke, the whole damn trip was screwed—I mean, Aby was boss, she was going to see that truck rolled right then, and they give me money, what was I going to do?”

“And they wanted to go on down. Right then.”

“I was going to tell Aby. But they put the chocks off and they rolled, Jonas, I was going to tell her about the brakes.”

“And not us. Why not tell us, Hawley?”

“You damned fool.”

“Well, they give it to me. I didn’t see any reason not to take it.”

“Yeah,” Jonas said. “Hawley, I want to talk to you. Outside.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Then maybe you better come across with all of it. Here.”

“None of their business.”

Meaning him and the boys, Danny thought, and wasn’t happy about hearing whatever Hawley had done wrong, either. But Luke said,

“Pretty clear, isn’t it? Hawley. We’re not blaming you. You took the money. They gave it to you. So what did you do?”

Hawley took a while about it. “I was going to tell you. But I shouldn’t’ve took the money. Aby’d be mad. I was going to give it back next stop.”

Jonas was intensely frustrated. Angry. And trying to hold it. Danny stood patting Cloud’s neck, wanting Carlo moved up by him, full of questions Carlo didn’t dare ask.

Jonas said, finally, “Storm’s stopped. We’d better see if we can catch Stuart. Tell him what happened.”

“Man’s like to shoot us,” Hawley protested. “We got the rogue out there—we got—”

“One hell of a mess,” Jonas said. “One hell of a mess is what we’ve got. Dammit, Hawley.”

“I didn’t think it’d hurt. They said it’d hold. They was driving it, I mean they was willing to drive it…”

“Yeah. They were stupid, Hawley, does ‘stupid’ make sense to you?”

Danny let go a breath. Luke said,

“Froth’s got a burn. If we’re going out there, I want to grease it down good—it’s going to hurt like hell.”

“Yeah,” Jonas said. “Do that.”

“So what happened?” Carlo whispered, at Danny’s shoulder. “What did Hawley do?”

“I think the truckers bribed him, something about bad brakes.”

But that wasn’t the only question in his own mind. Bad brakes on a bad road. Truckers not wanting to stop, where they probably couldn’t turn around.

Why?

Luke had found the salve. Jonas was putting his pack together. So was Hawley.

“Are we going?” Randy asked.

Danny said, “Not staying here. Pack up. Now.”