“Snake!” Melissa was angry. “No matter what, being with you will be better than — than being in Mountainside. I don’t care what happens. Even if you hit me—”
“Melissa!” Snake said, as shocked as the child had been.
Melissa grinned, the right side of her mouth curving up slightly. “See?” she said.
“Okay.”
“It’ll be all right,” Melissa said. “I don’t care what happens at the healers’ station. And I know, the storms are dangerous. And I saw you after you fought the crazy, so I know he’s dangerous too. But I still want to go with you. Please don’t make me go with anybody else.”
“You’re sure.”
Melissa nodded.
“All right,” Snake said. She grinned. “I never adopted anybody before. Theories aren’t the same when you actually have to start using them. We’ll go together.” In truth, she appreciated the complete confidence that Melissa, at least, had in her.
They walked down the hall hand in hand, swinging their arms like two children instead of a child and an adult. Then they rounded the last corner and Melissa suddenly pulled back. Gabriel was sitting outside Snake’s door, saddle-pack by his side, his chin on his drawn-up knees.
“Gabriel,” Snake said.
He looked up, and this time he did not flinch when he saw Melissa.
“Hello,” he said to her. “I’m sorry.”
Melissa had turned toward Snake so the worst of the scar was hidden. “It’s all right. Never mind. I’m used to it.”
“I wasn’t really awake last night…” Gabriel saw the look on Snake’s face and fell silent.
Melissa glanced at Snake, who squeezed her hand, then at Gabriel, and back at Snake. “I better — I’ll go get the horses ready.”
“Melissa—” Snake reached for her but she fled. Snake watched her go, sighed, and opened the door to her room. Gabriel stood up.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“You do have a knack.” She went inside, picked up her saddlebags, and tossed them on the bed.
Gabriel followed her. “Please don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry.” She opened the flaps. “I was last night, but I’m not now.”
“I’m glad.” Gabriel sat on the bed and watched her pack. “I’m ready to leave. But I wanted to say goodbye. And thank you. And I’m sorry…”
“No more of that,” Snake said. “All right.”
Snake folded her clean desert robes and put them in the saddlebag.
“Why don’t I go with you?” Gabriel leaned forward anxiously with his elbows on his knees. “It must be easier to travel with someone to talk to than alone.”
“I won’t be alone. Melissa’s coming with me.”
“Oh.” He sounded hurt. “I’m adopting her, Gabriel. Mountainside isn’t a place for her — no more than it is for you, right now. I can help her, but I can’t do anything for you. Except make you dependent on me. I don’t want to do that. You’ll never find your strengths without your freedom.“
Snake put the sack with her toothpowder and comb and aspirin and soap into the saddlebag, buckled the flap, and sat down. She took Gabriel’s soft strong hand.
“Here they make it too hard for you. I could make it too easy. Neither way is right.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it, the tanned, scarred back and the cup of her palm.
“You see how fast you learn?” She brushed her other hand across his fair fine hair.
“Will I ever see you again?”
“I don’t know,” Snake said. “Probably not.” She smiled. “You won’t need to.”
“I’d like to,” he said wistfully.
“Go out in the world,” Snake said. “Take your life in your hands and make it what you want.”
He stood up, leaned down, and kissed her. Rising, she kissed him back more gently than she wanted to, wishing they had more time, wishing she had met him first in a year or so. She spread her fingers across his back and turned the embrace into a hug.
“Good-bye, Gabriel.”
“Good-bye, Snake.”
The door closed softly behind him.
Snake let Mist and Sand out of the serpent case for a short spell of freedom before the long trip. They glided over her feet and around her legs as she looked out the window.
There was a knock on Snake’s door.
“Just a minute.” She let Mist crawl up her arm and over her shoulder, and picked Sand up in both hands. It would not be long before he would grow too large to coil comfortably around her wrist.
“You can come in now.”
Brian entered, then stepped back abruptly.
“It’s all right,” Snake said. “They’re calm.”
Brian retreated no farther but watched the serpents carefully. Their heads turned in unison whenever Snake moved; their tongues flicked out and in as the cobra and the rattler peered at Brian and tasted his odor.
“I brought the child’s papers,” Brian said. “They prove you are her guardian now.”
Snake coiled Sand around her right arm and took the papers left-handed. Brian gave them to her gingerly. Snake looked at them with curiosity. The parchment was stiff and crinkly, heavy with wax seals. The mayor’s spidery signature was on one corner, Ras’s opposite, elaborate and shaky.
“Is there any way Ras can challenge this?”
“He could,” Brian said. “But I think he will not. If he claims he was compelled to sign, he will have to say what the compulsion was. And then he would have other… compulsions… to explain. I think he prefers a voluntary retreat to a publicly enforced one.”
“Good.”
“Something else, healer.”
“Yes?”
He handed her a small heavy bag. Inside, coins touched with the clear hard sound of gold. Snake glanced at Brian quizzically.
“Your payment,” he said, and offered her a receipt and a pen to sign it with.
“Is the mayor still afraid he’ll be accused of bonding?”
“It could happen,” Brian said. “It’s best to be on guard.”
Snake amended the receipt to read “Accepted for my daughter, in payment of her wages for horse training,” signed it, and handed it back. Brian read it slowly.
“I think that’s better,” Snake said. “It’s only fair to Melissa, and if she’s being paid she obviously isn’t bonded.”
“It’s more proof you’ve adopted her,” Brian said. “I think it will satisfy the mayor.”
Snake slipped the coin bag into a pocket and let Mist and Sand slide back into their compartments. She shrugged. “All right. It doesn’t matter. As long as Melissa can leave.” Suddenly she felt depressed, and she wondered if she had held so firmly and arrogantly to her own will that she had disarranged the lives of others to no benefit for them. She did not doubt she had done the right thing for Melissa, at least in freeing her from Ras. Whether Gabriel was better off, or the mayor, or even Ras…
Mountainside was a rich town, and most of the people seemed happy; certainly they were more content and safer now than they had been before the mayor took office twenty years before. But what good had that done the children of his own household? Snake was glad to be leaving, and she was glad, for good or ill, that Gabriel was going too. “Healer?”
“Yes, Brian?”
From behind, he touched her shoulder quickly and withdrew. “Thank you.” When Snake turned a moment later, he had already, silently, disappeared.
As the door to her room swung softly shut, Snake heard the hollow thud of the big front door closing in the courtyard. She looked out the window again. Below, Gabriel mounted his big pinto horse. He looked down into the valley, then slowly turned until he faced the window of his father’s room. He gazed at it for a long time. Snake did not look across at the other tower, for she could tell from watching the young man that his father did not appear. Gabriel’s shoulders slumped, then straightened, and when he glanced toward Snake’s tower his expression was calm. He saw her and smiled a sad, self-deprecating smile. She waved to him. He waved back.