It was the most peculiar conveyance she had ever seen, but it looked like it would work. In the desert everything had to be carried or dragged; wheeled carts would bog down in the sand or break in rocky country. As long as the horses did not shy or bolt, the stretcher would give Jesse a more tolerable ride than a travois. The big gray between the front shafts stood calm and steady as a stone; apart from a sidelong glance as it was led between the back shafts, the second horse, a piebald, showed no fear.
Jesse must be a marvel, Snake thought, if the horses she trains will put up with such contraptions.
“Jesse says we’ll start a fashion among rich merchants wherever we go,” Merideth said.
“She’s right,” Alex said. He unfastened a strap and they let the stretcher fall to the ground. “But they’ll be lucky not to get kicked apart, the way most of them break horses.” He slapped the placid gray’s neck fondly and led both horses back to the corral.
“I wish she’d been riding one of them before,” Snake said to Merideth.
“They weren’t like that when she got them. She buys crazy horses. She can’t bear to see them mistreated. The colt was one of her strays — she had him calmed but he hadn’t found his balance yet.“
They started back toward the tent to get out of the sun as it crept across the afternoon. The tent sagged on one side where two poles had been removed for the stretcher. Merideth yawned widely. “Best to sleep while we have the chance. We can’t afford to still be on the lava when the sun comes up.”
But Snake was filled with a restless uncertain energy; she sat in the tent, grateful for the shade but wide-awake, wondering how the whole mad plan could work. She reached for the leather case to check on her serpents, but Jesse woke as she opened Sand’s compartment. She closed the catch again and moved closer to the pallet. Jesse looked up at her.
“Jesse… about what I said…” She wanted to explain but could not think how to start.
“What upset you so? Am I the first you’ve helped who might have died?”
“No. I’ve seen people die. I’ve helped them die.”
“Everything was so hopeless just a little while ago,” Jesse said. “A pleasant end would have been easy. You must always have to guard against… the simplicity of death.”
“Death can be a gift,” Snake said. “But in one way or another it always means failure. That’s the guard against it. It’s enough.”
A faint breeze whispered through the heat, making Snake feel almost cool.
“What’s wrong, healer?”
“I was afraid,” Snake said. “I was afraid you might be dying. If you were, you had the right to ask my help. I have the obligation to give it. But I can’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When my training ended my teachers gave me my own serpents. Two of them can be drugged for medicines. The third was the dream-giver. He was killed.”
Jesse reached out instinctively and took Snake’s hand, a reaction to her sadness. Snake accepted Jesse’s quiet sympathy gratefully, taking comfort in the sturdy touch.
“You’re crippled too,” Jesse said abruptly. “As crippled in your work as I.”
Jesse’s generosity in comparing them that way embarrassed Snake. Jesse was in pain, helpless, her only chance of recovery so small that Snake stood in awe of her spirits and her renewed grasp on life. “Thank you for saying that.”
“So I’m going back to my family to ask for help — and you were going back to yours?”
“Yes.”
“They’ll give you another,” Jesse said with certainty.
“I hope so.”
“Is there any question?”
“Dreamsnakes don’t breed well,” Snake said. “We don’t know enough about them. Every few years a few new ones are born, or one of us manages to clone some, but—” Snake shrugged.
“Catch one!”
The suggestion had never occurred to Snake because she knew it was impossible. She had never considered any possibility other than returning to the healers’ station and asking her teachers to pardon her. She smiled sadly. “My reach isn’t that long. They don’t come from here.”
“Where?”
Snake shrugged again. “Some other world… ” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was saying.
“Then you’ll come with me beyond the city’s gates,” Jesse said. “When I go to my family, they’ll introduce you to the offworlders.”
“Jesse, my people have been asking Center’s help for decades. They won’t even speak to us.”
“But now one of the city’s families is obligated to you. Whether my people will take me back I don’t know. But they’ll be in debt to you for helping me, nevertheless.”
Snake listened in silence, intrigued by the possibilities lying in Jesse’s words.
“Healer, believe me,” Jesse said. “We can help each other. If they accept me, they’ll accept my friends as well. If not, they’ll still have to discharge their debt to you. Either one of us can present both our requests.”
Snake was a proud woman, proud of her training, her competence, her name. The prospect of atoning for Grass’s death in some other way than begging forgiveness fascinated her. Once every decade an elder healer would make the long trip to the city, seeking to renew the breeding stock of dreamsnakes. They had always been refused. If Snake could succeed…
“Can this work?”
“My family will help us,” Jesse said. “Whether they can make the offworlders help us too, I don’t know.”
During the hot afternoon, all Snake and the partners could do was wait. Snake decided to let Mist and Sand out of the satchel for a while before the long trip began. As she left the tent, she stopped beside Jesse. The handsome woman was sleeping peacefully, but her face was flushed. Snake touched her forehead. Perhaps Jesse had a slight fever; perhaps it was just the heat of the day. Snake still thought Jesse had avoided serious internal injuries, but it was possible that she was bleeding, even that she was developing peritonitis. That was something Snake could cure. She decided not to disturb Jesse for the moment, but to wait and see if the fever rose.
Walking out of camp to find a sheltered place where her serpents would frighten no one, Snake passed Alex, staring morosely into space. She hesitated, and he glanced up, his expression troubled. Snake sat down beside him without speaking. He turned toward her, staring at her with his penetrating gaze: the goodnaturedness had vanished from his face in his torment, leaving him ugly, and sinister as well.
“We crippled her, didn’t we? Merideth and me.”
“Crippled her? No, of course not.”
“We shouldn’t have moved her. I should have thought of that. We should have moved the camp to her. Maybe the nerves weren’t broken when we found her.”
“They were broken.”
“But we didn’t know about her back. We thought she’d hit her head. We could have twisted her body—”
Snake put her hand on Alex’s forearm. “It was an injury of violence,” she said. “Any healer could see it. The damage happened when she fell. Believe me. You and Merideth couldn’t have done any of that to her.”
The hard muscles in his forearm relaxed. Snake took her hand away, relieved. Alex’s stocky body held so much strength, and he had been controlling himself so tightly, that Snake feared he might turn his own force unwittingly back on himself. He was more important to this partnership than he appeared, perhaps even more important than he himself knew. Alex was the practical one, the one who kept the camp running smoothly, who dealt with the buyers of Merideth’s work and balanced out the romanticism of Merideth the artist and Jesse the adventurer. Snake hoped the truth she had told him would let him ease his guilt and tension. For now, though, she could do no more for him.
As twilight approached, Snake stroked Sand’s smooth patterned scales. She no longer wondered if the diamondback enjoyed being stroked, or even if a creature as small-brained as Sand could feel enjoyment at all. The cool sensation beneath her fingers gave her pleasure, and Sand lay in a quiet coil, now and then flicking out his tongue. His color was bright and clear; he had outgrown his old skin and shed it only recently. “I let thee eat too much,” Snake said fondly. “Thou lazy creature.”