It was only afterward when he began to think again about <man in the gate, snow blowing> 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 <gun going off.> About <anger> 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. <Blonde girl in red coat> 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.” <Man Harper knew. Rogue in the ambient. Shooting man.>
<Shooting Brionne came through, and upset ran the whole room, horses shifting, heads coming up.
“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 <attack.>
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 <family, > and damned right it matters! You grow up with somebody and you got ’em even if you don’t damn well like ’em!”
<Sam. Sitting at the kitchen table. Having a mouthful of beans.>
<Wrench, settling on a thin, crooked pipe fitting. Open air. Cold air. Gravel underfoot.>
Didn’t know who that was. Jonas all of a sudden flared up—was just <there,> and <mad> and they were <on the floor>; Danny couldn’t make sense of it, but his heart had jumped.
“Clean up,” Jonas said.
“The hell. Youclean up. I cooked it.”
Horses were <upset.> <Fight > 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 <flour and biscuits and how long the wood stack was going to last.>
<Wrench on a fitting. Brown metal and cold.
<Papa and the shop, papa fixing engines. Pieces all over the table. Papa’s hands all over grease and black from his work.
<Papa washing up in the sink.>
But papa never got his fingernails clean, never bothered too much because it was back to the shop after supper. Papa worked real hard.
<Papa in the blacksmith shop. Sparks flying. Iron glowing in the heat.>
That last was Carlo. It was Randy, too. They’d gotten up. They came over to join him, still <scared,> 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: <Shelter in the dark. Logs covered in snow, snow piled high. Bacon cooking.>
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 <splendid horse. Strong, admirable horse.>
<Wonderful horse,> 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 <supper> and a warning of <nighthorse, fierce nighthorse. Eating willy-wisps cooked in grease.>
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.