Right now he wasn’t sure where that was—whether to drop back altogether and lock themselves into the shelter, or to go on where he wasn’t damned much use.
“They’re going to shoot Brionne,” Randy said, distressed, wanting to go faster. But a human body couldn’t. They’d been going since before dawn and they couldn’t go any faster, try as they would. “Tara wouldn’t. —But they might.”
“Stuart won’t shoot any kid,” he said. He believed that, the way he’d judged Stuart from the start. “He’ll get the rogue. It’s just—”
“Harper?” Carlo panted, struggling to stay with him, while he fought Cloud’s tendency to pick the pace up. Because he was moving, Carlo and Randy with him; he didn’t know about Harper. He didn’t trust Jonas. He didn’t like that <truck> business. Jonas had been mad about <Hawley taking money> and about the brakes. But Jonas hadn’t come here purely for Stuart’s sake. Something else was going on, to bring Jonas away from Shamesey and onto this trail. He remembered the camp meeting, remembered Jonas arguing for Stuart—remembered Jonas dissuading any hunt going out after Stuart himself; Jonas was that much of a friend to Stuart.
But not—he was convinced—not to the exclusion of other motives. There was something besides what Jonas had said was his reason.
He couldn’t leave the boys. He couldn’t go faster. But they were three guns if they weren’t too late to matter; and they were witnesses if witnesses were any restraint to Jonas Westman, whatever the man was about.
They’d passed the small cut-off that Tara said led off toward the main road, on the downhill; and they were traveling an uphill now, a place where the wind had scoured the ground all but clear of snow despite the trees. Brush held drifts. But stone showed through on the roadway.
The horses had settled out of some of their foolishness—were breathing hard on the climb, at work again after the day cooped up close indoors, and beginning to think of thirst, snatching a lick at the snow as they moved.
And human minds had settled into businesslike purpose. Guil knew he’d bothered Tara—and he’d not pushed at her personal borders, not on a morning when reason wasn’t working and the horses were doing their own pushing at each other. He felt under him the give and take of a body as entirely distracted as he was, as dangerously astray from their business as he was. He found himself gazing off up the mountain, where nothing was but snow and rock.
Not helpful, in a landscape where they weren’t seeing the animal traces they were accustomed to see. Possibly something was laired up there. He didn’t think it was a horse—not up in that tumbled rock.
Burn gave a surly kick in his stride, thinking about <horse. Guil walking. Tara walking. Burn walking with Flicker. Beautiful mare. Beautiful rump. Beautiful—>
He thumped Burn in the ribs, and Burn flattened his ears, threw off <warning> and slogged along with his mind on business, Flicker likewise, watching the mountain slopes and the trees with each swing of her head. Trees were still thick on the left hand and patchy clumps of forest were on the right, trees clinging among steep rock.
“No tracks,” Tara said, watching the snow they alone were scarring.
“Noticed that.” No animals. No life stirring across or down this road.
“We’re not that far from the shelter,” Tara said. “It’s right around here.”
“Last one, isn’t it?”
“Only place left she could hole up, only chance that kid’s alive.”
“If that’s a wild horse—indoors isn’t real likely.”
“Yeah,” Tara said.
And was thinking thoughts of horse-shooting that sobered Flicker and Burn.
So was he thinking those thoughts, carrying the rifle balanced on his leg, hoping he’d see it or hear it at a distance and not—not close up in the trees; hoping he could get a clear shot at it in the woods; hoping he could get a bead on it and not hit the kid.
Tell that to the gate-guards at Shamesey, who’d missed a charging nighthorse much closer to them and hit him—Burn having that clever trick of imaging <horse > where Burn wasn’t.
If it was a wild one gone bad, it might not know about guns.
But what had happened at Tarmin said the gate-guards hadn’t had any luck aiming at it.
<Village,> was in Tara Chang’s thoughts. <Kids in the streets. Kid on the horse. Gun firing.>
Maybe, he thought—one of those cold second thoughts that came only when they were past the point to do anything about it— maybe he should have waited for Jonas to show up.
Maybe he could have ridden side by side with Jonas and Hawley without wanting to beat hell out of them. Five were a lot stronger than two, if it came to an argument of sendings.
If their two sets of horses didn’t go for each other instead of the rogue, and this morning it wasn’t certain.
If he could only figure why that gunshot, or what Jonas was doing up here at such effort.
Jonas hadn’t expected him to go to Anveney first. Hadn’t expected him to talk to Cassivey. Yeah, Guil, go on up there, get that son of a bitch horse. Make the woods safe.
We’ll just come up a few days late—
<Coming apart.>
<Trees, black against <white-white-white.>> Burn threw his head and skipped a step. Flicker threw a kick. It was that vivid.
“Sorry,” Tara said. Her breath was shaky for a moment.
“Yeah, don’t blame you. Easy. I’m not hearing anything but you.”
“Vadim kept asking me—how close it got to me in the woods.—And I don’t know. He thought—not at all.” Her teeth were all but chattering. “I couldn’t judge.”
“He was wrong.”
“The thing was so damn loud—and it called that kid right out of the village without a one of us hearing. Granted Flicker was noisy—she was screening it out; I know now why she was as loud as she was all night. It was out there. But we didn’t hear.”
“When the kid went?”
“Her house was across the village. Closer to the other wall, that’s all I can think.” She built the village for him in the ambient; a row of houses, a single street, a rider camp protecting the one side, but only distance from the wall protecting the far side of that single street. And there were times, Guil thought, when distance wasn’t enough.
“Damn kid claimed she heard the horses better than we did— but she couldn’t hear Flicker about to back over her.” <Kid in red coat. Snowy morning. Flicker sick, lying down in the den.> “But she damn sure heard the one horse she shouldn’t have. She came to us the next morning. I told her get out, leave my horse alone. I thought she went back home. She didn’t.”
The whole business flowed past his vision, the frustration, the bitter anger.
<Footprints leading out the gate. The man, the boys, at sunset. The gunshot, and the mob and the riders—>
He couldn’t follow all of it, it went by so fast. <Two male riders going out the gate. Tara at what looked like the village jail, the marshal’s office—rogue at the gates, Tara running—running for her partners, empty camp, open gate—<white> rushing down on her, under her, carrying her away—>
Tara held it back then. The evergreens were around them again. The sun was shining. Tara said,
“It’s my fault, you understand me? You can tell me all the reasons in the world. You can even tell me I was right, throwing the kid out of camp that morning.” <Shaking kid. Hard. Anger, grief. A shiver through the ambient.> “But if I think I can get that kid free of that thing, I’m going for her—I’m going to save her, not shoot her. So you know.”
“That’s not what you’re saying inside.”