A horse arrived beside him. It roused no alarm. But for a moment his vision was <white-white-white.>
Then he saw—
He saw <Aby on Moon, coming down the road toward him. He saw red hair. He saw her coming for him, after all, alive again, and beautiful.>
“No!” a woman yelled, and <white> and <anger> charged in front of him. A horse shouldered Burn and Burn reared.
He dismounted—no recourse but that as Burn recovered his balance. He landed on his feet and in that split second of landing the vision of <Aby on Moon> was <blonde kid in blankets, tangle-maned horse.>
Tara was on foot—Tara was beside him. A gun went off next his ear, rattled his brain, and then <fight> was coming at them, coming from a human, female mind, wanting <kill Tara. Wanting him. Claiming him.>
Moon. He had no doubt. Burn, beside him, knew. Burn sent out a troubled keep-away and Moon stopped. The blonde kid urged Moon forward with <kill> and <mine!> but Moon stopped again.
He only then remembered the rifle in his hand.
“Give me the pistol!” he snapped at Tara and held out his hand.
It was <Aby,> he heard her calling to him, <I want you,> he saw <Aby on Moon, coming down the road toward him, autumn-haired Aby, asking him where he’d been—>
<Wanting him—so much—>
He grabbed the pistol that arrived in his hand. He let go the rifle. He walked forward, <going to Aby. Moon and Aby. High-country meadows. Moon and Aby and Guil, and the sunlight on the mountains.
<Wind shaking the grass. Making waves like the sea. Moon and Guil—
<—making love.>
It was a hurt horse. A thirteen-year-old kid with a wish, on a horse in mortal pain. He saw it for a blink, but he said to Moon, <brave horse, beautiful horse.> He didn’t see the cuts and the tangles and the blood.
He said, “Good girl, don’t spook on me, you know me, it’s <Guil,> it’s just Guil. Let <Aby get down.> Let her get off. That’s right—I’ll help you. Come on.”
He reached out his right hand, for the girl’s hand that reached to him.
He fired with the left, the gun right under Moon’s jaw.
He grabbed the icy fingers, snatched the girl against his chest and spun away as Moon went down—he held the kid crushed against him, blind to anything but the mountain—he couldn’t see, either, for the blur of ice in his eyes, couldn’t feel the ambient for the sudden silence he’d made, the murder of what he loved.
He knew Tara was back there, Burn was there. He began to hear. He couldn’t see until he blinked and a shattered sky and a shattered mountainside whipped into order. The girl was in his arms, live weight, but there was utter silence in the ambient and his ears were still ringing. He only saw Tara with the rifle, Tara sighting toward him—
Second blink. He began to feel the ambient again.
<Burn and Flicker.>
<Tara. Anger.>
His foot skidded on ice. His balance was shaky. He saw the edge of the road under his right side and veered away from it. He set the girl on her feet, pulled the blanket about her, but she just stood staring into nothing, blue eyes in a tangled blonde mane. He shut her fist over the ends of the blanket, took her by the other hand and walked <going toward Tara and Burn and Flicker.
<Tara standing still. Burn standing still—still water.>
Something slammed into him, spun him half about in shock, about the time he heard the crack of the rifle echo off the mountain. He kept turning, trying to keep his balance, not knowing where he’d fall—
The rifle-crack rang off the mountain from behind them. Tara spun toward the sound and dropped to one knee, with the far figure of rifleman and horse the only anomaly in her sight of woods and snow. She fired on instinct at the distant figure, pumped another round, and looked for her target—
But there was only a horse. And the darkness of a body lying by it.
The man didn’t get up. She stayed still, rifle trained on that target until her leg began to shake under her. <Angry horse > washed up at them; but Flicker imaged <threat> and <warning> at that distant horse—Flicker took out after it, ignoring her frightened <stop!>
Burn imaged <Guil hurt. Fight. Kill—> Burn was hesitating back and forth, sending snow flying—<staying with Guil.— Killing horse.>
She didn’t want to shoot it. Didn’t want to. She wanted <horse going.>
But it wouldn’t. Damn it. It wouldn’t. She put three shots near it. She didn’t want another rogue on the mountain; but then Flicker charged into her line of fire, and she couldn’t shoot. Burn followed, balance tipped, wanting <fight.>
She staggered to her feet, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come, Flicker and Burn both going for the horse.
At the last moment it turned and ran back down the way it had come; Flicker and Burn stopped in their charge, circled back a little and maintained a threatening posture.
That horse’s retreat told her the man she’d shot was dead. That Flicker and Burn both stopped told her the horse was reacting as it should, in ordinary fear and confusion. It hesitated in its retreat, probably querying its master. Burn called out a challenge that echoed in the distance.
Then it launched into a run, shaking its mane, going farther down the road. Nighthorses didn’t altogether understand death. The total silence of a mind confused them dreadfully—in which thought—
She turned to see Guil getting up, leaning to one side, trying to stand. The girl just stood there, staring at nothing.
She started running. She saw from Guil’s face he was in shock, even before the horses came running back to them, and she caught <pain> washing through the ambient.
“Stay down,” she said to Guil, and made him sit. <Blood on snow, spatter all around them, around dead horse.> Burn sent out threat, <wanting Guil> and ready for <fight,> but she didn’t admit guilt and she didn’t retreat: she started unfastening Guil’s coat, looking for damage, and Guil was coherent enough to wish <quiet horses, Burn standing, Burn quiet.>
She could feel the wound as if it was in her own side—felt entry and exit, as the numbness of impact gave way to <pain> that was going to be hell in another hour. Right now it was still a little numb.
“It could be worse,” she said, and shoved his hands away. There was a fair amount of blood, but it didn’t look to have hit the gut: it had gone through muscle and it was swelling fast. Guil kept trying to get his knee under him, <wanting bending over,> but she stuffed her scarf into his shirt around his middle and started wrapping it as tightly as she could.
It helped the pain. She could feel it. He was going to want to get to the shelter back there and lie still a while. She answered his confused memory of the gunshot with <man shooting. Tara shooting man.>
“Kid get hit?” he asked in a thready voice.
She cast a look at the girl who was still just standing there, holding the blanket. Staring at nothing. There was nothing in the ambient. Not from her.
“Didn’t touch her. Hang on, all right. Don’t faint. All right?”
“Yeah,” he said, and pulled his coat to and started getting his knees under him—the fool was going to get up, and he couldn’t stand; but he got the rifle and leaned on that before she could get her arm under his.
Burn was right there, nosing him in the face, in the shoulder, anxious and about to knock him over. He swatted Burn weakly with his hand and wanted <picking up kid. Getting kid safe.>
She had a wounded man on a mountain road bound and determined to pick up a girl who weighed most of what she did, and she didn’t give a flying damn if the girl stood there and froze.