But he did. She left him to the wobbling assistance he could get from the rifle; she grabbed the kid herself and dragged her with them, with a wary eye toward the downhill road, in case she’d been mistaken about the man being dead, in the unlikelier case the horse had been mistaken.
In the far distance she saw a group of riders coming up.
<Jonas,> she thought. She didn’t know who she’d shot down there. She hadn’t stopped to ask. Jonas was her saner guess. But it didn’t make sense.
Guil stood beside her, leaning on the rifle, trying to reason out who it was, too, and coming up with no better answer: <Man with rifle. Shot fired at him. Tarmin gate.>
“Three of them,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t Jonas down there, Guil.”
“I don’t know,” he said. The ambient was confused and muddled with his thoughts. Things from downland. Things from the village. From a long time ago, maybe. The shock was catching up to him, and he found a snow-covered lump of rock to rest on, rifle in one hand, his elbow tight against his side.
Burn came up close by him. Tara went and got the kid by the wrist, got the pistol from where it was lying in the snow, hauled the kid to the side of the road behind Guil and made her get down behind the rocks, out of the way of flying bullets.
She kept the pistol in her hand as the riders kept coming. She didn’t need Guil’s recognition to know them. She had a clear image of <Jonas Westman, of Luke, of Hawley Antrim—> and a notion of blowing them to hell if she didn’t like the answer to her questions.
“Whoever shot you,” she said to Guil without taking her eyes off the riders, “I got him. Whoever it was—I got him. Guil.”
Flicker moved in. Made a solid wall behind them, with Burn. A wall giving off <warning> to the oncoming riders.
Guil put the rifle butt on his leg. Lowered it, slowly, and the three riders stopped a fair distance down the road.
“Guil?” the shout came up. “Guil Stuart?”
“Yeah,” Guil shouted back, and hurt from the shouting. “So what’s your story, Jonas? What’s the story? Does it say why Aby’s dead? Does it say why I shot Moon, Jonas? Does it say you’re a lying son of a bitch thief, Jonas? I know why you’re up here. I know what you’re after, and you don’t go up this road. You go to hell, Jonas!”
“Hawley wants to talk to you, Guil.”
Burn wanted <bite. Kick.> Burn was <ready to go downhill, fight.>
But Guil sent, <Burn standing still.> Wanted <shooting,> and Tara held herself ready to grab Guil and haul him down behind the rock in the next instant, had her target picked, in Jonas Westman, but she kept the pistol at her side, while Flicker sent <fight,> ready as Burn was, if they got the encouragement.
“Who’s that I shot?” she yelled down at them.
“Guy named Harper,” Jonas called up. “Nothing to do with us.”
It was somebody Guil knew. A lot of confused memories hit the ambient, an old fight. Another mountainside. Another edge of the road. She didn’t believe it had nothing to do with present circumstances.
She waited.
She left Hawley to Guil. She still had her eye on the others.
Guil waited. Kept the rifle generally aimed at Hawley, as Hawley came up within easy range.
Then he brought it on target.
Hawley stopped. Hawley looked scared. With reason. Ice had followed him up the slope and arrived beside him, the way Burn stayed by him. Ice was loyal.
So had other things been.
“Moon’s dead, Hawley. It was Moon gone rogue, you know that?”
“No. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t, Guil. It couldn’t have. I felt it!”
That, in the ambient, was the undeniable truth.
But it was the truth as Hawley’d seen it. <From the back of the convoy. When a truck went plunging past the curve. Aby and Moon on that edge—in front of the truck that went over.>
“You left Aby’s horse, Hawley, you left Moon hurt, you left her crazy. Moon maybe had a chance—she was a good horse, she never did a damn thing against the villages until she took up with that damned stupid kid, Hawley! You got yourself down that mountain and you left Moon on her own, the way you left Aby lying there for the spooks!”
“I saw that horse go over!”
That was the truth, too. He blinked, he at least considered a doubt of Hawley’s guilt. It was what Hawley had seen.
But it wasn’t what he’d just faced up the hill. It wasn’t the truth lying there in the roadway, with a bullet in its brain.
“Guil, I’m sorry. I swear to God, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t’ve left her. I saw ’em go, I swear. There was rogue-feeling all over—it was a rogue—”
“It wasn’t any rogue driving that truck, Hawley. I can see that <truck.> I see it <rolling.> Right in your mind, I can see it. You can’t see Aby from where you are. You can’t see her, Hawley. You’re at the back of the convoy. You’re a damn liar!”
“I saw it, I did see it, Guil, I swear to you, I swear to God—”
The image rebuilt itself. <Truck moving, rolling out of control. Brake line—>
“You want to tell me, Hawley? I don’t care about the money in the account. I don’t give a damn. I want you to tell me what happened to Aby.”
“I was going to tell her,” Hawley said. There was <paper money> in Hawley’s mind, there were <truckers, > there was <truck running away downhill—>
“Tell me. Use words. I want to hear it, Hawley.”
“Jonas says—”
He brought the rifle up. “I don’t give a damn what Jonas says. You tell me. About the gold, Hawley. What about the gold?”
“We didn’t know about it. We didn’t know! She just thought we did!”
He was <going to shoot. Dead center of Hawley’s gut.>
“Guil, I swear—we just guessed it. I mean, anybody could guess, the truckers were guessing—”
“Keep talking.”
“And Aby was mad about it. Aby didn’t want anybody to know. And by the time we got up to Verden she wasn’t speaking to us— she didn’t want to be around us. I think she was rattled, she thought she’d spilled it, but, hell, we knew, Guil, once we was on to it, we could get it from folk all round us—”
You knew when Hawley was outright lying. And sometimes when Hawley was telling all the truth he knew. And this was, he thought, the truth as Hawley knew it.
“Guil, I swear to you—”
His arm was shaking. He let the rifle rest on his leg again. “I’m listening. Keep going, Hawley. You be thorough. I’ve got nothing but time.”
“The truckers, they caught it, too. You could feel the upset all over, and this truck, its brakes weren’t good. They was spooked, didn’t want us to pitch that truck out of the line, and Aby, she told me she wanted them hurry up with that truck. I come along, you know, just walking the line—” <Trucks waiting in convoy, village center.> “And that truck, the one with the stuff, you know—they were at fixing the brakes when I come along, and they don’t want me to see, but I know, and they don’t want to have me pull that truck—they’re logs they’re hauling, but they got something in the cab they don’t want across by daylight, everybody was watching, you know—and Aby was wanting us out of there—”
“The gold.”
“Yeah. I mean, Guil, they didn’t want to have to move that box. And we wasn’t supposed to know about it. I don’t think they trusted any of us. And Aby was madder ’n hell all morning. But they give me money, Guil, they give me money, they say shut up, don’t talk about the brakes—and I had the money, and they’d fixed that brake line. I mean, they really fixed it. But then I’d got to worrying about it, I was going to give it back, I was going to tell Aby—I was going to tell her, Guil. I knew it was wrong to take the money. But she give the order, we started rolling then, and she was up front, and we was in the rear—Guil, I knew this one turn was bad, but I didn’t think the drivers was going to risk their own necks. Aby was worried about the weather, worried about us getting down to the meeting-place, maybe after dark, but we’d get there—”