He’d doubted it. But he’d done it, the way Aby asked him to.
He was less sure about Anveney, and this business of getting money out where he hadn’t put money in. But maybe what Aby believed was true. Shamesey had phone lines up to Anveney. Wherever the phones worked—and they worked, intermittently, at least, in the lowlands, until the first ice-storm of the winter—the money was supposed to be available. Merchants certainly seemed to do it… although townsmen looked out for each other and cheated riders when they could.
Well, he could see. He could try. There was that man in Anveney whose shipping business Aby had worked for on a regular basis—it had been Cassivey goods in that inbound convoy, he’d seen the flags.
And knowing that was the job Aby had taken, he wanted to ask Cassivey some questions, too, like what in hell had been so last-rush important a convoy had to go up there, risking the weather, risking the movement of creatures who always became more active and more dangerous when winter was threatening and the urge to mate and feed up fat took prey and predators alike.
But that led to darker thoughts he didn’t want to think, and to anger he didn’t want to entertain.
Burn just thought of bacon and wheat-cakes frying, in abundant grease.
Danny didn’t own a rifle. He had a pistol, fifty years old, a good one, though the ammunition was of a large caliber that was hard to come by. He’d paid for it what you’d pay for a good rifle, but a high country rider didn’t encumber himself with much else, and he’d thought it would be a good idea to have the firepower, for his sake and Cloud’s. He’d bought that before he’d promised anything on the replastering and the paint for his family.
In the same way he’d gotten a good flat-brimmed hat to keep himself from sunburn, and a good, heavy coat, with a lining gone to rags and the elbows patched, and with a new patch and some stain on the side, of which the second-hander didn’t know the cause… but it was far better than the new ones he could have afforded. It was beautiful, buttery-beige cowhide and had fringes as long as his hand. He’d bought new, bullhide boots to fend off the brush, boots made for his feet, and fit for walking, when Cloud decided that he’d had enough of carrying a healthy young man.
He owned, besides that, one truly good knife; and, of course, his trail kit, with fold-up pans for eating and cooking.
Plus a couple of second-hand blankets, with frayed edges, but he’d hemmed those up, which had given him a lot of practice with his stitches… you could see a considerable difference between where he’d started and where he’d finished.
And he couldn’t, especially on this cold dawn, forget the where-from of all of it, because Guil Stuart had given him a list, once upon that rainy afternoon, of the gear he most urgently had to have, and told him besides how to get the best quality and who to deal with, and when to take second-hand and when not.
Because, Stuart had said, that’s a high country horse you’ve got, and if you really want to go, he’ll take you there someday. Likely he’ll take you there even if you don’t want it. Count on it, if you take my advice.
Count on it just as surely, too, as he’d discovered his very first long convoy trip, that Cloud wasn’t any pack-animal. He’d stowed his stuff, except his pistol and a single reload of ammo, in the supply truck, and kept on good terms with the drivers, because Cloud wasn’t the one of the two of them that was going to carry any packs, thank you: Cloud didn’t like anything but his rider on his back, and Cloud didn’t tolerate loads of gear on his rider.
His gear right now was adding up to a fair weight, when he included in the makings for biscuits and a slab of cured bacon and the jerky. He’d gone to the suppliers first thing as their doors opened, and asked outright for what a traveler would most need in the High Wild. Jerky was lightweight. A couple of slabs of bacon of course solved the oil problem for the biscuits, so he didn’t have to have a container of that, but there were six kilos of flour and soda to carry for a long stay in the high country, as would be, if the roads became impassable.
Cloud would hunt, when weather and time permitted; but what Cloud caught, he might not want, so he took fishhooks, line and cord. The extra rounds for the pistol, which he couldn’t count on getting in the high country, weighed like sin, but that could provide meat he’d otherwise have to carry up there. He began to ask himself what the balance was between weight he could carry himself and how willing he was to go a little hungrier. Flour weighed more than jerky, value for value. But jerky cost more.
You traded with your traveling companions. But you didn’t ever, Stuart had warned him, want to get down to needing to trade. You never came out ahead.
Spare blade. Razor, for more than shaving, and a good oilstone.
Clean rolled bandages, sewing kit that was for your clothes or you if you needed it; awl and a piece of leather to wrap it in that could become ties if you needed them. Burning glass. Waxed matches. Spare shirt, spare socks, and heavy underwear. You could literally die of a soaking rain and a strong wind up in the hills. He’d heard too many stories about freezing to death after a slip in a mountain stream, or going hypothermia in a rainstorm that wasn’t even cold enough to make snow, because the wind always blew up there, strong and cold, especially when the sun was going down.
He’d heard every horror story in camp, and a lot of it encompassed good advice, he was sure. But he didn’t want to look, either, like the novice that he was, and he’d tried to get his load down to as small and as light a set of packs as he could possibly make, counting he’d maybe been extravagant in food. He didn’t own a proper pack-kit for it, but he’d had enough of canvas sacks that got soaked, last time he’d gone out, and he’d stitched together a real oiled-leather kit—with a great deal of swearing, his fingers repeatedly bloodied by the awl and the needle-butt; no fancy seams, either—oiled twine and thongs instead of proper leatherworking and buckles to connect the bags together. He’d thought he’d save money. But it didn’t, when he loaded it, hang quite the way he’d planned. Worst of all—it was new, raw leather that hadn’t even been rained on.
The Westmans and their cousin Hawley, who’d blazed through the supplier’s before him with definite knowledge of what they needed, had gathered at the den exit, at the main camp gate. They were lean and tanned, they and their gear were weathered alike to a general impression of browns and blacks and tans against the solid black of their horses. They were the sort of experienced-looking riders that convoy bosses probably never even dared ask how many times they’d been to any destination.
But, unexpected and unwelcome witnesses, a cluster of idle younger riders had gathered in the vicinity of the gates, standing with backs against the hostel wall, and Danny found himself far more public than he had ever planned to be as he walked toward the rendezvous by the gates. His private obligation had gotten him a reputation-making hire, he suddenly realized, and he was the center of his age-mates’ attention and gossip—maybe even the object of their envy. He tried not to think that: the horses might betray anything he thought, though he got none of the expected catcalls and heckling from the junior bystanders. He was only aware of the senior riders’ impatience in waiting for him.
“Ready?” Jonas asked and, not waiting for his answer, Jonas vaulted up onto his horse’s back—a flashy move, a show-out move, one Danny hadn’t perfected and Cloud didn’t much like.
Cloud wasn’t even out of the den yet. He wanted Cloud to hurry up. Please. <Riders leaving. >
And true to habit Cloud came sauntering leisurely and calmly out of the log-and-earth den and into the morning sun. Cloud shook himself all over as he reached the daylight, making a haze of dust, Cloud having (depend on it) rolled in it; and for a moment as horse met horse the ambient was full of images, all uneasy.