The two of them trod knee deep in snow that showed no disturbance but the occasional footprint of some spook or other, delicate imprints written in white, in that strange glow a nighttime snowfall had.
And if the little spooks had moved about in the open not so long ago then they were the biggest threat abroad. Lately they’d heard a wally-boo call out to the woods at large, soft, silly cooing that belonged to a little spook, all whiskers and ears.
Burn wasn’t sending out his <nighthorse> threat. But as they came down a slight decline in the road Burn suddenly lifted his head, switched his ears about and sniffed the dark with that curious <on the edge> feeling that went with winter winds and the chance of meetings.
<Females,> ran under that train of thought. <Snow and females.>
<Wild ones,> Guil thought anxiously, not wanting to think about the rogue they’d come to hunt: it came to him now and again as <dark and danger> when Burn grew too fractious, or too scattered from what they’d come to find.
Burn worried and gazed off into the woods with misgivings, thinking of <willy-wisps > and <lorry-lies, > which was sometimes a goblin-cat’s camouflage: a horse above three or four years knew that spook trick, and Burn was well aware there was danger up here. A lot of things imaged what they weren’t. Some had the knack of making you see things that had nothing to do with the ground you were walking on. The dangerous ones had worse tricks. You’d see people in the woods. You’d hear them call to you. They’d wave. A spook-bear could give you anything, any image it had ever seen.
A horse was a lot worse than that. A horse could convince you of anything.
Burn wasn’t sure, himself, of whatever he heard—he shook himself, started moving again, treading carefully for a space, then gradually warming again to the thought of <safe den, nighthorses, bacon.>
<Bacon,> Guil agreed. Granted they got to shelter before the night grew too thick or his legs gave out, there would assuredly, he promised, be <bacon.>
<Guil riding,> Burn thought then. <Burn walking fast.>
“Silly ass,” Guil muttered, patted Burn on the shoulder and intended to keep walking. He wasn’t willing to wear Burn down, or have him sore tomorrow.
But Burn nudged him in the back and wanted insistently to go faster, and he couldn’t, counting a bullet-grazed leg and a bashed knee, sustain the pace Burn wanted. Burn was skittish and full of notions this evening, thinking of <nightmares> one moment and <lorry-lies> the next, switching his tail and wanting to move, wanting <fight,> wanting <us on road.>
So he arranged his gear and made the weary effort to get up— aching in the arms, and the hand he used to grip with hurt like helclass="underline" probably, he thought, he hadn’t gotten all the splinter out.
But he was glad not to walk, truth be told. Much as he’d tried to ignore the leg—his eyes watered once he’d gotten up and gotten relief from it. Burn struck a quicker pace than he could have held, and he let himself relax while Burn moved—in such intimate contact he heard the ambient as running through his own flesh and bone. He felt Burn’s muscle and movement, saw and smelled the snow thick on the evergreen boughs, white on dark, sweet on bright; heard fat flakes changing to sleet that rattled against the branches.
Soft, soft sounds, cold, strange smells. Winter in the High Wild. The night was home and safe when he saw with Burn’s eyes and heard with Burn’s ears—they were one creature, the human drifting on a river of nighthorse senses, the horse remembering where he was going with human tenacity. Burn had struck his staying-pace, uncommonly determined, uncommonly spooky and… the feeling crept up Guil’s backbone… suddenly, strangely focused on something in the dark.
Then, expected and unexpected in the night, they came on a structure of logs—deserted, by the feel of it: it was the shelter they were looking for.
Thank God, he thought, as Burn walked up to it, ears forward. <Bacon,> was definitely in the ambient now.
Nobody home. Burn would have known. Guil winced his way down to the ground and, rifle in hand, waded through a shallow drift to the door, stiff now that he’d been off the leg for a while. He set the rifle against the wall, seeing that the latch-cord was out as it ought to be. He drew his pistol, he pulled the cord, the bar inside came up, and he kicked snow aside and dragged the door open— outward, as the latch-doors always opened.
The dark inside was as cold as the snow-glow outside; but it felt empty. Burn put his head in past his shoulder and gave out his <nighthorse> warning, to scatter any sleeping vermin that might have burrowed a way in—but what they were hunting, although it could mask itself as <deep shadow > or even <human occupant, > couldn’t manage a shelter door without human hands.
No occupants. No pilfered supplies. He put the gun away and felt after an electric switch beside the door in the small hope one would be there—lately lowland shelters had installed batteried lights at the entry.
No such luck.
But the fireplace was always on the right of the entry, and he slung his gear aside, took out his waxed matches and sacrificed one in order to see the state of things in the fireplace.
There was indeed a fire laid, stuffed with kindling—he spotted a slow match hanging from the mantel before his wooden match could die, snatched up the tarred braid and touched his failing light to the end before the heat got to his fingers.
He unhooked the slow match from the nail then, bent down with a wince and a grimace and touched off the tinder, which was, thank God, dry. He pulled the chain to open the flue, and the gust from the door swept in along with a moving shadow and a slow thump of nighthorse hooves as Burn ambled into the shelter. The door banged back all the way, threatening the fire. Guil sprang up to reach outside, grab his rifle, grab the door and haul it shut against the wind.
The latch dropped. The door sealed out the wind, but the single room had taken the cold into its wood and stone from long vacancy, and every surface was frozen cold, not tempting a man to take his hands out of his pockets or risk his nose above his scarf.
In the light of the burning kindling Burn clumped over to the nearest bin, nosed it up, already looking for <grain.>
<Burn swelled up like three-day carcass,> Guil imaged back, and squatted down by the fire to warm through his gloves and his layers of leather and wool.
<Bacon,> Burn insisted, gulping down grain, impervious to insult.
He stayed where he was, finally feeling a little warmth through the chill. He knew that Aby had been here a number of times—he looked up at the rider board on the wall, an old and extensive one, and there, sure enough, were Aby’s marks among the others. She hadn’t been the last to visit here—the filled triangle and the X were probably the riders who’d regularly refurbished it: they were the most regular. But she’d been familiar with this place, very definitely, even from years ago when she’d first used to come up this way, a kid escorting the small supply missions and the phone crews.
Her earliest jobs, the years they both had scrounged what hire they could.
Then they’d gotten downright prosperous. They could turn down jobs. All but the best.
If her presence lingered about here, he’d wish it could talk, or that she’d once, just once unbent and told him the few important words that would have made him understand the things she’d done.
But what in hell was she doing with Hawley and Jonas? Leave Luke out of it. Luke was whatever Jonas wanted. But why tell the bank woman that Hawley was entitled? Had to have been the wrong question they were asking her.