He was scared to go up the steps—he was scared to open the door; but he was scared to linger here, either, dithering while trouble could be making up its mind and coming toward them. He leaned on Cloud’s withers and slid down, climbed the snow-blanketed steps and tried the door.
Latched. The paint was raked off the door and the door-frame, down to bare wood, the same spreading out over the wall and the storm-shutters. Several of the claw-marks were head-high, and deep.
“Get us out! Please, let us out!”
He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to raise a lot of racket. He called out, “Can you unlock the door?”
“No,” one voice said, and, “Break it down,” the other called out. “Please. God, please! We’re locked in!”
Images came at him, <gunfire outside the windows> and <woman with gun. Them shouting. Gun going off in the woman’s hands. Spatter flying—red on walls, on bars, on floor—<rogue-feeling > in the ambient—>
It was so real, for a moment Danny’s heart reacted. He cast a look back at Cloud and down the street to see if any other source of that feeling was out there. Cloud snorted, circled out and back, fretting; but there wasn’t anything; it was Cloud hearing it and carrying it to him from inside the building.
“Hell,” Danny muttered between his teeth, checked which way the door hinges were set—inward opening, which was only safe inside towns; and it was the only break he’d gotten. He rammed the door with his hip and felt play in it, hit it with his shoulder and finally, holding to the rail outside, hit it with his hip again, above the doorknob, over and over.
Wood splintered. The door flew back too fast and banged half-shut again.
“Oh, God,” a voice said. “We’re here! We’re here!”
It was a house, maybe. But, walking in, he couldn’t see where he was. He took a match out of his pocket and lit it—saw bars in the back, two haggard faces behind them.
God, it was the village jail.
He didn’t want to let loose criminals—but—
Did you leave anyone—any living creature—in a cage like this, to be eaten alive by things small enough to swarm through the bars?
The match burned his fingers. He dropped it—saw it burning on the wooden floor and stamped it out.
He saw in the last impression on his eyes, the lump that was a woman’s body. The sheen of gunmetal, all in the same memory of matchlight.
Cloud was insistently <wanting Danny on porch,> and he imaged back, teeth chattering, <Cloud in doorway, coming inside.>
“There’s a lamp,” one of the voices said. “On the table by the door.”
“It went out,” the other said. “It burned out.”
“It’s probably the wick. Try the wick!”
He was far more interested in the gun he’d seen lying on the floor. But he wanted light to see what else he might be dealing with, and where shells and maybe food might be, if the vermin hadn’t gotten into this building, and by the evidence of two people alive, they hadn’t. He stripped off his right glove, felt after the lamp and, finding it, shook it.
There was a little slosh left, a very little. He shook it and tipped it to get oil up onto the wick—took the chimney off and, blind, turned the key to raise the unburned wick—a lot of it.
He spent a match. The dry, charred end of the wick went in a tall, extravagant flame, and the oiled part stayed lit as the rest fell away in ash.
He looked across the room—saw a woman’s body, grisly damage to the jaw from a gunshot, blood and bits of flesh spattering the walls.
Rifle on the floor, under her. <Moaning on the floor. Bleeding to death. Rogue-feeling. Gunshots in the village. Woman aiming at them and them yelling and screaming don’t—>
Not men. Two scared kids behind the bars—kids maybe not as old as he was, no coats, clothes blood-spattered, faces gaunt and eyes bruised from want of sleep—<wanting out, wanting, wanting, wanting—>
“There’s a key!” one told him, teeth chattering, and pointed through the bars. “In the drawer. In the desk drawer, get the key—”
“We told her come in with us, we begged her lock the door and get behind the bars, but they were all over the porch—”
The kid lost his voice. The other babbled out: “They kept jumping at the door, trying to get in—”
<Fear, scattering-apart.>
<Fire on window-glass. Rogue-feeling, outside the building—in the street.>
They began babbling, trying to tell him something, he couldn’t even track what it was, except desperation to be out of there. He searched the drawer, and the key they claimed was there—wasn’t. He found a box of shells, and set that on the desk. He kept looking, disarranged the desktop clutter, and found it.
“That’s it, that’s it!” the boys cried, and the younger-looking started sobbing—then yelped as a heavy body trod the steps outside and stopped as the steps creaked.
<Thin boards,> was Cloud’s opinion of the porch. Cloud didn’t want to risk it, and Danny didn’t want him trying: <nighthorse foot going through boards,> he thought; and with a shudder he bent to take up the rifle from under the dead woman. He had to tug the stock from under her leg.
“Who was she?”
“Peggy Wallace,” one answer came hoarsely. And: “The marshal’s wife,” the older boy said. “Tara Chang—one of the riders—she came. She wanted the marshal. Then—there were shots outside. There went on being shots—”
“It was a rogue,” the younger said, between chattering teeth. “Rogue horse.”
He was increasingly uneasy with every passing moment he was out of Cloud’s immediate reach. He had a gun in one hand. He picked up the box of shells, checked the caliber, found they matched and stuffed them in his pocket.
“You’ve got to let us out!” the younger said.
And the other: “Look, look, —I’m the one who belongs in here, my brother doesn’t. He didn’t do anything. I did. God, he’s only fourteen. Get him out of here.”
“You’re both going,” Danny said, before the younger could set up a howl. “Wouldn’t leave a dead pig for the spooks. But you listen to me, do exactly what I say, and if I say move, you move, and if I say shut up, you shut up, and you don’t mess with my horse. He’ll kill you quicker than you can see it coming, you hear me? He’s not used to strangers. So you be real quiet and real fast to do what I say. Or you’re spook-bait. You got that clear?”
“Yes,” the answer was, both of them shaking-scared and throwing off <fear, fear, fear> that didn’t have a source or a point—it washed out their thoughts in a jumble of <scavenger> images and the <gun going off> and <nighthorse outside, and somebody they knew, but twisted, and wanting something, wanting someone, angry—and wanting to kill.>
His hand shook shamefully just getting the key in the lock. He shoved it in, turned it, and as he pulled the door open, the boys came pushing each other out—neither of them having a coat against the winter around them, no sweaters, no gloves, no light or heat. They’d had two blankets and each other, that was the only reason they hadn’t frozen when the heat died. Their shuddery breath frosted in the air.
“You get those blankets,” Danny said. “You’ll need everything we can find. I’ll get you out of here.”
“The rogue’s out there!”
“It’s not out there—but the gate’s open. It could have come in here any time it wanted. We’ve got my horse with us. We’re all right so long you do what I tell you and do it fast.”
“We got to find mama,” the younger said. “Carlo, we’ve got to find mama—”