If this guy were in the Outfit's territory, I'd see he got loaned what he needed to expand, Havel thought, as he dipped his head to acknowledge the point and Sarian walked off. I may be a warlord, but by Christ Jesus I'm not a stupid warlord, and I heard the fable of the goose and the golden eggs a long time ago.
The tavern's smith was honest as well as competent; the seven horses he picked for reshoeing were the ones that actually needed it. Havel and Signe hung around, and weren't the only ones. He'd expected that; in any small community with a blacksmith, the forge tended to be a center of gossip as well as work, particularly before summer got really hot. Most of it was the usual dead-boring crops and weather-and weather in western Oregon was just too consistent to get very excited about, nothing like the Midwest wjiere he'd been raised. People were curious about happenings east of the mountains, but not to the extent of being troublesome, since it was too distant to really affect their lives. There was more speculation about the Protector's intentions; everyone dreaded the prospect of another war. Havel suppressed a grin to hear himself described as a brass-assed son of a bitch, but honest. There weren't any Mackenzies present; when the discussion turned that way there was a mixture of superstition, dread, bewilderment and liking-the Clan had helped a lot of people pull through the second and third Change Years, mostly by loaning them seed corn and arranging deals for stock with the ranching country to the east.
Nobody mentioned Crusher Bailey until the two disguised Bearkillers brought up bandits in general, which was natural for their persona of outsiders traveling through strange territory. Probably the locals had been subconsciously afraid that talking about the man would make him more likely to appear.
"Yeah, muy malo, that one," a traveler from Gervais said. "Likes to break your knees and legs and leave you to die, I hear."
" I hear he sells people: up north," a woman declared.
Travelers from the Protectorate looked uneasy, or shrugged. "He certainly sells stock and stuff there," one of them said, spitting into the hearth; it made a sharp fissst sound. "Or his fence does, he doesn't show his face there. Baron Emiliano ought to get off his ass and do something about him, or the Bearkillers ought to. There'd be more trade on this road, and less wasted on guards, if he were gone."
"The Protectorate and the Bearkillers probably won't let each other take care of it," another commented. "Dog-in-the-manger stuff."
The spitter spat again. "Useless bastards, for all their armor and swords," he said, which was sufficiently ambiguous about who precisely he meant that he wouldn't get in trouble for it back home in the Protector's territory. "Goddamn it, what is this, America or Guatemala ?"
"After the Change, you doorknob?" the woman said, and got a wry chuckle. "It's fucking Braveheart country now."
"Always preferred Rob Roy, myself," someone else said. "More realistic-and don't we know it, nowadays?"
The people who'd been adult at the time of the Change settled in to the ever-popular rhythm of a 'remember that scene' conversation, and the younger ones tried to change the subject.
Havel took a cup of the chicory the next morning as he sat yawning in his booth; the effect might be psychosomatic, but it did help pop the eyelids open. Signe looked disgustingly fresh; she'd slept like a baby. Apprentice Kendricks had too, but he was sixteen and sleeping on the floor hadn't bothered him.
Everyone's gotten less finicky about privacy, Havel thought. But there are still limits.
Sarian came over to them after the waitress had dropped off their plates-bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, sausage and home fries. Havel cocked an eye up at him as he ate; the stocky, bearded man seemed to be hesitating, torn, as his guest mopped his plate with a piece of toast.
Which on short acquaintance I'd say is not his usual MO. I'd peg him for a can-do sort, Havel thought.
Decision firmed behind the heavy bearded face. He looked around, and bent over to speak quietly:
"I would go right now, friend, if I were you. Or wait until more are leaving, so you can go together."
Havel opened his mouth to ask a question, but Sarian shook his head and turned away.
"Aha," Signe said, lifting a spoonful of fried pickled green tomatoes onto her plate. "Now that was interesting, bossman."
Havel nodded. "And I think we should do precisely the opposite of what he advised. Take your time with breakfast, and we'll head out alone. If people are bunching up that way, the road'll be temptingly empty."
"And we'll be trailing a broken wing." Signe grinned back, but there was a tightness around her mouth.
Sarian didn't come to say good-bye as they left; a serious breach of good business sense with a newly won and valuable customer. Havel whistled silently as they left the Crossing Tavern's northernmost perimeter, marked by another set of signs nailed to a telephone pole. It was comforting to know that Will and the patrol would be hanging on their left, just out of sight to the west.
It was six miles to the edge of cultivation around Dayton, at the north end of the Dayton Prairie; two hours travel at the gentle walking pace they were using, much less if you pushed your mount. The grass and quick-growing bush were tall on either side of the road, turning most of the abandoned cars and trucks into mounds of vegetation; now and then bits of a burnt-out building showed above a similar hillock.
He frowned at the cars as the herd rumbled and clattered along; Charger's hooves clopped slowly, insects buzzed, and small fleecy clouds drifted through deep blue sky. In Bearkiller territory the dead vehicles hadn't just been pushed aside; they'd all been dragged off and systematically stripped of everything useful-particularly the leaf springs, invaluable for swords and knives and edge-tools of all sorts; they'd stored the surplus in old buildings, greased for protection, supplies sufficient for generations of smiths.
Then they were in a section where the fields had burned last fall, and the new grass was only knee-high, shot through with blue camas flowers. What had been a small store of some sort stood by the side of the road not far ahead to the left, and a line of willow and alder and oak on the right showed where Palmer Creek swung close. The two Bearkillers pretending to be ranchers cantered about, using shouts and waving lariats and occasionally the whirled end of a rope to remind the horses that spreading out through the rich meadow wasn't on the agenda for today.
"Heads up," he said softly, as seeming chance took them closer together.
Adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream like a jolt of electricity in the old days, and he seized control of his breathing. Movement:
Two mounted figures: and three more behind them, and a dozen on foot. He looked right; sure enough, half a dozen more coming out of the fields there, angling in towards the road behind them. He reached into a saddlebag for his field glasses-carrying a pair of binoculars around was a rather too obvious way for someone of his pretended identity to invite robbery-and leveled them, turning the focusing ring with his thumb.
Aha.
"It's the guy from Crossing Tavern, the one with the cut-down sledgehammer," he said. "Three guesses: Why waste time? It's Crusher Bailey, all right."
Grinning now as he waved and whooped his men on, and the grin looked less friendly and less fake than his expression back at the wayside inn. The horse herd was nervous, tossing their heads and turning back and forth as shouting humans closed in from three sides.
"Why am I not surprised?" Signe said. "Wait a minute: Crusher: didn't he call himself Grettir?"