Fearhad come up the mountain with those kids. Fear had lent them the strength to do what only a couple of young men could do, in making (Ridley didn’t question that part of the story) the whole trek from midway in one day and most of a night, up that iced slant. It was the kind of thing young folk could do, maybe once in their lives—and that some didn’t survive. And the trouble they brought wasn’t going to bed as quickly or as easily as Dan Fisher had.
But the kids—including the problem the girl posed—were disposed of to the village side of the wall, out of the reach of their horses, Fisher wouldn’t stir for thunder, and that was enough to let him and Callie at least draw breath and have their breakfast and a following cup of tea in quiet, mental and otherwise.
All the same Callie had to go look in on Jennie—just checking.
And that, from Callie’s partner, required at least a look up when Callie came back. He generally disapproved Callie’s hovering over the kid. Today there was reason.
Callie—who was used to reading his mind, literally so when Slip and Shimmer were in question—didn’t tell him Jennie was all right when she came back into the main room. Callie didn’t give him a bit of information, meaning he’d have to go look in for himself or he’d have to ask her, dammit.
“She all right?”
“She’s fine.” Callie went to the fireside and poured herself a cup of tea.
It was their hardest argument, how much exposure to the realities of life, sex, and death was too much too soon for their daughter, and when they shouldn’t baby her. It was certain as sundown and sunrise that Jennie would take off on a horse and go long before either of her parents thought she was ready. Kids always did. Young horses didn’t knowtheir young riders were too young, or that two horse years and eight human years didn’t exactly make a mature decision.
They’dbeen worrying about Rain. But with this arrival in the camp they knew there could be much worse going on. He’d heardof rogues, and in the tales that ran among riders, if you got one in a district you could have others.
And dammit, Fisher offered to trek out of here, but the kids he’d escorted were here. There was no way in good conscience to pass that mess on to Mornay village, which was smaller than Evergreen and less equipped than they were to handle the kids.
Especially the girl.
Tarmingone?
There’d been five riders down there. Fiveriders hadn’t been enough, against what had come down on Tarmin.
And these kids survived?
“It’s quiet out there,” Callie said as she joined him by the fire. “I’d think the horses would have been out and about.”
If there were any intrusion into their hearing, that was what Callie meant, specifically—if that loose horse Fisher had talked about had come in. There’d been a disturbance before they’d put Fisher to bed, a little queasiness in the ambient—but it might have been a bushdevil, something stirred out of a burrow nearby. They hadn’t heard anything they could be certain of.
“Just hope the quiet lasts,” he said as Callie warmed her cup with a dollop from the pot. He truly didn’twant to have to kill a horse— but, dammit, he was defending a daughter. “If that stray comes in— I don’t know. The horses down the mountain may attract it back down. I hope so.”
“It could have been us, you know that?” Callie had been upset since he’d brought Fisher into the barracks. He’d seen it in every line of her body. She’dbeen dealing with the village kids—including the girl. “What got Tarmin could have come to Evergreen instead.”
“Well, the last rider in Tarmin must have done something right. It’s dead. He swears they did get it, Callie.”
“ Ifwe’ve heard the truth,” Callie said. “We’re leaning an awful lot on Fisher’s word.”
“He’s got no motive to lie.”
“The hell he hasn’t! He brought that girl up here, in her condition—what kind of judgment is that?”
He had to think of Jennie. “I’m not sure I could have let her die. And she was getting worse.”
“And they’ve got a horse after them. We have his wordthe rogue is gone. We don’t know that’s not what chased him up the mountain! He had walls down there, shelters near Tarmin—and why did he leave there? Because the girl would have died? Or because something was chasing him?”
“We have his wordit ever existed in the first place, Callie. If he was a thoroughgoing liar, why would he have to tell us anything?”
“In case the phone lines aren’tdown for the winter here. In case we’d already got a message from Tarmin! In case we listened to him and caught how damn scared he is! In case we asked why he didn’t go down the mountain if that’s where he’s from? Look at the girl, for God’s sake! He said—when she came out of it—she shouldn’t be near the horses. What did he mean by that, except that she’s not safe here, she was spooking him and his horse, and Idon’t think she’s safe even in the village!”
He didn’t have an answer for that—not one Callie couldn’t knock down. Callie wasn’t a trusting woman. And she’d formed conclusions it was well to listen to.
“The lines going down early this year,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t just the ice on the lines, you know? As crazy as things have felt for weeks, the way things feltout there when he was coming in with those kids—oh, I believe him when he says there was trouble at Tarmin. I don’t believe him when he says the rogue situation’s done with. And he’s under this roof and that girl’s just the other side of the camp wall!”
“Are you saying we should put him out? The little I did catch from him while we were in the den—I believe he’s honest; I also think he’s young, he’s skittish, he’s holding stuff in, but I don’t think he’s actually lying to us. I think he’s told us what he feels safe telling and I don’t blame him for not letting all he remembers loose on a night like that.”
“I wish I thought he wasn’t lying.”
“Wish I had an answer for you,” Ridley said. But he didn’t.
And by now he’d had time to realize that not only did they have a winter problem, they were facing a spring and summer and years down the road problem, and the very scary prospect of not just Evergreen but all the villages on the mountain going into next autumn without supplies.
Much of their supply source for equipment and half their trade with the lowlands was a company down in Anveney town that might—who knew the minds of townfolk?—be very reluctant to send even the usual number of trucks up here without some hard dealing. The main source they had for food was Shamesey. Oil and gas came from the south. One truck lost, when Aby Dale had died— that happened. But Tarmin gone?
That was the staging area for all trucks going up to the High Loop and it was the depot for supplies, the warehouses for trade goods that were just too heavy to ship up: warehouses for everything coming down off the mountain and everything that had to be sent up—some items by oxcart, as things moved when the villagers were paying the freight; and some by truck, when the trucks hauling company loads had space and the item wasn’t too heavy.
Food for the High Loop villages stayed in warehouses in Tarmin before it moved up the Climb by oxcart. They were going to be eating a lot of bushdevil and willy-wisp if they couldn’t get lowland beef and pork. Flour already cost twice what it did in Tarmin, which was already three times its cost in the lowlands.
Gasoline and freight costs could easily quadruple for Evergreen.
And the oxen that made those runs—the only transportation for goods that didn’t run at Anveney’s cost for fuel—he didn’t need to ask young Fisher what their fate had been once those gates were open. They were gone. The menthat drove those teams were gone along with everything else edible that wasn’t cased in steel or locked behind it.