“Getting too big,” Ridley complained, setting her down; and Jennie said, “I bet Dannycan lift me.”
“Not on your life,” Danny said, far from willing to provoke jealous competitions with father and daughter. “I’m not as big as he is. I’m a juniorrider.”
“I’m a junior rider, too,” Jennie said.
“Yeah,” Ridley said. “When you get a horse, miss, and you don’tcount Rain.”
“I loveRain,” Jennie cried, “and Rain loves me!”
And before that could flare into an argument Callie came out with her coat wrapped around her, asked if they’d break the ice on the barrel.
“I can!” Jennie declared, and was off with Rain kicking up his heels across the yard.
So he and Ridley followed and took a heavy log and broke up the ice as Callie went back inside.
Came a heavy thump behind their backs and a burst of nighthorse hooves on the frozen snow. As Ridley looked up and Danny turned Jennie was on the ground flat on her back beside the porch and Rain was still dancing off with his tail in the air. Ridley ran, he ran, but Jennie was already getting up, brushing herself off.
“Have you lost your mind?” Ridley asked. “Stay offhim!”
The pieces of the situation were all there to figure: the porch, the skittish and indignant colt—who’d probably been willing to have Jennie on his back until it feltweird. She’d used the porch edge for a mounting-block, the corner post of the porch for a handhold, and Rain had shied right out from under her—luckily she hadn’t hurt her back—or her head; it was crusted snow below and a thick coat and a heavy knitted cap. She’d just had the breath knocked out of her, minor crisis, a lot of gasping and trying, red-faced, not to cry.
“See?” Ridley said, angry; Ridley already had not had a good morning, in the meeting, and Jennie cried and stormed and went running off to Rain.
To Rain, not to her mother who was working indoors. Danny marked that fact.
So, he thought, did Ridley.
“Damn!” Ridley stormed off toward the den, to his daughter and to Rain, with Slip trailing after. The ambient was full of <Jennie and Rain> and <unhappy male human and unhappy Jennie.> Rain was thinking <mating,> Shimmer was thinking <bite,> and Slip and Cloud were understandably on edge.
But it was peace-making Ridley was after, and Danny saw him standing in the doorway of the den, leaning against the post, talking to his daughter.
Maybe Ridley believed he could stop nature and growing up from taking its course. Danny didn’t know. Maybe Ridley was trying to explain the facts of life to an eight-year-old.
They’d talked about maybe taking Rain to another camp next spring. Maybe Rain leaving of his own accord when the foal was born—a colt horse often did take out on his own at that point. But to say so to Jennie… that well could be the frown, the downcast look, the refusal to look at her father.
He felt sorry for the kid. And the colt.
And while he was thinking it, Cloud nudged him in the side. Cloud thought if human hands were otherwise unoccupied they could be <scratching itchy chin and itchy ears.>
He did. Cloud rewarded his charity by licking his ear.
He was ever so glad to have the interview in town behind him. Now he had absolutely nothing in front of him but a winter in this camp, with the reserved but congenial company of Ridley and Callie, and he didn’t need to worry. Down in Shamesey his family might worry about him—and figure he was staying out the winter because of the fight they’d had in parting. They might even guess he’d gone off into the hills and gotten snowed in—
Fornicating all winter in some village was what his father would think.
Less chance than Rain had, was the fact.
And his own family would miss him. The money he’d brought would have run out come spring. They’d be back on what profit his father and mother earned from their own business, but they’d survive very handily till he got back; they had before. And then maybe he’d come back with enough in his pockets to set his father up with the kind of tools the shop needed.
Most of all he’d finally paid off his promise to Cloud, who’d wanted this winter in the High Wild, from the beginning of their partnership, two years ago, when a crazy young horse had played tag with gunmen atop Shamesey walls getting the rider he wanted, which for some reason happened to be Danny Fisher. Cloud had surely been foaled in the mountains, the camp-boss had told him that, and he thought it might have been on Rogers Peak itself, in the wild herd— he had no images of villages out of Cloud and never had had any. Cloud had wanted his winter in the High Wild, and, Cloud having brought him up this mountain, well, here they were: their duty was done to the village folk, Ridley said he could work for his keep and even said he’d talk to the marshal, meaning he’d go on the village tab.
That was generous, very generous. He’d help Ridley for his room and board; he’d cut leather, he’d mend roofs, he’d ride guard on villagers who had to go out, and most of all he’d hunt and gather hides and meat for the village.
He couldn’t imagine a happier situation than he’d found for himself. He’d had his doubts when he was coming up the mountain, half-frozen; he’d had his doubts in that meeting in there and even walking back from it—but this wasn’t at all a bad place for a young rider to stay for a summer—help Guil out, for that matter, and lethis family worry.
Or not, if they got the phone lines spliced again and if he could get a phone call through to Shamesey. He thought maybe they’d let him do that. Maybe—he had to factor that unpleasantness into the picture, too—he’d be available to guide a number of people down to Tarmin around spring melt. He might well get that job—having been there recently, and not being senior, and Ridley and Callie being burdened down with Jennie.
He didn’tat all want the job. He’d accepted the one with Guil and Tara. He’d plead that and the villagers could wait.
Meanwhile Ridley and Jennie had made peace. The ambient was quieter. <Jennie and Rain> was the sense of things as Ridley came walking across the yard toward him.
“I don’t want that,” Ridley said to him. “Girl-kid and a colt horse. What in hellis she going to do?”
“There were pairs like that in Shamesey. I don’t know—” He didn’t want to discuss sex and an eight-year-old with the eight-year-old’s father. “I don’t know exactly how all of them got along. But I know two mismatches that paired up and they seemed happy.”
Ridley didn’t discuss it. “Worries us,” was all he said. And about that time <Jennie!> went through the ambient like a scream and Ridley and Danny ran as Rain first bolted out of the den in a spray of snow and then came back, <upset> and upsetting Cloud and the other horses.
Jennie was on the ground again with the breath knocked out of her. This time she didn’t get up so quickly—hardly moved until Ridley picked her up and set her on her feet.
About that time Callie came running, and a guest and a stranger in the rider barracks could only stand and keep his mouth shut.
The little girl wanted that horse sobad, and was anxious to bewith that horse, for reasons a rider who wanted to understand could well figure out and could feel not just in his heart, but in his gut. Equally, Rain wanted her. he was also very upset about <hurt Jennie> and wanted to defend her—it wasn’t Rain’s fault he’d dumped Jennie twice in ten minutes and didn’t quite put it together in his horsey brain that hewas the cause of Jennie falling.
It wasn’t really Jennie’s fault, either. She loved that horse. And Rain loved her, in his adolescent way. Rain, male, in mating season, didn’t know what to do about something light landing on his back, boy-horses being especially skittish in that regard, and young ones more skittish than they’d ever be in the rest of their lives.