He thought Aby would approve of her.
And he knew he was being stupid and too cautious. He’d not felt nearly so anxious about Aby’s risks as he did about risk to Tara—Aby having been there, left hand to his right, a fact of the world since they both were kids, and capable of taking care of herself. God, yes, he’d loved her—there’d always be a hole in his world the shape and size and duration of Aby. But the matter with Tara was here and urgent, because the woman was apt to do any damn thing—and he wanted her safe, and didn’t want her to have done things she’d be sorry for, and meanwhile he had things heneeded to do and she’d be up here by herself rather than see him go—it had a very Aby-like feel, her stubbornness did. And he wanted to protect her from that—
The way he hadn’t done with Aby.
His thinking was in a real mess, was what it was.
Horseplay outside had come near the cabin. Attention had turned to them, and they were aware of each other like a light switch going on.
“Dammit!” he said to Burn, caught, and knew it was going to be <mad Tara.>
A hand came to rest on his knee, took on weight, patted it hard.
And the ambient said that Tara wasn’t mad.
“You aren’t going up there,” she said. “ Iwill.”
“No. I’llgo.”
“I saidI’d do it. Go by yourself, hell. This is my mountain. You sit here.”
“No.” They were back to thatargument.
“There’s a short way up there. But it’s a lot of walking, a lot of climbing, and rough ground. You can’t make it.”
“The kids are on the long way. If I can’t make it, I’ll know it. I’ll stop. I can camp and stay warm.”
“Listen to me.” The hand on his knee shook at him. “You hear anything?”
“You and two horses.”
“And nothing else. Nothingelse.”
He took the point. Soberly.
“The mountain isn’t over with what happened,” Tara said. “It’s not safe out there. For someone who maybe gets sick, can’tmove—”
“Or just as well somebody that travels alone. With you or behind you, woman. Take your pick.”
“Your life. Over those kids. They can damn well take care of themselves or they’ve got no business up here.”
“The kids didn’t have much damn choice about being out of the village,” Guil said. “And can the village up there take care of itself? They could need help. We sent ourproblem up there.”
“Where there’s a lot more resources than we’ve got.”
“And a mountain that’s still in an upheaval. What do theyknow about it? I want to know where that horse went that drove them out of here.”
“Damn you, Guil.”
“Yeah, well.”
He sat there beside her at the fireside, and then—then the horses outside were mating, and they sat there bundled in their thick clothes, receiving that.
“Doesn’t help the thinking,” he said on a heavy breath.
“Not damn much,” she said.
But the horses wanted in, at that point. Having had their fling they wanted to get warm and muddy up the floor.
He made supper for the two of them plus horse-treats. He figured he could do that: she’d done everything in the day including putting him on his horse.
“They’d have gotten caught by weather at the midway shelter,” he said during supper. “They could be holed be there. Suppose we ought to try the road?”
“Windchill on those high turns is too fierce. Uphill’s easier. Longer. But easier. Theycan come back down a lot easier than they can go up. Surelythey’ve got that sense, if they’re stuck there.”
“No sign of it yet,” he said.
“Maybe they made it up before the weather. Just pushed on.”
Maybe they didn’t make it. He had to think that, too.
In that case he’d be sorrier than he could say. And he and Tara would be wintering in Evergreen.
But they had to go there anyway.
There was nothing right now in the ambient but themselves. There was that silence all around them, a mountain swept clean of life. Or life gone underground, gone into hibernation, as happened in deep, foodless winter.
But there’d been more food on Tarmin Height, grisly thought, than anywhere he’d ever heard of.
“You suppose,” he said, “everything’s eaten so much they’ve all gone to burrows?”
“Possible,” she said. “Possible, too, they remember the rogue, and they’re scaring each other, one to the next. Or possibly—that horse is out there. I don’t think it belonged to my partners. I’d know.”
“Harper’s horse,” Guil said.
“Yeah,” she said. “No question in my mind.”
And long, long after they’d settled down to sleep, tucked down by the fire, in all the blankets they’d brought and found, came a strange, spooky sending that drew an alarm from the horses.
Ghosty thing, just a shiver over the nerves. Guil lay still, but Tara sat up, and got up, and he stirred onto the side that didn’t hurt and sat up, too.
The horses were upset.
“Something’s wrong,” Tara said, with her hands on Flicker’s neck.
Burn came over and stood right over him, <hearing trouble. Nasty shapeless thing. Lot of things.>
Burn was going to defend him, that was clear. A shiver ran up Burn’s leg and over his hide and Burn snorted and hissed at an unseen enemy.
“Can you make it out?” Tara asked. “It’s not a swarm.”
“Don’t think so.” He made an effort to get up and did, leaning on Burn’s shoulder. From Burn there was another snort and a violent shake of his mane.
Not good, whatever it was.
Tara was <upset. Haze of snow, night, terror, horses running> came from her and from Flicker, he couldn’t mistake that.
They were armed. They had supplies. But there was that notice on the board that Danny Fisher had written, that <bad horse> warning.
The kid hadn’t been a rider that long. The kid hadn’t ever been into the High Wild. And if he’d heard something real damn confusing—he might not know what he heard. But twoexperienced riders and their horses—
—didn’t know, either.
It was a moral question to Danny—whether his responsibility for Carlo and Randy continued or ought to continue; and it was still a common-sense kind of question whether he could get Carlo in some kind of trouble by running over there to inform Carlo on what lawyers were doing, and including Carlo into matters that obviously involved the rich and powerful people in the village. Such people weren’t as rich and powerful as they might be down in Shamesey, granted, but seeing Carlo was accidentally between these people and a lot of money, he’d spent some extensive worry on the matter, at some times concluding he shouldn’t go, then thinking that while some were for protecting Carlo’s rights, some weren’t. And then again thinking—if Carlo was seen notto know, Carlo had a certain amount of protection, in that ignorance—if ignorance was ever protection, and his own experience said it wasn’t as much as the ignorant thought it was.
Most of all he didn’t know at what point of their own morality these people from the pretty blue-muraled church would conclude they were doing wrong. He was scared of lawyers. He was scared of courts.
Most of all he didn’t want to mess up Carlo’s future by making a decision that he didn’t have the information to make, and he’d held off till this morning hoping he’d hear some kind of wisdom out of Ridley or Callie during their evening talks.
“You suppose they’re going to treat the Goss boys all right?” he’d asked finally in desperation. “Are the lawyers honest?”
“They’re fools,” was all he’d been able to get out of Ridley last night. Ridley was mad about the situation, and that was what Ridley had on his mind: losing people from his village. And to the question of the lawyers being honest— “At poker,” Callie said, which didn’t tell him much about Carlo’s chances with them.