“Has the marshal talked with you yet?” he asked Carlo in his new sense of immunity. “About your rights to property?”
Carlo squinted at him through the blowing snow and went very, very sober. “No.”
“There’s lawyers involved,” Danny said. “There’s lawyers talking about how you’ve got inheritance rights down in Tarmin. That you own the smith’s shop and the house and all. And there’s a lot of people talking about going down there, families here just sort of homesteading all those vacant buildings.”
“You’re serious. They’re going to do it.”
“No joke.” He felt keenly the lack of the ambient that would have made him aware what Carlo was thinking. “And it might work out all right. There’d be plenty of neighbors. Plenty of work fixing up. If you could stand to go back and live there—you’d ownyour papa’s forge, the shop and the house and maybe more than that. Anything you’d legitimately inherit. Anything your papa’s or your mama’s relatives had. You could be the richest guy in Tarmin.”
Carlo looked disturbed. He raked a hand through his hair, which had been damp with sweat and which was developing ice crystals in the snowy cold. “Mama’s property. Andthe forge. And the house.”
“You could be real comfortable—if you can be comfortable down there. This village hasto have Tarmin operating. Only place they can really warehouse goods. You know that better than I do. And until they can get oxen, or trucks and fuel to haul whatever they normally get from Tarmin, they’re probably going to have to port supplies up the Climb on hand-carts. That means it’s going to be a real lean spring up here. Prices are going to go sky-high. Just immediately as soon as the snow melts this village or somebody on the High Loop has got to get somebody down to Shamesey and buy oxen, hire drivers andget some truckloads of hay up here to the top of the treeline, or the Anveney truckers are going to gouge them for everything they’ve got. Not saying what Shamesey will charge—if they get wind of it before they’ve made a deal. They’re not going to wait around. These people have to move fast before word gets out.”
“Where’d you hear this?”
“There was a meeting. Actually a couple of meetings. I—should have come sooner—but—” He was embarrassed in the face of Carlo’s questioning look. “I wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure who’d be watching. I get the feeling they haven’t come here to tell you you’ve got rights. I’ll expect they’re going to talk to you. They bettertalk to you.”
“They haven’t. I figured—I figured they’d do somethingabout getting the warehouses down there going. But—”
“I get the idea a lotof people are thinking about claims down there. And you have rights. So’s Randy.” He hesitated. “—How’s your sister?”
“Don’t know.” Carlo’s whole body said he didn’t want to think about it.
“You could take care of her. And Randy. This Mackey guy is the onlyone that would be interested in the forge down there. He might try to buy you out, trade you here for what’s down there.”
“That wouldn’t be a bad deal—”
“No. Don’t take it. That’s what I’m hearing: there’s a chance—a real chance—that this village could go under—if the important people, all the people who know how to doanything, head downhill at the first thaw. It’d leave just miners and loggers up here— unless, I guess, people from the next village over decided to come over here and the next claims them—it’s going to be a scramble, is what.”
Carlo bit his lip. “I could go back down there. I would. Dammit, I would. I could set us up proper. Hellif I couldn’t. Damn Mackey!”
“If they come to you don’t sign anything. There’s lawyers involved.”
“Yeah. I hear you plain.” Carlo looked then as if he’d just been stung. “I got to get back to the forge.”
“Sure. I didn’t tell Ridley I was coming over here and Callie thinks I’m the devil on her doorstep. I didn’t tell ’em I was going.”
“I owe you a drink. At least. Several, in fact.”
“No difficulty. Anytime. You can come to the rider camp. No reason not. You get some time off—I can come across. I guess I can. Nobody seemed shocked I was here. —Suppose they’d serve riders in the tavern there?”
Carlo looked embarrassed. “I don’t know. I’ll ask.”
“Hey.” It dawned on him that was one of a set of things more that he could do. They neededhim. The village might have yet to figure it. But they needed him. The Evergreen ridersneeded him—or it was going to be an ugly scene, people wanting escort and Ridley and Callie with a kid they wouldn’t want involved. He suddenly resolved he wasn’t as down-and-under the local situation as he’d assumed— and that his situation was in some respects like Carlo’s. “Who’d guide anyone anywhere but me? And there’s horses painted in the church. This isn’ttoo bad a place. We should havea drink.”
“I’m supposed to get paid the rest of my wages. He betterpay me.”
Cash money was a problem he hadn’t solved—having not a penny to his name. Villageside, it mattered.
“Sure,” he said. He had a time to do something. He had somewhere to go. Amazing how that pinned the world down. “Sundown?”
“We’ll be there.”
He went with Carlo back to the door, and when it opened the heat inside was stifling and the inside was obscured with shadows and fire.
The heavyset kid was standing real near that outside door. Randy was still keeping the bellows going, looking their way the while. “See you,” Carlo said, tight and careful. And shut the door between them.
Danny turned and walked back up the street, through the veiling snow.
Pretty town, all the evergreens, shadows in the white. Pointed roofs. Nice place.
He was still a little worried about Carlo. He didn’t know what he personally could do until the day Carlo and Randy showed up and said Get us out of here.
Well, he did. He could go in there, let a fight start, and beat hell out of Mackey’s offspring. He could tell the whole village to swallow it or choke, so long as they wanted his help. He’d notbeen a good kid, in town. He had what his Father called real bad tendencies when somebody shoved him.
But—pushing back too hard and trying to deal his own hand in this apart from Ridley could make hima target for those who didn’t for one reason or another want a rush down to Tarmin. That included Ridley, it included Callie, and probably the marshal and the judge and maybe even people who’d like to go but who didn’t want certain other people to go.
It could get just real complicated.
One thing was sure: with gold, furs, and timber and all, Tarmin village wasn’t going to die. Tarmin was going to rise from a bloody grave. He hoped— hopedCarlo and the kid could benefit, and that they wouldn’t get robbed. Or hurt.
And he hoped Carlo kept the lid on Randy. When the news got out, and it was, he was sure, all over town—except near Carlo and Randy, which he found troubling—it was going to be just real uncomfortable in the Mackey household.
Because if the rest of the town was going to benefit from claiming free property in Tarmin, the smith couldn’t. Not while Carlo and Randy and Brionne were alive.
But Carlo wasn’t a fool. Carlo was farfrom a fool. Carlo had understood everything from the first hint of what was going on.
And Carlo, who’d swung a hammer for his living, wasn’t defenseless, either. That surly guy crowding him was running a real risk.
Chapter 12