There was work to do. Winter was a time for large orders from the various logging companies and a time to make odds and ends of hardware and other items the miners called for, ranging from ordinary metalwork to things that would have been better welded—if they’d had the means. They were the manufactory for metal and wooden barrels, mining rockers and screens, water tanks and fuel storage. They made chain and hooks. They made latches and braces, tie rods and occasional machine parts for which they had a few special tools, but not the quality that Tarmin, which had an actual machine shop, could turn out. That was anotherbusiness lying vacant down there, among other odds and ends about which Carlo didn’t want to think, this morning.
Van even showed up to do actual work instead of leaving the shop to Rick’s slovenly management this morning. Van even wanted to talk, and once they got down to business, it developed they each knew things the other didn’t—there were tricks Van Mackey knew that their father hadn’t. He could learn from this man, Carlo thought, unlikely as it seemed, and after the storm of the night before, things were relatively peaceful. Randy had something on his mind—that meant the bellows worked with unusual steadiness while Randy stared off into space.
But Randy was no more cheerful than he was. It was a grim look. He tried to keep his own face as pleasant as possible.
He wishedhe hadn’t yelled at Danny. He had to go over there.
Maybe he could go over at quitting time and see him. With Randy in tow.
Which he didn’t want. He didn’t want Randy to know what the score was, and if he went into the camp, there were the horses to reckon with, and the likelihood they’d spill everything on their minds not only to Danny but to all the riders.
Thatwouldn’t do.
He could send Randy over to Danny. Randy was scattershot, but he was a lot less likely to spill truly important things.
And what in hell was he going to sayto Danny once he had him over here?
It didn’t add up to too much more than asking Danny to double-cross the people he was living with and go solo with him.
That was a secret almost impossible for a rider to keep. Anysecret was hard for a rider to keep. Danny had proved that to him. That was the whole point of the quarrel they’d had.
He couldn’t hand Danny a secret of their running off together and expect him to keep it.
Which meant he couldn’t tell Danny at all. That was what it boiled down to. He just couldn’t talk to Danny until much closer to time to go down there. He had to hold onto the matter, keep calm, not—
Tongs slipped. He recovered them.
“That’s all right,” Van Mackey said.
“All right, hell!” Rick said. “Anything he does is ‘all right’!”
“Shut up,” Van said.
“I had it coming,” Carlo said.
“And youshut up!” Rick yelled. “Damn you!”
“I said shut up!” Van yelled, and Rick stormed toward the door. “Sleep in the barracks tonight!” Van yelled after him. “Get a taste of it!”
Rick left the door open. Without a word Randy left his work and closed it.
Randy was scared of loud arguments.
So was he. His gut had knotted up.
“Don’t be too hard on him,” he said to Van. It was real hard to think of something good to say about Rick, but he felt obliged to try, for peace in the household. “I want to get along with him.”
Randy shot him a look.
Which he ignored.
“Huh,” was all Van Mackey said. In Carlo’s less than charitable estimation, Van Mackey didn’t even believe it was necessary to get along with his son.
Snow had been coming down since the middle of the night, and generally, was the impression Danny had from Ridley, that circumstance would stop a hunt: but not this hunt, for one reason, because the hunters had been pent in too long and the weather promised no better tomorrow, and secondly, because it was a hunt for a horse, a species that, along with several of the largest predators, didn’tden up except in weather much worse than this.
So they went out: and that was what they were after—he, and Ridley, and four of the most experienced hunters in Evergreen, because somethinghad been active last night; at least something they couldn’t quite be sure of had been prowling about near the walls of the village, probably over on the opposite side from the camp, which meant certain houses in the village could hear very well and the camp couldn’t.
But whatever it had been, it had had to climb a rocky terrace to achieve that vantage, and it had spooked the horses enough that Slip just wouldn’t be worked with this morning until it was clear they were going <out> and <hunting.>
<Spook-horse> and <danger> was all Danny could get out of Cloud; and Cloud wasn’t quite as eager as Slip to be out in the snow <hunting Spook-horse with men with cattle-tails.> Meaning that Cloud didn’t like the hunters, and imaged them in ways his rider had to amend in a constant battle of images, but Cloud never cared for his rider’s reputation, no.
Personally, Danny was resolved in his mind that they hadto do something about the horse, and he was very glad Ridley accepted him after difficulties with <bad horse girl> that he didn’t want to argue out with Cloud in hearing of the other horses and least of all with the hunters in range.
Their going out on the hunt, though, necessarily left Callie alone in camp with Jennie, a pregnant mare, and a skittish two-year-old colt, in charge of guarding the village—and it justifiably made Ridley anxious the further they went from village walls.
They were casting far afield today. It made himanxious. He had his complete kit with him, pack and weapons and all.
And if at any point it looked on this snowy day as if the village was in some kind of difficulty regarding that horse that might require other riders’ help, then he was fully prepared to use their trek out as the launch of a run toward Mornay. He was fully prepared to go on to the shelter tonight and reach Mornay tomorrow, to bring back reinforcement for the camp.
But from all they’d seen so far there was nothing either to indicate the horse was still about, or that any other game was. They’d sent the hunters up on the heights, but with the snow-fall they hadn’t seen any tracks, and he personally knew that the horse, if that was what it had been, was damned canny.
He wasn’t afraid, exactly, if he had to go on to Mornay alone. His real danger and Cloud’s had been when he had horseless adolescents and Brionne Goss in his company. A horse and rider alone and armed, with nobody to protect but each other—that was a whole different story, the way Spook-horse wasn’t that likely to go after four middle-aged men and two armed riders—if it had turned predatory and not simply lonely.
In that matter, Cloud wasn’t worried at all. Cloud was <fierce horse.> Cloud could beat Spook-horse in a fight: Cloud would say so if Danny hinted otherwise.
And for days now Cloud had been thinking of <woods and snow> and wanting <Danny riding.>
So this morning as they set out, and while he’d shoved the rider camp gate shut with Ridley serene on Slip’s back, his own silly fool of a horse had been cavorting through the drifts in a circle in front of the wall, careless of the fact a drift might mask a dip or a boulder.
Cloud fortunately led a charmed existence.
“Come back here!” he recalled yelling. In front of four stolid and senior hunters, “Dammit!”
Cloud didn’t care if his rider looked the fool in front of the others. Cloud didn’t care if the whole village turned out to watch.
But Cloud, giving up his notion of <cattle-tails on the hunters> as they trekked farther and farther down the road, grew pleased just with moving through the snowy weather this morning.
And with the wind carrying enough snow by noon to gray the trees, they still found nothing, seeing no game and hearing none, so the hunters, for whom this was the first chance to hunt since the storm, fell to grumbling and believed the horse in question was lairing down one of the logging trails down the face of the mountain.