“Damn fool,” he said to it, but to appease it he rubbed its cheek with his hands—otherwise it was going to rub its head on himand bash his face again. Thatled only to a harder push and a loss of balance. He went down backward in the snow and the horse nosed him in the face, or the hands, when he pushed at it, radiating <happy> and <looking down at Carlo in the snow.> He couldn’t get up without its nose in the way. He got as far as his knees and had its head in his middle, butting him until he patted its neck and used it for a wall to lean on getting up.
<Happy horse. Delighted horse.>
“I’m not it, silly fool. I’m not.”
But it wanted. It <wanted> and he’d been with Danny long enough to know that if a horse wanted to reach his rider, he’d go through or over anything remotely possible, and this horse wanted with that kind of intensity. It wasn’t <blood-on-snow> in its mind any longer. It was something else—he didn’t know what, but it wasn’t <lost horse> any longer, either.
Neither was he <lost in the woods.> It had him, and he had it; and he couldn’t be as scared as he’d been or as desperate as he’d been or as lonely as he’d been, while the creature he’d most feared was most interested in rubbing its face against him.
<Shape in the woods,> he kept seeing, but not a threatening shape, just a fast-moving shadow through the trees, horse here, horse there—the eye couldn’t track it.
“Spook,” he said to a back-turned ear, his arm at the moment encircling its neck from below. He was there instead of the person it most wanted, whoever that was. He was there because he’d happened into its path, was all, when Randy had wanted it, when maybe his sister had, in her untouchable dreams. It might get him back close to the village, might save him, but certainly he hadn’t a right to it—
Which, he realized all of a sudden was his answer to every question of everything he’d ever had a chance for—he hadn’t a right. He was the oldest. He had the responsibilities, he always had been the responsible one. He had to learn the craft. He had to stay and work. He had to go to Evergreen. He had to see to Brionne’s life. To Randy’s future. To the forge down in Tarmin. All those things. Only thing he’d ever done right, only thing good anybody ever said about him, was he was responsible, and what could he do now? He was a stand-in for his brother with this creature. It wasn’t responsible to have notions of accepting it himself.
<Carlo and Spook> was the ambient right now. It was powerfully persuasive. It was so, so attractive to believe it could make a mistake like that, and that he might accept it and just not go back again to being responsible.
Couldn’t. Randy wouldn’t forgive him.
It could keep him safe, though, till he could deal with the charges and prove—whatever he could prove to the village.
It could—it could take him clear to Tarmin. It knew the way up and down the mountain. It could fight off predators. It could guide him, hunt for him, protect him—he didn’t needanything he didn’t have in his hands right now.
And the world around him had expanded so wide, and the smells had become so clear—he didn’t know how much he’d lost when he’d left the ambient for the Mackeys’ forge and the living he owed his brother.
If he stayed too long, he said to himself, if he let himself get used to it, he didn’t know how he’d give it up.
“God, I don’t know about horses. I don’t know how to ride. You’ve really made a mistake, horse. I swear to you I’m not it.”
Didn’t make a difference. Spook was still there. Still wanting, exploring with a curious soft nose the gloved hands he put up to save his face from being licked raw. Hands failed. The horse butted him in the chest and wanted him to <ride.>
There weren’t words. He felt presumptuous even to try what it wanted him to try. Danny if he were here would call him a fool.
But Danny wasn’t here.
And he had no notion how to do the flashy move Danny could do, grabbing the mane and swinging up: he knew where that would land him. So he tried the way Danny would when things were chancy, and just bounced up to land belly-down across the horse’s back and tried, with the horse beginning to move, to straighten himself around astride.
Too far. He made a frantic grab after a black and cloudy mane that like finest wool went almost to nothing in his hands—stayed on for maybe a hundred meters, breathless with what he’d done, was doing, could do. But when the course turned uphill he slid right off over Spook’s rump.
To his surprise he landed on his feet, in a position to look uphill as the horse reached the top and looked down at him as if to say, God, I’ve picked a fool.
He slogged up the snowy incline, panting, and tried again—got on, and fell off more slowly, still clinging to two fistfuls of mane, when Spook picked up the pace.
Definitely there was a knack of balance he didn’t have.
But he got on again.
He wanted to go back and find Danny. But Danny was <Danny with gun> and Spook didn’t wantto find Danny. He suddenly had that image. He couldn’t just ride into Danny’s sights—when Danny thought Spook was a danger to the village. He couldn’t go back and get Spook killed for no reason.
He knew now as long as the village chased him, Randy had a chance to do what he’d told Randy to do if things got bad—go get Danny’s help; with Randy staying in the rider camp, the marshal at least couldn’t include a fourteen-year-old in a murder charge.
He had to talk to Danny. But on his terms. After he’d had time to think what to do, what he wanted, where he was and where he wanted to go.
Spook had hit a rhythm and broke into a run that didn’t pitch him off. They’d reached a road—the road, aroad, he didn’t know— where there was easy moving and for a hundred meters or so he was withSpook, and no longer fighting for balance—it was just there. It was wonderful, wild, and rightin a way he’d never found anything just happenfor him.
Until the stop that almost pitched him over Spook’s shoulder.
<Horse and rider.> Dannywas there. On Cloud. With a <rifle halfway lifted for shooting horse.>
Spook saw it, too. Spook swung around and bolted and he didn’t know how he stayed on, except the double handful of mane, both legs wrapped tight and his head ducked down because he swayed less that way.
“Carlo!” he heard Danny yell at him. “Carlo, it’s all right, come back!”
Couldn’t take the chance. Couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t.
<Run> was the only safety. It was what Spook knew. Or he did. He’d have trusted Danny. But Spook was afraid. And he thought now he should have been.
“Damn it!” Danny cried. “Carlo!”
But Carlo wasn’t hearing him. Couldn’t hear him, maybe. Or Spook-horse’s state of mind was contagious.
Chase him, maybe. But push him on a mountain road with no-knowing-what ahead—no. <Going slower,> he wanted of Cloud, and tried sending into the ambient, <Danny and Carlo. Horses walking together.>
Cloud didn’t think so. Cloud’s mind conjured <bad horse> and <Spook following them.> Which wasn’t the case, but that was where Spook had consistently been, long enough that it was part of Cloud’s thinking.
Which he had to calm down. Cloud was of a mind to <fight> right now, and that wasn’t what he wanted.
<Still water,> he thought, patting Cloud’s neck as they walked along the well-defined track in the snow. “It’s all right,” he told Cloud. He didn’t know how far Carlo might make the chase—but he was willing to go that far. He’d come out with his kit, his cold-weather gear and his guns. He was equipped. He’d taken longer than he wanted getting onto Carlo’s trail.