“I hope he is,” Randy said. And he heard from the kid right then <wanting that horse> and <wanting his brother> and knew that both choices came with real pain.
“A rider’s pretty damn selfish,” he said to Randy, “when it’s him andhis horse. If you can let that horse go, he’d never be yours. That’s the truth, kid.”
“If Danny finds Carlo he’ll get him to Mornay.”
“He’ll get him there if he can. Youstay here. No going back to the Mackeys.”
“I’ve got to get the house down in Tarmin. That’s Carlo’shouse.”
“If Carlo’s gone to be a rider, son, there’s nobody but the Mackeys to go with you.”
“But he wantsto be a blacksmith.”
“Not now. You hear it out there.” Couldn’t hear it now too distinctly: horse-sense said it had gone on in the general direction of Mornay, which was very good news. “You don’t ever unchoose that. Lose one horse—you’ve got to find one and some horse has got to find you, or you’re better off dead.”
There was a long silence, Randy sitting on a rail by the manger, wiped his eyes. “He won’t want meif he’s got that horse.”
“Not the same way, maybe. A horse happens along and a partner happens along both for reasons you don’t exactly choose to happen, and sometimes who happens and why just doesn’t make sense to you. Don’t say won’t. Don’t say can’t. Say—there’s something waiting for you.” It was what he’d said to himself before he met Callie. It was what he’d said to Jennie. And Jennie had proved that true, no question about it.
The boy looked up at him. “You think? You think maybe?”
“I think you better be ready if it comes. Can’t say when. Neither could your brother. Just think good thoughts about him now and most of all think about him staying on that horse. It won’t leave him. But it’s bad country to get thrown. Worry about thatif you want to worry about something.”
“He’ll show Rick Pig. He’ll come back and he’ll show him.”
“If he comes back with that horse he’ll take orders like any rider in this camp, kid. The way he’ll take orders over at Mornay if Danny can get him there.” He likedthe boy. But you never let a kid think he was on equal footing when you might have to lay the law down and make it stick. “You get one thing straight: you don’t do anything toward the village without consulting the camp-boss, including insulting the village folk. That’s the first lesson you learn, or you better clear out and stay out of my sight, right down that road you took to get up here. Danny Fisher ran that line right close, and I know why he did it; and he knows he’s on my tolerance. So you get it straight: if you stay in this camp, you do what you’re told and you do it when you’re told, and if you don’t, Slip here will tell me.”
“Yes, sir,” Randy said.
“Good you learn that.”
Chapter 20
The afternoon had gone to that strange daylight afternoons had in the woods, in the mountains, and the trail was going the same way it had—Cloud’s burst of speed flagged in a high altitude gasping for breath. Out of condition, Cloud was. Born up here, maybe, but they were both a little soft, and settled to an unheroic amble through the woods, along the road to Mornay. He walked at times, rode at times. Cloud had carried him quite a lot to start with, and he didn’t want to push Cloud to foolishness in his enthusiasm: it was possible to get a whole list of ailments from too much exertion at altitude and he’d heard them all from Ridley as well as Tara and Guil.
Miraculously, in Danny’s opinion, there hadn’t been any more Carlo-shaped holes in the snow, and the horse was traveling at a fair clip along the road, faster through the trees, which was generally a good idea, considering the habit of lorrie-lies and other such tree-dwellers that liked to fall on you from above. Cloud did much the same as he tracked Carlo and Spook.
He was resolved not to scare the horse twice. It hadn’t been the brightest move he’d made, coming up on that horse ambivalent about shooting. Now he was sure he wouldn’t. He tried, because Cloud could be a fairly loud horse when he wanted to be, to encourage Cloud to send out friendliness and goodwill to the ambient at large and an image of <Danny and Carlo riding side by side.> But no, Cloud wouldn’t. <Danny and Carlo> was the best he could manage, and Cloud gave a shiver and a twitch, just thinking about <male horse.>
There were tracks of game—though sign was rare, and totally absent along one area of the road, well-shaded and sheltered from the snow-fall, where he would have thought small tracks might have persisted. Nothing but themselves was moving about—he didn’t pick up the <rider on horse> view of things at ground level that the little spooks sent. But the snow had fallen thick and swirled in under the trees, while the little game, undisturbed by hunters, was in burrows. The silence was deep and wide across the mountain, a kind of breathless slumber, except for the track Spook laid down and the track he laid over it.
He thought that Carlo might be heading to Mornay on his own: Carlo might never have traveled in his life, but he was well familiar with the fact of the shelters. When in his first days with Cloud, and inexperienced as he was of the Wild, he’d taken out to the open, he’d had far better weather and no such shelters in reach.
<Shelter and warm mash,> he thought, <Danny and Cloud in the rider-shelter.>
Cloud shook his dark abundance of wooly mane and whipped his tail about.
<Fierce nighthorse male,> Cloud sent into the ambient, and Danny tried to think of <Danny and Carlo.> That didn’t make him or Cloud more comfortable. But he didn’t wantto challenge the whole ambient the way Cloud was minded to do, and he wanted <riding.> When Cloud let him up he wanted <going faster,> just because it seemed to him—
He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t put a name or a label to it—and nighthorses weren’t the only large hunters on the mountain. He’d long since put curves of the mountain face between him and Evergreen—a lot of them. And now, just since the last sharp curve, the nape of his neck prickled as they rode, which sometimes meant something watching—and sometimes didn’t. Sometimes it was just a human’s own imagination padding along behind him, never there when the rider looked back, and never close enough to leave tracks in the rider’s sight.
Which was ridiculous. If anything had been behind them, Cloud’s vision would have spotted it, Cloud’s horse-sense would have located it, Cloud’s knowledge of the Wild would have identified it with far more surety than a human could.
He just decided, in all that silence, not to call out to Carlo aloud as he’d sometimes done, and not to send so loudly as he’d been urging Cloud to do. He rode along through a shadow that deepened as they passed into woods. But past a little wooded spot and around a little curve, he found open road ahead.
And there—he was ever so glad to see—just past those last trees, a wall of logs. The Evergreen-to-Mornay shelter was ahead. He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t have to tell Ridley he’d missed this one in a snowstorm, and, thank God, despite the snow-fall, he hadn’t.
The road went past it. But the trail he was following didn’t go there. It veered off down a broad gap in the trees that led past the shelter, and just kept going.
Damn, he thought. A logging track, and Carlo had taken it, shying off from the cabin. He stopped Cloud, and stood looking down it. Snow-fall was thick enough the trail disappeared into white haze, along with the farther trees.
It might be stupid to follow. But hehad gear and a gun, and Carlo didn’t. Hecould stay on his horse, and he wouldn’t bet on Carlo’s chances if that trail led down to rough ground.
It was a question how hard to push Carlo, how hard to make him run. He didn’t want to create a disaster. It might be smarter to hole up for the night, use the supplies in the cabin to make a good hot supper and hope Carlo could smell it on the wind.