“Where did it go?” Jennie asked—justified question.
“Houses. It jumps and climbs.” <Lorrie-lie,> was what he was thinking. There was a snow ridge across the tracks and he rode Slip through it—picked up the trail of footprints on the other side, both scent and tracks, until it reached the Lasierres’ porch.
The Lasierres seemed <alive people, quiet inside the house.> He didn’t want to disturb them or have them unbolting doors to the night—and possibly they’d caught the disturbance and warning from their horses out on the street and were staying close by their fireside.
They made a circuit of the house. He rode in front. Callie and Jennie rode at a little distance back so they could get a vantage for firing at anything <dropping down on them.>
The tracks that had disappeared at the porch didn’t show up on any side. He considered the gap between the Lasierres’ roof and the Santezes’ roof, and it was wider than the gaps between most. But if whatever it was wasn’t lurking up there—it had jumped it and headed further up the street.
Silent in the ambient.
Slip sucked in a breath and blew it out again. <Bad smell.> There was thatto track it by, a muskiness Slip amplified for his senses.
Jennie was aching with <questions.> And <keeping quiet.>
“Horses don’t know what it is,” Callie said to her. “They’ve no clear image. We’ve never seen those tracks before, and they’ve never smelled it.”
“Let’s go back up the street,” Ridley said. “Get away from the overhangs.”
They did that, and rode up again past The Evergreen. “Fool-time,” Ridley said. He slid down, his dismount bringing Slip to a halt, and with Callie and Jennie to watch the roof edges, he went up the steps to try the door.
Locked, at least. Light came brightly through the frosted glass. He could see patrons inside through the clear lines in the etching. He could hear the talking stop as he knocked.
“It’s Ridley Vincint!” he called out to the occupants. “You don’t have to open the door—just take your drinks and get away from the glass! Get into the back room and lock the doors! Don’t come out! Something’s inside the walls and it’s traveling on the roofs! It’s killed Serge Lasierre! We don’t know what it is!”
A buzz of dismay broke out inside. They’d heard him. He didn’t wait for anyone to acknowledge the warning and he didn’t wait to argue or provide details. He went quickly down the steps and vaulted onto Slip’s back.
Telling the marshal had to be the next step.
Then all of them had to patrol the street until they had daylight to help them find a target.
And they could only hope daylight didn’t signal it to hole up somewhere in the village.
It was twenty-one and a stack of counters. Poker and twenty-one was what Darcy had played with Mark when they’d courted. She played twenty-one with Brionne between occasional moments that the storm-feeling grew terrible.
At such moments Brionne would rise from the table and pace the floor in an angry frenzy.
“Go away!” Brionne shouted now, and leapt to her feet, and looked up toward street level, which was well above the floor of the house’s sunken kitchen. “ Go away!” It was a scream, a shriek against which Darcy steeled her nerves, having determined that ignoring the behavior was the best course.
“Come back to the table, dear.”
“They’re hunting, is what they’re doing! The horses are hunting. But it’s too clever for them!”
“Dear—”
“I hope my brother dies!” Brionne cried. “You hear me? I hope he dies!”
“Dear—”
“Get away from me!”
Possibly hysterics had worked in a family that didn’t have normal mechanisms for a young girl getting attention. Perhaps that had been the mother’s tactic. Or perhaps shattering the other party’s nerves had been the way to win acquiescence or attention in that family. She refused to react at all. “Pick up your hand, honey. This could go on a long time. Sit down and concentrate.”
“My brother’s out there. My little brother. I can hearhim.”
“If the horses have come over, I do imagine they’ve brought him, too. I don’t need to hear the horses to understand that.”
“I hear them! I hear everything they’re thinking. They’re thinking, Let’s not let Brionne associate with us! We’re too good for Brionne. We’retoo important! They hate me! They’re too stupidto know I hear everything they’re thinking! Shut up, do you hear me?”
Pans littered the kitchen. This time Brionne picked up an iron skillet, whirled it around and let fly.
It hit the bottom cupboards and dented the door.
“Your deal,” Darcy said calmly. “Don’t pay attention to disagreeable people, dear. That’s the way to handle such things.”
“Do youhear them?”
“No, dear, I’m sure I don’t. I don’t hear horses.”
“I do. I hear them perfectly clearly. You hear me, Randy? You’re a brat! You’re an unspeakable little brat!”
“ Dosit down. I’d rather play cards than listen to them. Hadn’t you? They’re not important people.”
“They’re hateful. ”
“I know, dear, but it’s just no good worrying about other people. No one else in town can hear them. Whatever they think. So just tell them they’re hateful and sit down and let’s play cards.”
“I don’t like cards.”
“Well, what wouldyou like to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t we go into the sitting room and I’ll read to you.”
“Because I don’t want to!”
“You’d rather sit here and mope.”
“Yes!”
“What would make you happy? —Would you like to go to the store tomorrow? I’ll bet some of Faye’s things would fit you. And then you and I can go to the store and buy anything you like.”
Brionne drifted back to the table. “Anything?”
“The finest things in Evergreen. You and I will go to the tavern Saturday night and we’ll get a table. That’s where everyonecomes. And we’ll have the nicest clothes and all the young people will think you’re the prettiest girl on the mountain.”
Brionne sat down. “Do they have nice things in the store?”
“Oh, very nice. And if you don’t see what you like, we’ll go to the tailor and pick out patterns.”
“I want a fringed jacket. Just like the riders.”
“Well, I’m sure no village girl ever had a fringed jacket.”
“I wantone.”
A social disaster, Darcy thought. A religious calamity. Or a fashion. “We can haveone made. Of red suede. Would you like that?”
There were gunshots. She knew gunshots. She flinched in spite of herself, and dealt out cards, not asking a girl who didn’t know her own mind whether or not she would play.
“Someone’s shooting,” Brionne said.
“I’m sure it’s the riders after vermin. It’s perfectly fine.” She arranged her cards. “Oh, I think I can beat you with this.”
Brionne picked up hers and began to arrange her own hand. Brionne’s frown grew. Darcy wished she knew how to cheat at cards. Brionne was far happier when she was winning, and she wished she could arrange that a certain amount of the time.
Brionne simply could not add worth a damn.
Gunshots again. A lot of them. Brionne hadn’t wanted to go to bed. She’d wanted to sleep on the couch in the front room, but Darcy didn’t want that, thinking of the windows there.
And very quietly she went and got the gun from Mark’s office, and put it in the pocket of her robe, and came back to find Brionne sleeping, or seeming to, with her head down on her folded arms.