There were, Tara said, logging shelters and miners’ cabins, and she knew with a local rider’s knowledge where they were.
There was supposedly such a shelter ahead of them on their ascent, not of the road, but of the broad mountain face. It was a shelter, as Tara had imaged it, <clinging precariously to the mountainside, buried among the evergreens.>
But thus far Guil saw it only through the inner eye, in Tara’s memory of a summer approach to the place, <miners wary of approach,> and not the sort she’d care to overnight among. The image was <gray rock, dark evergreen, small patches of snow among the trees.>
The reality was <evergreen branches drooping low into the snow blanket, rocks and ledges lurking hazardously under snow> and it was a good thing, Guil thought, that they had two experienced high-country horses feeling their way through the snow, knowing by the way trees grew and brush situated itself that there might be a ledge, knowing the soft, attractive snow was not at all reliable. It wasn’t a rapid progress and, hazy as the snow-sifting branches had become to Guil’s perception, he walked, or staggered, used Burn’s tail to help him up the generally steep slopes.
It wasn’t Burn’s favorite way to make a climb, with a human pulling on a fairly important part of Burn’s dignity, but Burn tolerated it, as Burn tolerated the baggage knocking about his ribs, <nasty thumpy things,> because otherwise his rider wasn’t going to be able to follow Tara and Flicker up this damn slope—and that would have meant Burn, torn between <Guil> and <Flicker,> faced an unthinkably inconvenient choice.
Which would of course be <Guil,> but damnably dreadful to make.
<“Burn…” waiting.> Guil didn’t talk out loud much at all—or hadn’t, until the last few days. He didn’t know when he’d last had someone to talk to—last time he’d ridden with Aby, he guessed; but it surprised him, now, the unaccustomed word coming out of his mouth, the way it surprised him that the snow was so gray and the world that was going around in such an unaccustomed way.
It was a very inconvenient place to fall. He had empty air at his back, rock under his feet, and feeling himself overbalanced, he grabbed a sapling evergreen, which bent, but which kept him on his feet and on the small ledge somewhere on a fairly steep slope. Even when the whole world went <gray> and an attempt to find footing failed; he only swung around with the tree in his embrace—facing he wasn’t quite sure what direction, but it felt like sideways on the mountain.
“Guil? Guil, hang on!”
“Oh, I will,” he said, and kept his arms full of tree, hoping that his sight would come back—he had Burn’s view of <nightmare’s rump> and <worried Tara standing on the crest,> but he didn’t think that was directly in front of him. It seemed rather, like the rest of the mountain, somewhat to the side and behind him.
That persuaded him, along with the general inclination of the very flexible, smelly and prickly sapling, which stabbed right through his gloves and through a gap that had developed between his glove and his jacket cuff, that if he let go he’d fall—which would hurt his side and his headache far worse than hanging on was hurting him. So he clung.
Eventually he heard, through the gray that beset his vision, the scrabble of human feet and felt <worried Tara> much closer to him.
“Here.” A hand closed on his arm. “I’ll steady you.”
“I’m not seeing.”
“You can’t see?”
“It’s not bad. It’ll come back.”
“The hell it’ll come back!”
“A little knock on the skull. A while back. I’m just dizzy.”
“But you can’t see.”
“It’ll go away.”
“You’re a damn fool, Guil!”
“Just wait here a minute.”
“You should have told me you were having blackouts!”
“Just gray. It’s fine.” He blinked several times. He could see <Guil holding tree and Tara with Guil> quite plainly, looking down on the scene and slightly overlapped—his brain having temporarily lost the knack for sifting skewed images into one image. It made him dizzier, and for a moment he thought he was going to lose his breakfast into the bargain, which might make him let go of the tree.
Not a good idea.
And he supposed if it were just him and Burn, Burn would get back down here and give him something besides a tree to hold to; Burn had four feet, and he’d feel a lot better about that, than about Tara’s trying to pry him loose.
“You can’t hold me,” he said.
“I want you to put your arm around my shoulder and I want you to put your right foot in the direction I go. All right?”
“You can’t hold me.”
“Shut up and let go! We’re not that far from the shelter. Trust me, hear?”
He let go. He didn’t grab her, fearful of dragging her off if he slipped, trusting if they slid, her instinct would save her; and he’d try for the tree. He could see a bit—at least a blur of white and gray that was snow and rock. He could see through Tara’s eyes, clearer than that, once the human brain decided which view of things was compatible with where two human bodies were standing. Once he had that, he could climb, using her balance and her sight, up that slope to where two horses waited anxiously.
“Sit down?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, and found a rock and rested there until the blood got back to his brain or away from it or whatever unnatural condition was causing the gray-out.
Then he saw a log cabin in front of him.
“We’re here,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re here. Mining camp. Halfway to the upper road.”
He said, on a copper-tasting breath and with a pounding headache: “Told you I could do it.”
Preacher John Quarles came to call at the clinic in the morning. John’s mother had sent over a cake, which came welcome.
“Is it true?” John asked. “Has the little girl waked?”
“Yes,” she said. She didn’t want John to go and pray over her, but she didn’t see any way out. She brought him upstairs, where the sunlight through white curtains, on white lace and yellow walls, made the girl so beautiful she liked just to look at her at this hour.
Brionne had actually been reading—one of Faye’s books, that lay beside a white hand on the lace and satin coverlet. Brionne had nodded off, as she would almost every page.
“She’s very weak yet,” Darcy said in a hushed voice. “She asked for books. But she tires very quickly.”
“An angel,” John said, and launched into a quiet little prayer for “the Lord’s own little miracle.”
Brionne never stirred.
Darcy led her visitor downstairs again and, in the obligation to social courtesy, found herself comfortable with the visit—actually found herself in a buoyant mood as John sat and shared tea and cookies.
“Truthfully,” John said, “it wasn’t just the cake that brought me. I wanted to be sure you were aware—” John cleared his throat. “I trust there’ve been no visits from Simms.”
“For what?” She reacted to every breath of wind that threatened the girl staying here. She’d come to hope—so much. And they couldn’t change the arrangement. She didn’t want to deal with lawyers.
God, did he suspect? Did he know it mattered that much?
“Knowing that child’s welfare is precious to you,” John said, “I think you should petition the court for guardianship—and have her rights protected.”