"Ma'am," he said, taking off his hat. "Will Hutton, at your service. Ladies, gentlemen."
You know, it's been weeks since I saw a black person, she thought suddenly.
That brought a momentary pang for the thronging many-threaded tapestry of life before the Change; even his accent was nostalgic, a twanging drawl from off the southern plains, Oklahoma or Texas.
"Mr. Hutton," she said, rising and extending a hand. "Mike Havel told me a great deal about you."
"Likewise, Lady Juniper," he said.
His grip had the careful gentleness of a very strong man. And his hand was callused in a way that spoke of hard work long before the Change, battered and a little gnarled-the hands of someone who labored outside in all weathers. Otherwise he was unremarkable, middle-aged and wiry save for broad shoulders: and a steady shrewdness about the eyes.
One of the ranchers blurted: "You're this Lord Bear we've heard about?"
"No, sir, I am not," Hutton said with dignified politeness, unbuckling his sword belt and handing it to one of the troopers before he sat. "I'm ramrod and second-in-command of our outfit, and I have full authority to negotiate for the Bearkillers."
"Wait a minute," another rancher said. "Hutton: didn't you used to ride roughstock? Saw you at the Pendleton Round-Up back in 'seventy-five, 'seventy-six-that was one mean bull."
Hutton smiled whitely; it made his rather stern, weathered brown face charming.
"Long time ago," he said. "Been wranglin' horses since 1977, until the Change."
"I've talked to men who bought horses from you."
That seemed to break the ice. Hutton made a motion with his hand, and one of the armored men took off his helmet. It was the blond young man she'd met with Havel that spring; looking older and tougher now, his beard a little less fuzzy and a recently healed scar on his chin.
"This here is my aide-de-camp"-Hutton pronounced the words as if he'd learned them from a French speaker-"Eric Larsson; our bossman's going to be married to his elder sister, Signe. We're headed for the old Larsson place west of the Willamette. He's engaged to my daughter Luanne."
The ranchers nodded; they understood blood ties, and that Hutton had made good his claim to be high in the Bearkiller hierarchy. Now that the elaborate panoply of bureaucracy and cities and civilization was gone, such things were beginning to take on their old importance.
Juniper sighed to herself. Oddly sweet, those few days. But not lasting: she set a hand on her stomach: except for the consequences!
"And this is his younger sister, Astrid, who's here 'cause she sketches good; she's got drawings that'll interest you gentlemen."
A coltish teenager; you could see Eric's chiseled Nordic looks in her face, but finer-boned, almost ethereal; and the eyes were remarkable, huge and pale, blue rimmed and streaked with an almost silver color. Her outfit looked a little like something you'd have seen at a RenFaire before the Change, or a Society meeting-Robin Hood gear, but in good-quality leather, and showing signs of hard use. Juniper's dirk stood at her waist, and a beautifully crafted bow and quiver over her shoulder.
Eric was standing near Juniper. She could hear his sotto voce murmur:
"And with luck, she won't have put in any unicorns or trolls."
The girl glared at him, but silently. Her fingers moved in patterns Juniper recognized.
So did Eilir, and she leaned forward from her position behind her mother's chair and replied: You know the Sign for abortion and bad odor and completely unnecessary person?
Astrid's white-blond mane tossed as she nodded: I've been studying Sign all summer.
From a book, I bet, Eilir replied. You need to know some stuff they don't print – the Sign for creep and jerk and moron. How come you were studying, though?
Ever since I got this utterly rad dagger from your mom and heard about you guys. Are you really Witches? This is so interesting!
Juniper ignored the byplay-one of the convenient things about a Sign conversation was that you didn't have to overhear it-and spoke aloud:
"I don't think your people need to stand there being uncomfortable, Mr. Hutton. There's plenty to eat and the dancing will go on for hours."
He nodded to her, and then to Eric. The younger man spoke: "Stand easy-friendly country protocol."
Hutton relaxed and turned for a moment to put his mug under the spigot: she noticed that he hadn't eaten or drunk before his men could. The menacing iron statues turned human as they came out from behind the nasal-bars of their helmets, grinning and nudging each other as they moved off to shed their armor; then they headed for the food tables, and any interesting conversations they could strike up-being figures of strangeness and glamour, that ought not to be very difficult.
Eric disarmed too, but came back quickly.
"Sorry we're a bit late," Hutton said easily, then took a draught. "My oh my, I've missed a good beer! Yeah, we had a little bandit trouble gettin' over the pass."
"Serious?" Sam Aylward asked.
"Not for us," Hutton said with a grim smile.
Chuckles ran around most of the men at the table. Juniper winced inwardly, then spoke herself: "Now, you've all heard of the Bearkillers?"
The ranchers nodded; so did Luther Finney and Jones, though their information all came through her. One of the ranchers spoke: "Yeah, we're in touch with Pendleton, and they've done some good work there-honest crowd, from what we hear. Helped keep trouble off their necks while they got the harvest in, was what we heard."
Another nodded: "And I know Hank Woburn up Grangeville way, in Idaho. Couple of messages passed through with travelin' folk."
He looked around. "Remember, I told everyone about it? That thing with the guy who called himself Iron Rod. These Bearkillers, they cleared that up."
Hutton nodded. "We didn't plan it that way, not at first, but it turned out that about all we've done since the Change is fight, train to fight, and work on our gear. Now we've got near two hundred first-rate cavalry, about the only ones around: and war-engines, too; also about the only ones around, outside, Portland. Quite a few folks have tried to tangle with us, and a few of 'em have regretted it ever since."
"Only some? What about the others?"
"Dead, mostly."
That got a real chuckle. "But one thing we've noticed, comin' west. After the Change, the worst problems people had were the work of this Protector fella, over to Portland.
Iron Rod, he was gettin' help from there direct, and he wasn't the only one. Things've been bad enough, with someone stirring the stewpot."
Juniper nodded. "We had a fight with a group of his men too, back around Lughnassadh, late July. They tried to move in and build a fort and start demanding taxes and labor from everyone around here. They have moved into a lot of the northern and eastern side of the Willamette- and the Columbia Gorge, you'll have heard about that."
She turned to the ranchers. "We've been able to help each other a good deal, but you know what a handicap it's been not to be able to use Highway 20 regularly."
The man who seemed to be the ranchers' main spokesman nodded thoughtfully, reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt for tobacco and papers. When she nodded he rolled himself a cigarette and spoke through the smoke:
"Eaters and rustlers and plain old-fashioned bandits. Figured winter'd take care of them, though. Next year we could clear the road of what's left."
Ouch, Juniper thought. He means people starving, freezing, dying of typhus, and eating each other.
"Well, you won't have to worry about them anymore," Juniper said grimly. "About three weeks ago, nearly a thousand of the Protector's men came down I-5, turned east and destroyed Lebanon. Destroyed most of it, took over what was left. You can hear firsthand accounts of what they did then."