At least the porridge is fairly good. Smells nice, too, like fresh-baked bread, and it tastes a little sweet. Maybe molasses-and-rolled-oats livestock feed?
"We got to work right away, because of that. And we were lucky," Finney said, after they'd bowed their heads for grace. "Real lucky," he went on, beaming at his son and daughter and their spouses and his grandchildren and one wiggling pink great-grandchild.
Edward Finney shrugged; he was a square-built man in his forties, a compromise between his mother's stocky frame and his father's lean height. The erect brace of his shoulders showed the legacy of twenty years in the Air Force.
"We were lucky to get out of Salem before everything went completely to hell," he said. A grin. "Looks like I'm going to be a farmer after all, like Dad wanted. And my kids after me."
"Not just farming," Luther said grimly.
His eyes went to the door. Outside in the hallway chain mail shirts hung on the wall, with swords and crossbows racked near them, and pikes slung from brackets screwed into the ceiling.
"Well," he went on to Juniper. "Things are looking up, provided we can keep this sickness away; the doctors have some medicine left, but not much. The first of the garden truck looks set to yield well-I give those people at the University that, they busted their: butts getting seed out to everyone and into the ground, and we've laid claim to a fair piece of fall-seeded wheat. Lord, though, doing everything by hand is hard work! If we could get some more harness stock, that would be grand-that team of yours would have been real useful around here."
"Cagney and Lacey are useful around our place too, Luther."
He nodded. "I expect they were, but if you can spare any: We stopped using horses when I was about twelve, but I remember how."
"We could use more stock too," she said happily. "But my people were going to try scouting east for them." Then: "About this committee running things here, Luther-"
"Back!" Havel shouted as the crossbow bolt buzzed past his ears.
All three men spun their mounts and went crashing through greenery and lawn until they were out of range- a hundred yards was plenty, unless the crossbowman was a crack shot. He blessed Will Hutton's liking for nimble quarter horses and his training of man and beast; and the wide sweep of Larsdalen's lawn made it next to impossible for anyone to sneak up on them.
One nice thing about horses was that for the first ten miles or so they were a lot faster than men on foot.
"Christ Jesus, what the fuck do you people think you 're doing? " Havel shouted, rising in his stirrups to shake a fist at the window.
"They weren't trying to kill us, Boss," Josh said.
"I know that, or I wouldn't be trying to talk," Havel snarled. "But anyone who got in the way of that bolt would be just as dead, accidentally or not. What sort of idiot fires a warning shot that close without a parlay?"
Eric was flushed with anger too. He pushed his helmet back by the nasal and called out: "What are you doing in my family's house?"
A voice came from the same upper window, thin and faint with distance: "Who the hell are you, mate?"
Havel blinked at the harsh almost-British accent: An Aussie, by God. What in the hell?
"Mr. Zeppelt?" Eric said, still loud but with the anger running out of his voice. "What are you doing here?"
"Eric? Your pa bloody well hired me, didn't he, sport? I've been looking after the place and the staff."
"Wait a minute," Havel said, baffled. "You know him?"
"Well, bloody hell," the voice from the house said, dying away.
A few moments later the doors opened and a short stout man with a crossbow in his arms came out; he was balding, with a big glossy-brown beard falling down the front of his stained khakis. A tall horse-faced blond woman with an ax followed him. Several other figures crowded behind her.
"That you in the Ned Kelly suit, Eric-me-lad?" the man called. "Who're your cobbers? S'truth, it's good to see yer! C'mon in and have a heart starter-we're a bit short of tucker, but there's some neck oil left."
Chapter Twenty
"For the road is wide and the sky is tall
And before I die, I will see it all!"
J uniper Mackenzie broke off at the chorus as three armed figures stepped into the roadway. She stopped her bicycle and leaned one foot on the dirt road and called a greeting, putting a hand up to shade her eyes against the bright spring sun. Judy Barstow stopped likewise, and Vince and Steve waved hellos of their own; the rest of their party stopped as well, uncertain.
They'd all relaxed now that they were well into the clan's land-past the Fairfax place, and just where the county road turned north along Artemis Butte Creek-and they'd been singing from sheer thankfulness, despite the bone-deep ache of exhaustion.
Homecoming was sweet almost beyond bearing.
"Hi, Alex, Sam," Juniper shouted, returning their waves of greeting as she swung her other foot down and started pushing the bicycle towards them. "Merry meet again!"
Alex had his bow over his back, a buckler in one hand and a spear in the other; six feet of ashwood, with a foot-long head made from a piece of automobile leaf spring. He leaned the spear against a tree to put a horn to his lips-it was the genuine article, formerly gracing the head of a cow-and blew one long blast and three short ones, a blat-ting huuuu noise not like any sound metal had ever made.
Then he grinned and waved it overhead as the bicyclists approached. The other two slipped their arrows back into their quivers-which meant poking a razor blade on a stick past your ear, so you had to be careful-and tapped their longbows on their helmets in salute. One was stocky and broad-shouldered, unmistakable even in green jack and helmet and:
And a kilt, by Cernunnos! Dennie's got them all doing it, the black-hearted spalpeen!
"Glad to see you've got them alert, Sam," she said to the Englishman. "That's the second time I've been stopped!"
Because one guard post at the border isn't enough, curse the expense and lost work of it!
The other archer was a lanky blond girl in her late teens, and definitely not a member of coven or clan that Juniper remembered, despite the Mackenzie sigil on her jack-the crescent moon between elk antlers.
"Cynthia?" Juniper said. What's a Carson doing on sentry-go for us? "Does your family know you're here?"
"My folks are up at the Hall, Lady Juniper; it's Cynthia Carson Mackenzie now," the girl replied with self-conscious dignity.
Juniper felt herself flush slightly, and Alex gave her a wink as he leaned on his spear, grinning.
Goddess, it's embarrassing when people call me that!
So was the growing practice of calling her cabin the Chief's Hall. Dennie's fault again, she thought. And he's enjoying doing it to me!
"Dennie and Chuck can give you the whole story about the Carsons and the Smiths," Alex said. "Hey, fancy armor-where'd you get it? Who are the new folks?"
Juniper wasn't in a jack herself. She wore a thigh-length, short-sleeved tunic of gray-brown chain mail.
"Corvallis; and these are three of my coveners-made it out of Eugene after the Change and were on their way here, and a couple of-but you'll all get the full tale of our travels at dinner in the Hall," she said, retaliating a little for frustrated curiosity.
"Pass then, Lady Juniper," Alex said formally, rapping his spear on his buckler and stepping aside; Cynthia and Aylward tapped their helmets again.
The travelers pushed their bicycles upslope. Judy Barstow leaned over and whispered in her ear: "Maybe you should have taken a horse anyway, Lady Juniper," she said. "More dignified, for the exalted chieftain of the Clan Mackenzie: "
"Oh, go soak your head, you she-quack," Juniper grumbled, sweating as they pushed their bicycles up the slope.