Finally Ann set down her needle. “I’m turning in,” she said, with a smile that invited him to do the same-—with her. It was wasted, and not just because he was so shortsighted—he was paying more attention to the boots than to her. Angrily clicking her tongue between her teeth, she got up and stalked away.
By then, hardly anyone was left around the campfires. Peet patched another boot or two, glanced in the direction Ann had gone. Odds were she’d still welcome him into her bedroll. She sympathized with his unending, agonizing frustration. He knew that. He was damned if he wanted her going to bed with him from sympathy.
That thought crystallized the decision that had been growing in him since he’d failed with the trader. He slammed a fist into the dirt, so hard he winced. Then he too rose and walked over to the little cart that held his meager wordly goods.
He ignored his bow and quiver. They were about as useful to him now as a hat on a frog. A mace, now—a mace was a proper weapon for somebody who couldn’t see what he was doing. The pouches on Snowdrop’s saddle held enough hard cheese and jerked beef to keep him from starving for a few days. He lifted the light rig off the cart, carried it toward the line of horses on the far side of the camp from the trader’s wagon—no sense giving a natural-born thief any unnecessary temptation, Peet thought with a grim chuckle.
He made no special effort to go quietly, not that he could have anyway. The challenge that came out of the night was both spoken and beamed: “Who goes?”
“Me, Djo Bob,” Peet beamed back. He could not see the sentry at all, which meant Djo Bob probably —he hoped—could not see him very well. “I’m just going out to see Snowdrop. You know how it is.”
“Sure, Peet. Go right ahead. I understand,” Djo Bob answered at once. He was a good fellow, Peet thought—a shame to deceive him this way. But he’d had a bellyful of sympathy. One more bite would choke him.
He sent out a mental call to his horse, was answered at once. He grinned—he had Sun and Wind with him for a change, at least in a small way. Snowdrop was at the far end of the line from Djo Bob. Peet hurried toward the beast.
Snowdrop whickered happily as Peet put the saddle over his back, then fell silent at his master’s urgent mental command. Peet untethered him, mounted. Slowly and quietly, he rode away from the camp. No further challenge from Djo Bob. Peet hoped the sentry would not get into trouble when he was discovered to have disappeared.
But Djo Bob was not the last of Clan Staiklee’s protectors. Peet was a mile or so from the fires when a prairiecat’s sharp question beamed into his mind: “Why are you riding off by yourself?”
“To make myself a man again, Crooktail,” Peet answered respectfully. “My eyes are too weak now to let me serve the clan as a man should. I am going to hunt for the lenses that will let me see properly.” Crooktail considered that, then asked, “Why by yourself?”
Peet shrugged, though he doubted the cat could see him. “As I am, I’m worthless. If I am lost hunting, the clan will not suffer because of it. That would not be so if anyone came with me.”
“You think like a prairiecat,” Crooktail beamed— the highest praise his kind could give. “Hunt well, Peet Staiklee.”
“I thank you, Crooktail.” Peet’s face was hot with pride. He felt the prairiecat withdraw from his mind. That too was a compliment; Crooktail must have decided he posed no danger to the clan.
Riding alone and near-blind in the dark, though, he was a danger to himself. Steering by the stars was no good for him—he could not see the stars. He could make out the moon, as a blob of light in the sky. It would do to guide him roughly south, toward the ruined ancient highway he remembered from last year’s journey into south Texas. The highway would eventually lead him to a town.
Of course, people had been picking through towns ever since the Great Dying. But who, he asked himself, would have wanted to carry off lenses useless even for starting fires? Some should still be in the ruins, if he could find them.
If . . .
Lenses, unfortunately, were not likely to be the only things in the ruins. “Well,” he said aloud, “that’s why I brought the mace along.”
Three days later, Peet came on the highway. He was on top of it before he knew it was there, in the most literal sense. What alerted him was the clop of Snowdrop’s hooves on old asphalt, very different from the softer sound they made on dirt.
He reined in, peered down. He could see the faded black asphalt through the dust that had blown over it. Raising his head, he made out more patches running in a line east to west, straight as a stretched string.
Which way? He left it to Snowdrop. The horse chose east, walking by the side of the ruined road. Peet did not try to make the beast stay on the asphalt; too much time on that hard surface would be bad for its hooves.
As he found an hour or so later, staying off the road had another advantage. Again, ears rather than eyes were what told him Snowdrop had walked over something strange. He dismounted to clear the dirt from it and find out what it was.
He’d come across two thin, flat pieces of metal. They had been facedown; paint still clung to them, and even where it was gone, reflectors and inset dots that showed where others had been let him pick out letters and words.
us 90 EAST was all one of the pieces said: a highway sign, Peet supposed, though he had trouble conceiving of a nation big enough to need ninety highways.
The other sign was more informative, UVALDE 17 MILES, Peet read slowly, LODGING, FOOD. GAS. Truly the folk who lived before the Great Dying were a considerate people, Peet thought. He could not imagine any taverner these days being so kind as to warn customers that his food would give them gas.
Seventeen miles . . . not quite a day’s ride, he thought. He would be in this Uvalde before noon tomorrow. Then he would search for—however long it took. Or until he starved, he added to himself. But if he starved, he’d be too dead to worry about glasses anyhow. Now, at least, he had a goal. He started to whistle. Snowdrop’s ears twitched at the sound.
That afternoon, Peet came to a little creek not far from the roadway. He rode over to fill his water bottle and let Snowdrop drink. He squinted, trying to make out why the land on the other side of the little stream looked different from his bank. It was greener, somehow.
He had just realized he was looking at cultivated ground when someone called to him, “Go your way, rider.” He jumped, turned his head toward the sound. Yes, that was a man there. He was holding something. It might have been a farm tool, it might have been a weapon. Peet could not tell.
He raised his empty right hand in the ancient gesture of peace. “By Sun and Wind, Dirtman, I have no quarrel with you and yours. If you harm me, though, Clan Staiklee will.” That was purest bluff, and Peet knew it. The farmer, though, would not.
“Drink your fill and go your way,” the man repeated, but he made no hostile move. Sensitive to tone, Peet could hear how cautious he was. That eased his own mind. If the Dirtman had a bow, he could pincushion Peet before the nearsighted nomad was sure he’d started shooting. But few farmers would casually take on a Horseclansman.
Peet said, “I’ll ride on soon. Tell me, though, if you will, what you know of the old town of, uh, Uvalde east of here. Is it pretty well preserved, or have the looters picked it down to bare bones?”
“Uvalde? You’re going to Uvalde?” The farmer dropped whatever it was he had in his right hand, made a violent crisscross gesture over his chest. Peet knew the motion had something to do with Dirtman religion.
With a sinking feeling, he asked, “Are there bandits holed up there, then?” If there were, they’d never tried raiding Clan Staiklee. That showed better sense than a lot of bandit bands had. The Horseclans made bad enemies, Clan Staiklee worse than most. Still, a single Horseclansman, especially one who could not use a bow, could not take on a robbers’ roost alone.