"Wo?" asked Meg, who was refilling the tea mugs.
"Lew Williams and Liz Brown."
"She's the Browns' eldest, isn't she?"
"Second eldest. Ruth's still single. —Hey, Meg, any chance in sight here at the station?"
"I doubt it," said Meg in a chill tone, and walked back to the fire. Amos looked at Merritt with a rather taken-aback expression, and made a silent whistle against his teeth.
"Sorry," Amos said.
Merritt shook his head slowly, stared into the tea mug, turned it slightly so that the reflection broke up. "No matter," he said.
"Tell them the rest," said a voice nearby, and Merritt turned at his place to look at Ken Porter, who was off-shift and sharing the next table with several other boys.
"Tell them where you spend your evenings," said the Porter boy. "And what with."
Merritt looked at him steadily, the rage knotted in his throat, robbing him of breath. Ken Porter was all of nineteen. He could stand up; he could beat the boy senseless or threaten to. There would still be the rest of Hestia. He did not move. Neither did young Porter. The boy smiled at him with the arrogance of youth.
"I don't think," said Amos, "that I'm much interested to hear."
"You're bound to," said the boy. "Tell them, Mr. Merritt where you go and what you do—tell them what you do when you're not telling us what to do."
Merritt came over to his bench and stared down at the youth, though Jim moved to stop him from any violence.
"I've told Tom Porter and I'm telling you: if you think you have any worthwhile ideas, get out there and use them. Or do I ever see you at anything on the job, but giving others trouble or standing off to one side hoping someone else will do your work. What are you good for, boy?"
Ken Porter came to his feet with an obscenity half-uttered, crashed back again under Merritt's backhand, spitting blood. The table cleared, the other youths going over benches to get out of the way. The Porter boy edged back too, and Amos Selby tried to push Merritt back to the table.
Merritt gave back, turned, stopped again with his eyes fixed on Meg, who was over by the fire. She had stopped with the big spoon for the stew in her hand, a bowl that she had filled; and she had not moved. Of a sudden she threw the spoon back into the kettle and walked forward, slammed the bowl down on the table in his place so that a great brown puddle of it spilled.
Merritt met that look she gave him only for a moment and then in spite of the Selbys or the others, he walked for the door, snatched his coat off the peg and left.
It was the latter edge of twilight in the forest, only enough light to see by in that place where Sazhje was usually waiting. Merritt walked it with looks to this side and that. From moment to moment on the way he had almost turned back, thinking of the danger here: of meeting others of Sazhje's kind, less kindly. He had come away with only the coat, no weapon, nothing.
"Sazhje?" he called, and again: "Sazhje?"
It took a while; it usually did. And then with a whisper of moving like wind through the bare branches, Sazhje was there. She stood still a moment, her eyes dilated, dark as the coming night, ears laid back. Then the ears flicked up to listen in his direction, and he knew she was reassured and would talk.
"Ssam? Ssam ahhrht?"
"Yes."
"Ap-ph? "
He instinctively felt of his pockets to see if he had anything to offer her. "No. Sam's sorry, Sazhje. No apple, no food."
He had expected her to be annoyed. She accepted the fact with a near approximation of a shrug, chirred softly and came to him. He sat down with her on a log they had used before.
"Come Sazhje," she said. "Ssam ahhrht?"
She was disturbed by the strangeness of the hour; it was beyond his power to explain it, and she simply caught his mood and leaned against his arm and patted his hand with what gentle comfort she could offer.
At last an idea seemed to come to her and she looked up at him. "Ssam—want? Food?"
"No," he said. "Sam doesn't want." He sat for a long while with his elbows on his knees and stared at the leaf-blanketed ground. "Talk, will you?"
"Sazhje talk. Want?"
"Sam doesn't know what he wants."
She looked up into his face. The moon had risen, and the clear down on her ears and body and head had silvered where the light touched it, bright as the moon itself. A long-fingered hand sought his and curled around his wrist.
"Ssam come?" she asked him, and drew him to his feet.
He had known she must have a place of her own not far from here. He had never found it, nor expected that she would show him that measure of trust. When he saw it, he knew that he would never have found it by searching.
There was a kind of burrow in the side of the ravine, deep within brush and between two large trees, partially roofed by their intertwined roots, a dark place, and ominous to a human. When she urged him to follow her farther he hesitated, but there seemed no harm intended, and the night was cold.
It was a clean place inside, larger than he had expected, lined with smooth dry leaves and pungent bits of evergreen, and with comfortably rounded sides… large enough even for a human to stretch out full length.
Sazhje stirred about, adjusting the burrow to her liking, smoothing leaves about. From some recess she produced a tidbit of smoked meat and offered it to him.
He refused it, from consideration of her want as much as from his own fastidiousness. She put it back in safekeeping and then settled down again next to him.
It was warm next her body heat, and sheltered as they were from the wind. After a time he stirred himself to take off his coat and to loosen his clothing, then settled down again in comfort. Sazhje nestled against him as close as she could, and he smoothed her downy back in a way that he knew made her happy.
Her arms went about him, and mischievously she teased the hair on the back of his neck, which she knew irritated him. He reached back and slapped at her fingers and she gave a chirr of laughter and did it again. This time he reached for her hand and held it, but after a moment she was bothering him again, ruffling the hairs at his chest. He slapped at her and she laughed again and bit him where his neck met the shoulder, enough to draw an exclamation of annoyance from him. He seized both her wrists, a little alarmed.
She let herself be wrestled down easily this time, and laughed, and he stared down at her face in the moonlight that reached them through the entrance—realizing with a sick shock that it was not a game she was playing.
"Sazhje," he said miserably, "you little idiot—"
She talked to him in her own tongue, linked her spidery arms about his neck and pulled her face up next to his. Merritt held her gently, and smoothed her hair and tried to talk to her. She burrowed her face under his chin and made small senseless noises at him—her sharp little teeth fastened in without hurting, though he could not but think what they could do.
"Sazhje," he said. "Sazhje, don't you know you're not the same as I am? Sazhje, stop it, Sazhje—no."
He jerked at her roughly; and she looked at him wide-eyed, ears back, lips parted so that he could dimly see those other than human teeth. For a moment he had to remember how deadly dangerous she could be when crossed, how quick and strong; and he knew her mood was not a reasoning one now. The ears stayed down, but he knew the eyes, so wistfully sad.
"Ssam," she said, and reached a long-fingered hand to his face. Her touch was very light, her peculiarly smooth fingers a strange sensation. "Ssam come Sazhje. No talk, Ssam, no, no talk. Good Ssam."
He had to smile. She threw back at him what he would say to her when she behaved. And Sazhje saw the smile and laughed and ducked her head against him, lifting it again to see his reaction.