Another pat of Jonas’ unwelcome hand, and Jonas wasn’t even talking to him. Jonas was thinking about a building somewhere else, a place with bars on the windows, a jail, Danny thought at first, and then thought not, it was a business. “Has he,” Jonas asked, “got a draw on Aby’s account?”
The question surprised Hawley, angered Hawley. Danny didn’t know why. Then it seemed to perplex Hawley, who scratched his stubbled chin. “Hell. She never said.”
Jonas asked: “How much was in there?”
“Healthy amount,” Hawley said sullenly. “It’s not his.”
What did they do? Danny wondered. It sounded like an account at a bank, and money the dead rider had had there—that they thought Stuart might have gone to get.
There was an uneasiness in the air, Hawley’s Ice, Cloud, Jonas’ Shadow all suddenly on edge. Jonas wasn’t at all happy.
Hawley wasn’t.
Hawley had gotten the money the dead rider owned, out of a bank, somewhere not in Shamesey—which was maybe Anveney. Danny didn’t know about banks or how you got money out of them. He’d never been inside one. Papa kept his money on him, or in the hiding-place under the floor, which he didn’t want to think about with these men seeing it…
“Kid,” Jonas said sharply, and laid a hard hand on his knee. Shook at him.
“Sorry.” He knew he’d slipped this time, and dangerous men were close to anger with each other all around him, a long lonely way from anywhere.
“No,” Jonas said. “We’re not angry, boy. Hawley has a right to the money. He’s her kin. He evidently proved it to the bank.” <Jonas and Hawley at a counter, or something like, a woman talking to them.> “Just, it’s a damn complication.” <Stuart with his back turned, Stuart walking somewhere in town streets. Stuart with this same bank employee woman.>
<Aby Dale,> another sending imaged. <Red-haired little girl, big black horse.> But the sending stopped in anger.
“Everybody calm down,” Luke said. “Just calm down.”
“The damn kid’s a distraction,” Hawley muttered.
“You went in there,” Jonas said, “you took that money out.”
“I had a right!”
“You could have by-damn said, Hawley!”
“I’m onthat account. Look, I’m her cousin.”
“Dammit, Hawley!”
“If you had a word you could have said it, Jonas. You knew I was going to the bank. What did you think I was going to do? I got the card. She give me the card.”
“Calm down,” Luke said. “Hawley, it’s all right. You did all right.”
“Yeah, all right,” Jonas said. “If he goes there, if he knows about the money—”
“I had a right!” Hawley said.
“You had a right,” Luke said. “There’s no question you had a right. —Danny, you want to get up and move the horses back? Do us a favor?”
“Yes, sir,” Danny said, and got up—the horses were crowding in, snappish and pushy with the argument. He gave a shove at Cloud. <Cloud in the dark, away from the fire. Danny, too.> That was easy, another, harder push on Cloud’s shoulder, Cloud’s understanding that they were both to leave the fireside, but dealing with the other horses was a scary matter. The seniors’ horses didn’t want any town kid pushing them around, didn’t want to take orders from him—
He walked in among them and suddenly a queasy darkness flittered through his mind, shapes and shadows and a violence that sent him a step back, disoriented. <Bite. Kick> was in the ambient, from two sides. “Cloud!” he said, and made a futile grab at Cloud’s mane as horses squealed and heads darted past him, teeth bared, big bodies swinging about perilously close to him as shoulder hit shoulder.
Another spin. Cloud and Shadow. Heels flew past him and he jumped back barely in time.
“Shadow!” Jonas shouted.
It just stopped, horses jogged past each other in abortive attack. Shadow’s teeth snapped on empty air. Cloud’s heels kicked up and managed to miss.
He was shaking. <Cloud and Danny walking,> he insisted, furiously, and <quiet horses grazing,> but he couldn’t call their true names in his head, not with the knowledge their riders had; and meanwhile their riders were having an argument at the fireside. They wanted himout of the way because he was loud—and the horses were on edge, with each other and with Cloud on general principle. He tried to calm tempers all around, imaging <quiet grass,> but he couldn’t call the silent names, not the way their riders could.
He’d seen Shadow’s name when the fight started, that fluttering succession of treacherous shadow-shapes. It was a dreadful name— he truly didn’t mean to think in that hostile way of Jonas’ horse, but it wasn’t a name that slid easily past the nerves. He’d mistrusted that horse from the first moment he’d dealt with it, and he didn’t turn his back on it—he was scared of that horse in a way he’d never had to be scared of a horse.
And in the aftermath of the encounter he’d just had, when he recalled Shadow’s heels flying past his head, he was twice afraid. He didn’t want to think of what could have happened to him if he’d not moved fast enough or if the fight had gotten serious with him in the midst of the horses.
Which wasn’t the way to deal with horses at all. He fought his townbred nerves. He tried to separate them out, put Cloud to one side and keep the other three from snapping at each other or him, and they kept getting around him to make another sniping attack.
“Here.” Luke Westman came to help him, clapped him on the shoulder, which did nothing to help his knees, and shoved Shadow out of a not-entirely-inquisitive approach with the back of his fist—swatted Shadow hard on the rump when he didn’t retreat. <Danny swatting Shadow,> came into Danny’s head— hefor God’s sake hadn’t thought it, he was scared even to think of hitting that horse—Luke had launched that threat into the ambient on his behalf, Behave or the kid will hit you.
He didn’t think it a help. But Luke waved Froth away from him and came close up on Cloud.
“What’s his name?” Luke asked, meaning the inside name, the real name Cloud called himself—but he wasn’t sure that Cloud wanted Luke to know that name. Cloud was laying his ears back and wrinkling his nose as was, and he didn’t answer Luke. He just shoved at Cloud’s chest and wanted him apart from the seniors and their horses.
“Be careful of him,” Danny said. “Cloud, behave. Don’t bite.”
“He won’t bite,” Luke said, taking something from his pocket.
He held it out. Froth muscled in and got the treat. Candy. Cloud wanted it. But Ice sneaked his head in and got the next one Luke magicked out of his pocket.
<Cattle,> Cloud sulked, and then Shadow intruded, slipped up behind Froth and Ice so slyly and so smoothly Danny didn’t see him until Shadow’s neck snaked out and Shadow nipped the third candy Luke’s pocket produced. Cloud was outraged.
But immediately Luke’s other hand was out, offering one to Cloud… < sweet, delicious sweet > was the image in the ambient, from Luke and the horses, Danny realized, and felt Cloud wanting it, inching toward it. Sugar-candy was what he’d promised Cloud for good behavior, when he hadn’t had one, and there it was, not from his hand, but from Luke’s.
Cloud’s mouth was watering, <Cloud sneaking it right off that hand, hating that cattle horse licking the man’s other fingers, ugly shifty horse… >
Cloud was going to—
“Fingers!” Danny said, earliest manners-lesson Cloud had had to learn, where treats stopped and a rider’s fingers began.
But Luke had curled his hand around to hide the treat for a second, then showed it again, just halfway, teasing, did it twice, blink of an eye, had something else out of his other pocket, in his other hand, that Shadow got before Shadow created a fuss.
Cloud’s head darted out, Luke’s hand wasn’t there, and Cloud jerked… except there was the candy again, quick as a blink, right there, <sugar-smelling, fruit-smelling, sweet—>