“It’s probably the wick. Try the wick!”
He was far more interested in the gun he’d seen lying on the floor. But he wanted light to see what else he might be dealing with, and where shells and maybe food might be, if the vermin hadn’t gotten into this building, and by the evidence of two people alive, they hadn’t. He stripped off his right glove, felt after the lamp and, finding it, shook it.
There was a little slosh left, a very little. He shook it and tipped it to get oil up onto the wick—took the chimney off and, blind, turned the key to raise the unburned wick—a lot of it.
He spent a match. The dry, charred end of the wick went in a tall, extravagant flame, and the oiled part stayed lit as the rest fell away in ash.
He looked across the room—saw a woman’s body, grisly damage to the jaw from a gunshot, blood and bits of flesh spattering the walls.
Rifle on the floor, under her. <Moaning on the floor. Bleeding to death. Rogue-feeling. Gunshots in the village. Woman aiming at themand them yelling and screaming don’t—>
Not men. Two scared kids behind the bars—kids maybe not as old as he was, no coats, clothes blood-spattered, faces gaunt and eyes bruised from want of sleep—<wanting out, wanting, wanting, wanting—>
“There’s a key!” one told him, teeth chattering, and pointed through the bars. “In the drawer. In the desk drawer, get the key—”
“We told her come in with us, we begged her lock the door and get behind the bars, but they were all over the porch—”
The kid lost his voice. The other babbled out: “They kept jumping at the door, trying to get in—”
<Fear, scattering-apart.>
<Fire on window-glass. Rogue-feeling, outside the building—in the street.>
They began babbling, trying to tell him something, he couldn’t even track what it was, except desperation to be out of there. He searched the drawer, and the key they claimed was there—wasn’t. He found a box of shells, and set that on the desk. He kept looking, disarranged the desktop clutter, and found it.
“That’s it, that’s it!” the boys cried, and the younger-looking started sobbing—then yelped as a heavy body trod the steps outside and stopped as the steps creaked.
<Thin boards,> was Cloud’s opinion of the porch. Cloud didn’t want to risk it, and Danny didn’t want him trying: <nighthorse foot going through boards,> he thought; and with a shudder he bent to take up the rifle from under the dead woman. He had to tug the stock from under her leg.
“Who was she?”
“Peggy Wallace,” one answer came hoarsely. And: “The marshal’s wife,” the older boy said. “Tara Chang—one of the riders—she came. She wanted the marshal. Then—there were shots outside. There went on being shots—”
“It was a rogue,” the younger said, between chattering teeth. “Rogue horse.”
He was increasingly uneasy with every passing moment he was out of Cloud’s immediate reach. He had a gun in one hand. He picked up the box of shells, checked the caliber, found they matched and stuffed them in his pocket.
“You’ve got to let us out!” the younger said.
And the other: “Look, look, —I’m the one who belongs in here, my brother doesn’t. He didn’t do anything. Idid. God, he’s only fourteen. Get him out of here.”
“You’re both going,” Danny said, before the younger could set up a howl. “Wouldn’t leave a dead pig for the spooks. But you listen to me, do exactly what I say, and if I say move, you move, and if I say shut up, you shut up, and you don’t mess with my horse. He’ll kill you quicker than you can see it coming, you hear me? He’s not used to strangers. So you be real quiet and real fast to do what I say. Or you’re spook-bait. You got that clear?”
“Yes,” the answer was, both of them shaking-scared and throwing off <fear, fear, fear> that didn’t have a source or a point—it washed out their thoughts in a jumble of <scavenger> images and the <gun going off> and <nighthorse outside, and somebody they knew, but twisted, and wanting something, wanting someone, angry—and wanting to kill.>
His hand shook shamefully just getting the key in the lock. He shoved it in, turned it, and as he pulled the door open, the boys came pushing each other out—neither of them having a coat against the winter around them, no sweaters, no gloves, no light or heat. They’d had two blankets and each other, that was the only reason they hadn’t frozen when the heat died. Their shuddery breath frosted in the air.
“You get those blankets,” Danny said. “You’ll need everything we can find. I’ll get you out of here.”
“The rogue’s out there!”
“It’s not out there—but the gate’s open. It could have come in here any time it wanted. We’ve got my horse with us. We’re all right so long you do what I tell you and do it fast.”
“We got to find mama,” the younger said. “Carlo, we’ve got to find mama—”
“No chance,” Danny said brutally, but there wasn’t any faking it. He thought about the street and it probably carried. The kids reflected something back so scared, so full of blood and terror and sense of being stalked that he couldn’t get an image through it and didn’t have time to try. “Everyone’s gone or dead. We can probably find things the spooks didn’t get, but it’s not safe out there. I don’t want to get boxed in this far down the street. I want nearer that gate—if we can find anything left.”
“It couldn’t get in,” the older—Carlo—said. “It went all around the place—”
“It’s Brionne,” the younger broke in. “It was Brionne.”
<Blond girl, younger than either boy. Blond girl by the fireside.
<Man and woman and the boys angry and yelling.
<Gun going off. Carlo holding the gun. Anger. Hate. Man hitting Carlo… >
“Don’t tell him!” the younger cried, shaking at Carlo’s arm. “Don’t tell him, don’t think it, don’t think about it! He can hearyou!”
“Kid’s right,” Danny muttered. He didn’t like Cloud outside alone right now the way he didn’t likethe idea that Carlo’d shot a man. “What you did to get locked up—I don’t give a damn. We got to get a place we can hold out.” There had to be a lot of supplies and equipment in the village that the vermin hadn’t gotten. Guns. Shells. Knives. All the resources a village had inside it were still here. Had to be. He didn’t like taking stuff from dead people—but he wasn’t riding away from guns and shells and food that could make a difference in their survival, either.
And if they could find a hidey-hole he liked the look of, they could tuck into it until he could get sorted out. The village gate out there hadn’t looked to be damaged—just standing open.
Spooks could go over a wall. A horse couldn’t. A horse could trick you and spooks calling to you could make you open a door— but the rogue for all its strength couldn’t get in and it couldn’t for all its power make these kids open the bars without a key. Thatwas why they were alive.
“Woman saved your lives,” he said to them, searching the cabinet for shells. And found another box. “She could’ve been a fool and opened that front door. Bars wouldn’t stop the little ones. They’d have got you. She knew she was going to do it and she shot herself instead. You don’t ever forget that woman’s name, you. Hear me?“
The older one held onto the younger. The younger kid was crying. He guessed by that he’d scared them enough—but she’d been a woman with the guts to stop it all when she started going under its influence. The only better thing she could have done was come in with them, shut the doors and throw the key out, if she’d had her head clear.
But no question, once the spooks started clawing at that door, she was lucky to have found the trigger once.