“So,” he went on, “they’ve got you out meetin’ und greeting?”
“I’m officer of the watch!” Mark said; his voice rose and cracked slightly, and a fiery blush ran over his fair skin.
Then he nodded at the tented encampment. “It’s Ensign Mark Vogeler, First Richland Volunteer Cavalry, now. Nobody passes wit’out being recognized.”
“Well, I sure hope you recognize me, nephew,” Ingolf said, in lieu of anything more sensible. “Seeing as I put you on your first pony. Ummm. . Where’s Ed?”
“Dad’s over to the house, out front, last I saw them, with Mom. Talking wit’ a messenger from Richland Center. Uh, pass, friend!”
They legged their horses up to a canter for the last thousand yards.
“He reminds me of me.” Ingolf chuckled when they were far enough away not to be overheard.
“He’s cute. But then, so are you,” Mary said.
She winked, then rubbed at her eye patch. “Ai! I’m still not used to the way that makes me blind for a moment.”
Ed was looking harassed and talking to his wife, Wanda, and both of them were tossing instructions at people who came and went; he was also looking pretty much the way Ingolf suspected he himself would look in fifteen years or so, if his scalp started showing well above the forehead through thinning brown hair-that was on exhibit, as Ed Vogeler swept off his feedstore cap and crushed it in one big knobby fist and pulled in a thunderous curse-and if he let himself develop a beer gut. The thought made him suck in his own stomach a little as they swung down from their horses and handed the reins to a stablehand to be led away, though there currently wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh in the two hundred pounds of muscle that covered his broad-shouldered, big-boned frame.
Not after the things I’ve done these last few years, almost none of which have involved sitting around knocking back the brewskis. Mind you, Wanda brews the best and runs a mean kitchen too.
“So you tell Bill Clements it’s his job to get that fixed!” the Sheriff said to a wiry man in dusty leathers. “Uff da, try collecting any taxes if she goes and we get a flood!”
The courier nodded respectfully, swung into the saddle, and cantered off northward with two remounts behind him on a leading rein.
Then: “Ingolf!” Ed said, smiling, and they shook hands. “How’s by youse?”
“Ingolf! Mary!”
Wanda hugged him, and then her; she was a motherly-looking blond woman in early middle age, wearing a kerchief around her hair today, and a set of overalls with garden dirt on the knees. And in Ingolf’s considered opinion she was more than half the brains of the Sheriff Vogeler outfit, and three-quarters of the ability to judge people.
Besides being a first-rate manager. She ran the indoor part of the homeplace, which meant everything from the dairy’s butter and cheese to carpet-making, and directing the labor of dozens. But something’s bothering her badly, underneath.
“What’s the Bossman done now?” Ingolf asked.
“It’s dat. . goddamned dam up at La Farge. I wish they’d never built it!”
“Pretty lake,” Ingolf said, remembering trips there. “Good fishing, too.” He frowned at a memory. “Didn’t Dad say they nearly didn’t build it?”
“Finished just before the Change. Und now the intake tower’s blocked and we’re having a hell of a time getting it cleared.”
The Sheriff crushed the billed cap again; it was pre-Change, a badge of rank, and he made himself relax with obvious effort.
“Glad to see you made it,” he said gruffly.
“Most of us made it,” Ingolf corrected, his tone grim. His eyes looked beyond the busy scene for a moment. “Most.”
“Yah, we figured Pete wasn’t coming back when he didn’t show up after a couple of months. Seeing as he wasn’t planning on going all the way east with you.”
“Jackie? How’s she taking it?”
“Hard, what would you expect? She moved back to her folks over in Forest Grove a couple of weeks ago, wit’ da kids. But when a woman marries a man thirty years older, what can she expect?”
Wanda made a stifled gesture, as if she’d prevented herself from slapping her husband upside the head only by an act of will. Ingolf gave a silent woof of relief, even though it made him feel a little guilty; Pierre Walks Quiet had married one of the abundant widows and started a second family here after he drifted in from the North Woods early in the Change years, on the run from one of the grisly little massacres that had punctuated those times. He’d ended up as timber-runner and game manager for Ingolf’s father, who had an eye for ability, and he’d taught woodcraft to the Sheriff’s children too.
That his wife had moved out meant Ingolf wouldn’t have to tell her and the children about the old Indian’s death personally. Though there were far worse ways to go; he’d died with his face to an enemy worth fighting, knowing he’d won, and he’d gone quickly and without much pain. Nobody lived forever, and seventy-odd was a good long time these days.
“He died up in the north country,” Ingolf said somberly. “On the Superior shore this side of Duluth, a few weeks after we left, fighting the Cutters and their local converts among the wild-men. And a couple of the Southsiders died too, and Odard later. . long story.”
And damn, I miss Odard. Which is crazy because I didn’t like him much, or he me. He was too full of himself even after he’ d gotten over some stuff and he was a lot fonder of being Heap Big Baron than he should have been, and he liked needling people too much, and thought he was smarter than he was, and. . but he was a good man to have at your back. I wish we still had him.
Mary squeezed his hand; he knew she missed the Baron of Gervais too, although the Havel sisters had had a half-joking, half-serious running feud with him most of their lives. It was amazing how you could get to knowing what was in a woman’s head if you were together long enough. He never had been before.
And I like it.
Ed nodded, and Wanda went around and pushed them all indoors.
“In! We don’t talk out on the step wit’ family, here, like you were road-people begging for a handout. We will sit like civilized folk, under a roof. Und I will get youse some lunch, you look hungry.”
The main house seemed to be a bit crowded, probably the officers of the troops outside, who’d be of Farmer and Sheriff families and expected to put up with the local boss. People were rushing up and down the stairs with towels and bedding and rolled-up futons and blankets and pairs of boots. After the travelers had washed-the house had running water-the four of them settled in the breakfast room, which was cheerfully well lit through big windows that looked in on a courtyard, set with pine and maple furniture handmade by Readstown’s own carpenters, with rag rugs on the floor before the empty swept fireplace and a few pictures and photographs on the walls. There was a faint smell of woodsmoke, inevitable in a building heated with stoves and hearths, and of dried wildflowers in jars on the mantel.
The courtyard was one Wanda used for her herb garden, some espaliered fruit trees against the walls and a selection of rosebushes, with flagstone paths and a few benches and some wrens and bluebirds squabbling around a feeder. That interior orientation was what allowed the big windows, though there were steel shutters with loop-holes for shooting ready to be slammed home, and racks for crossbows and quivers of bolts. Mild scents of flowers and turned earth drifted in through the opened panes, and the trowel-work in the raised beds was as neat as a snake’s scales. Wanda attended to that herself, saying she found it soothing. Right now several of her children were playing, tumbling over each other much like the puppies who were helping them at it. Though little Jenny was lying in a cradle, being still at the stick-everything-in-your-mouth stage.