10 Wolf Springs
There was a moment of startled nightmare as the gate sucked Macurdy in, then spit him out, to roll across last summer's wet grass and leaves.
The crossing had wakened him like a tomcat dropped into a pit of bulldogs. But the transit was familiar now, and the fear a momentary reaction to being jerked violently and unprepared from sleep. On the Oz side it was drizzling, and daylight, the noon nearest the full moon. (The phases of the moon were in synch with the phases on Injun Knob, but day and night were reversed.)
He got to his feet and looked around. Four Ozian warriors stood a little way off, watching him and speaking quiet Yuultal. They held their spears ready, for clearly this was no ordinary victim, sick in guts and limbs, or likelier comatose.
Macurdy folded thick arms across his chest. "I'm Macurdy, the Lion of Farside," he announced in their own dialect. "I've come back. Take me to the headman."
It was actually Arbel whom Macurdy wanted to see, but it was politic to visit the headman first. His march to the village was unlike that first one. The corporal in charge walked beside him. It was clear from the man's aura that he was awed. The others followed, equally impressed. No one jabbed him from behind with their spear, harassing him, making blood run down the back of his legs. It was obvious his reputation still lived, perhaps exaggerated even more than before.
He'd half expected there'd be no warriors waiting to see what or who came through. If anything did. With the old conjure woman a dozen years gone, there'd be no sacrificial gifts put out, and perhaps no reckless rural adolescents, waiting on a dare for "the spirit to come a-hootin'." As for the Sisterhood-he had no idea whether they still used the gate.
The district headman's residence seemed unchanged, but the old headman had died. His replacement had been a soldier in what was now being called Quaie's War. "I saw you on the march," the man told him, "and at the Battle of Ternass. And when you came back to Wolf Springs afterward. You have the long youth." Then he offered Macurdy the hospitality of his home, and his choice of slave girls.
Macurdy answered that he'd come to Oz for a purpose. He'd soon be leaving for the east, and wanted to consult with Arbel, his old mentor.
The headman was relieved. How do you entertain a legend? It was easier to have them go away, and tell stories about them afterward.
Macurdy had arrived with no actual plan, only a few intentions and hopes. When he'd left seventeen years earlier, he'd intended to return someday-an intention forgotten, once he'd met Mary. Vulkan had said he'd know when Macurdy came back; that they had things to do together. Meanwhile Macurdy felt no urgency. Who knew how far Vulkan would have to come. Or whether, after so long, other things had come up.
Once Macurdy had finished his courtesy call on the headman, he walked to Arbel's house. It looked as he remembered it, except the whitewash was fresher. It was long and linear, its walls a kind of stucco-four large rooms plus storage rooms, with a full-length loft. Moss and grass grew on its steep roof. There were windows in every room, with translucent membrane-the abdominal lining of cattle-stretched across them in lieu of glass, to let in light. In summer, fine-meshed fabric would replace the membranes, admitting breezes but not mosquitoes. When storm threatened, the shutters would be closed. Just now, smoke rose sluggishly from two of the four chimneys, then settled and flowed down the roof.
Macurdy knocked, and a young man opened the door, frowning uncertainly at the formidable figure in peculiar clothes. "Who are you," he asked, "and what do you want?"
"I'm Macurdy. I've come to see my old teacher."
The young man's jaw fell, and for a moment he simply stared. "Macurdy? Just a minute! I'll tell my master!" Then turning, he hurried out of sight, leaving Macurdy smiling on the stoop.
Within a minute, Arbel himself was there. At sight of Macurdy, he grinned broadly, a facial expression he seldom indulged in. "Macurdy!" he said, stepping aside. "Come in! Come in!" Macurdy entered, and Arbel closed the door behind him. "I dreamed of you last night," the old man told him, "but it did not feel prophetic."
He ushered him through one room and into another that served as workshop and storeroom. A young woman was there, pestling dried herbs, and looked up as they entered. "Do you know who this is?" Arbel asked Macurdy.
It took only a moment to recognize her: dark complexion, large dark eyes, thin curved nose and narrow mouth. And poised. At Macurdy's last visit, seventeen years earlier, she'd been Arbel's twelve-year-old apprentice. She was of average height, not tall as she'd promised to be, and wiry now instead of gangly. To a degree, her aura resembled Arbel's. Arbel's marked him as someone whose interest was in learning; healing provided a focus. Her central interest was in healing; earning provided a means. Both were patient and tolerant, she more than Arbel, Macurdy suspected. But her tolerance, like Arbel's, was underlain with firmness.
An interesting pair, he thought. She'd be twenty-nine, and Arbel near seventy. Maybe they knew an herb that kept him frisky.
"You're Kerin," Macurdy said, answering Arbel's question. "His assistant now, I suppose."
"And his wife," she answered. "He insisted you are one of the unaging. Obviously he was right. But you haven't gone untouched by life."
She reads auras too, he decided. "Untouched?" he said. "Beaten up by it, from time to time. No worse than lots of others, though."
No worse than lots of others. Having said it, he realized its truth, and wondered if she'd led him to it.
Macurdy spent several weeks at Wolf Springs. It was Arbel who dealt with the cases brought to his home. Kerin rode the rounds of the district, making house calls. Usually she was home for supper, but sometimes it was later. The cooking was done by the slave who'd met Macurdy at the door.
Arbel chuckled, talking about it. People expected prompt service when they brought the patient in, and expected it from the old master himself. With house calls they were less demanding. "Kerin has great gifts of insight and intuition," he said. "It's rare these days that I can do more for them than she can, and there are cases she handles better than I. But prejudice is hard to argue with."
He was interested in Macurdy's stories of healing in World War II, and invited him to sit in on his sessions. Macurdy accepted gladly. They would add to his own skills.
But his mornings he spent in physical activity. After an early breakfast, he'd saddle a horse to ride the country lanes and forest trails. His old war horse, Hog, was still alive and sound, though twenty-eight years old, and no longer much for running. Hog had belonged to Macurdy all those years, but been Arbel's to use. For some years, Arbel had used the big gelding on his rounds of the district. Then Kerin had taken over that duty, and Hog carried her. Now Arbel traded for him, became Hog's actual owner, in return for a splendid eight-year-old named Warrior.
In a fey mood, Macurdy renamed his new horse Piglet, though it was nearly as large as Hog. It was easy to laugh now, as if passage through the gate had finished healing the trauma of Mary's death, though the scar would remain.
He rode about swordless. Instead, in a saddle sheath, he carried a woodsman's ax, and on his belt, the heavy knife Arbel had given him so long ago. He'd stop awhile in a river woods, and practice throwing both knife and ax at sycamores, silver maples, gums and cottonwoods, renewing skills that had served him well in Yuulith. And in Oregon had led to his marriage.
For more vigorous exercise, he cut and split firewood for Arbel. And practiced with the Wolf Springs militia-two evenings a week with the youth class, and on Six-Day afternoons with the veterans. He would, he supposed, need his old warrior skills, which had rusted considerably. Fortunately they derusted quickly, for every eye was on him, and it seemed important that his reputation continue strong.