She kicked at the road’s surface. Without looking at me she asked, “Want to know a secret?”
“Sure.”
Her voice grew softer. “One night, when she seemed so alone and pitiful… I howled with her. I took off all my clothes, danced around in the moonlight and howled…” She smiled at the memory.
For some reason this made me uncomfortable. “How much had you been drinking?”
She laughed quietly, musically. “Oh, I was cold sober, Eddie, just like I am now.” She twirled slowly, like a child, and looked up at the sky. “You think she’s a goddess?”
“The dog?”
“No, the moon. Priestesses say it’s the light of the goddess. They say her tug makes women bleed once a month so we can have kids. What do you think?”
“I dunno.”
“I hope she is. I hope there’s a goddess somewhere who hears all those howls in the moonlight.”
“It’s not my area of expertise.”
She laughed again and danced ahead of me. Her long shadow reached down the road. I’d never seen her like this, so… uninhibited. Janet had the same paradoxical quality, as if more life experience somehow made her more innocent. A big knot of conflicting feelings fought unsuccessfully to untie itself in my gut.
After that little outburst, we walked in silence until, past midnight, we made camp. I watched her sleep for a long time, enjoying the play of firelight on her features. She had great lips, I belatedly decided-full enough to be delectably pouty in the right circumstances.
A wolf howled in the distance, too far away to be a threat. And I had to admit, the urge to howl along was pretty damn strong.
FOURTEEN
Following the map, Cathy and I hiked into the Ogachic Mountains. There was no existing trail, so we had to work with the terrain. It grew harder as we climbed higher, rocks replacing dirt and trees giving way to bushes and scrub. It seemed unlikely that this was really the most efficient way to get to our destination, but the map gave us no alternatives, and I knew nothing of this area.
At last, just above the tree line on one rocky face, we found the first landmark: a horse’s head, in silhouette, painted in white on black granite.
The image was about four feet across, and right at eye level. While Cathy checked the map, I scratched at the paint; it did not flake off. “This is some heavy-duty artwork. Whatever they used, it sealed pretty good.”
“Have to be to survive the weather up here,” Cathy said. “The winters get vicious.”
I knew a bit about art from my childhood tutoring. This wasn’t in the usual regional style, which favored a flatter, more abstract approach. The horse’s silhouette was entirely realistic, down to the slightly parted lips and flying mane. Then I noticed something unexpected.
I got very close to the fine detail work along the mane’s fringe and squinted. “Wow,” I whispered. “Cathy, this isn’t paint.”
She looked up from the map. “What do you mean?”
“This is… quartz or something. Some other kind of rock. Inside the granite.” I ran my hand over it, and only the slightest bump marked the border of the image. “This is a natural formation.”
She joined me and peered at the seam between the two rocks. I was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of her proximity. “Rocks can do weird things sometimes,” she agreed. “Back in Bonduel, there’s a mountain in the shape of an old man’s profile. It looks just like somebody carved it, but it’s all natural.” She turned, and our faces were inches apart. She looked into my eyes, glanced away, and looked back. “Nature can be pretty powerful,” she said.
Her eyes were hazel flecked with gold. I asked softly, “Weren’t we supposed to avoid a white horse?”
“Only if a woman was riding it.” She licked her lips, and I realized my own were suddenly dry.
I broke the moment and stepped away. My face felt unaccountably hot. “So which direction now?”
“Northwest,” she said quickly, looking down at the map. “The next landmark is about a day’s walk away, if the terrain’s not too much more difficult.”
The landscape cooperated and we made it halfway before darkness forced us to camp. It was one thing to use an open road at night, but neither of us wanted to climb over unfamiliar ridges and chasms we couldn’t see. We picked a hidden area next to a small stream, sheltered on three sides. If we kept our fire small, we’d be invisible.
O VER A DECADE later, I stood before that same flat rock again. The weather was a little cooler, but the sunlight shone on its surface just as brightly now as it had done on that long-ago day. The white quartz deposit still stood out starkly against the gray-black granite. But the equine shape I remembered as so definite was now… vague. It could still be seen as a horse’s head. It could just as easily be a wolf, or the bow of a ship, or a random geological formation that resembled any one of a dozen things if you looked at it cockeyed.
I put my hand flat against it just as I’d done thirteen years earlier. It felt weathered and smooth. No marks of workmanship showed; no one had altered it. Either I remembered it wrong, or…
There was less point in speculating now than there had been then. Then, our ultimate goal had been a mystery tugging us on. Now I knew where I was headed, and what awaited me.
I climbed back onto my horse. I don’t know when I began to think of her as “mine,” but somewhere between Arentia and here, I’d actually grown a little fond of her. I still didn’t trust her, but I felt I could turn my back to pee without risking a kick to the head. That was a big change. As we picked our way along, I considered names for her. None of the possibilities clicked.
By nightfall, I reached the stream where Cathy and I had camped before. Given what happened, there was no way I’d use the same spot, so we crossed the stream and continued on until it was so dark my nameless horse refused to proceed. But ultimately, it didn’t matter where I slept. The memories were just as vivid.
It had been a warm night back then. As always, Cathy and I put our bedrolls on opposite sides of the fire. I lay awake staring up at the stars. Tendrils of smoke from the dying fire made gray shifting shapes in the moonlight. I felt tense, and couldn’t place the reason for it. I was absolutely sure no one followed us, especially no mysterious woman on a white horse, and this whole delivery trip should be over in a couple of days. I’d get the rest of my money and be free to continue wandering. And if I wanted to return to Bonduel with Cathy, to help her with her business or for any other reason, there was nothing stopping me. But did I want that?
No. I wanted Janet. But Cathy was everything I should want.
Shit, I thought as I rolled onto my side. I couldn’t believe I was actually losing sleep over this. This was just a job, after all. Cathy was my boss, not my damn soul mate. I was making way too much out of it.
I looked through the smoke at Cathy’s bedroll for a long moment before I belatedly realized it was empty. I sat up and heard splashing in the creek. I pulled on my pants and went to check on her.
Cathy lay crossways in the shallow water with her back against a rock. She was naked, of course, and as I watched she ducked her head under and came up with a gasp of happiness. I’d never heard that sound from her before. If a sound like that could still exist in the world, I thought, maybe fate was telling me I’d suffered enough.
I called out, softly so I wouldn’t startle her. “Sorry, but I saw you were gone and came down to see if you were okay.”
“I just couldn’t pass up the chance for a bath, even a primitive one,” she said. She made no effort to cover herself, although the moonlight twinkling on the water preserved her modesty. She kicked her feet like a child. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
“Probably not,” I agreed.
She turned onto her stomach and crossed her ankles above the water. For a moment only the creek made any sound. Finally I said, “Guess I’ll go back to camp.”