Robre laughed and slapped the table. “My pa’s dead, but I know that feeling from the old days, when I was young.”
King kept his face straight; if the native wasn’t within six months of his own twenty-two, he’d recite the Mahabaratha backwards. “It’s a bargain, then,” he said.
“A bargain,” Robre agreed.
They shook hands again, not making it a trial of strength this time. “You can come collect the rifle tonight, if you want,” King said.
He’d seen the naked desire in the blue eyes when they spoke of that payment; modern weapons were deliberately kept expensive by Imperial policy and taxation. Trade in guns over the frontier wasn’t banned altogether, though, except in a few particular trouble spots: control over supplies of ammunition and spare parts was a powerful diplomatic tool, once buyers had become dependent on them. Robre surprised him by shaking his head.
“Put it with Banerjii,” he said. “I wouldn’t be good enough with one to be much use on this trip. Not enough time to practice-though I do expect some training with your weapons as part of the deal, you understand.”
“ Koi bat naheen… I mean, not a problem,” King said, and yawned. The local whiskey tasted vile, but it did its business. “And now, adieu…I mean, see you tomorrow.”
Sonjuh woke slowly, feeling stiff and sandy-eyed and with a dull throb in her head. Crying yourself to sleep did that, the more if you had been drinking; at least she hadn’t woken herself up screaming again, though a heaviness behind her eyes told her that the dreams had been bad. She swallowed past a dry throat and scolded herself for the whiskey.
Jeroo, how much did I drink? It’s too damn easy to crawl into a jug to forget, she told herself, rubbing her eyes fiercely. You don’t want to forget.
She ignored the stiffness, as she ignored the small voice that said oh, yes, you do, and sat up, scratching and frowning as she cracked a flea. Slasher stirred and whined beside her as she rose from the straw of the loft. The beasts below were starting to stamp and blow in their stalls, and they’d be up in the farmhouse soon-her uncle wasn’t what she considered a hard worker, and it wasn’t the busy season, but a farmer got up with the sun, like it or not. She slipped down the ladder and watched the dog follow more cautiously-even now, the sight of Slasher on a ladder made her smile-and tossed hay into the feed troughs, took up pitchfork and wheelbarrow to muck out, rubbed them down. Two of the horses and a mule were hers, and the others all knew her, blowing affection at her and then feeding heartily.
Then she took down the bowie and tomahawk and worked the rest of the sand out of her joints by shadow-fighting, lunge and guard, stab and chop, her bare feet dancing across the packed dirt of the threshing floor outside the barn.
Move light and quick, she told herself, in an inner voice that sounded like her father’s. Light and quick. Anyone you fight’ll have more heft, so you’d best move right quick.
Pa had taught her; being sonless and indulgent with his eldest daughter, and living far enough offside that neighbors wouldn’t be scandalized. Besides, a lone steading needed more than one fighter, and it was old law that a woman should fight when her home was attacked.
After a while sweat was running freely down her body, the sun was over the horizon, and her head felt clear. She worked the counterbalanced sweep to bring more water out of the well, drank as much as she could, then dashed more buckets over herself; at least her relative didn’t grudge water, having three good wells and a creek. She was rubbing herself down with a coarse piece of cloth when she became aware of a disapproving glare from the cabin; her uncle Aydwah’s wife, throwing cracked corn to the hens and taking in more wood for the hearth fire.
And she’s no brighter a candle than those broody birds, Sonjuh thought. Always there to have their heads chopped off just ’cause she throws them some corn of a morning. Still, no harm in being polite.
She tied on a fresh breechclout, slipped on her leggings and laced them to her belt, cross-gartered the moccasin-boots up her calves, and then pulled on a clean shift of scratchy undyed cotton. By then the house was roused, adults and older children scratching and spitting as they spread out for their dawn chores, naked towhaired toddlers tumbling about, dogs keeping a wise distance from Slasher.
Aydwah had a big place, two shake-roofed log cabins linked by a covered dogtrot, several barns besides the one she slept in, loomhouse where the women of the family spun and wove, slatted corncrib of poles, toolsheds, smokehouse and more. Several poorer kin and hired workers lived with him, too, sleeping in attics and lofts, and a single Kumanch slave taken prisoner from a band raiding the westernmost of the Seven Tribes, beaten into meekness and sold east. It was a prosperous yeoman’s spread, no wealthy Jefe’s farm, but two steps up from her father’s place.
Cooking smells came from the house, and Aydwah’s wife came out to beat a long ladle against an iron triangle hanging by the cabin door. Sonjuh’s belly rumbled as she sat with the others at the long trestle-table set out in the dogtrot, where everyone ate in good weather. Breakfast was samp-mush, with sorghum syrup and warm-fresh milk poured on, and she bent over her bowl with the wooden spoon busy.
Her uncle had the family hair, gray streaking bright fox red in his case, but he was heavier set than her father, slower of mind and words. His voice was a deep rumble as he spoke from the head of the table: “We’ve the last of the flax to plant today, ’n’ the goobers to lift. Sonjuh, you’ll-”
“I’ve got business of my own today, Uncle,” she said, trying for respectful firmness and suspecting it came out as sullen. “I cleaned out the workstock barn.”
Aydwah flushed; it showed easily, despite forty years’ weathering of his fair freckled skin. “You’ll do as you’re told, girl, ’n’ no back talk! I took you in-”
“’N’ you’re well paid for it,” Sonjuh said. “This milk’s from my folk’s milch cow, isn’t it? All that stock’s mine, not yours-that’s the law! You’re getting more than I’d pay in Dannulsford for tavern-keep.”
Her uncle’s flush went deeper; that was the truth, and he knew it and that the Jefe would uphold her.
Her aunt-by-marriage was shriller: “’N’ the stock ’n’ gear might get you a husband, if you didn’t gallivant around like some shameless hussy!”
Sonjuh restrained herself, not throwing the contents of her bowl in the older woman’s face. Instead she set it down on the puncheon floor, where Slasher gave the huffing grunt that meant don’t mind if I do in dog and went to it with lapping tongue and slurping sounds. He was used to yelling.
“I made an oath ’fore God, ’n’ I can’t make it good sitting in the loomhouse, or married off to some crofter you bribe to take spoiled goods with my kin’s stock,” she shouted back. “What’s worse luck ’n oath-breaking to God?”
“Fighting is man’s work, ’n’ so are oaths ’fore the Lord o’ Sky,” her aunt screamed, shaking her fist at Sonjuh; several of the younger children around the table began to cry, and most of the adults were looking at their feet, or the rafters. “You’re a hex-bearer, ’n’ you’ll bring His anger down on us all.”
“Lord o’ Sky saved us all in the Hungry Years, didn’t he? Brought back the sun after Olsaytan ate it? Leastways, that’s what the Jefe says come midsummer ’n’ midwinter day when he kills cows for God; you telling me he’s lying? Lord o’ Sky hears an oath, don’t matter who says the say.”
Aydwah’s head had been turning back and forth like a man watching a handball game. Now he rose to his feet and roared at her: “You speak to your aunt with respect, missie, or I’ll take my belt to your backside-that’s the law, too, me being your eldest male kin. Or have you forgot that part?”
“You could try!” Sonjuh yelled, all caution cast aside.
Her uncle’s roar was wordless as he started a lunge for her. Sonjuh jumped backward from the bench, cat-lithe, looking around for something to grab and hit with-never hit a man with your bare hand unless you were naked and had your feet nailed to the floor, her father had told her. An ax handle someone had been whittling from a billet of hickory was close by, and she snatched it up and held it two-handed.