Dies the Fire

Will shrugged. "He can handle woodworker's tools," he said grudgingly, and sounding faintly surprised. "I think I could pick up most of what he knows, in a couple or three months. We'll have to sort of experiment to find out how to use horn and sinew and bone glue instead of fancy wood laminates and fiberglass and epoxy anyways, but we got Astrid's bow to work from."

More quietly: "He's still trash, though, Boss. Bad news."

"Granted." Havel sighed. "We'll have to give him a try, though; long-term, it's a skill set we really need. I'll put the fear of God in him and we'll see how it works; we can always cut him loose."

Waters began babbling as soon as Havel walked towards him, and then cut it short as the younger man nodded to his wife: "Mrs. Waters, why don't you go over there to our cookfire? Angelica Hutton handles our supplies, and I think she could find you and your children something to eat, and help you get settled here."

An incredulous smile showed, just for an instant, what Jane Waters had looked like in her last year of high school, and she hustled away moving the children before her as if afraid he'd change his mind. Havel jerked his head, and walked out of hearing distance of the others with Waters beside him. Certain things had to be done in private for decency's sake.

"Sir, let me tell you how grateful-"

"Can it," Havel said.

He didn't raise his voice or gesture, but judging from the doglike grin of submission Waters at least knew a hard man when he met one. The problem with his kind was that the lessons usually didn't stick…

"Waters, I know you'd say anything you thought I wanted to hear right now because you're hungry, so save it."

The older man made a pathetic attempt at dignity. "Mr. Havel, a man has to feed his children."

"That's true. And you must have been some sort of a man once; you learned a trade, at least, and held a steady job for a while. But now you're a loser and a drunk-I know the signs. So let's make things real clear. You listening?"

He waited until the man's eyes met his, and he could see that-at least for the moment-he'd stopped ru

"I'm taking you on against my better judgment, and this is a taut outfit. I don't tolerate whining, shirking or dirt. You and your family will keep yourselves clean, you will work, and you will obey all the rules. You're low dog in this pack until you show you deserve better, so you'll also obey anyone I appoint to strawboss you, including that damned orange cat over there if I say so, cheerfully and without complaint. You're here on sufferance. The first time you screw up, or go on a bender and slap your wife and kids around, or any trash tricks like that, I will personally beat the living shit out of you. The second time I will beat the living shit out of you and throw you out on your ass. Is all this clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"And don't call me sir. I work for a living. Boss will do, if you have to use something besides my name. After you've eaten, you can bring your gear over. Remember what I said about the rules, because if it isn't all ready and all clean by tomorrow morning, you're not coming with us. Move!"

Chapter

Fourteen

Bemused, Michael Havel whistled as he lowered the binoculars and wiped a hand across his dust-caked face; then he made a futile attempt to scratch under the edge of his sleeveless boiled-steerhide jacket.

They were on the flats where the Middle and South Clearwater met, a half mile from the little town of Kooskia, with steep rocky slopes all around them to hold the air and reflect the bright spring sun; the smell of spray from the brawling rivers was tantalizing.

It was a hundred miles south and west from the place the Piper Chieftain had crashed, twice that as feet and hooves and wheels went; weeks of hard slow travel.

"Well, spank me rosy," Havel said, nodding westward. "Those guys look like they're out to get General Custer."

They were also just inside the Nez Perce reservation boundary.

Beyond the waiting men was a bridge over a river gray-blue with snowmelt; beyond that, the town proper-as proper as a place with less than a thousand inhabitants could be-and a high conical hill studded with tall pines-more hills reared a little beyond, green-tawny with new grass pushing up through last year's, and fingers of pine reaching up the ravines. Beyond that were rolling prairies, farming and ranching country; he'd driven through this way before the Change, and flown over it more than once.

It was hard to remember that godlike omniscience, ten thousand feet up with hundreds of horsepower at his command.

Havel wasn't surprised to see armed and mounted men strung across the valley road; every town and community they'd run across that hadn't collapsed kept a watch on the roads and checked travelers. Their scouts had probably reported the Bearkillers coming yesterday or early this morning.

The way some of them were dressed, though…

Several of the horsemen waiting for them a hundred yards further west along the road were in full Indian fig- feather bo

"It's quite a sight," Will Hutton agreed, pushing back his helmet by the nasal bar and squinting against the bright sunlight and the sweat that stung his eyes.

"On the other hand, I'm wearin' this stuff, Mike," he went on in a reasonable tone. The leather of his saddle creaked beneath him as the horse shifted its weight from one foot to another. "And it goes back a lot further than Custer."

The Texan had their first complete set of chain-mail armor, a knee-length split-skirt tunic with sleeves to the elbow. All you needed to make it was a wooden dowel, a pair of wire cutters, pliers, and a punch and hammer… plus plenty of patience, which was why they had only one suit so far. Will and his pupils could turn out a boiled-leather vest in an afternoon, and every adult had one now; a chain hauberk took weeks.

Havel took the canteen from his saddlebow and drank; the lukewarm water tasted good, and he poured a little into his hand and rubbed it over his face. Then he offered the water bottle to Hutton, who'd run through two so far today.

The Texan took it gratefully, and tilted it back until water ran out of the corners of his mouth as his Adam's apple bobbed; sweat was pouring off him in rivulets, turning the linked metal rings dark. Nights were still chilly around here in April, and days comfortable-windbreaker weather, but thirty pounds of metal rings absorbed a lot of heat. The gambeson, the long quilted jacket underneath, was even worse. Its padding soaked up greasy sweat like a sponge, too; the powerful odor combined with the scents of horse and leather and oiled metal to make a composite stink not quite like anything Havel had come across before- although it had probably been quite familiar in the army of William of Normandy.

"Yeah," Havel said, taking the canteen back. "But you're dressed up like Richard the Lionheart for a good practical reason, not just because of the way it looks."

Although it does look formidable too.

The gear and helmet added bulk and menace to the older man's lean muscular toughness. Hauberks had to be individually tailored; Havel's was nearly finished, but Angelica and Signe and Astrid were doing something confidential with it.