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Then it launched into a run, shaking its mane, going farther down the road. Nighthorses didn’t altogether understand death. The total silence of a mind confused them dreadfully—in which thought—
She turned to see Guil getting up, leaning to one side, trying to stand. The girl just stood there, staring at nothing.
She started ru
“Stay down,” she said to Guil, and made him sit. <Blood on snow, spatter all around them, around dead horse.> Burn sent out threat, <wanting Guil> and ready for <fight,> but she didn’t admit guilt and she didn’t retreat: she started unfastening Guil’s coat, looking for damage, and Guil was coherent enough to wish <quiet horses, Burn standing, Burn quiet.>
She could feel the wound as if it was in her own side—felt entry and exit, as the numbness of impact gave way to <pain> that was going to be hell in another hour. Right now it was still a little numb.
“It could be worse,” she said, and shoved his hands away. There was a fair amount of blood, but it didn’t look to have hit the gut: it had gone through muscle and it was swelling fast. Guil kept trying to get his knee under him, <wanting bending over,> but she stuffed her scarf into his shirt around his middle and started wrapping it as tightly as she could.
It helped the pain. She could feel it. He was going to want to get to the shelter back there and lie still a while. She answered his confused memory of the gunshot with <man shooting. Tara shooting man.>
“Kid get hit?” he asked in a thready voice.
She cast a look at the girl who was still just standing there, holding the blanket. Staring at nothing. There was nothing in the ambient. Not from her.
“Didn’t touch her. Hang on, all right. Don’t faint. All right?”
“Yeah,” he said, and pulled his coat to and started getting his knees under him—the fool was going to get up, and he couldn’t stand; but he got the rifle and leaned on that before she could get her arm under his.
Burn was right there, nosing him in the face, in the shoulder, anxious and about to knock him over. He swatted Burn weakly with his hand and wanted <picking up kid. Getting kid safe.>
She had a wounded man on a mountain road bound and determined to pick up a girl who weighed most of what she did, and she didn’t give a flying damn if the girl stood there and froze.
But hedid. She left him to the wobbling assistance he could get from the rifle; she grabbed the kid herself and dragged her with them, with a wary eye toward the downhill road, in case she’d been mistaken about the man being dead, in the unlikelier case the horse had been mistaken.
In the far distance she saw a group of riders coming up.
<Jonas,> she thought. She didn’t know who she’d shot down there. She hadn’t stopped to ask. Jonas was her saner guess. But it didn’t make sense.
Guil stood beside her, leaning on the rifle, trying to reason out who it was, too, and coming up with no better answer: <Man with rifle. Shot fired at him. Tarmin gate.>
“ Threeof them,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t Jonas down there, Guil.”
“I don’t know,” he said. The ambient was confused and muddled with his thoughts. Things from downland. Things from the village. From a long time ago, maybe. The shock was catching up to him, and he found a snow-covered lump of rock to rest on, rifle in one hand, his elbow tight against his side.
Burn came up close by him. Tara went and got the kid by the wrist, got the pistol from where it was lying in the snow, hauled the kid to the side of the road behind Guil and made her get down behind the rocks, out of the way of flying bullets.
She kept the pistol in her hand as the riders kept coming. She didn’t need Guil’s recognition to know them. She had a clear image of <Jonas Westman, of Luke, of Hawley Antrim—> and a notion of blowing them to hell if she didn’t like the answer to her questions.
“Whoever shot you,” she said to Guil without taking her eyes off the riders, “I got him. Whoever it was—I got him. Guil.”
Flicker moved in. Made a solid wall behind them, with Burn. A wall giving off <warning> to the oncoming riders.
Guil put the rifle butt on his leg. Lowered it, slowly, and the three riders stopped a fair distance down the road.
“Guil?” the shout came up. “Guil Stuart?”
“Yeah,” Guil shouted back, and hurt from the shouting. “So what’s your story, Jonas? What’s the story? Does it say why Aby’s dead? Does it say why I shot Moon, Jonas? Does it say you’re a lying son of a bitch thief, Jonas? I know why you’re up here. I know what you’re after, and you don’t go up this road. You go to hell, Jonas!”
“Hawley wants to talk to you, Guil.”
Burn wanted <bite. Kick.> Burn was <ready to go downhill, fight.>
But Guil sent, <Burn standing still.> Wanted <shooting,> and Tara held herself ready to grab Guil and haul him down behind the rock in the next instant, had her target picked, in Jonas Westman, but she kept the pistol at her side, while Flicker sent <fight,> ready as Burn was, if they got the encouragement.
“Who’s that I shot?” she yelled down at them.
“Guy named Harper,” Jonas called up. “Nothing to do with us.”
It was somebody Guil knew. A lot of confused memories hit the ambient, an old fight. Another mountainside. Another edge of the road. She didn’t believe it had nothing to do with present circumstances.
She waited.
She left Hawley to Guil. She still had her eye on the others.
Guil waited. Kept the rifle generally aimed at Hawley, as Hawley came up within easy range.
Then he brought it on target.
Hawley stopped. Hawley looked scared. With reason. Ice had followed him up the slope and arrived beside him, the way Burn stayed by him. Ice was loyal.
So had other things been.
“Moon’s dead, Hawley. It was Moon gone rogue, you know that?”
“No. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t, Guil. It couldn’t have. I feltit!”
That, in the ambient, was the undeniable truth.
But it was the truth as Hawley’d seen it. <From the back of the convoy. When a truck went plunging past the curve. Aby and Moon on that edge—in front of the truck that went over.>
“You left Aby’s horse, Hawley, you left Moon hurt, you left her crazy. Moon maybe had a chance—she was a good horse, she never did a damn thing against the villages until she took up with that damned stupid kid, Hawley! You got yourself down that mountain and you left Moon on her own, the way you left Aby lying there for the spooks!”
“I saw that horse go over!”
That was the truth, too. He blinked, he at least considered a doubt of Hawley’s guilt. It was what Hawley had seen.
But it wasn’t what he’d just faced up the hill. It wasn’t the truth lying there in the roadway, with a bullet in its brain.
“Guil, I’m sorry. I swear to God, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t’ve left her. I saw ’em go, I swear. There was rogue-feeling all over—it wasa rogue—”
“It wasn’t any rogue driving that truck, Hawley. I can see that <truck.> I see it <rolling.> Right in your mind, I can see it. You can’t see Aby from where you are. You can’t see her, Hawley. You’re at the back of the convoy. You’re a damn liar!”
“I saw it, I did see it, Guil, I swear to you, I swear to God—”
The image rebuilt itself. <Truck moving, rolling out of control. Brake line—>
“You want to tell me, Hawley? I don’t care about the money in the account. I don’t give a damn. I want you to tell me what happened to Aby.”
“I was going to tell her,” Hawley said. There was <paper money> in Hawley’s mind, there were <truckers, > there was <truck ru