Rider at the Gate

It wasn’t just a question, he thought, with upset still roiling in his stomach. The question he was asking himself was about his own competency, a question so wide and general through his life he didn’t want to consider it except piece at a time, and most of all he didn’t want to consider it with them.

But he didn’t want a fight with Luke, so he sat back down, arm around one knee, and found a dead seedpod to break up into dry pieces.

“Ought to have stayed with mama,” Jonas muttered.

“Yeah, fine,” he said back. “You want an answer, Jonas, sir? I don’t know where he is. I’m not hiding him.”

<Cattle.> He was unhappy, Cloud was unhappy.

“You’re being loud, kid,” Jonas said.

“Yeah, well, get off me. Doing the best I can.” He didn’t look at Jonas or the rest of them. The seedpod was far more interesting. It had four inside chambers, with hard, round seeds, brown in the firelight. Crunch. Four, six, a handful. He tossed them at the fire, one, two, three, trying to land one where it would burn visibly. Two hit, off, the third landed under the glowing archway of branches at the edge. Achievement.

“Kid.” That was Hawley. He didn’t dislike Hawley. He really, really wasn’t sure about Jonas.

“Kid’s adjusting,” Jonas said. “And he doesn’tknow.”

Truth. Jonas always talked nicer abouthim than Jonas talked tohim. He didn’t know why Jonas couldn’t do a little adjusting himself.

Didn’t know why Jonas had wanted him if nobody was going to believe him, except that remark Jonas had made about him being bait, and he didn’t take that altogether as fluffery. They might have intentions like that, using him that way, to draw Stuart in; and no reason they shouldn’t tell him so.

They probably thought he was lying about people following him, trying to make himself important, trying to cover his trailing in late the way he had, as if there was some big, awful danger out there and he’d escaped it on his own.

Serve them right if somebody did come up on them. And he’d warn them, of course, but they wouldn’t listen. They were seniors, and knew everything.

“Kid,” Jonas said. “Calm downfor two minutes, have you got it? We can send the horses off a ways so you and I can have a discussion, if you want.”

“No, sir,” he muttered. Nobody was sending Cloud anywhere he didn’t want Cloud to go. But it wasn’t smart to quarrel with men who carried knives for more than fire-making. It didn’t even take a junior’s intelligence to figure that out.

“Guns are quicker,” Jonas remarked dryly.

He was sending, again. Dammit.

“The kid’s just upset,” Luke said. “Lay off, Jonas. You’re pushing him too hard.”

“Damn right I’m pushing him. We leave himat Tarmin village first chance we get. The rogue’d have him for breakfast. Go right for him, it would. I don’t plan to get him killed.”

Madder and madder. Insult and concern. He couldn’t read Jonas’ signals and he couldn’t say whether Jonas was right or wrong. He wanted to go to Cloud the way he’d started to and not have to listen to them. He’d no need of lectures. But he’d been told to sit down, by the only one of them who was civil to him, and if Luke got mad at him the trip was going to be hell.

Cloud ambled up into the firelight, snuffing at the ground, insinuated his big head over Da

Da

Cloud didn’t do things totally unselfishly.

“What I still can’t figure,” Hawley said, “is what he’s doing.”

He meant Stuart.

“Maybe he thinks the camp’s sent out hunters,” Luke said.

“They have, of course,” Jonas said, and it took Da

Which they had brought with them. Supposedly to give Stuart’s belongings back to him when they found him.

But he wasn’t so sure what Jonas’ personal motives were.

He was probably sending again, but Jonas ignored it, just kicked the cook pan into the fire for the fire to clean. There wasn’t much grease. It made a flare, and the flare died quickly. He’d have to wipe it down in the morning, with a twist of grass, nasty job. But the youngest rider always got those jobs, it was a law of the universe.

“Suppose he did get hit worse than we thought?” Luke asked.

“I don’t think so,” Da

“Didn’t go through,” Hawley judged with a grimace. “Went past. Burned him good, knocked him down, is all.”

“Good,” Jonas said, not meaning about knocking Stuart down, meaning him: he suddenly figured he’d just done exactly what Jonas had been trying to get out of him, exactly the way that Jonas expected, and he hatedJonas for the satisfied look Jonas cast in his direction. But he held onto Cloud’s forelock long enough to distract Cloud when Cloud jerked his head up. Cloud’s hair burned through his hand. And Jonas won. Jonas was used to wi

“Kid’s damned good when he wants to be,” Hawley said, which doubly confused him, about whether Hawley was serious or sarcastic, as Hawley, immediately off on another tangent, imaged <steep mountains, rider on dangerous slope.> It looked like Guil.

“Maybe not,” Luke said, not about him being good when he wanted to be: it was the rider-image Luke shook apart, in favor of < level trail >; a definite place, it seemed to be, but it could be any place. Theyknew what they were imaging. He didn’t. He sat there with places he’d never seen flying back and forth through his vision and no knowledge what the question was.

From out of nowhere Jonas put his hand on Da

Jonas hit his knee, meaning Shut up, Da

“Man’s got no supplies,” Luke said.

“Question is if he’s got money,” Jonas said.

“I wouldn’t leave mystash under any hostel mattress,” Hawley said. “Not in Shamesey town.”

Insult his town, while he was at it. There were limits.

Another pat of Jonas’ unwelcome hand, and Jonas wasn’t even talking to him. Jonas was thinking about a building somewhere else, a place with bars on the windows, a jail, Da

The question surprised Hawley, angered Hawley. Da

Jonas asked: “How much was in there?”