Rider at the Gate

“Mr. Stuart.” The man who’d opened the door indicated he should come out, so he came out. The men with guns backed up, maintaining their advantage. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

“Fine.” He hoped somebody wanted to talk to him. He hoped somebody had a deal to offer him to get him out of here, and after that, he didn’t remotely care if Anveney burned down.

So he walked obligingly where the guard indicated and the man led, down a dingy hallway, through a maze of halls. He didn’t put it past them to hit him on general principle; he was acutely aware of the armed men behind him, and acutely aware he couldn’t forecast what way their minds were ru

Hell of a way to live.

Meanwhile the man in the lead opened a door onto the daylight and Anveney streets.

He drew a shaky, ill-flavored breath, tucked his hands in his pockets, and amused himself, as they went out, seeking deliberate, surly eye contact with the rare passers-by, who, understandably spooked by the police armament, ducked to the other side of the street. And gawked, until they chanced into his angry stare.

Twice spooked then, they averted their eyes and found something urgent to go to.

They went halfway down the block like that, the guard in front, him in the middle, the police behind, until the guard came to what looked more like a house than an office, and showed him and their gun-carrying escort into a broad, fancy-furnished room with polished wood and fringed rugs.

Stairs went up from here, but the guard turned left. There were doors upon doors in the hall they walked. The guard led him past all of them, and through the double door at the end into a room where an overweight old man in expensive town dress sat in a green overstuffed chair roughly equal to his mass.

Smoking a pipe. God, did anybody in Anveney need more smoke?

“So,” the man said. “You’re Dale’s partner.”

First soul in Anveney that spoke sense to him, putting things like partnership in their right importance. His shoulders relaxed a little, guns or no guns, and he didn’t care all that much of a sudden that the room reeked of smokeweed.

“Stuart,” he named himself, and made a guess. “You’re Lew Cassivey.”

The man inclined his head, seeming gratified to be famous, at least to Aby Dale’s partner. Head of Cassivey & Carnell, the man Aby would risk high-country weather to keep happy—his intervening made some sense, but it didn’t guarantee his good will, or his good intentions.

“Sorry about Dale,” Cassivey said, sending up a series of short puffs. “Real sorry.”

The man wanted a reaction, Stuart realized, in a sudden new insight how deaf townsman minds had to work. The man didn’t know. He prodded. He waited to seehow he reacted.

Guil tucked his hands up under his arms, and in his best approximation of an outward reaction, shrugged and looked sorry himself. He felt the weight of the building on his back. He felt the scarcity of air. Smelled smells he couldn’t identify. < “Rogue horse,”> he said. He couldn’t stop expecting the man to see it, feel it, know it. “You heard that part.”

“I heard how she died. Couple of the riders came in with the bad news. Lost a truck and driver, too.”

“Sorry about that.” He attempted town ma

“Alone?”

He shrugged, a lump of raw fear in his throat, because they’d arrived at the life-and-death points and he was feeling in the dark after reactions. “My horse. I need to get out there.”

“Hear you had a real commotion at the bank.”

What could he say? He hadn’t intended it.

But no townsman knew that if he didn’t say it.

“Didn’t mean to,” he muttered. God, he didn’t know how to talk to these people. He didn’t know what else they couldn’t guess, blind and deaf as they were. “I tried my best to calm it down.”

Cassivey seemed amused for a heartbeat, whether friendly or unfriendly amusement he couldn’t tell. The amusement died a fast death. Smoke poured out Cassivey’s nostrils. “I hear the bank gave her money to her cousin.”

“My money, too,” he said. “Everything.”

“Your money?”

“Same account. They said it was town law.”

“It’s not that simple,” Cassivey said. “But I doubt you’d want to sue.”

“Go to court?” He shook his head emphatically.

“Not if it means staying around Anveney, is that it?”

“Weather’s turning.”

“Meaning?”

“Hard to hunt.” He felt stupid, saying the obvious. He wasn’t sure it was all Cassivey was asking him. “I have to get up there. Get it before the deep snow.”

“With no help?”

“I need a gun,” he said.

“Where’s this man’s property?” Cassivey asked the guards. “Who’s got his belongings?”

“He didn’t come with any,” the one in charge said.

“No gun? No baggage?”

“Knives,” Guil said. “Two.”

“I’m paying his fine,” Cassivey said. “Somebody go get his belongings. Stuart, sit down.”

There was another chair near him, stuffed like the one Cassivey sat in. Guil put his hands on the upholstered arms and sank down gingerly, not sure how far he would sink. There was a sharp pain in his sore leg when it bent and his knees, now that he heard ‘fine’ and ‘paying’ and ‘get his belongings,’ suddenly had a disposition to wobble out of lock. The room swam and floated.

“You want a drink?” Cassivey said, as the guards cleared the room. “There’s a bottle on the table.”

“No,” he said. It wasn’t worth the risk of getting up. “Thanks.”

“You need a doctor?”

“I just want out.” His breath was shaky. He didn’t intend so much honesty. “But thanks. What do I do for you?”

“Dale was reliable. You could trust things didn’t get pilfered.” Puff. Second puff. “What’s your record on reliability?”

“Same,” he said, embarrassed to have to make claims, when he didn’t know how Cassivey should believe a man who’d come in with armed guards. “Mostly I work out of Malvey south,” he said, and not sure Cassivey was remotely interested in his explanations, he remembered how the bank had phoned. “You could phone Moss Shipping in Malvey. They know me.”

“I might do that,” Cassivey said. “Dirty trick, what Dale’s cousin did.”

He shrugged. It was. But that was his business and he didn’t answer.

“The job I have for you,” Cassivey began.

“I,” Guil interjected, fast, before the man committed too much. “I have to get up to Tarmin Height before the snow. I have to get that thing.” Maybe it was stupid. From time to time since he’d left Shamesey he’d not even been sure he cared. But the realization— the reality—of Aby’s death had made itself a cold nest in the middle of his thinking.

And she wouldn’t rest until he’d cleared Aby’s trail for her, mopped up all the loose business. Settled accounts to her satisfaction.

Which might make him lose this man’s offer, when he was indebted for a fine he couldn’t pay, with no gun, no way out. But that was the way it was; he hoped the man was reasonable. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I have to go up there. Just get me out of here. I’ll work it off for you next spring.”

Cassivey stared at him, expressionless, the pipe in his hand. Then: “Don’t turn down my offer until you’ve heard it. A commission. Enough money, supplies, whatever you need to go upcountry—the best commissions when you come to town again in the spring. Preference. Top of the list preference. What’s that worth to you?”

It was beyond generous. It was Aby’s deal with this man. It had to be.

“I still have to go up there. I have to hunt that thing. Local riders might get it. But they might not. You can’t use that road till somebody does get it. It won’t be safe.”