Rider at the Gate

Carlo didn’t feel sure. Carlo stayed scared. But he looked aside at the sleeping boy, and said, finally, “Yeah.”

“I got a kid brother, too,” Da

“Yeah,” Carlo said again, and went and got another beer.

Couldn’t blame him. Carlo was getting wobbly on his feet with two. But there wasn’t damned much—

Cloud’s head came up. Stark, concentrated look toward the wall. Toward the outside.

Not a sending. <Creak of hinges.> Somebody was out there, or the wind was moving a door in all that quiet.

From upthe street, not down. But nobody could be stirring out there. It feltlike a presence. It kept shifting.

Shifting. A horse. A rider. Side of the camp.

<Rider gate, human coming through where the horse couldn’t—>

Shit!

He grabbed his coat and hauled it on in feverish haste—the coat first, because you couldn’t aim worth a damn shaking your teeth out. He pulled on his gloves, he grabbed the rifle.

Carlo and Randy were < scared.>

“You got a handgun,” Da

“Don’t go out there,” Carlo begged him. “Please don’t go out.”

“That’s a gate open. Somebody’s out there. If they open the big gate, we could have the damn rogue in our laps. You stay here. The kid’s passed out. You stand over him. You know what the marshal’s wife did. Just don’t be too early—or too late.”

“Yeah.” Carlo’s teeth were chattering. Da

It didn’t feel like <Cloud being mad.> Cloud was <hearing the intruder and wary.>

<Man,> Cloud saw in the ambient. <Man in the dark street. Man with gun.>

<Stuart,> Da

<Jonas> was standing in the middle of the street. Pistol levelled at <Cloud and Da

“Everybody all right?” Da

Jonas had been scared. Jonas Westman—had just been <surprised and scared.> Jonas walked across the snow-covered street toward him, <mad and madder.>

“There’s ham and biscuits,” Da

“You left the rider gate open.”

Trust Jonas to land on the one mistake. “Hope you closed it.”

“Stuart with you?”

As if he couldn’t be where he was without senior help. “Haven’t seen him. You?” <Harper’s camp. Men scattering. Rogue in the ambient.>

“No luck,” Jonas said. <Partners at the main gate. Cold, worried partners. Jonas opening gate.>

<Jonas latching gate.> He hadn’t quite meant to let that insolent query hit the ambient. But there it was, edged with hostility.

<Man in doorway.> Jonas didn’t take alarm. <Man with gun.>

Carlo was behind him. With that three-sixty degree, back of his head surety of multiple riders restored to him, Da

He hadn’t thought <Carlo in jail.> He resolved he wasn’t going to. He picked up Carlo’s confusion, turned and pushed Carlo back into the warmth and the light.

“That your friend?” Carlo asked.

“Did it feel like it?”

“No,” Carlo said.

“Friends of my friend. Real sons of bitches. But they’re all right sons of bitches. They’re high country riders. Borderers. We’ve got help.”

Carlo didn’t quite seem to trust it. Carlo stayed scared, and worried about <jail.>

“I’m not going to tell him. It could slip—won’t guarantee that it won’t. But village law’s not rider law.” He had a thought and got Carlo’s attention with a knuckle against the arm. “These guys? Don’t let them bluff you.”

Carlo didn’t like to hear that. He cast a nervous glance as if he could still see Jonas.

“They’ll try,” Da

They made biscuits—Carlo had never cooked in his life, but he tried; Randy waked with all the commotion and sat up bleary-eyed.

“Riders are here,” Carlo told him. “We’re going to be all right, Randy. You hear?” Randy sat there looking numb and shaky, maybe a little sick from the beer—the ambient was queasy and scared, but Cloud wouldn’t put up with it. Cloud thought <horses with cattle-tails> and <horses standing outside in the cold> and Cloud wasn’t happy with the arrival.

Going to be all right was a little early, too. Cloud’s rider didn’t count on it, because Jonas was an argumentative son of a bitch and Cloud’s rider wasn’t going to take it.

Well, Cloud’s rider thought—maybe Da

He didn’t have to feel as if Jonas was threatening him. He’d had guns aimed at him. Jonas was a lot different.

Jonas, who was coming in asking for supper and shelter in what was, Jonas could figure, hiscamp, which he’d set up and where Jonas was asking charity.

Cloud was first in. Boss horse. Cloud should be <nice,> but the store was <Cloud’s den> and <Shadow-horse standing on the porch in the snow> if Shadow had <fight> in mind.

He’d fairly well built the picture when assorted footsteps arrived on the porch and Jonas’ bunch knocked, wanting entry.

Da

<Cold horses smelling ham> came back to him, from at least a couple of the horses in the street. Heads were up and nostrils working, in that veil of snow. Jonas was his sullen self, but Luke and Hawley looked exhausted.

“Come on in,” Da

“Were you here when it happened?” Jonas asked, taking off his hat.

“They were.” Da

That got attention. Hats that had been coming off in courtesy to the house got tucked in hand and everybody stared at Carlo and Randy for a heartbeat, then wanted <girl on horse.>

He filled in the blonde hair, the red coat, the fact it was a kid looking for dead parents.

“Shit,” Hawley said. Hawley was upset. Something about <trucks and rocks and a rider, > that went blurred as Hawley’s thinking skittered away to <rocks.>

Jonas bumped Da

He didn’t want to think. He didn’t. He said, “Carlo, ham’s burning.” It wasn’t. But it was close. Cloud was on the far side of the room, by the cold locker door; Cloud was closest to the stove, and put his nose out, smelling <ham.> The other horses were near the door, crowded in the narrow room, growing argumentative; but human presence gave them no more room.