Cloud's Rider

But he missed his father anyway. He thought now it wouldn’t matter if his father yelled at him. He’d had guns pointed at him— which sort of put his father’s well-meant yelling in perspective. He missed his younger brother Denis. He even missed his other brother, Sam, and that was how lonesome he was.

Definitely he missed his mother. He’d like one of her suppers right now.

He’d like her making tea (mama’d never, ever put spirits in it, though) and stirring up biscuits and bringing him his supper in his bed with the flowered quilt and the dingy plaster and the cracks, three of them, that had used to run across the ceiling. He could really appreciate the old apartment tonight.

The cracks were fixed now. The place didn’t look like the home he always remembered when he was far absent from it.

But that was fine. His family did right well on the money a rider son gave them. As long as they didn’t exactly take him back to their bosom God wouldn’t damn them for dealing with him and their neighbors would go on associating with them.

He believed, well, a mishmash of things that didn’t fit. But there wasn’t anything he could do about being what he was, not since the night he’d started hearing Cloud in his dreams, and the day he’d gone down to the rider camp to ask the riders to do something about the wild horse that (not at all his fault, of course) he was hearing night after night while the Shamesey gate-guards were shooting at it—and not having a bit of luck: a threatened horse was real good at imaging he was where he wasn’t.

A horse was good at snagging a fool, too. Helluva lot of chance he’d had. Cloud had come looking for human company and he was what answered. He’d been—

—happy. Happy, dammit, since that day. Most times.

All the attractive commotion was gone, now. Young Je

He thought then—he thought—he really didn’t feel too energetic, himself, and that the room was getting much too hot. He was getting a little sick at his stomach, to go with the blinding headache that had never yet left him. So he thought he’d get up from where he was sitting and see if he could get an answer out of Ridley, whether he could sleep here the night—that was all he was interested in right now, a place to lie down.

He drew his bare feet up, braced a hand on the fireplace rock, got up—

Felt his center of balance off and went down backward, stupid thing to do. He knew he was going to hit his head on the fireplace.

And did. Hard.

Embarrassing move. He was blind for an instant, and then knew he’d fallen so his neck was bent forward and his legs were tucked and sort of crossed, so not only had he added to the headache, it wasn’t easy to find anything with his hands to help him up again—just— couldn’t find up from down. He heard the to-do he’d made in the room as he set a hand on the hearth stones, trying to figure out the position he’d gotten into.

Strong hands pulled him away from the fire before he put his hand quite in it. That had to be Ridley, who hauled him up onto his knees and got him on his feet.

“Is he hurt?” the kid asked, all concerned, and the woman said they’d better put him to bed.

“Is he going to die?” little girl sounded worried. Or excited. But Ridley said,

“He’ll be all right. Out of the way. Out of the way!”

Ridley provided balance. All he had to do was get up and sort out his right foot from his left, the way he’d done on the mountainside, just one step after another, all the way to what he hoped was a clean and empty bed.

Chapter 7

Darcy Schaffer didn’t know how long she’d heard the wind. The heavy storm shutters were locked tight on the windows, and didn’t admit but a hint of light or dark—shutters that could keep out a blizzard or an intruder, or the world in general.

She was heating water for breakfast tea when she heard that distant kind of thump in the snow-passage that meant someone was ru

But it was measured, heavier steps she began to discern headed for the passageway and directly for her door, and more than one of them. Her heart unwillingly picked up the sense of panic she felt when, first, she was sure someone was going to call at her door, and second, that someone had come with a cogent need for her to deal with them. She didn’t wantto deal with the outside. She dealt with it only on emergencies—and that was when they came to her, someone with a pain or a hurt that sweet oil from the grocer wouldn’t cure. She wasEvergreen’s only doctor.

Well, dammit, she thought, wiped her hands and left the kettle on to boil as she walked down the three steps from the kitchen that led to the snow-door. She reached the door from her side exactly at the moment the visitors knocked on it and the preacher’s voice called out, “Darcy, it’s John, open up!”

John Quarles and at least one other set of footsteps in a hurry. Definitely an emergency—and John didn’t usually come unless it was serious. She lifted the bar, shot the bolt back and opened the door wide.

She was, being the village doctor, prepared for blood and disaster of every kind. John’s involvement usually meant somebody was dying or damned close to it—and she saw marshal Peterson and deputy Jeff Burani further back in the dark passage, the marshal carrying a fur-wrapped body.

John was saying, “Darcy, there’s a case—”

But she wasn’t just seeing the marshal. She was seeing her daughter Faye in the marshal’s arms, wrapped in those furs. It was Then. It was That Day, the preacher was at the door, and Eli Peterson and his deputy were coming toward her down the passage, bringing Faye, who was dead; and soon then Mark was…

… dead.

But they were both in the mountain, where the village buried its dead. That Day was sealed away and she couldn’t relive it, couldn’t say, to Faye, No, you can’t go…

“Darcy.” The preacher had her arm, trying to move her back from the door and its cold draft. The teakettle on the stove reached a boil and screamed a steady, maddening note.

Distracted, she gave ground and let them in: marshal Peterson, Jeff Burani, preacher John Quarles, and a hurt kid—whose kid, she wasn’t sure, and her thoughts went flying distractedly down a list of kids that size and that weight. Above all else she didn’t like treating kids or dealing with anxious parents. But there was no one else for the hard cases and the broken bones and the appendectomies and such.

“Sorry, Darcy, sorry to bring this in on you—” Marshal Peterson turned the body to pass her and the preacher in the threshold. His heavy boots clumped loudly on the hollow wood and the kettle was still screaming fit to drive a body mad. The first thing she did when she reached the level of the kitchen was to go and lift the kettle off the fire.

The scream went on in her head. She hadn’t screamed aloud, Then. She’d shut in, shut down. She didn’t panic, now. She put on a professional face and calmed her heart, listening without giving a damn to what they were saying about a rider coming in, which didn’t make any sense with a storm raging out there, and that rider bringing three kids up the road from Tarmin, which made much less sense.

“We took the boys on to Van Mackey’s,” John said. “Figured it was asking enough for you to take on the girl, Darcy, but the Lord has set a particular task on you. The Lord has had His hand on this child of His in a special way, and maybe in His good providence He’s given you this precious charge. She’s been in the passage of the Beast. Her mind’s gone to sleep.”