Cloud's Rider

“You actually work in the forge?” Van Mackey asked.

“Yes, sir. Pretty good, myself.”

“Lot of work in Tarmin?”

“Not now,” fell out of his mouth. He wished it hadn’t. But the man didn’t react to that, either. Bad joke. Bad mood, dealing with this glum son of a bitch who clearly didn’t like the sight of them.

“Mend a wheel?” Mackey asked.

“Truck or cart. Makea wheel, or a barrel. Minor mechanics. Some welding on the trucks.”

“Welding takes equipment.”

“We had it.”

“What’s the kid do? Eat and sleep?”

Randy sucked in a breath to answer. Carlo squeezed his arm hard. “Fix-ups. Scrub. Inventory. Small chain, kitchen stuff.”

“Ski

“Stronger than he looks,” Carlo said, thin-lipped. Randy was about to explode. “I’m sorry we got dumped on you without warning, Mr. Mackey, but we canwork.”

“Got help.”

If he meant the other guy it didn’t look prosperous.

“I’m good. Food and a room. That’s all we ask.”

“Food and you eat and sleep in the forge.”

A grim-looking woman had meanwhile come through the door and stood staring from the doorway. “And you cook it,” the woman said. “And do your own damn laundry. No dishes from the house.”

“Take it or leave it,” the man said.

“That stinks!” Randy exclaimed, and Carlo jerked the arm hard enough to hurt, with, “Shut up,” and “Yes, sir, but we need at least a small cash wage.”

“No wage.”

“Thirty a week or I look elsewhere.”

“You won’t find elsewhere. You’re lucky you’re not outside in the snow, kid.”

“Twenty-five. The two of us.”

“Fifteen,” the woman said.

“Twenty.”

“That’s ten for you and five for the kid and first time either of you’s drunk on the job you’re fired. That’s the deal.”

“Can you getdrunk on that?”

“We don’t need ’im.” That from the younger one. “Tell ’em go to hell.”

“I’m competition,” Carlo said, arms folded. “ Somebodymight set me up.”

The man might have glowered. You couldn’t tell past the usual expression. He walked over and took out a rod from the sorting he’d done. Let it fell back. “This ain’t Tarmin. Wages are lower here. Fifteen, and you eat and drink down the street. Buy your own food and don’t let me catch you drunk in here or leaving food lie about or I’ll lay you out cold. Hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” Fact was he didn’t drink, or hadn’t until Tarmin went down and he’d met Da

“All right. Done deal. You fire up. Going to make up some logging chain, heaviest gauge. Any problem?”

“Easy.” The son of a bitch never had acknowledged the cleanup he’d done. He couldn’t resist walking over, confidently laying hands on a bar the right size, which he’dset in order out of the jumble of bars, and carrying it back to the forge.

“Huh,” the man said, and he and his wife left.

The other one stayed, the young guy, who sauntered over to the forge.

“You better get it straight,” the young guy said. “There’s onejob here. You just do what you’re told, collect your pay and don’t give him or me any backtalk or you’re out in the cold. Hear?”

Carlo faced him. The guy poked him hard in the chest.

“You hear me?”

“Yeah. I hear you.”

“You want a fight?”

“Not actually, no.”

“Hit him,” Randy said.

He didn’t wanta fight. “Name’s Carlo Goss,” he said. “This is Randy. You’re… ?”

“Mackey. Rick Mackey. This is myplace. Long as you keep that clear. That’s my old man. And you’re notstaying.”

“Fine. Come spring, we’ll likely be out of here—if we make enough. Not staying where we’re not welcome. Meanwhile I compete with you or I work foryou. Your father’s smart to hire us.”

“Fancy talk. ‘Compete,’ hell! You learn those words down the mountain, fancy-boy?”

“Sure didn’t learn ’em here.” Maybe that ill-considered retort went right over Rick’s head. At least it wasn’t a remark Rick could answer without thinking about it, maybe over several hours; and he trulydidn’t want an argument. “Look,” he said, and dropped down to a grammar his mother would have boxed his ears for. But Rick probably wouldn’t catch that change of gears, either. “I got work to do. Which I’m getting paid for.” He went on to the woodpile and started gathering up wood, trusting Randy to keep his mouth shut and restrain himself from provoking the situation.

Rick wasn’t excessively enterprising, he picked that up, Rick wasn’t inclined to move or think at high speed, and Van Mackey couldn’t get him to work; Rick was probably the reason the place looked like a sty before he’d cleaned it up, though for all he could tell, nobody who lived and worked here might even see the difference.

“Your brother a coward?” he heard behind his back.

“He can beat hell out of you,” Randy said.

Bothfools. If he warned Rick not to hit his brother that meant that Rick was of course, being Randy’s mental age, immediately going to have to hit Randy. Then he was going to have to hit Rick. So he said nothing and trusted Randy to dodge if the ox upped the ante.

“The kid says you can beat me,” Rick said to him, and nudged him in the shoulder as he walked to the furnace.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Fight doesn’t prove anything. Waste of time.”

“You’re a coward.”

“Yeah, fine.” He had his arms full of potential weapons, and he didn’t want to put himself in position for Rick to badger, but Rick stepped between him and the forge.

So he dumped the load. Rick skipped back as logs bounced everywhere about his shins and his feet, and Rick stumbled back against the furnace, in danger of bad burns. Carlo reached out and grabbed him forward, got swung on for his pains and let him go.

“You all right?” he asked with all due concern—which wasn’t much.

“Go to hell.”

He didn’t even answer. Rick grabbed his shoulder and tried to swing him around, and he broke the hold, a move which popped a button on his shirt and gave Rick a straight-on stare, which evidently exceeded Rick’s plan of action.

“You better not steal nothing,” Rick said, and left, sucking on the side of a burned hand.

The door slammed shut.

“You should have fought him!” Randy cried.

He grabbed a fistful of Randy’s shirt and jerked him hard. “You acted the fool, kid. What do you want? What’ll satisfy you? We need this job!”

“He called you a coward!”

“Yeah. So what?”

“So you could beat him!”

“I know that. He doesn’t. Pretty clearly I matter to him. He doesn’t matter to me.” He let Randy go and started picking up wood. “He shouldn’t matter to you. Be useful. Feed the fire.”

“He’s going to make trouble for you.”

“Kid, you know how close you came to him hitting you to provoke me? Did you figure that out or do I have to say it in smaller words?”

“I’m not scared of him. I’d have ducked.”

“Yeah, sure. You listen to me. You’d betterbe scared of him. That guy is stupid. You should be afraid of stupid people. You don’t know what they’ll do. Don’t get into fights with stupid people.”

“You could beat him!”

“Yeah, and you tell me where our food and board’s coming from.‘*

“There’s that horse out there in the woods. I could—”

“No.”

“I could be a rider and I’d make a lot of money.”

He was disgusted—he was sick at his stomach only thinking of Randy going out looking for that horse. “Did you learn from your sister, or didn’t you?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Yeah, well, don’t talk like it.” He grabbed up scattered logs and took them to the fire, not willing to argue, not with feet that hurt, hands that hurt, ears that hurt and knees that said a biscuit and a piece of ham yesterday wasn’t enough to keep a guy going stoking furnaces.

“You’re scared of him.”

“Yeah. Sure. Grow up.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!”