Cloud's Rider

The heavyset kid was standing real near that outside door. Randy was still keeping the bellows going, looking their way the while. “See you,” Carlo said, tight and careful. And shut the door between them.

Da

Pretty town, all the evergreens, shadows in the white. Pointed roofs. Nice place.

He was still a little worried about Carlo. He didn’t know what he personally could do until the day Carlo and Randy showed up and said Get us out of here.

Well, he did. He could go in there, let a fight start, and beat hell out of Mackey’s offspring. He could tell the whole village to swallow it or choke, so long as they wanted his help. He’d notbeen a good kid, in town. He had what his Father called real bad tendencies when somebody shoved him.

But—pushing back too hard and trying to deal his own hand in this apart from Ridley could make hima target for those who didn’t for one reason or another want a rush down to Tarmin. That included Ridley, it included Callie, and probably the marshal and the judge and maybe even people who’d like to go but who didn’t want certain other people to go.

It could get just real complicated.

One thing was sure: with gold, furs, and timber and all, Tarmin village wasn’t going to die. Tarmin was going to rise from a bloody grave. He hoped— hopedCarlo and the kid could benefit, and that they wouldn’t get robbed. Or hurt.

And he hoped Carlo kept the lid on Randy. When the news got out, and it was, he was sure, all over town—except near Carlo and Randy, which he found troubling—it was going to be just real uncomfortable in the Mackey household.

Because if the rest of the town was going to benefit from claiming free property in Tarmin, the smith couldn’t. Not while Carlo and Randy and Brio

But Carlo wasn’t a fool. Carlo was farfrom a fool. Carlo had understood everything from the first hint of what was going on.

And Carlo, who’d swung a hammer for his living, wasn’t defenseless, either. That surly guy crowding him was ru

Chapter 12

Van Mackey had been at the tavern all afternoon. Van Mackey had drunk quite a damn lot, as fairly well seemed his habit in the afternoon, and was a fire hazard around the forge when he came down to have a look around and criticize what those who hadworked during the day had done.

Fact was, Carlo said to himself, watching this inspection, and with Da

He was going to have to sit on his temper and not say a thing, that was what, figuring that any other course was going to get them bounced out of the shop and put on Da

But after looking it all over, Van Mackey came over to him and said, cheerfully, “Come inside. Have a drink.”

He really didn’t want to. In two ticks of his heart he knew for dead certain what the deal was, but he didn’t see a way to duck it.

“My brother, too,” he said. “I don’t want him knocking around the street alone. It’s our suppertime.”

“All right,” Mackey said, and the way he didn’t object also said a lot.

So they all went inside the house like good friends, Rick clumping after them, clearly out of sorts and maybe, at least Carlo thought so, puzzled.

The wife met them in the hallway, a narrow wooden hall with torn and sooty rugs, and they all went into the sitting room, where the rugs were new and not cheap but only slightly cleaner. The wife had a bottle of spirits on the table, and she set out five glasses and started pouring.

“Not for my brother,” Carlo said, “thank you.” A glass of that and Randy would be flat on the rug. Randy knew it, and didn’t more than sulk.

“There’s tea,” the wife said, and waved a hand at Rick, who hulked on the fringes. “Tea.”

Wouldn’t trust him not to spit in it, Carlo thought: he kept an eye on the process through the open door to the kitchen adjacent, and in the midst of a short course of small talk, watched Rick Mackey carry the ready teapot and a cup to the sitting room and the wife pour it. Rick went and slouched in the doorway, a picture of grace, with his hands in his pockets below a sagging belt.

“I have to tell you,” Van Mackey said for openers as he and his wife sat down with them, “it’s fine work you’re doing. Just gave you a couple of days to prove it and, I tell you boys, I’m real happy with what I’m seeing. Fine work, real fine eye.”

For damn sure the Mackeys knew what had come out of that meeting. And steam was all but coming out Rick Mackey’s ears, but he was keeping quiet under threat of his father’s hand, Carlo would lay odds on it.

Mackey poured the drinks, and the wife offered spiced crackers. “Hey,” Randy said, surprised at the change in things. “First-rate stuff.”

And after that, for half an hour at least, Van Mackey and his wife sat and chattered idly and in detail about shop business, neighbors, the mayor, the marshal, the whole situation down on the Ridge, and orders they expected and who they dealt with.

As if they were going into partnership—which, Carlo began to think queasily, just might be the game the Mackey household had in mind, a third possibility that Da

The Mackeys downed two rounds of drinks and poured his glass full the instant it emptied, and considering he hadn’t eaten, Carlo downed crackers at an equally rapid rate. If he and Randy had remotely dreamed of a warm and cordial reception in the village, right down to the crocheted doilies and the tea, the polite asking after their sister and the sympathy the wife—Mary was her first name and the last name turned out to be Hardesty—offered for the demise of their village, they couldn’t have concocted anything as extravagant.

Right down to the offer of an inside bedroom, as soon as they could refit the pantry and install beds.

“We’re pretty comfortable out there,” he said, and Randy, with his mouth full of cracker and another in his hand, looked at him in indignation. He went on regardless: “Might rig a couple of cots out there, though. The floor’s warm, but—”

“I don’t know why we should,” Rick said, which clearly said he didn’tknow exactly what was going on, or was stupid enough to ignore it.

“Shut up.” Van Mackey said to his son, and to them, in a different tone of voice, “You can’t go sleeping on the floor, good God, boy. I tell you, I was just real suspicious Peterson had fallen for some story, until I saw the work you do. And you’re just real fine. Real fine, praise the Lord and His mercy you boys made it in.”

“Yeah, I could see your position. I could really see that.” Carlo controlled his temper and his bellyful of alcohol and crackers real well, in his own opinion. He didn’t walk out, or even come close.

“I mean,” Mackey said, “a village goes under, you just don’t know.”