Cloud's Rider

Then a shadow fell across their table, and a big miner or logger (devil a way to tell when both were in their tavern best) loomed across the light and sat down at the table with them.

“Hear you’re the Tarmin kids.”

“Yeah,” Carlo said, and nudged Randy with his foot under the table, a signal for Randy to keep his mouth shut.

“Hear you saw what happened down there.”

“Yeah.” He refused to let the guy ruin his supper. He and Randy had hadsupper in the middle of the carnage, in the store which was the only safe place with food, and he didn’t intend to be spooked. “I was there. It was a mess. Lost my whole family.”

“Hear so,” the guy said. “Real sorry. Stand you a drink?”

“Yeah, suppose so.”

The guy—he turned out to be the head of the miner’s union— seemed bound to talk. And after a little chatter about the oddness of the winter so far, and how spooky the Wild had been—asked the lay of the village, the size of the buildings in a jump so fast Carlo didn’t even see it coming.

He answered, having no reason not to.

Then other miners began to gather round. Pretty soon a good many of them were asking questions, or repeating information they’d heard, and a couple of men said they’d been there years ago but they didn’t know the place now.

“Not many would,” Carlo said without thinking, and didn’t intend to let emotion color his statement. But it did, and he saw Randy twitch to it and he saw a shifting-back among the crowd.

At that moment he saw Da

“Dan,” he said, half-rising—Dan or Da

There was a mild fuss made, and a beer gotten—Carlo wasn’t even sure who’d ordered it. But Da

And folk wantedto buy Da

“On me,” Carlo said, and with a wicked thought, got up and ordered at the bar: “What the rider drinks is on the tab.”

By the time he got back through the crowd to the table, there was a dish of the stew, a mug of beer, and a cluster of miners and loggers.

“You taking hire?” one was asking.

“Not yet,” Da

“Fool,” someone said to the asker, and shoved his way in to introduce himself as Frank Remere, and head of a small mine.

Which could be real small.

“Excuse me,” Carlo said, and Da

“What about the Tarmin riders?” someone asked. “Why didn’t theystop it?”

“Because somebody ignored the rules,” Da

“Move away,” someone said, “move away, let the man be.”

“So what didhappen?” a logger asked.

“Shut up!” another man said, and there was nearly a fight among the crowd drawing off.

But Da

“Different than Shamesey,” Da

“Everybody wants to talk to you,” Randy said, clearly impressed.

“Yeah, well, I’d just as soon not.” Da

“Doing all right,” Carlo said, and picked skin off a peeling hand.

“No trouble from the jerk.”

“Not as much as he’d like,” Carlo said. And caught sight of Rick Mackey over by the door. “He’s here, actually.”

“He’s a pig,” Randy said.

“Yeah, well, don’t say it too loud.”

“Pig,” Randy said.

Da

“Be smart,” Da

Amazing, Carlo thought. There was actually sobriety from the kid. And hero-worship.

He didn’t have that on his side.

But they made a kind of pie for dessert, and he thought if the Mackeys were buying, it might do real well for finishers. “Pie,” he said to Randy. And while Randy was gone on that errand, he filled Da

“No offer yet, but, fu

“I’ll bet.”

“Da

“I’m not worried,” Da

“They haven’t made one. But they’d sure like me to be in debt.”

“They’d sure like to have my help,” Da

“I tell you—”

Said kid came back with the pie, three helpings, with his thumb in one.

“Thanks,” Carlo said, and, “Did you wash that thumb?”

Randy made a face, sucked the thumb clean and sat down. “Carlo thinks he’s smart.”

“Generally he is,” Da

“So do you likeit over there?”

“In the camp? It’s all right.” Da

“How—spooky?”

“Just not out there. There’s been some village hunters clamoring to go. But nothing’s there. Horses know. And there isn’t. So we sit. Wait for the weather to get better. Everything’s likely in burrows.”

“ Wecould go hunting,” Randy said.

“I don’t think so,” Carlo said.

“Meanwhile,” Da

“Could do with a little boredom,” Carlo said.

“Yeah,” Da

“So what are they like over there?” Still, things weren’t quite right—Carlo felt so, anyway. And Da

“Real tight, together, you know. Nice folk.”

That might, Carlo thought, be the complaint. He wasn’t sure. But Da

He had his di

After that—Da

And the curious closed in, the miner who’d bought him a drink, among others. “So what was thatabout?” the fellow wanted to know, little that it was his business.

“Friend of mine,” Carlo said, seeing exactly what all that idle talk had been about. “ Friendof ours, got us up the mountain—”

“Yeah, but what did he want?”

“Just passing the time of day,” Carlo said. “Talking. Promised each other a drink when we got through.”

“Amen,” said one. “That’s due.”

“After which,” Carlo said, “I’d better get home.”

“No, no,” the guy said. “Have a drink. You got it coming. The kid, too.”

“My name’s Randy,” Randy said.

“He drinks tea,” Carlo said. And beers arrived. “ Tea,” Carlo insisted, and that was what Randy got.

Himself, he’d just the one more. And talked to the miners and loggers about Tarmin until that ran to the bottom. Then he got up, took Randy, and said that he had to get back to the forge.

“Give old Van Mackey hell,” one said. “The lazy clod.” Ordinarily talk like that was a joke. But he picked up that Da