Страница 50 из 98
They were the hunters Ridley had been going to take outside this morning—hunters responsible for seeing the village provisioned with meat that didn’tcome up the mountain dried, ca
And the hunters heard from Ridley and Callie what Da
“Spooky quiet,” Je
“Quiet,” her mother said, meaning a too-talkative child, not the ambient.
“This commotion last night,” Harris said. “This business down by the gate—didn’t see anything of the horse?”
Harris was questioning him, and Ridley didn’t object. “No, sir,” Da
“The horse came up from Tarmin,” Ridley said, and went on to say what Ridley hadn’t said to the marshal: “Male, lost his rider, followed Fisher here up the mountain.”
It wasn’t his place to talk to outsiders to the camp when the camp-boss was there to talk for him. That was the rule down in Shamesey, and it had never made so much sense—but it left him nothing to do but sit and feel guilty as hell that his—maybe manageable—problem down at first-stage had now become these men’s problem, and the village’s problem.
“Got to be dealt with,” Harris concluded. Da
“It’s a dangerous kind of business,” Ridley said, and in the passage of a horse near the walls—probably Slip—there leaked a little bit of <Je
“I don’t want you to,” Je
“You hush,” Callie said, “you sit still, and you learn. Questions later.”
“Yes, ’m.” Je
“Fisher,” Ridley said, “you and I better go out today.”
“Yes, sir,” Da
“We’re offering backup,” Harris said. “Three of us.”
“I think,” Ridley said slowly, “that none of us have ever had to hunt a horse, and a man on foot is just too vulnerable. I’m not turning you down. I’m saying let us see whether there’s any chance at all of us getting it without taking that risk.”
“You don’t—” Harris cleared his throat. “I don’t want to talk in front of the young miss, but—is there any chance—it’s here for somebody inside?”
“Not for our daughter,” Callie said in no uncertain terms.
“It’s possible,” Ridley said.
Da
He thought—I have to say something.
But what in hell could his information do? If the horse was trying to link up with Brio
Sleep didn’t cure the confusion orthe anger. Carlo waked in the morning and lay in the blankets thinking that maybe, it being a new day, he would feel better and not lose his temper and maybe Randy would be his cheerful self.
But the more he tested his feelings the more he raked over thoughts he didn’t want to lie in bed with, and didn’t want to be idle with.
Fire on the glass. The rogue had sent that while it prowled Tarmin streets, while it drew people out their doors and the vermin had swarmed in.
People hadn’t died quick deaths. Maybe there were some large predators like goblin-cats or lorrie-lies with jaws that could make a quick end of someone, but mostly—mostly the end wasn’t quick.
Their mother had died that way.
Their father—
Explosion in his hands. A shock that shook the world.
Papa stopping in midstep and mama—mama’s mouth open, and maybe a sound coming out—he didn’t know.
Faces below the village hall porch. People with lamps and electric torches. Angry faces. Mouths open there, too, but he didn’t hear. He just kept hearing that sound. That explosion. Feeling that shock in his hand. Brio
It wasn’this fault Brio
Give me back my girl! That was what he’d been yelling. You did it, you were the one!
And he’d fired. He’d fired when their father headed at him with the intent to take the gun away from him, and after that to beat him and Randy for God knew what. He never knew why their father hated them, and why Brio
For the first time in his whole scared life, he’dheld the threat, he’d toldhis father to stop. But his father wouldn’t—constitutionally couldn’t—hadn’t.
He didn’t remember firing.
There’d been the explosion.
The faces below the porch, all looking at him. Tara Chang speaking up for him. His mother damning him for a liar and a murderer— I want my Brio
And the jail. Himself and Randy—the bars.
All of Tarmin had heard the rogue in their streets, had opened their doors and gone out to help their neighbors.
But the marshal’s wife had taken up a shotgun and spattered herself all over the office so as not to open that door. He and Randy had sat blank with horror while the rogue and its rider had gone up and down the street, calling aloud and in the ambient—all Brio
They’d sat locked in—listening—and Brio
And she couldn’t. She’d tried. She’d tried and kicked and battered at the door in a tantrum. She’d called them names. And thingshad come through the ambient, things swarming over each other, snapping jaws, biting and feeding and tearing each other in their frenzy, and people screaming and people dying and screaming and screaming—
And when Brio
They’d sat in the dark. He and Randy. For hours. Knowing that while their cell had bars to keep out the big predators it wouldn’t stop the little ones. The vermin had been working at that door just now and again, but they hadn’t been out of food yet and the jail hadn’t been the only source—yet.
Then Da
In the dark, after all those hours, they’d heardDa