Cloud's Rider

“Yes, ma’am.” It was going exactly where Da

“If there are no other surviving heirs, you’re the sole heirs of that property and inheritance, and of your mother’s property and inheritance. For the court records—easier if you might have identification on you—”

“We didn’t come away with any.”

“Too much to ask, I’m sure. Is there anyone besides rider Fisher who can identify you?”

“Tara Chang knows me. She’s a Tarmin rider—but she can make an identification, can’t she, legally? She knows me. She’s down at a shelter with a border rider.”

Thatcame as a shock to certain faces: Van Mackey and his wife. They might have pla

“The High Loop district has nodifficulty with her profession. Is rider Chang coming up here?”

“I understand she is—come spring.”

“Would she go backto Tarmin?” the marshal asked—meaning as a guide, as a village rider, maybe—he wasn’t sure, but the marshal had pounced on that with some speed.

“I don’t know. I think she’d go there. I don’t know if she’d stay.” Guil Stuart was a borderer, and there was no pi

“The Lord bless her,” the preacher said fervently. “Blessed are the faithful.”

There was a lot more talk, the same kind as they’d met in the tavern, asking what buildings were where, and the sort of knowledge of the layout of Tarmin and the extent of properties he didn’t think Da

There was question about who’d lived where, and how many people there’d been in Tarmin—Simms was actually taking notes—and he didn’t know what they wanted with the numbers. He was sure the real question was how many houses there were to take over.

But reverend Quarles said then that he’d like to hold a memorial service for the dead of Tarmin.

“Yes, sir,” Carlo said. It was the only thing anyone had said yet that had brought a lump to his throat. The notion made it hard for him to think for a moment, but nobody jumped on the chance it offered them. Rick just sneered and didn’t say anything.

Then Van said, well, they’d talk about plans for the future. “Maybe we can help these lads,” Van said.

Rick kept sneering, maybe hoping looks could kill, and shoved half another biscuit in his mouth.

“They’re good boys,” Mackey said. “Real skilled. We’d give ’em a stake. Or talk a deal. Wouldn’t we?”

“Sure would,” Mary said.

There it came. And Van and Mary started saying how they’d offer money and want a share for staking them to food and supplies and transport.

“I don’t know,” Carlo said to that proposal. “We’d have to think about it. There’s other possibilities.”

“What?” Van asked, startled into bluntness and clearly not happy.

“I don’t actually know,” he admitted. He wasn’t going to offer them a trade of facilities. And he didn’t needtheir finance. He could get down there. Da

“Don’t think too long.”

“I’m just, you know, getting over this.”

“Of course,” reverend Quarles said. “Of course. If you need any counseling, either of you, you come to me, hear? Any hour of the night. It doesn’t matter.”

“You should come to me,” Van Mackey said. “Got to lay plans. Don’t be listening to anybody else.”

“The boy’s thinking,” Mary said, and swatted Van on the arm.

Van didn’t say anything. The breakfast was over and the visitors got up to go in a general shoving back of chairs from the table.

Only the marshal and the lawyer had a paper they wanted him to sign.

“No,” he said.

“It’s only acknowledgment that we’ve advised you of the situation,” the marshal said.

“I know it’s on the up and up, but I don’t read much, sir, and I’d like to think on it some and maybe get some advice from several people before I sign anything.”

Randy gave him a look. He ignored it. And the marshal and the lawyer both said he was smart to be cautious, and they’d make a copy he could take to anybody he liked to be sure what it said.

“I do appreciate it,” he said, thinking that he’d take it to Da

And after that he and Randy and the three visitors thanked and apologized and chatted their way out into the hall and into their coats, in the visitors’ case, and out into the passages.

Hewas for going to the forge and getting to work, but Van and his wife were in the hall and in his path.

“That’s a real serious offer, staking you kids,” Van said. “You’re a big, healthy guy. You can do it. But it’s a lot of hard work down there. What yougot to have is a stake and some help, and all hell’s going to break loose when these other villages get onto what’s happened. They’ll try to do you out of what’s yours. God, some of these miners—they’ll cut your throat for a tin cup, let alone real money. You take it from me, Carlo, it’s a lot of real rough guys going to be going down there. You needsome muscle. Maybe cash to pay some guns of your own.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Carlo said quietly. “But I guess that’s all in the future and I’d better get to work, or I can’t afford my place here.”

“A good worker like you,” Van Mackey said, “we don’t have to worry about. I tell you, I’d have notrouble backing you and your brother.”

“And our sister,” Randy piped up, having said nothing troublesome all morning. It was to make Van Mackey give and give, every step he could, and Carlo knew it.

“And your sister,” Van Mackey added.

“I’ve got to go visit her,” Carlo said—wanting just to get it over with. Wanting—just to know how she was or wasn’t doing, and not to go back there soon. The whole world seemed in flux. What was past kept coming up in his face. And he wanted to convince himself that Brio

“Anytime you think is good. Take extra time.”

“Thanks. — We’dbetter get to work.” He wanted to get Randy out of the house before Randy said something just too far, and he wanted time, himself, to think what to do. He did his serious thinking here in Evergreen as he’d done at home, in the forge with the bellows hissing and the fire and the wind roaring and the hammer setting up its kind of rhythm. That was his privacy, his sanity, nobody being able to get through the racket except by shouting, and work always being an escape and an excuse from somebody trying to push him.

So he worked his way out the Mackeys back door, smiling until his teeth ached.

“You,” he said to Randy, “fire up.” And he went to get his apron and his gloves.

But as he came back to the forge and was pulling on his gloves, shouting and thumping broke out inside the house.

Randy stopped work and stared in that direction. There seemed to be one hell of a fight going on inside, Van shouting and his son Rick shouting, and then wife Mary shouting.

“Remember what I said about stupid people being dangerous enemies?” he remarked to Randy while the shouting ascended to a crash of something breakable. “You don’t know what they’ll do. It won’t be smart, but it’ll be something he thinks will hurt us.”

“The old man?”

“Rick.”

“Because he’s jealous?”

“You could say so.”

“Well, his papa isn’t too smart, either.”

“He thinks he is. —And don’t talkhere! I told you.”

“You’re doing it.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I shouldn’t.”

“They can’t hear us. They’re all shouting.”