Cloud's Rider

“The tap was open,” Randy said.

“Open?” he said, not too brightly, but he’d had a beer and a shift of direction. He heard the sound of footsteps coming back from, he could guess, the tavern, not long after he had, via the passages. And sure enough Rick came in, tried the flooring ostentatiously with his heel and yelled, “What in hell’s going on? Where’s the water coming from?”

“I think you damn well know,” Carlo said.

“You’re done, boy. This is your stupid fault. No question.”

“We’ll see.”

“Big threat.”

He found his temper coming up. And he wouldn’t let it. “All right, all right, big joke.”

“Beat him up!” Randy said. “You don’t have to take that off him!”

“Little brother’s got more guts than you have.”

“Yeah,” he said matter-of-factly.

About that time Van Mackey and his wife were coming back, and the cursing from the corridor was loud and clear. The sand hadn’t prevented slippage altogether. He went to the door and said, “Watch those steps.”

“What in hell happened here?” Van Mackey came stamping up through the doorway and looked at a forge floor glistening with standing water and ice. “The tank give way?”

“The kid left the tap askew,” Rick said with a sneer.

“No,” Carlo said. “No, sir, I don’t think so.”

“Like hell,” Rick said, and his mother, in the doorway behind Van:

“Shut up.”

“ Meshut up! The damn brat flooded the place! It’s pure luck nobody broke their—!”

“I want to talk to you,” Van said.

“For what? Theyleft the tap open.”

“Liar!” Randy said, but Carlo didn’t say a thing, thinking all in a flash that if Rick’s ploy didn’t work and Rick’s papa beat hell out of him and Rick wanted to come back at him, Rick had better not come at Randy.

Because he knew now how to get Rick, every time. Rick was devious but not bright, and anything that went wrong around here was notgoing to be the fault of two boys Rick’s rather wanted on the good side of. Rick was about to get the shit beaten out of him and hadn’t figured yet why that was.

Rick’s papa ordered his son into the corridor, shut the door, and an argument started that could melt the ice out there. Van was shouting, the wife was shouting—Rick was shouting his i

Then there was a lot of slamming of doors and shouting and screaming, the subject of which they couldn’t hear but Carlo could guess.

Randy stared. Randy just stared.

“I guess he’s getting it good,” Randy said finally. There wasn’t the triumph Randy might have showed. It sounded pretty bad in there.

Carlo understood that, in his own gut. Sounded like home. Their own household. The sounds were the same, the yelling was the same—only this time he was safe outside and just listening to it, and Randy was hearing it, and remembering.

The old cold fear was back. Not of Rick Mackey. Just—fear, the same fear he’d had when his father had used to corner him and Randy. They’d never done right. They’d learned a whole lot of lessons in the forge that had everything to do with avoiding blame and nothing to do with justice or eversatisfying their father.

He didn’t want to hear it. He squeezed Randy’s shoulder and thought he’d like to go back to the tavern and have another beer, and maybe not lie down to sleep with the upset in the stomach he was feeling right now.

But he couldn’t. He had Randy to think of, and he had a damned fool girl trying to make a play for him for reasons his sixteen years told him weren’t on the up-and-up. And, dammit, he hadn’t seen Da

He heard a door slam. He heard someone leave the house in a fit of temper and hoped to God whoever was bound out didn’t skid on the ice. But whoever it was went out, and didn’t break his neck, and he’d bet it was Rick or Van going to the tavern—where he consequently didn’twant to be.

“Time to get to sleep,” he said. “Get some rest.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Then we can pitch pe

“Rick’ll have to fill it. Betcha.”

“Might be. But if he doesn’t, you do.”

“Wait a minute,” his little brother said. “Where’s the deal that youdo it?”

“You’re learning,” he said. “Not much, but you’re learning.”

“Hell,” Randy said, and Carlo cuffed Randy’s ear, not hard, but because he was the senior brother and somebody had to tell a fourteen-year-old not to cuss, not to drink, and not to be impressed with Azlea Sumner.

Fact was, he didn’t feel like sleep, either. And he had some actual pe

Best use for them was pitch-pe

And he played against his brother until they’d both calmed down and gotten sleepy; and finally they lost one of their pe

Van came in late. He knew it was Van. He heard the shouting break out again.

He really wanted a couple of beers. Tonight after a lapse of a number of nights he had the vision back again, the gunshot, the sound, the anger—

God, the anger. It was the Mackey house that conjured it for him, but it was there and it was real. It colored the space behind his eyes with red, and filled his ears with his mother’s screaming.

He couldn’t let their father hit him again. He couldn’t let their father hit Randy.

You damn pig! was the last thing his father had ever said. The night had exploded—just—exploded. He didn’t know when he’d picked up the gun. He didn’t know why he had. He didn’t know anything but his mother screaming—screaming at him a second time across the village crowd gathered in front of the marshal’s office. Murderer, she’d called him.

He was, he knew that. He was eldest. He’d picked up the gun. Their father always kept it by the fireplace, and he’d grabbed it up, he must have—but he hadn’t wanted to pull the trigger. His anger had.

Just like your father, their mother would say when he lost his temper as a child. Just like your father.

Meaning the first time he’d lost his temper as a man against a man—

He’d shot his father.

Da

“You awake?” Randy asked out of the dark, while the fight went on the other side of the wall.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like it here. Whycan’t we go to Da

“Because we’re not riders.”

“I could hearthe horses. I could hear it plain as plain the other night. I likedit.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s not for us.”

“You say. Yousay. Youdon’t know what I am. Youdon’t run my life!”

“Yeah, well, kid, I’m just trying to get you to grown-up and then you can find a horse if you want one. But meanwhile Ineed you. Ineed you. Does that matter at all?”

“That’s a cheat. You don’t need me.”

“Who the hell else am I doing this for? Who’d I haul up this damn mountain besides—besides our sister, who’s not my reason.” Luckily it was dark. Tears didn’t show. “Kid, I’m tired. I’m really tired.”

“You should have beat hell out of him.”

“Well, I don’t want to. And that’s my business.”

“I could catch that horse.”

“You’re a damn fool.” Of a sudden he had a terrible notion of Randy actually going out the gate, and he sat up on his cot, swung his feet off the side and grabbed hold of Randy’s arm. “Don’t you think about it! Don’t you think about it, or damn you to hell, Randy Goss! Don’t you double-cross me like that and get yourself killed— because that’s what will happen!”