Cloud's Rider

“Wait till hecomes out,” Randy suggested. “And bash him.”

“Fair,” he said. “You ever hear the word?”

“Fair, with him? He doesn’t fight fair. Why should we?”

“Little brother, you want snow down your pants?”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Randy swept a handful off the porch rail and started a snowball.

Carlo dived off the porch and ducked. And scooped up snow and had a big one ready when Randy threw at him.

Randy ran, stopped, and flung one that caught Carlo. His caught Randy. They stopped all strategy in the matter, stood and made snowballs and pelted each other until they were both powdered from head to foot and out of breath from laughing and swearing.

“I’ve got a handful of snow,” Carlo said, and Randy, knowing its potential destination, ran for the forge, past the evergreen.

Carlo stalked him.

“No fair, no fair,” Randy said, at bay beside the doors. “I haven’t got the key.”

“Oh, nowfair counts!” Carlo bent, made a good snowball and stood up.

Randy’s caught him fair in the face. His caught Randy on the side of the head.

Then they’d run out of snowballs and breath, and he gained sense enough to realize how late it was. The village was quiet. It was a deserted, lightless street, no light from the Mackeys’ house, either.

“Everybody’s gone to bed,” he said. “Way late.”

“Spooky,” Randy said, and waited, bouncing a little with anxiety as Carlo opened the door with the key.

Randy went across the darkened forge and threw a log on the banked fire, huddled down by it and started brushing snow off as he undid his coat.

Carlo had a last bit from his pocket. And delivered it to the back of Randy’s neck.

Squeal of indignation.

“No fair!”

“That’s twice you’ve called fair. You give?”

“Bully,” Randy said.

“Yeah.” He figured the kid would learn a little finesse. At least in snow fights. “But that’s enough. If we wake the Mackeys up, we’ll be in the street. No kidding.”

“Yeah, just you wait,” Randy said.

He gave Randy a hug. With no snow involved. They hauled the cots they used out of the storage area.

He could hardly last long enough to hit the mattress.

Tired, tonight, real tired. His mind was quiet, finally. He thought he could sleep, now, and felt it coming on thicker by the minute.

Something had made a sound. Darcy levered herself out of bed, thinking she’d might have heard Brio

“Are you all right?” she called out. “Honey, are you all right?”

“Mama?” the thin voice came to her, likewise alarmed.

Something crashed at the front door. Someone yelled.

Someone was trying to break in, rattling the door handle—she could hear it. She knewas if she could see it.

She ran to Faye’s room, and the child was out of bed, on her way downstairs, crying out something, she couldn’t tell what.

“Stay here!” Darcy cried. “Stay here!”

She ran to the stairs and took them clinging to the ba

She listened. But the rattling and banging had stopped. She sat and listened in that stillness. The dark seemed alive it was so heavy and so dreadful.

The commotion had been on the public entrance porch. If it was drunken miners, the disturbance wouldn’t necessarily cut her off from the passages—she could take Faye, she could go that way, and reach the marshal, or a neighbor—but it was too risky. It was quiet out there, maybe because they’d given up, maybe because the intruders were thinking of trying another way in. But she had strong doors, and if a whole crowd of miners had gotten to warring with the loggers or some such foolery, there might be riot in the passageway as well. There was a passageway entry off the street, not far from her door—as well as the direct access by the kitchen door. She was scared to try to go for help, and hoped that Constance and Emil, next door, might have heard. Emil was a big man. If Emil flung open the shutters and shouted in his deep voice to get the hell away—if there was anybody co

“Mama?”

Faye was on the stairs, coming down in the dark.

Not knowing her way. Giving out a high, female voice that might only incite drunken fools. She kept her finger off the trigger for fear of tripping in the dark, and recrossed the cold floor to the office doorway.

“Here I am,” she said in a calm, easy voice. “It’s all right, honey. I’m right down a short hall. Just some drunks. Put your hand on the wall and just walk along it. I’m right here.”

“I know.” It was a quavery, scared voice. But closer. In the dark she could see the pallor of the nightgown as the girl inched her way toward her. She knew when the girl reached her, and reached out her hand and found chill fingers.

“Somebody wants in,” Brio

“They’re not going to get in,” Darcy said firmly. “I have a gun, sweet. Don’t grab it. Just stay close by me. If anybody breaks in, they’ll be sorry.”

Desperate hands clutched her. A frightened, shivering body pressed against her.

Silence followed. Then a dreadful sound above them, a sliding and scrabbling as if something had gone along the roof. The girl cried out, and Dairy’s heart jumped.

Then she laughed. “It’s snow, honey. It’s just snow sliding off the roof. It’s all right. Sometimes it does that, around the stove-pipe.”

The girl wasn’t so sure. But Darcy put an arm around her for reassurance.

“Tell you what. Let’s go to the kitchen where it’s warm. I’ll make some tea and we’ll have some of that cake. How’s that?”

The girl didn’t say anything, but she let herself be drawn along at Darcy’s left side.

They reached the kitchen and Darcy carefully laid the gun down on the counter while she lit the oil lamp and got out the tea canister. The house stayed quiet. The child pulling back a chair at the kitchen table made a loud screech on the boards, and she stopped and looked apprehensively at the roof.

“I heard something,” she said.

“I think you’re imagining, honey. Go ahead. Sit down. I’ll put on tea. Do you want a big piece or a little piece?”

“Either’s fine.” The girl’s eyes were still toward the ceiling. “I hear it, don’t you?”

“No, honey. I don’t.”

“It wanted in.”

“Don’t think about it.” She dipped up water from the kitchen barrel and set the kettle on.

There was no more snow sliding. The house stayed quiet. The wind blew, and snow would be coming down. It was the buildup on the steep roof that had slid.

She was worried about the kitchen door, the one that led to the passages. She listened for footsteps out there, but everything was quiet. She thought still about going after the marshal and taking Faye with her.

Brio

But they were all right here. It was quiet.

And there were five rounds in the gun. She knew. Mark had only needed one.

Chapter 18

There’d been something wrong in the night—they’d waked, at least Da

The horses were still jumpy this morning, arguing that something had bothered them in a way that had put them in a lasting mood. Slip kicked at Rain, and Shimmer snapped. Da