Cloud's Rider

But neither had happened, and Ridley made a trip over to the villageside, through the little gate, this time, and without Slip, to talk to Eli Peterson.

“No luck so far,” he said to Peterson when he met him on the street in front of the pharmacy.

“I feel bad about it,” Peterson said. “I don’t think the boy did it, fact is.”

“Fact is, I wouldn’t take the Mackeys’ word for a sunrise I was watching.”

“The girl, however,” Peterson said, “the sister—”

“What?”

“Says the brother shot their parents, down in Tarrnin. Says the boy was in jail.”

Ridley drew a slow breath. “I’ve been aware of it.”

“And didn’t say?”

“Fisher told me all about it. Fisher thinks the boy’s i

“He’s not a judge! Neither are you!”

“ I’masking you—let that matter lie. None of us were inTarmin. None of us can imagine how it was. What I caught from the Fisher boy—you wouldn’t want to see. Look at what happened this morning! I had a terrified boy ru

“The words flew out of my mouth and the damn miners were after somebody. They didn’t give a damn who. —How’s the kid taking it?”

“I’m keeping him. At least till his brother gets back.”

“You think he’s coming back?”

“Eventually.”

“Something youknow?”

“Fisher’s still gone. Fisher would come back if it was useless. The boy’s with him. I’ll be willing to bet. And the younger boy’s been through too much as is.” He hadn’t told Peterson the central matter. He thought about it, decided finally on half a truth. The snow was still falling and passersby aboveground were all but nonexistent on this cold day—except a batch of kids sledding the snow-pile across the street on a piece of board. “That horse that’s loose—can’t tell for certain, but I think the older boy’s contacted it. I don’t know what to expect.”

“You mean you think he’s teamed up with it? As a rider?”

“It’s possible. I don’t say it’s going to work. Or that he’s going to survive it. He could fall off, break his neck—the horse could kill him.”

“Do they dothat?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of it happening. A horse that’s just too spooked. A rider that’s the wrong rider. Things like that. This isn’t nice and controlled like Rain and Je

“Scared Slip?” Peterson was clearly dubious.

“Marshal, if I’d kept Slip there to deal with her—she’d have spooked the villageout the gates. Lorrie-lies and goblin-cats aren’t as scary as what’s in that girl’s mind.”

Peterson seemed to get the idea, then.

“She’s not right,” he repeated to Peterson. “She’s been associated with the rogue down at Tarmin. She’s dangerous.”

“How—dangerous?”

Fisher had left him with a set of truths—and a situation. As camp-boss, he had a privilege to deal with things in camp. And he didn’t pass blame—or legal matters—on to the village marshal. “Fact is—she was on the Tarmin rogue’s back. And she’s a lot safer with you than with us, is what I’m comfortable saying on the matter.”

“That’s not damn all you owe me to say, rider-boss!”

“Keep her away from the horses. This spring—we’ll find a way to get her down to someplace safe. Anveney would be my advice. No horses in Anveney.”

“Good lovin’ God. What have you handed us? Whatam I dealing with?”

“Marshal, the situation arrived on us on the sudden, on a junior rider’s best guess what to do. And with that horse out there, and what’s gone on—I’d say Darcy Schaffer’s got a real problem on her hands.”

Peterson was mad. He couldn’t blame him for that. Peterson walked off from him as far as the edge of the walk.

“What were my choices?” Ridley asked while Peterson stared off into the white.

“We could have put her with somebody else than Darcy Schaffer!”

“Yeah,” Ridley said. “Counting that we’ve got to get that girl out of Evergreen—I’d say just about anybody else. But the girl could get better by spring.”

“Better than what, rider-boss? Better than happened down in Tarmin?”

It was a question.

Serious question.

“I didn’t have all the information at the start.” Beingrider-boss he didn’t on principle want to pass the blame. But he wasn’t going to have it attach to Callie, either. “Callie was doubtful. I was too inclined to go easy. I should have held Fisher to account, I didn’t until I had clearer indication—and when I did get the truth it was a little damn late. I don’t see he could have done better than he did, given the situation. That’s what we’ve got for the winter.”

“And this is the younger kid of the same family you’ve got in camp right now!”

“Scared. In love with the horses. Willing to learn—maybe. Maybe some horse will have him. I don’t know. Maybe even Shimmer’s foal. And if that horse has taken his brother it may solve our problems for the winter, if we can move him on, say, to Mornay and get that influence out of here. Or settled. A rider might calm that horse right down.”

Peterson looked unhappy. But Peterson came back and met him close up. “Your guess. —No, dammit, your horse-guided opinion! You think the Goss boy is guilty or i

“Better than a guess. My horse knowsthe Goss kid, at least from one meeting. Nothing on that porch led me to the Goss kid. Nothing whatsoever. Everythingpersuades me that the sister is a problem. He isn’t. Neither is the younger boy or I wouldn’t have him near the horses.”

“There’s talk that Darcyagreed to pay Riggs a lot of money.”

“I’d sooner suspect miners and money for Riggs’ disappearance. It makes a lot more sense. It wasn’tthe Goss boy.”

“Riggs otherwise had no money.” Peterson said. “And I’m inclined to think it’s possible. Story is, Riggs was hiring men to claim property for the girl. Riggs had this notion of marrying her.”

“She’s a kid.”

“Yeah. And, your better-than-guess aside, there was reason for her brother to take offense. That much is true. —Then I ask myself— well, couldn’t the Mackeys wantto see the Goss boys charged and out of the picture? But that doesn’t benefit them too much, while the girl’s with Darcy. Unless they contracted to run the Tarmin shop for the girl. And between you and me and the rest of the village, Rick Mackey couldn’t run that shop or thisshop on his own, and if it came down to Mary Hardesty, she’s a businesswoman but she’s no decent smith, and without her, Van Mackey won’t stay sober. Business is all she likes, work has to get done and the Goss boy, the older one, is the only likely one there is. So where’s their motive?”

“On villageside and away from my business,” Ridley said. “I don’t try to figure what the Mackeys do. I’m sorry for Carlo Goss. I wish him well and far away. I’ve got my hands full with the younger kid. You’ve got the girl on your side of the wall and I’d say, soon as spring, we pack her on the first truck down with a strong dose of yellowflower and get her somewhere besides Tarmin.”

“Darcy won’t at all take to that.”

“Then maybe Darcy can do something with her head. But she didn’t do it on the porch this morning. I tell you, marshal, my horse and I were right out in the middle of that crowd. Same one that went for that boy. There was a reason things went the way they did.”

“You’re saying—what?”

“That the miners might have killed him. That thatwas why things went so bad so fast. Maybe it was why the boy ran for his life and went out those gates rather than stay in the village. He’d felt it once before this.”