Cloud's Rider

And by everything he’d learned about Tara Chang, he wasn’t going to give her up until she could tell him—in words, at which riders including himself didn’t generally excel—that she’d made up her mind to be as shut down as a rock forever.

“Damn you!” she said, for what he was doing, not what he was thinking.

Afterward she lay and shivered, and in her mind still was the firelight. And him.

Then her lost partner. And him again.

She had her hand on his arm, and could have pulled away, and didn’t. Just lay there, as he did, the two of them in the firelight. His horse, Burn, helpfully came over and sniffed them over, approving.

That told him something, too. Burn didn’t likeeveryone.

There was probably a glorious view from the turn next and higher, as the wind shifted into their faces again: all the peaks of the great Firgeberg Range were probably right there behind that veil of white, but all they met was wind that scoured what it hit. If they plummeted straight off the edge in their next snow-blinded steps it still wouldn’t give them a view—they’d just fall and fall, Da

From a high Shamesey window he’d dreamed boyish dreams of the far crest of the world. From the safety of Shamesey walls he’d seen Rogers Peak send out its winter ba

Well, this was it. He was here. Best view he might ever have. And snow and the fading of daylight were all the view he had.

One foot in front of the other—hand was numb, arm was numb, and Cloud was getting too far ahead of them, moving into blowing sleet that didn’t let up, up an increasingly sleet-gray road. Randy, walking near him, was dropping behind; Da

“Come on,” he yelled. “Keep with us. ” He saw their strength giving out, finally, to pull that travois. They’d dumped all the non-essential supplies. Held on to the shotgun and most of the food. Couple of blankets. And Brio

Randy might have answered his hail just now. Da

On that steeper grade, Randy struggled to keep walking. Feet skidded on snow-packed rubble as often as they gained upward. More than once the kid slipped to his knees and got back up in what had become an exercise of raw, desperate courage. Da

Carlo had his feet go out from under him, wrenched the travois down and almost took Da

Then tail and horse alike faded into white ahead of them. Randy was momentarily a gray, ghostly figure and then gone, too.

It was like walking into a wall. Ice particles stung exposed skin. They couldn’t see, and what Cloud sent made Da

Carlo was bearing up somehow, but Randy—

Randy by now was walking on instinct, not mentally there, Da

Cloud was struggling with the increasingly frequent idea of < shelter and shops> coming from the kid. <Cattle tails,> was Cloud’s opinion of villagers walking this road—<cattle tails> describing the feature Cloud most despised on the creature Cloud most despised on the planet, adding <cattle dung> and <cattle rear ends> for villagers who confused his navigation.

Foot slipped. Randy went momentarily to all fours and got up again, amid <fear> from Carlo, who surely knew the score. They couldn’t, Da

Randy lagged back by them. Da

“Randy!” Carlo yelled back at him. Carlo’s voice was mostly gone, too, but he yelled: “Randy, come on! Keep up, dammit, you lily-livered stupid kid!”

It wasn’t exactly the encouragement Da

Couldn’t have the kid quit. They were—he’d tried to reestablish a time-sense—maybe an hour from the shelter and the end of this road. It was getting toward dark.

Get the kid to a level spot, pack him on—he and Carlo could pull that weight.

Couldn’tbe that much longer. The shelter was supposed to be right at the crest, a broad truck pull-out, so that trucks in convoy from the High Loop could park and the drivers could sleep in them before or after that notorious steep. Villagers appreciative of the means by which their goods had moved provided soft bunks, even heated showers in the summer, Tara had said so. Tara had promised them—he could seethe image she’d cast him.

<Hot water. Hot meals. A shelter still within the treeline> and away from this rocky face, which meant firewood available if they had to wait out a succession of storms.

He had no feeling in his left hand. With his free right, he gave a furious wipe across his eyes to free his eyelashes of the accumulating ice—and in that moment Randy slipped on a runoff trace of ice and shot past him downhill.

He dropped and grabbed the kid, and Randy’s weight spun him, the travois, and Carlo all to the left and onto the ice. Carlo—he thought it was Carlo—by a miracle or a dug-in boot-toe held onto the other pole of the travois, flat on the ice, and didn’t let them skid more than a body length further.

 Da

He really hadn’t been scared in the instant he’d grabbed Randy. Now a shudder went through him that passed to quaking shivers, a blinding acuteness of headache, and an inability to get his breath.