Cloud's Rider

Van Mackey and Mary Hardesty had set their sights on hiring Randy Goss, Carlo having clearly left the trade, and the work and the potential prosperity piling up the way it was. But with carts wanting wheels and fittings and all of Tarmin and that shop lying down there unclaimed and apt to fall to the Mornay smith—Randy Goss had no interest these days in anything but Shimmer’s imminent foal, which had begun to image, and which was (Ridley and Callie had begun to call it fate) another colt.

In all of it, Randy just played games with Je

Juniors who had their wits about them (and they all had) paid strictest attention. Je

Wild things coming out of burrows was the part that made them all nervous. And on a certain day Da

“Sometimes I wonder if she’s dead,” Carlo said, when Da

Da

So his own opinion was that it wasdead. He damned sure didn’t want to find thatbreed coming across the mountain ridge, laying siege to village walls, and calling village kids out for company. Horses had become addicted to human minds. Horses had never been predators on humans—just curious, just vastly and immediately curious when ships came to the worlds and landed in the horses’ range down near Shamesey. This thing was a far different matter. And he’d shoot one if he saw it, without a second thought about its intentions.

“I sure don’t want to find another one,” he said. “And the ambient’s back, normal as can be.”

“Yeah,” Carlo said.

They were going down the mountain, too, as their plans were. Guil had confessed to all the seniors and to him and Carlo that there was gold in that truck that had gone off, and that a shipper down in Anveney wanted it back.

But meanwhile there wasn’t any way to move it, and by that fact, in lieu of retrieving the truck cargo, he and Carlo had acquired a long-riding job, to go down and north to Anveney and to talk to a man named Cassivey, a shipper. They had to say to him that if he wanted his gold he had to get some trucks andsome oxcarts arranged with supplies.

And then they were going to tell him that if he wanted a share in the property that was to be had at Tarmin, Randy and Carlo Goss had title to a deal of it they were willing to sell, and on which Carlo could provide a deed. The village lawyers and the judge had helped work those papers out, and in not many days more, by their intentions, they were going to head down the trail Guil and Tara had taken up the mountain.

Guil and Tara were going to have what they called an interestingjob, getting band after band of overexcited and heavily armed miners with handcarts and overwrought anticipations down the grades of the truck road, as many as could tent-up around midway: that was the limiting factor on the size of the groups, and the lottery for position was set for the morning. Guil and Tara didn’t need two more riders to house in that very small shelter.

It might, Da

Meanwhile Cloud and Spook were enjoying the open air and they hadn’t shot a thing yet, nor really been inclined to. They called it hunting.

Mostly they didn’t do the hunters’ work for them. Being riders, they didn’t carry cargo. And having the ambitions they did, to ride the borders, they only hunted for theirneeds, and carried the gear theyneeded, nobody else’s.

The little light that filtered through the evergreen boughs and the deep blue shadows along the road said that camp soon was a good idea. The thought came to him that a warm fireside in a barracks this crowded with good friends was a scarce thing in the world, and that they should enjoy as much of it as they could before they rode apart for the year, maybe to come back again, maybe not. There were no certainties.

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About the author

C. J. Cherryh is a wi

C. J. Cherryh lives in Oklahoma City, USA.