Rider at the Gate

by C. J. Cherryh

then Cloud formed a queasy sort of area Cloud switched his tail and laid back his ears at that, rethinking in Cloud’s way, what to do about that

  Cloud had gotten the rogue-image the same as all the riders and horses had, and, Danny well knew, gotten it from time to time from Jonas’ bunch, but Cloud wasn’t necessarily going to understand it the way a human would—a horse had to know all the sides of something before it didn’t at any random moment surprise him; and the notion of the rogue they might have to deal with—now that Cloud had remembered that danger—still was going spooky-strange on Cloud. They said horses didn’t think in future-time, but Cloud did. The rogue was just kind of a dark blurry spot in the future, dead center in that funny edge-of-vision blind spot horses had right in the middle and top of what humans saw, out of which most scary things came, because of the way a horse’s eyes were set. There was a bad horse in that danger-spot—Cloud didn’t like < shooting horses> but Cloud didn’t like that shivery spot, either.

  Cloud also knew (thanks to the dogged tracking of human thoughts, far less skittery than horses’ thinking) about the three men they’d ridden out with being a problem and about men they’d smelled behind them who might become a problem. That was another hazy spot in Cloud’s geography.

  In his own way, Cloud even seemed to know about Stuart—a human mind could keep Cloud thinking on a subject and going over and over it and not forgetting any of the pieces of it: that was what Cloud got from human thoughts, the sheer dogged stubbornness to hold on and put pieces together. And Stuart had been a lot in various human thoughts on this trip.

  So Cloud had begun, in the mostly-now way Cloud thought, to decide tonight was more complicated than yesterday—and Cloud wasn’t, consequently, acting up on him. Cloud was being disturbingly sensible and doing exactly what he asked, in spite of the fact Cloud had a jittery feel to his slow gait.

 

 

  That ambition had danced at the edge of his mind for the last couple of days—he’d not dared think it when Jonas was belittling him all the time, but now that he was alone with Cloud he could haul things out of the dark spots of his probably immoral mind and at least look at them and try to sort out the stupid notions from the really stupid ones, and the embarrassing things and all the rest he’d die before he dragged out in front of Jonas.

  That picture was just too stupid, too impossible, too indecent a wish, counting Stuart was grieving over a woman who was, in Stuart’s mind, at least as much a wife to him as his mother was to his father.

  More, he hadn’t even thought about partnering yet—hadn’t planned to find anybody until he was older. The juniors he could partner up with were all desperately busy looking out for themselves and handling the horse problem, which didn’t seem to come easily even for kids born to the camp. It was just a hell of a lot of cheek for a junior even to think about Stuart taking him on under any circumstances.

  But that day on the porch, with the rain flinging a gray sheet across all the world else, Stuart had trampled right over the defenses of a scared junior’s inmost thoughts and learned more about him in five minutes than his parents or his brothers had figured out about him in a lifetime. Stuart had looked straight into him in one terrifying moment, calmed him down and maintained that calm contact through what remained at once the most devastating and the most exhilarating exchange of his life—Stuart had told him, one after the other, the answers to questions he didn’t remotely know how to ask, questions he didn’t even know he should ask, and in parting, Stuart had wished him luck, honestly wished him luck in his life and even given him a lead on the first real convoy job he’d ever had.

  He hadn’t had that feeling figured out when he’d started off with Jonas—that night, with the drink and the craziness running through the camp, he’d been so in awe of Jonas he’d believed he was dealing with Stuart again—but he’d gotten smarter fast on this trip. He’d felt somebody else trying to do with him unwilling what Stuart had done to him in that one shocked moment—the way Stuart had just blazed right on through his normal tongue-tied stammering, faced him at a level of need nobody in his whole life had ever gotten into—and not criticized, not carped at him, not lectured him, just seemed to take him as he was, in spite of his spilling the deepest, most embarrassing secrets of his life into Stuart’s view.

  Stuart had thrown advice back at him that had echoed right off his longings and drawn more and more of his secret hopes into the ambient. It gave him to this very moment a sense of disbelief when he reconstructed that hour or so—so vivid it was like meeting God, that was what it had felt like. So vivid it had scared him out of sleep for a week. So accepting of a kid’s stupid ideas and stupid questions he couldn’t believe it had ever really happened, and in a certain sense he’d been scared to death to go near Stuart again, because he didn’t want to find out it wasn’t real—or wasn’t the way he remembered it. He hadn’t gone back to him. He’d wanted to come back wiser and be able to talk to Stuart with some sense in his head.

  Then Stuart had disappeared from camp—gone off wherever Stuart normally worked, the summer long.

  But all Stuart’s advice had been true. And he’d not even known the man was back in camp this fall until Stuart had brushed by him at the gate.

  So, God, yes, he was going up that road. He didn’t need Jonas for a preacher to tell him where right and wrong was. His father, never mind his faults, had taught him what was fair—

  But mama knew. Damn right. Mama who kept the accounts, mama knew.

  Sam never had figured it out.

  There were moments he was damned proud of his parents. They might all fight, except Sam. Papa might be sure he was going to hell, and they might be cheating, dishonest townsmen to rider eyes, but that was the riders’ mistake, to lump everybody together. His father didn’t ever cheat; and he didn’t need moral lessons from a man who let his friend go off alone and hurt into the dark.

  And he didn’t need Luke’s tricking Cloud into taking any damn candy, either, not at the price Luke wanted to sell it for. If he wanted to give Cloud candy, he gave it with no conditions, and he didn’t want more than Cloud was willing to give him back.

  He picked his spot among the trees at roadside — he rode in among the trees, the branches brushing him with the gentle force of Cloud’s moving. He slid down as Cloud stopped, rubbed Cloud’s nose with gloved fingers, then flung down his packs and set about cutting evergreen boughs to go under their blankets.

  He didn’t need Jonas to survive in the Wild, either. He was determined now to show them. He hadn’t had to have their help. He’d turn up not when Jonas decided to collect a terrified kid but whenever he decided to, whenever they really, really needed to know what he could tell them, yes, he might be there, and he might tell them what they asked — if they minded their manners and dealt with him like a human being.

  Or he’d find Stuart himself and ask Stuart whether he wanted to be found.

  Then to hell with Stuart’s not-quite-best friends in the entire universe. A winter in the high country, him and a senior rider, and (even if Stuart wasn’t interested in another partner) he could learn from Stuart God-knew how many things. He had his gear, he had a clear notion where Stuart had gone, given they’d named Anveney and a reason Stuart would go there, and he had an absolutely clear idea where Stuart would ultimately go. The main road he and Cloud were on led near Tarmin to another ascent, up to a loop all around to the villages of Rogers Peak—he knew that for certain.

  That was whe
re Aby Dale had died, up on that high road, as the convoy was coming down. He even knew the names of most of the villages on the mountain; and he knew that there was another old road to Tarmin up directly from Anveney—an old, tight-turned road almost unused these days except by line-riders.

  They’d passed the Anveney lowland turn-off when they’d gone only half a day from Shamesey gates, about the place where Cloud had thrown him and he’d hiked over the shoulder of the hill. But if Stuart had gone down that other way, and over to Anveney the way they thought, then there was no reason for Stuart to ride all the way back to pick up the road they were on—Stuart would get up to Tarmin the old way. Trucks might not use it now, but a horse could.

  So he didn’t need to wonder where Stuart was or where he’d come in and pick up the road to the accident—the Anveney-Tarmin road would join theirs before it went on up to the other villages on the High Loop of the Tarmin road. Stuart would go past Tarmin and up to that same road where the wreck was.

  So he knew where he had to go.

  And in his wildest dream, counting Hawley had made off with Stuart’s money, Stuart could be real glad to see a kid with a gun and ammunition and winter supplies.

  Favor paid. He’d like that. He really would. Stuart’s respect of him—God, what wouldn’t he do to feel he’d won that?

  That occupied his thoughts as he made their bed of evergreen fronds, and as he settled down to rest in his wind-shadowed nook and Cloud settled down by him, providing him his body heat.

  In Cloud’s mind everything was right again, after all this and at the men, and most of all the money-thing, which Cloud never had gotten straight, whether it was a kind of food or guns or whatever.

  was Cloud’s assessment of Jonas and his crew, utter disgust.

  But Danny didn’t think of cattle—he thought instead of slinking predators. Shadow-horse still gave him the shivers.

  And when, momentarily, he recalled Shadow’s self-image, Cloud’s skin twitched under his back as if something were crawling on it.

  Fire warmed the den from the old fireplace they only used for the horses in the bitterest cold. Water was heating, and cloths went into it.

  was the ambient, so Tara couldn’t see the den except through a veil, < white > so she burned her hands on the kettle and the hot rags, and bit her lip and kept at sponging Flicker down. “Rest,” Vadim begged her. “Lie down at least, Tara, you’ve done enough. Let us take care of her.”

  But she wouldn’t. She hardly heard until Chad seized her arm with painful force and made her face him. “You’re contributing to it. Tara. You’re falling into it, same as she is. Pull out.”

  Chad hit her across the ear hard enough to make her eyes water. Flicker threw her head and kicked out, lost her balance and all but had her feet go out from under her… Flicker was exhausted, hardly able to stand, and wouldn’t lie down, wouldn’t rest. Tara knew that. She was in the same condition, no different, legs shaking.

  Rogue horse, they’d said: the marshal had had that warning in a phone call up from Shamesey—while she was on the trail.

  “It’s you,” Chad said, and shook her and slammed her back into a post. “Sit down, Tara, sit! You hear me? You’re upsetting her!”

  She jerked away. “Her lungs will fill,” she said, imaging a death she’d seen, long ago, on Darwin. She wasn’t a horse-doctor, she didn’t know how to get Flicker out of this and neither did Vadim or Chad or Mina, or, God save them, young Luisa. She just kept working, kept agitating, for fear that Flicker would give up. She warmed Flicker’s legs and flanks and chest. She brought oil-fragrant smoke and made Flicker breathe as much as she could in the drafty den.

  And Vadim and the rest, her own sometime partners Mina and Luisa no mean force in the attempt, kept visiting their own horses, imaging good things, imaging treats and food and the warm den, fearing contagion, but not letting that to the front of their minds.

  They curried and rubbed and bathed and combed—with Vadim’s and Chad’s steady good sense, they dragged any thoughts of the snow back to the warm, safe dark. They dragged any reckoning of the howling wind back to the crackle of fire in the fireplace. They kept fighting for their sanity and their lives, not entertaining for two seconds running the fear and the anger that wailed and roiled out there in the storm, and not bolstering, either, the defense Flicker still raised… they wouldn’t echo it, wouldn’t stand for it, wouldn’t give way to it.

  Tara knew that they were keeping her sane as well, keeping out the storm, keeping away the white that threatened their collective reason. They were her friends, her refuge, her safety. She tried to tell Flicker that. She imaged their faces for Flicker. She imaged light and warmth and a den and horses Flicker knew. She began to fight for warmth against the white, to image

  It was all that they could do: outlast the storm and look for the sun to rise. The night and the howling white were all about them, a thunderous snow that echoed off the mountains and shook the nerves.

  And the white remained a veil, and the dark was too ready to seep into the image, as if the sun would never, ever rise.

  * * *

  Chapter ix

  « ^ »

  SOMETHING WANTED, THAT WAS THE FEELING. SOMETHING CALLED and called, lonely and desperate, and it wasn’t scary at all, just so terribly sad that Brionne ached for it in her heart. In her dream she stood in the middle of the woods where the snow had just fallen, the soft kind of snow that made soft sparkles under a golden sun, the kind that sat thick on the evergreen branches and fell in wet spattery clumps when the least breeze disturbed them. Otherwise the ground was all smooth rolling lumps and tiny hills, a beautiful, shining surface that no track had yet disturbed, since only she had come there.

  In her dream she stood looking toward the dawn, where gold and rose sifted through the evergreens. She stood knowing that she was the only person in the wide world, herself, Brionne, the blacksmiths’ daughter, who could see this sight and hear the singing presence that made all the forest magical.

  In her dream a nighthorse came out of the woods and across that smooth, gold-glistening snow, a black horse with a midnight mane that all but floated on the dawn winds, a tail that drifted like a cloud of blackest smoke. The horse made the only other tracks in the world. Its neck arched as it regarded her with a wary eye, its mane and its night-black coat glistening with the golden light.

  It called to her aloud with that soft, strange sound a nighthorse could make when it chose. It called to her in the silence with unbearable longing, with all the power of a nighthorse mind.

  She wasn’t just the blacksmiths’ daughter. She knew that. She instinctively hated the smoke and the soot that lived about her parents’ shop and her parents’ house and about her brothers. She knew that someday somebody magical would come and lift her out of the ordinary and workaday. She had an artist’s hands, too fine ever to wield a hammer, her father said. She had fair skin, and a face that— her mother said it—would break hearts, and she should never scar it with the sparks from the anvil, or let the soot get into her skin.

  Papa called her their own angel, pretty and fragile, but gifted, everyone said so. Mama said her face, if she took care of it, could be her fortune, and theirs, and she’d go down to the valley to marry and live with a rich merchant, in a fine carpeted house with linen closets and a fine brass-grilled furnace, the sort of house Tarmin village only heard about.

  But most of all she knew… she knew in her heart she wasn’t like the rest of Tarmin village. She was never meant for the soot and smoke of her family’s trade that was irrevocably to her the preachers’ very hellfire.

  Sometimes she’d dreamed that the ships from the stars would come back, that they’d look over all Tarmin village, and take just her, because she was special, and the star-folk would see it.

  She talked to the little, harmless c
reatures that came at forest edge, a small wickedness, by what the preachers said, but she’d learned she could hear them. She could hear them, and her two older brothers couldn’t—it was her special gift, and she kept it secret. She tamed them to her hand. She had names for them all and fed them with scraps, and they fought with the cat, dreadful squalling at night, but the cat always won.

  And sometimes she went to the rider camp and talked to the riders, who admitted to her how, for reasons no one knew, sometimes horses came for people who weren’t born riders.

  So maybe the ships wouldn’t come—she was older and wiser now, all of thirteen. The ships hadn’t come, not just in her thirteen years, but in hundreds of years, and the preachers said they never would, that the wickedness of humanity had surely destroyed the star-folk. But if that was so, there were the horses.

  The riders’ horses whispered secrets to her. The wild things ate from her hand. She clung to that gift of hers as something of promise, that if there weren’t to be ships (which she began to decide now was, after all, unlikely) still—something had to account for the feeling of difference she had, something had to come of her special gifts. Something had to offer her an escape from the humdrum of Tarmin village. And escape that meant going down to some strange town in the valley was no good, if she couldn’t have her mother and her father and the neighbors see her fine things.

  So in her dream of dreams the escape should come to her, the very way the wild things came. It was a sign, she decided, the sort that the preachers talked about, and it wasn’t wicked, her talking to wild things, it was never the wicked wild creatures she talked to, it was only the pure little nibblers at grain and the little teases that skipped about at forest edge: they weren’t what the preachers called creatures of lust and blood. They didn’t think such thoughts.

  Most of all, the nighthorses ate from her hands, and she could image to them in her mind, and hear them, too: she imaged to them that they should tell all the wild nighthorses they saw, and particularly the stallion of the herds, that there was a very deserving rider to find in Tarmin village.