Rider at the Gate

by C. J. Cherryh

  It was a stand-still when the man came back with the key. He didn’t move and they didn’t hit him until they had him outside the bars.

  Then the guard thought he’d get one more in. Guil dumped the rightside man over his back, got a clear target with the guard staring stupidly at him and decked him.

  Before an oncoming rifle barrel swung into his vision.

  * * *

  Chapter xii

  « ^ »

  THE PAIN BLURRED THE SKY. BUT THAT SKY WASN’T BLUE. IT WAS A wooden ceiling, a bare electric bulb for a sun. He had no idea where he was.

  Guil sent. Always, on waking, the awareness of Burn, first reality of his world.

  But Burn wasn’t there.

  And on that stomach-dropping realization, he panicked, staring into this electric, burning sun, trying to reconstruct his route to this place.

  Aby was dead, up above Tarmin. That was how everything connected. He was lying on his back on a bare board floor with days-old pain in his leg and recently inflicted pain at various points about his skull.

 

  He’d not realized what it was. Not until the second shot.

 

  He’d slid down, given Burn no choice… he’d thought.

  But Burn had charged the mob instead of running away—gone at the townsmen mob dead ahead, and, dirty nighthorse trick, wasn’t where he imaged he was.

  He’d… damned well been where the mob had thought he was: third shot, and he’d caught it—it had knocked his leg out from under him and sent him sprawling downhill on the dry grass. He remembered.

 

  He thought they were coming to rescue him, he’d thought they wouldn’t let the town take him: camp rights over town marshals—

  < People shouting at each other, while he faced the down-slant of the hill, trying for his very life to get up…

  He didn’t remember, after that. For a moment the next connected instant seemed here, under the electric light.

  Aby was dead. More… more than that. Aby had died.

  But he couldn’t go into that pit yet. There was something in there he couldn’t deal with, a darkness he couldn’t escape if he went in there without understanding where he was now…

  He drew a deep breath, about to move.

  And knew the smell. Anveney’s stink.

 

  How long ago? God, how long ago?

  He rolled over fast, leaned back on his hands as the change of altitude sent pain knifing through his skull. Dizziness sprawled him back onto the floor, onto the lump on the back of his skull.

  Stars and dark a moment. He tried it again more slowly, made it halfway.

  No furniture in the room, except a bucket. Shut door. No window.

 

  Didn’t even know he’d gotten up. He was plastered face-to on the wooden wall as if he could pour himself through it, arms spread, shaking like a leaf—and deaf, absolutely deaf to Burn’s existence. The whole world had left him: sound, sense, everything.

  But the raw, rough wood under his hands was real. It proved he existed.

  He could still smell the stench of Anveney around him. That proved something, too, but he couldn’t hear a living soul.

  His heart was pounding. Sweat stood cold on his skin. He couldn’t let go of the wall. Couldn’t keep his legs under him, otherwise… couldn’t depend on his balance.

  First thing a rider knew: panic killed. Panic led to crazy. Panic gave the advantage away, free to all takers. The sane, thinking man knew he was in Anveney, knew Anveney had no horses in reach to carry the ambient… but… God, he’d never in his life waked up deaf to it; he’d never been in a room without windows, he’d never not known how he got to a place…

  He persuaded his knees to hold him—edged along the wall, unsure even of his balance, to try the door.

  Locked and bolted from outside. Of course.

  He tried to shake it. He slammed the center of the door once, hard, with his fist, and heard only silence, inside his head and out.

  Burn—

  Burn would be in deadly danger if he came near the walls, and Burn would do that if he didn’t get back before dark.

  Burn would come for him, knowing the danger, within range of the rifles that guarded the town… but Burn wouldn’t care. Burn would come in.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been out. He couldn’t, in this damn box, tell day from dark, no more than he knew east from west, and he couldn’t count on any rescue. There was no rider camp outside Anveney walls, no camp-boss to negotiate him out—in autumn, there probably wasn’t another rider within 10 k of here, nobody to know if he didn’t come out of this town.

  Nobody but Burn.

  Townsmen would know there was a horse out there waiting for him. They’d know the hold they had on him—that whatever they wanted, he’d do, rather than have harm come to Burn. That was surely why they’d shut him away like this; they surely had to want something from him, besides some stupid townsman penalty because a rider inconvenienced a bank that shouldn’t have handed out money to a man that didn’t have any right to it—

  He remembered. Damn Hawley!

  And to hell with the money. He’d have walked out once he knew they weren’t going to give it to him—he’d have left their damn town. He didn’t think he’d pulled any weapon on them. He didn’t remember any. They didn’t need to lock him up in a box and shoot at Burn, who was—surely—surely old enough and wary enough to give them hell without putting himself straight-off into some wall guard’s riflesights.

  But he couldn’t depend on that. He hadn’t done too well at escaping town guards, himself.

  He staggered along the wall, one side to the other, wasn’t sure what it contributed to the solution—his leg hurt, his head hurt. It seemed moving might clear his thinking, maybe; maybe hurt less than standing still. But if it helped, he couldn’t tell it.

  He bashed the door again, hammered it with his fist, in case someone could heair. He didn’t think all that much time had passed, but he wasn’t sure: it could be getting dark. Burn could be getting restless, waiting for him.

  Saner to sit down. Didn’t want to stop moving. Had to have something to do, not to think, didn’t want to think…

  Damn, dead, stupid town…

  Knees ached and wobbled. He began to get up a charge of anger then, and braked it, in lifelong habit—

  But it didn’t matter. They couldn’t hear that, either. He could wish them in hell.

  He bashed the door with his arm. Twice. Kicked it, with the bad leg, because he could only keep his balance on the sound one; and that hurt so bad he had to use the wall to hold him up.

  Hinges were outside. Door had to open out. No handle on this side. No hinges to take apart. But if the door opened out… maybe he could kick it open, maybe hit it with his shoulder until he split the upright.

  He backed off several steps and rammed it. Once. Twice. Felt it give. Shake, at least.

  He heard something then. Footsteps. He’d raised notice of some kind.

  Voices outside. He tried to understand them, but his own heartbeat was too loud in his ears. He shoved back from the door, stood back as the bolt shot back outside and the door opened.

  He wasn’t at all surprised at the three badge-wearing marshals with guns leveled, reinforcing the guard who opened the door. He lifted a hand, palm out. “No trouble here,” he said, trying to keep the ambient calm. And he couldn’t resist it: “Help you with something?”

  “Mr. Stuart.” The man who’d opened the door indicated he should come out, so he came out. The men with guns backed up, maintaining their advantage. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

  “Fine.” He h
oped somebody wanted to talk to him. He hoped somebody had a deal to offer him to get him out of here, and after that, he didn’t remotely care if Anveney burned down.

  So he walked obligingly where the guard indicated and the man led, down a dingy hallway, through a maze of halls. He didn’t put it past them to hit him on general principle; he was acutely aware of the armed men behind him, and acutely aware he couldn’t forecast what way their minds were running—he hated the way townsmen dealt with one another. You could blame practically any craziness on the fact they didn’t know, never knew, only guessed what another man wanted, or what he was about to do.

  Hell of a way to live.

  Meanwhile the man in the lead opened a door onto the daylight and Anveney streets.

  He drew a shaky, ill-flavored breath, tucked his hands in his pockets, and amused himself, as they went out, seeking deliberate, surly eye contact with the rare passers-by, who, understandably spooked by the police armament, ducked to the other side of the street. And gawked, until they chanced into his angry stare.

  Twice spooked then, they averted their eyes and found something urgent to go to.

  They went halfway down the block like that, the guard in front, him in the middle, the police behind, until the guard came to what looked more like a house than an office, and showed him and their gun-carrying escort into a broad, fancy-furnished room with polished wood and fringed rugs.

  Stairs went up from here, but the guard turned left. There were doors upon doors in the hall they walked. The guard led him past all of them, and through the double door at the end into a room where an overweight old man in expensive town dress sat in a green overstuffed chair roughly equal to his mass.

  Smoking a pipe. God, did anybody in Anveney need more smoke?

  “So,” the man said. “You’re Dale’s partner.”

  First soul in Anveney that spoke sense to him, putting things like partnership in their right importance. His shoulders relaxed a little, guns or no guns, and he didn’t care all that much of a sudden that the room reeked of smokeweed.

  “Stuart,” he named himself, and made a guess. “You’re Lew Cassivey.”

  The man inclined his head, seeming gratified to be famous, at least to Aby Dale’s partner. Head of Cassivey & Carnell, the man Aby would risk high-country weather to keep happy—his intervening made some sense, but it didn’t guarantee his good will, or his good intentions.

  “Sorry about Dale,” Cassivey said, sending up a series of short puffs. “Real sorry.”

  The man wanted a reaction, Stuart realized, in a sudden new insight how deaf townsman minds had to work. The man didn’t know. He prodded. He waited to see how he reacted.

  Guil tucked his hands up under his arms, and in his best approximation of an outward reaction, shrugged and looked sorry himself. He felt the weight of the building on his back. He felt the scarcity of air. Smelled smells he couldn’t identify. < “Rogue horse,”> he said. He couldn’t stop expecting the man to see it, feel it, know it. “You heard that part.”

  “I heard how she died. Couple of the riders came in with the bad news. Lost a truck and driver, too.”

  “Sorry about that.” He attempted town manners, town courtesy. He wanted help. This was the man that could give it—or have him shot, directly or indirectly. “I’m on my way to Tarmin.”

  “Alone?”

  He shrugged, a lump of raw fear in his throat, because they’d arrived at the life-and-death points and he was feeling in the dark after reactions. “My horse. I need to get out there.”

  “Hear you had a real commotion at the bank.”

  What could he say? He hadn’t intended it.

  But no townsman knew that if he didn’t say it.

  “Didn’t mean to,” he muttered. God, he didn’t know how to talk to these people. He didn’t know what else they couldn’t guess, blind and deaf as they were. “I tried my best to calm it down.”

  Cassivey seemed amused for a heartbeat, whether friendly or unfriendly amusement he couldn’t tell. The amusement died a fast death. Smoke poured out Cassivey’s nostrils. “I hear the bank gave her money to her cousin.”

  “My money, too,” he said. “Everything.”

  “Your money?”

  “Same account. They said it was town law.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Cassivey said. “But I doubt you’d want to sue.”

  “Go to court?” He shook his head emphatically.

  “Not if it means staying around Anveney, is that it?”

  “Weather’s turning.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Hard to hunt.” He felt stupid, saying the obvious. He wasn’t sure it was all Cassivey was asking him. “I have to get up there. Get it before the deep snow.”

  “With no help?”

  “I need a gun,” he said.

  “Where’s this man’s property?” Cassivey asked the guards. “Who’s got his belongings?”

  “He didn’t come with any,” the one in charge said.

  “No gun? No baggage?”

  “Knives,” Guil said. “Two.”

  “I’m paying his fine,” Cassivey said. “Somebody go get his belongings. Stuart, sit down.”

  There was another chair near him, stuffed like the one Cassivey sat in. Guil put his hands on the upholstered arms and sank down gingerly, not sure how far he would sink. There was a sharp pain in his sore leg when it bent and his knees, now that he heard ‘fine’ and ‘paying’ and ‘get his belongings,’ suddenly had a disposition to wobble out of lock. The room swam and floated.

  “You want a drink?” Cassivey said, as the guards cleared the room. “There’s a bottle on the table.”

  “No,” he said. It wasn’t worth the risk of getting up. “Thanks.”

  “You need a doctor?”

  “I just want out.” His breath was shaky. He didn’t intend so much honesty. “But thanks. What do I do for you?”

  “Dale was reliable. You could trust things didn’t get pilfered.” Puff. Second puff. “What’s your record on reliability?”

  “Same,” he said, embarrassed to have to make claims, when he didn’t know how Cassivey should believe a man who’d come in with armed guards. “Mostly I work out of Malvey south,” he said, and not sure Cassivey was remotely interested in his explanations, he remembered how the bank had phoned. “You could phone Moss Shipping in Malvey. They know me.”

  “I might do that,” Cassivey said. “Dirty trick, what Dale’s cousin did.”

  He shrugged. It was. But that was his business and he didn’t answer.

  “The job I have for you,” Cassivey began.

  “I,” Guil interjected, fast, before the man committed too much. “I have to get up to Tarmin Height before the snow. I have to get that thing.” Maybe it was stupid. From time to time since he’d left Shamesey he’d not even been sure he cared. But the realization— the reality—of Aby’s death had made itself a cold nest in the middle of his thinking.

  And she wouldn’t rest until he’d cleared Aby’s trail for her, mopped up all the loose business. Settled accounts to her satisfaction.

  Which might make him lose this man’s offer, when he was indebted for a fine he couldn’t pay, with no gun, no way out. But that was the way it was; he hoped the man was reasonable. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I have to go up there. Just get me out of here. I’ll work it off for you next spring.”

  Cassivey stared at him, expressionless, the pipe in his hand. Then: “Don’t turn down my offer until you’ve heard it. A commission. Enough money, supplies, whatever you need to go upcountry—the best commissions when you come to town again in the spring. Preference. Top of the list preference. What’s that worth to you?”

  It was beyond generous. It was Aby’s deal with this man. It had to be.

  “I still have to go up there. I have to hunt that thing. Local riders might get it. But they might not. You can’t use that road till somebody does get it. It won’t be safe.”

  “I don’t a
rgue that. You go up there, you get the horse that got her, and you do one more thing for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What kind of man is Jonas Westman?”

  He didn’t expect that question of all questions. He didn’t know why Cassivey asked it. He was feeling in the dark again. And he didn’t know how to put words around the answer that a townsman would understand. He drew a breath, said what said it all. “High-country rider.”

  “Honest?”

  “Yeah.” There were qualifications to that. “Enough.”

  “Honest as Dale was?”

  He shook his head. Complicated question. He wondered just what shape of beast Cassivey was tracking with his question—or whether Cassivey in any way understood any rider. Sometimes he seemed to, and sometimes not.

  “Aby liked you,” he said to Cassivey, and still didn’t know if Cassivey understood him. “Jonas Westman and his brother— they’re Hawley Antrim’s partners. Hawley’s Aby’s cousin. He’d do what Aby said, as long as she put the fear in him. So they might. On a good day.”

  “Aby wouldn’t steal.”

  Steal. Pilfer. Town words, for relations between townsmen and riders. Different, in a camp, among riders—where some would and some wouldn’t. “If you didn’t cheat her,” he said, “she wouldn’t steal from you.”

  A pause, while Cassivey relit an evidently dead pipe. “Not even if she had a chance for real, real money?”

  “How much?”

  “Three hundred thousand. Maybe more.”

  He laughed, sheer surprise—tried to think how much money that would be, and it came up ridiculous.

  “What’s funny?” Cassivey asked.

  Nothing, thinking of it. It was a townsman amount of money. A scary amount of money. It was an amount of money you found in banks.

  And where would a rider come near that kind of money? More, what could a rider do with it if she had it?

  Cassivey sent out another puff of smoke. “The truck that went off the road?” Cassivey said. More puffs. “Gold shipment.”

  Stunned comprehension. He stopped the breath he was drawing. Didn’t move for a second. Couldn’t reach after the ambient, much as he wanted to. It wasn’t there.