Rider at the Gate

by C. J. Cherryh

  Burn took him past. He ducked down and hung on, trusting Burn to get them clear.

  “Guil!” someone yelled, far behind him. “Guil, damn your stupid hide!”

  He didn’t look back. He rode low and Burn ran hellbent for as much distance as he could put between them and ambush—raced panting and reckless through the deep white of the road.

  Signal shots, had been Danny’s first thought when he heard the gunfire—

  He’d run out onto the porch, and then—then heard what sounded like an exchange of fire.

  he thought.

  Harper. Nobody else. Harper was up here on the mountain for one reason, and he hadn’t given up his hunt—it was Stuart; and it was Harper, too.

  “What’s wrong?” Carlo and Randy were on his heels, coatless as he was as he ran down the street, rifle in hand, Cloud running along with him, and past him.

  But he couldn’t answer, he was hearing he was hearing taking off into the blizzard, he was hearing and while were headed for

  “Damn,” he said, and spun about and yelled at Carlo: “Get your coats. Get my coat! Come on!” He could see Cloud was into it, because there was in the air, and Danny didn’t wait for coats or the boys or a second, reasoned thought. He put on a burst of speed with the cold air burning his lungs, the pistol trying to escape its holster, and the snow hitting his eyes so he couldn’t see. The street was a straight line—if he stumbled over things in the snow he didn’t want to know what they were. He ran until he was close enough for Cloud to have to recognize he was in the situation. He wanted loud and clear.

  Luke and Hawley were mounting up to ride out. Right in the gateway he grabbed Cloud first by the mane to stop him from going out with the other two, then got a hand against Cloud’s chest and shoved him back.

  “Dammit!” he yelled at Luke and Hawley. He meant two senior fools going out into the whiteout and leaving the gates open on him and two village kids. He was mad. He wanted He wanted They had no right, dammit. Harper was out there in the whiteout. Harper was near the village for all he knew.

  But he couldn’t catch them. He couldn’t leave the boys.

  The two boys came running up out of breath, carrying their coats, and his, and rifles. He was too hot right now to need a coat, but he put it on anyway, put on his scarf and hat that the boys had brought, and took the rifle they handed him. Cloud was fidgeting back and forth, wanting but his rider wasn’t about to go off into the whiteout to find a pack of double-crossing sons of bitches.

  Stuart—God knew what Stuart thought.

  Or what kind of line he’d fallen for from Jonas.

  Stuart’s friends. He couldn’t swear it wasn’t Jonas who’d fired.

  “Our riders,” Carlo panted, “didn’t come back.”

  “I know, I know.” He wanted

  Then he had a cold, clear impression they weren’t alone. and before he could say a word, he knew it was Cloud went on guard facing that direction, projecting and

  What came back was and what came shadowlike out of the blowing white right in front of them was two riders coming to the gate.

  Danny sent, and the boys moved while he put a round in the chamber and lifted the rifle to his shoulder, shaking in the knees, but not in the steadiness of his aim, which was right for center of the shorter one he mentally labeled

  he got back.

  “The hell—shut it!” he screamed at Carlo, and kept his aim while the riders moved for the gate and two scared kids shoved the heavy gates shut and dropped the bar.

  “Kid!” he heard Harper yell, the other side of the gates. “Kid, open up. Open it, or we’ll leave you for the rogue!”

 

  “Son of a bitch! Open the gate!”

  “You had your chance, Harper! You want supplies, we’ll give you supplies, right over the wall. But hell if I owe you anything but a cold bed in hell! Go find a shelter. You and Quig go tuck in for the winter and hope to hell I don’t come after you myself!”

  He sent that to them. That was what he remembered. And they didn’t like it.

  Stuart had been there. Stuart had been that close to the gates and spooked off. He’d felt Stuart’s presence and Stuart might not know anything right now except someone here had shot a gun off at him. Jonas and company had gone after Stuart and might not intend to come back—which left him with Harper and Quig, sitting here in the biggest, most attractive stationary target the rogue had, if the Goss kids were right about their sister.

  In that light he could use Harper’s help. He could use a couple of good shots and he didn’t want to think of anybody dying out there in the Wild the way all Tarmin village had died.

  But Harper wasn’t interested in anything but Harper—Harper was damn crazy, dead set on shooting Stuart, for reasons that had gotten further and further from any reasonable fear of Stuart’s going rogue. Harper wanted into Tarmin gates because if the Westmans came back Harper might shoot all of them and have the supplies, and spend all winter hunting Stuart, if Stuart didn’t get him in his gunsights first.

  There was no dealing with this man.

  came back through the gate.

  Danny sent. Cloud added,

  “Who are they?” Randy asked. Randy’s teeth were chattering and he tried not to show it. Cloud was sending into an angry ambient, and violence shivered over his skin and down into his gut. “They’re not who we’re looking for. Are they? Where did Jonas and them go?”

  “These two are thieves.” Danny said. “Damned bandits, is all. They’re up here hunting Stuart for some crazy grudge. I hope to God he got away clear.” It dawned on him Jonas might have kited out like that in honest fear that Stuart or his horse might have been hit and need help out there in the storm. Luke would have gone after his brother—no fault in Luke for that, or Hawley for going to protect him. But right now he wished Tarmin had a gun-box the way Shamesey had, because, damn, he’d dust Harper and Quig right off their doorstep.

  “Kid,” Harper said, from the other side of the gate.

  “My name’s Dan Fisher, Harper, get it straight.”

  “Look—” Harper said. “Call yourself anything you like. One horse is no match for this thing. Who’s that with you? Kids?”

  “You just camp right there, Harper. We need bait.”

  “You’re real damn brave on the other side of that gate!”

  “You’re real damn stupid, Harper. That’s why you’re on the other side of that gate.” God, he hadn’t lost a bit from his bad-boy days and Randy thought it was wildly funny. Harper clearly didn’t. Carlo looked a shade more maturely worried.

  But Cloud sent into the ambient, loud as Cloud could be.

  “You damn fool!” Harper said.

  “Camp out there. Be our guests.” He was thinking, And wasn’t altogether confident of that fight going the way he’d like.

  “You listen to me,” Harper said. “You listen. I know what I’m talking about. My own brother—my brother went that way. You hear me?”
  Shooting. Shooting until there weren’t any bullets.> “You son of a bitch, you hear me? Your friend Stuart knows about it. So damn righteous!”

 
  out truck. Riders and truckers struggling with a truck on the edge, trying to winch it—

 
 
 

  “Maybe you can talk to Jonas,” Danny said. “Convince him you’re a good guy.” Give the son of a bitch at least the idea of talking it out, if it didn’t naturally occur to dim brains. “He might think you were worth it. Or he could let you camp out there. Who knows?”

  “My brother, kid. His name was Gerry Harper. You hear me? Took that hit in the head, him and the horse— ‘Oh, we can make it through the pass, yeah, we can make it.’ Stuart talks a good game to the truckers, but he’s never on the end of the cable when it breaks. —Gerry Harper. You hear the name, kid?”

  “That’s a real sad story, Harper, but it doesn’t get you in here.”

  “You listen to me. I shot him. I shot him. Who’s going to pull the trigger on this one? You better get a man in there—you hear me? You hear me, kid? That thing’ll have you for breakfast.”

  “Hasn’t yet. If you want to shoot it, shoot it from out there where it is! You don’t rough me up and threaten my horse and ask my charity, you damn jerk! —And Watt’s dead! You hear me, Harper? Watt’s dead out there. If you want to do something really useful, ride up to the High Loop villages and get some help down here!”

  “Quit being an ass and ”

  “No.” He was shaking. Shot his brother, it was now. He was dealing with a crazy man.

  “Kid, —”

  “You’re losing ground with me, Harper. I said I had a name. You keep forgetting it.”

  “Fisher, then.” The ambient was wholly uneasy. There was complete lack of worry in the voice. “You can be a fool if you like.”

  Damn, he thought, realized he’d gotten caught up in the images and dived into the image to mask himself, signaled the boys away from the gate, farther and farther. Cloud drew back with them, mad and still wanting

  he sent, and Cloud stopped following and willingly turned back to

  “I’m a fool,” he said to the boys, not trusting his ability to keep his intentions and his worries out of the ambient. But he had Cloud’s attention occupied with a nerve-jangling flare of He looked at the guard-post, where, if he climbed it, he might get a shot, but he couldn’t go thinking about it. “Rider gate, Carlo. Fast. Can you get a shot off from there?”

  Carlo looked mortally scared.

  “ I can’t do it,” Danny said. “Cloud and I’ll keep him talking. Scare them off. Put shots around them. Whatever. Fire fast. Spook them out away from the wall—I’ll get up there—” A cut of his eyes to the guard-post aloft—and down, as he grabbed Carlo’s arm. “Don’t for God’s sake get shot. Or let them in.”

  Carlo didn’t want to. Danny jerked his arm. “They can hear me any second, dammit! Do it!”

  “Yeah,” Carlo agreed then. “—Randy, stay with him.”

  Carlo didn’t stop to argue: Carlo went—Randy tried to run after him, but Carlo grabbed him, jerked him hard and sent him back.

  Danny wished, but Cloud wasn’t in position to carry it to Carlo—he wasn’t getting this organized; he had Randy in his charge—he had to hope Carlo remembered.

  Then he thought of vermin maybe occupying the rider camp— vermin a rider took for granted would clear his path. Carlo wasn’t protected that way, Carlo was a damn brave village kid—with no horse to see what was going on before he opened that outer gate. Hell with his plan for climbing the gate-tower: if Carlo went down on any account Harper and Quig could take the rider camp and have Tarmin, with just him and Randy left.

  He grabbed Randy by the coat and didn’t wait to explain—he dragged Randy with him half the distance to the rider-side gate, until they were far enough from the front gate he knew Cloud couldn’t hear—“Don’t think about Carlo!” he said. “The horse carries it! Stay here! Dammit, don’t budge!”

  Randy was trying to get a breath, trying to get words out— Randy grabbed his arm and hung on and Danny swung and knocked the kid across the snow. He didn’t have words, didn’t have time—he aimed his rifle skyward and fired off two rounds and the shots echoed off the mountain above, shocking the silence.

  He didn’t hear Harper and Quig now. But something else was coming through the ambient—something ominously considerable.

  Damn, he thought. Damn! His heart was speeding. Now he didn’t know where Harper and Quig were. Cloud had left the front gate. Cloud was coming—but there wasn’t a damn thing Cloud could do from midvillage, and he’d not used his head, God help them.

  He raced down the village street with Cloud at his heels and cut over to the camp gate—Carlo had shut it. Give the kid credit— he’d shut it. He flung the latch open and dived past the center-post, leaving a mad, frustrated horse behind him trying to get past a barrier that made that door human-only, Cloud making panic-sounds, sending out into the ambient as Cloud’s rider chased down Carlo’s rapidly filling tracks, white on white, past the horse den, breakneck through the blowing snow. He let off two more rounds at the sky to warn Carlo and Jonas at once, saw Carlo at the rider gate, just then opening it wide to the driving snow.

  “Carlo!” he yelled. “Get out of the way!”

  Carlo turned, confused—looked at him and started to shut it again.

  In the same moment a snow-hazed figure showed up in that gateway and Danny skidded to one knee, brought the rifle up and fired without stopping to see who it was.

  Stupid, wrong, his brain told him. It might have been Stuart. Jonas. God knew. He’d probably missed. He’d scared hell out of Carlo, and the gateway, after his one shocked blink, held only blowing snow. He knelt there sighting down the gun and shaking as Carlo, only belatedly realizing he wasn’t the target, had the presence of mind to grab the gate and shove it to.

  A shot from past Danny’s shoulder hit the log wall by Carlo and splintered the wood.

  He knew it was Randy even before Carlo yelled at the kid, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, dammit! God! What are you doing?”

  Randy didn’t fire another round. Cloud was making a sound he’d rarely heard Cloud make, a squalling, spitting fit. The den wall thumped to Cloud’s temper as Danny used the rifle butt to get his shaky legs under him.

  His lungs were burning. Carlo was yelling against the wind at his brother, something about Put the damn rifle down, it was all right. Carlo was coming toward him and Randy was spooked, he got that in the ambient along with Cloud’s temper.

  He didn’t know how his knees were staying under him. He bent over, rifle and all, leaned against his knees and tried to get his breath, short of wind in the high altitude, aware of Carlo coming past him, Randy running to Carlo, betrayed and scared and hurt.

  “I hit the kid,” he gasped, straightening up, and threw the situation into the ambient, because he didn’t have the wind to talk and he was hearing Cloud all too well. He went into a coughing fit and got it under control. He had a stitch in his side. “Did the man go down?” was what he wanted to know, whether the man he’d shot at had dropped, whether he’d killed somebody—whether they still had Harper to contend with—

  But the pressure in the ambient, that thing he’d been feeling, was gone. The gunfire might have spooked it off.

  “Did he go down, Carlo, dammit?”

  “I don’t know,” Carlo said. “I think you got him.”

  He couldn’t hear anything but Cloud’s panic and outrage. If there was a rider down, his horse should be doing something, feeling something. Harper’s horse should. He had a bad feeling about things out of control in every direction, and walked back where the kids were and where Cloud was, Cloud on the far side of the camp gate and mad and scared.<
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  Carlo had Randy by the shoulder, too, saying something about “Told you to stay put, dammit!” and Randy was paper-white and on the edge: Randy had been

  “Kid,” Danny said, and lost his voice again. He clapped Randy on the back. “Danger you’d leak Carlo to the bad guys. —Sorry. Sorry I hit you. They could have heard you—understand? Sorry.”

  Randy had a hand to his bloodied mouth, tears freezing on his white, cold-blotched face. He still looked to be in shock, but the ambient eased.

  “Did you shoot him?” Randy asked.

  “Dunno.” He still couldn’t breathe. He was getting the shakes enough for them to notice. “Pretty sure I missed. Damned mess. Sorry. ”

  Cloud was trying to shoulder the obstructing gate-post down. But there was only Cloud out there on the village side. Danny went through the gate and moved Cloud back with a push on his chest.

  Cloud had blood on his shoulder where he’d tried to force the narrow gate, and his breath steamed in great puffs on the bitter wind.

  Danny flung his arm about Cloud’s neck and apologized in a cheek-to-cheek way that didn’t need the kind of confused, angry force Cloud was sending out, just

  Cloud had never found himself on the wrong side of a barrier like that. Cloud was so scared he was trembling, too, and he was spitting froth mixed with blood—he’d bashed his lip on the post, Danny decided, and was sorry. But he couldn’t have done anything else— he told Cloud,

  Big shiver out of Cloud. The boys had come through to the camp side behind him. They could get the side gate shut and latched on this side, then, but the main gate still scared him. He wanted and walked in that direction, shaking too much to run.

  He wasn’t in the least cold. He was sweating, and his chest burned from the thin winter air. He could get