Get himself in good with Cassivey? Get Aby’s job? Thatwas much more likely.

Thatwas a rider motive.

He checked Burn over head to hoof and head to tail once they reached the level ground of the roadway, in case Burn should have been hit or cut in their mad dash away from Tarmin and neither of them know it. Burn was his only worry. Burn’s welfare and the quiet of the mountainside was the only thing that occupied his brain: they were all that had to make sense at the moment.

Burn was <mad and wanting to go back, wanting fight,> wanting <bad fight,> but Burn was running on fragile strength right now, too, having carried him much more than Burn ordinarily would. They’d gone since dawn; they’d had one real night of rest since the climb up; somebody, most likely Aby’s summer’s-end partners and the cousin who’d raided their bank account, had shot at them for reasons he still didn’t figure; and until things made better sense to an aching head and a tired body, he figured to stay ahead of the questions and just take care of the business he’d come to do: get the rogue that was surely responsible for the scavenged remains and dead horse he’d seen back there at the rider-shelter, and thenfigure whether or not to talk to Jonas.

Then let Jonas keep Hawley Antrim out of his reach. Andlet him explain the situation at Tarmin village.

There were, in his mental map of the lower side of the Tarmin road, two shelters available, one midway, one just short of the Climb that went up the steep to the High Loop. The middle one they could make. They could do it, just hit a staying pace and keep moving.

Meanwhile the snow was coming down thick. It melted on Burn’s overheated back as fast as it fell, sticking on Burn’s mane and making a fair blanket on his black hide in only the time he’d stood still being checked over. The track they’d plowed downhill was fast vanishing under new snowfall.

He walked, Burn beside him.

<Truck going off the edge.

<Aby dead on the rocks.

<Cassivey in the big green chair, surrounded in smoke. Bathed in smoke. Backed by men with guns.>

<Jonas at Shamesey gates, refusing to look at him. Jonas with his edges crimped in real tight, same with Luke, and Hawley a lump of grief behind him.> Hawley was the one who’d feltsomething when they broke the news. Hawley at least had cared.

Hawley hadn’t said about the money. Though, granted, Hawley wasn’t damned bright: Aby’s mother’s half-sister must’ve screwed a post to get Hawley—he’d maintained that for years. Aby’d argued he wasn’t that dim, but, damn, he’d far undershot it. Hawley pulling what he’d pulled at the bank—God, what did you dowith a man like that?

He wanted to pound Hawley’s head in right now, if only because Hawley was the easiest problem to puzzle out, and probably the one of the three with no malice: Hawley got ideas and got himself in trouble, not thinking things through, not remotely adding it up why he was going to make people mad. You wanted to beat his head in, but you didn’t somehow ever get around to doing it, because to make it worth a human being’s time, Hawley had to understand why you were mad at him—and, dammit, you had a better chance explaining morals to a lorry-lie.

At least you knew where Hawley was on an issue. You could even call him honest, he was so stupid about his pilfering.

Jonas, on the other hand—if Jonas was coming up here with honest intentions, meaning nothing else on his mind than paying debts to Aby, it needed more reasons than he’d ever pried out of the man. Shadow was a spooky, chancy horse, and Jonas was that kind of a man—you had to get Lukealone and a few beers along if you wanted the truth. Jonas and that horse were both spooks. In a minute and twice on a weekday, yes, Jonas would opt to keep the truth to himself. Jonas, even to his partners, especially to outsiders to that threesome, parted with information the way a townsman parted with cash money, piece at a time, and always, alwaysto Jonas’ advantage.

Jonas always did his job. Letter of the contract. Depend on it.

Jonas come up here out of belated remorse? Loyalty? —Friendship? Not to him.

And where was Hawley, if Jonas was involved?

Hell, ask Jonas what Hawley thought. Hawley always did.

<Horses> crept up into Cloud’s awareness, <Froth> first, a noisy presence through the palisade walls and the gate.

<Harper shooting from the hill,> Danny imaged hard, the instant he picked up Jonas’ party at all. <Hallanslakers in the Meeting in camp.

<Harper on his feet yelling. Harper shooting. Harper shooting. Harper shooting—Harper and Quig at the gate—

<Danny shooting at a man in the blowing snow.>

<Ice> appeared almost immediately after <Froth.> <Shadow> had to be that disturbance around them. Cloud snorted and wasn’t sure he wanted them back, but the boys were glad enough to realize they weren’t on their own any longer. And—which he had trouble admitting—he was.

“Is that the riders?” Carlo wanted to know without his saying anything. “Is that Jonas? Are you warning them?”

“Yeah,” he said, trying to steady down his images andhis nerves before he had to deal with Jonas.

“Are they coming back?” Randy wanted to know—Randy had a sore cheek, but Randy wasn’t hurt otherwise, and Randy had maybe learned to stay away from a horse when there was something you didn’t want shouted to minds all over the area. Randy had figured a number of things out, maybe, and at least wasn’t mad at him anymore.

“Yeah, they’re coming in. I don’t think Harper’s stayed around in range, or he’s real quiet out there.” He put a hand on Randy’s shoulder and squeezed, feeling the shivery excitement in Randy’s mind. “Just calm down. If you want to go around horses you have to keep it down all the time, all right?”

“Yeah,” Randy said; and took a deep breath. “Are they going to shoot? Are they going to find this Harper guy?”

“Just be ready to open the gate,” Danny said to the boys; he kept thinking of <Harper> and ambush. “Fast.”

But <Harper> was gone from the ambient and had been since the gunshot at the gate, spooked out, elusive as any four-footed ghosty.

“Have they found the man?” Randy asked. “The man Harper was shooting at?”

“Stuart?” he said. “No, the blurry one’s probably Jonas. He’s not real noisy. They’re coming up on the gates. Be ready. They’ll come in and we shut it behind them fast as we can. Harper’s a coward. He’ll lie low if he’s outnumbered. But he could try shooting at them.” He was sending <Harper with gun. Harper’s face,> as clearly as he could—he couldn’t put any time sense with it, he couldn’t tellJonas it was now and not then he was worried about. <Man with rifle. Shooting at gate.>

Randy handled the latch, and he and Carlo hauled at the door, moving a blanket of snow along with it. They hauled hard, making a horse-wide fan of it as Luke and then Hawley rode in, their faces stung red with cold above their scarves, snow thick on them and their horses. Then Jonas came in last and <not happy.>

“Harper was here!” Danny said. “Harper and Quig. We shot at them.”

“Explains the gunshot,” Jonas said, and slid down.

“What about Stuart?”

“Man’s a damn spook,” Jonas said. “Couldn’t stop him. Wouldn’t listen.”

“He thinks wewere shooting at him,” Luke said. “Lit out up and over a slope somewhere—couldn’t track him in this stew.”

<Steep rocks, brush, blowing snow> came through. So did the fear of <Stuart shooting from ambush.>

And from Hawley, Danny thought, the more pleasant image of <ham and biscuits and a warm fire.>

<Danny shooting at Harper?> Jonas asked.