Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein

“Your breakfast, if you want it. But I shall not stay under this roof and eat cold shoulder.” It was a tone, a manner, I had never heard from her.

Rufo touched my sleeve. “Boss. Let’s get out of here. Now.”

So we did. Not a soul was in sight, indoors or out, not even children or dogs. But three dashing steeds were waiting. Those eight-legged tandem ponies, I mean, the horse version of a dachshund, saddled and ready to go. The saddle rigs were complex; each pair of legs had a leather yoke over it and the load was distributed by poles flexing laterally, one on each side, and mounted on this was a chair with a back, a padded seat, and arm rests. A tiller rope ran to each armrest.

A lever on the left was both brake and accelerator and I hate to say how suggestions were conveyed to the beast. However, the “horses” didn’t seem to mind.

They weren’t horses. Their heads were slightly equine but they had pads rather than hoofs and were omnivores, not hayburners. But you grow to like these beasties. Mine was black with white points–beautiful. I named her “Ars Longa.” She had soulful eyes.

Rufo lashed my bow and quiver to a baggage rack behind my chair and showed me how to get aboard, adjust my seat belt, and get comfortable with feet on foot rests rather than stirrups and my back supported–as comfy as first-class seats in an airliner. We took off fast and hit a steady pace of ten miles an hour, single-footing (the only gait longhorses have) but smoothed by that eight-point suspension so that it was like a car on a gravel road.

Star rode ahead, she hadn’t spoken another word. I tried to speak to her but Rufo touched my arm. “Boss, don’t,” he said quietly. “When She is like this, all you can do is wait.”

Once we were underway, Rufo and I knee to knee and Star out of earshot ahead, I said “Rufo, what in the world happened?”

He frowned. “We’ll never know. She and the Doral had a row, that’s clear. But best we pretend it never happened.”

He shut up and so did I. Had Jocko been obnoxious to Star? Drunk he certainly was and amorous he might have been. But I couldn’t visualize Star not being able to handle a man so as to avoid rape without hurting his feelings.

That led to further grim thoughts. If the older sister had come in alone–If Miss Tiffany hadn’t passed out–If my valette with the fiery hair had showed up to undress me as I had understood she would–Oh hell!

Presently Rufo eased his seat belt, lowered his back rest and raised his foot rests to reclining position, covered his face with a kerchief and started to snore. After a while I did the same; it had been a short night, no breakfast, and I had a king-size hangover. My “horse” didn’t need any help; the two held position on Star’s mount.

When I woke I felt better, aside from hunger and thirst. Rufo was still sleeping; Star’s steed was still fifty paces ahead. The countryside was still lush, and ahead perhaps a half-mile was a house–not a lordly manor out a farmhouse. I could see a well sweep and thought of moss-covered buckets, cool and wet and reeking of typhoid–well, I had had my booster shots in Heidelberg; I wanted a drink. Water, I mean. Better yet, beer–they made fine beer hereabouts.

Rufo yawned, put away his kerchief, and raised his seat. “Must have dozed off,” he said with a silly grin.

“Rufo, you see that house?”

“Yes. What about it?”

“Lunch, that’s what. I’ve gone far enough on an empty stomach. And I’m so thirsty that I could squeeze a stone and drink the whey from it.”

“Then best you do so.”

“Huh?”

“Milord, I’m sorry–I’m thirsty, too–but we aren’t stopping there. She wouldn’t like it.”

“She wouldn’t, eh? Rufo, let me set you straight. Just because milady Star is in a pet is no reason for me to ride all day with no food or water. You do as you see fit; I’m stopping for lunch. Uh, do you have any money on you? Local money?”