But Diego was already at the door, unlatching it and bending over the agitated dog. Bunny rose, too, with Krisuk stealing softly behind her. Since the dog could not come in, Bunny and Krisuk joined Diego outside, where he was rubbing her fur and talking to her.
“She’s trying to tell me something. I know she is,” Diego said. “But she’s so excited it’s all scrambled.”
“Darby and Cisco!” Bunny said, remembering the curlies.
“What?”
“Where are they?”
”I oh, shit!” he said.
Krisuk made a face. “At least he left the dog.”
“Who?”
“You knowhim,” Krisuk said, pointing his chin up past where the houses ended. “He thinks anything worth having belongs to him. Besides, I saw the way he was looking at yer woman here.” He nodded to Bunny. “I think he means to keep you here, as well as have the horses.”
“He’ll keep nothing,” Bunny spat. “Including the hold he has over this village. I don’t know how he’s managed to do it, but I know that, if he’s the only one who communicates with the planet here, there’s something seriously wrong.”
Diego said cautiously, “We did promise if we had cause to think this might get dangerous, we’d go meet Sean and the major first.”
“Well, we can’t very well go without the horses now, can we?” Not and make it there in good time. We’d be sitting ducks for thatthatwitch doctor!” She used the term she had heard some of the company men apply to Clodagh sometimes.
“Your horses are gone.” Krisuk said in a hard, practical voice. “No one can have back what Satok has claimed.”
Bunny put on the voice she had heard Aunt Moira use with recalcitrant children and puppies. “Don’t be daft. Satok is just a mana greedy one at that.”
“Everyone says he’s the voice of Petaybee.”
“Everyone’s gone bloody deaf then,” Bunny said. “No one creature is the voice of Petaybee. In Kilcoole, anybody who wants to speaks with Petaybee. This planet is perfectly capable of making itself understood to anyone who cares to listen.”
“Then why does it only speak to us through him? I hate him, but the only time anyone hears from the planet, or anything good comes to McGee’s Pass, is when we go to the summonings in the cave up there.”
“The one where we met you and your mother first?” Bunny asked.
“The same.”
“Well, let’s go back there then. I’m on good terms with the planet. I’m quite sure it won’t refuse to speak to me. And besides, he might have hidden the curlies there.”
“No, the horses will be up there,” Krisuk said, gesturing with short jabs of his fingers, “at his house, on top of the cave, on the meadow above the ridge.”
Dinah whined softly, and Diego stroked her. “You know, Bunny, I think the horses would follow Dinah, if they’re not tied too tightly.”
“He’d take your dog as well, or kill her.”
“We’ll see,” Bunny said. Her chin jutted forward and her fists clenched as she marched up the road to the cave mouth. The wind was loud tonight, howling along the tree-tops and roofs, rattling doors and windows, picking up anything loose and banging it around. It occurred to Bunny that the planet was already speaking, if people would only listen, and the message was loud and clear. It was not pleased. Not pleased at all.
“Bunka, wait!” Krisuk whispered urgently. He grabbed her arm as he caught up with her.
Diego was at her other side. “We can’t wait any longer. This guy already stole our horses. Who knows what he’ll do next?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She”Krisuk nodded to Bunny“especially shouldn’t go.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t meet my older sister, Luka,” he said. His tone was so angry and anguished that it stopped both Bunny and Diego in their tracks. They were just beyond the last house now, about two hundred paces from the cave mouth. “She got sent over to Deadhorse by Satok. But before that, he took her.”
“What do you mean he took her?” Bunny asked. “You mean raped her?”
“No. Not at first, anyway. At first, he was such an important man, she was thrilled that he had chosen her. Why shouldn’t he have? Even though I say it as her brother, she was the prettiest girl in the village, and a smart, hard worker, too. When she was younger, it was thought she might be a healer like Clodagh. She was always singing, always talked to everything in the friendliest fashion. She got kinda funny when she became a woman though. I think maybe people made too much of how pretty she was and what a good catch she would make. And the local fellowswell, there weren’t many in her age group, and none of them were quite right. When Satok came, he flattered her with his attention, not just because she was pretty, but he played on her shaman powers too, how close she had always been to Petaybee. If I didn’t hate him so much, I guess I would have to say he’s not badlooking. He seems biggerthan the other fellows here. She was very excited. Thought she had met her match. My parents thought she would marry him, but he just moved her up there with him, not that there was that much to move.”