“You don’t need no blurry in a cave, boy,” Seamus said severely. With a sniff of disgust, he found himself a comfortable knob to settle on.
“What’s this ‘blurry’?” Marmion asked Sally.
“It’s a native drink,” Sally began. Then she noticed the mist rising from the water, and started taking note of their surroundings. “Why, Marmion, this is just like”
Marmion’s hand on her arm stopped her surprised exclamation. “Exactly what Whittaker Fiske and that doubting Thomas of a son of his reported .. . We’ll talk later.”
Marmion always sat upright and managed to do so even on the hard surface of the cave, crossing her legs and resting her hands lightly on her knees. Sally felt that the ancient meditational position was quite suitable and copied it as the mist began to thicken and swirl around them.
She remembered sniffing deeply, wondering if there was some sort of hallucinogenic in the very air they were breathing, but if there was, it was nothing she had ever encountered anywhere. And she had been just about everywhere Intergal went.
Everyone heard the thwump-thwump of the copter echoing back and forth across the fjord. Yana rushed out of the kitchen where she’d been helping cut veg for the evening meal. Shielding her eyes against the westering sun, she saw the flash of sunlight off the rotors.
Fingaard and some of the other men were rushing down the switch back road to the wide terrace of the wharf area. Sean had gone out with the fishermen that morning. Turning her back on the incoming copter, Yana looked down the long high-walled fjord for a glimpse of returning fishing boats. She’d been appalled when she’d seen how insubstantial the curraghs were: no more than hides bound to a larchwood framework with a wide slat, bored through the center so a slim mast could be stepped into the hole and a small sail attached. The current carried them out with the tide and in with the tide; otherwise it was a long, hard paddle up the Fjord unless the wind was just right to use the sail.
She breathed a sigh of relief to see black blobs on the horizon raise small white triangles of sails as they made their way up the fjord. Then she turned again to head in the direction of the approaching copter. She had her foot on the first step when Nanook casually barred her way.
“C’mon now, I need a word with Johnny, Nanook!”
From the big black-and-white cat issued a noise that was half snarl, half voice command. Bunny had said Nanook could speak to those he chose to have listen to him. This comment didn’t need words. Nanook’s warning was too clear.
“Something’s wrong with the copter, Nanook?” Yana asked.
Nanook sneezed and sat down, barring her way up the steps.
She peered more intently and saw two men in the front of the copter. And only one of them was someone she wanted to see.
“Ooops!” She turned and hurried back into the house. Nanook followed. That did surprise her. “I won’t go out if you don’t want me to,” she told him.
He sneezed again and settled himself by the hearth.
“Ardis, is there any way you can hint to Johnny Greene that I’m here, and Sean’s out with the curraghs? They’re on their way in.”
“Sure, if that’s what’s needed,” Ardis said, grinning as she hauled off her apron. “Johnny might just have a letter for me from my sister up New Barrow way. She’s expectingagain.”
The last cat in McGee’s Pass was named Shush, because in her youth she had been a noisy kitten. Those days were long past. Shush was not the last cat left in the pass because she lacked discretion. She was silent as smoke, quick as a spark, and very, very discreet. She had learned discretion shortly after Satok came to live among the people. The skull on his staff had once graced her father’s shoulders.
It was she who had sent word to the Kilcoole cats that the people of McGee’s Pass would vote to mine, as Satok had been urging them to do. Frankly, she didn’t know if they would or not, but saying so could have brought someone to challenge Satok. Stupid cats of Kilcoole to send only two half-grown kittens! And now Satok had taken one of them. Perhaps soon her skull would be an ornament for him, as well.