And speaking of cats—
“Musty! Yoo-hoo, Musty, where are ye?”
The cat came oiling out of the woodpile, eyes glowing in the dirty dimness of the hut (when the weather turned fine again, Rhea had pulled her shutters to), forked tail waving. He jumped into her lap.
“I’ve an errand for ye,” she said, bending over to lick the cat. The entrancing taste of Musty’s fur filled her mouth and throat.
Musty purred and arched his back against her lips. For a six-legged mutie cat, life was good.
5
Jonas got rid of Cordelia as soon as he could—although not as soon as he would have liked, because he had to keep the scrawny bint sweetened up. She might come in handy another time. In the end he had kissed her on the comer of her mouth (which caused her to turn so violently red he feared she might have a brain-storm) and told her that he would check into the matter which so concerned her.
“But discreetly!” she said, alarmed.
Yes, he said, walking her home, he would be discreet; discretion was his middle name. He knew Cordelia wouldn’t— couldn’t— be eased until she knew for sure, but he guessed it would turn out to be nothing but vapor. Teenagers loved to dramatize, didn’t they? And if the young lass saw that her aunt was afraid of
something, she might well feed auntie’s fears instead of allaying them.
Cordelia had stopped by the white picket fence that divided her garden-plot from the road, an expression of sublime relief coming over her face. Jonas thought she looked like a mule having its back scratched with a stiff brush.
“Why, I never thought of that… yet it’s likely, isn’t it?”
“Likely enough,” Jonas had said, “but I’ll still check into it most carefully. Better safe than sorry.” He kissed the comer of her mouth again. “And not a word to the fellows at Seafront. Not a hint.”
“Thank’ee, Eldred! Oh, thank’ee!” And she had hugged him before hurrying in, her tiny breasts pressing like stones against the front of his shirt. “Mayhap I’ll sleep tonight, after all!”
She might, but Jonas wondered if he would.
He walked toward Hockey’s stable, where he kept his horse, with his head down and his hands locked behind his back. A gaggle of boys came racing up the other side of the street; two of them were waving severed dog’s tails with blood clotted at the ends.
“Coffin Hunters! We’re Big Coffin Hunters just like you!” one called impudently across to him.
Jonas drew his gun and pointed it at them—it was done in a flash, and for a moment the terrified boys saw him as he really was: with his eyes blazing and his lips peeled back from his teeth, Jonas looked like a white-haired wolf in man’s clothes.
“Get on, you little bastards!” he snarled. “Get on before I blow you loose of your shoes and give your fathers cause to celebrate!”
For a moment they were frozen, and then they fled in a howling pack. One had left his trophy behind; the dog’s tail lay on the board sidewalk like a grisly fan. Jonas grimaced at the sight of it, bolstered his gun, locked his hands behind him again, and walked on, looking like a parson meditating on the nature of the gods. And what in gods’ name was he doing, pulling iron on a bunch of young hellions like that?
Being upset, he thought. Being worried.
He was worried, all right. The titless old biddy’s suspicions had upset him greatly.
Not on Thorin’s account—as far as Jonas was concerned, Dearborn could fuck the girl in the town square at high noon of Reaping Fair Day—but because it
suggested that Dearborn might have fooled him about other things.
Crept up behind you once, he did, and you swore it ‘d never happen again. But if he’s been diddling that girl, it has happened again. Hasn’t it?
Aye, as they said in these parts. If the boy had had the impertinence to begin an affair with the Mayor’s gilly-in-waiting, and the incredible sly-ness to get away with it, what did that do to Jonas’s picture of three In-World brats who could barely find their own behinds with both hands and a candle?
We underestimated em once and they made us look like monkeys, Clay had said. I don’t want it to happen again.
Had it happened again? How much, really, did Dearborn and his friends know?
How much had they found out? And who had they told? If Dearborn had been able to get away with pronging the Mayor’s chosen … to put something that large over on Eldred Jonas … on everyone . . .
“Good day, sai Jonas,” Brian Hookey said. He was grinning widely, all but kowtowing before Jonas with his sombrero crushed against his broad blacksmith’s chest. “Would ye care for fresh graf, sai? I’ve just gotten the new pressing, and—”
“All I want is my horse,” Jonas said curtly. “Bring it quick and stop your quacking.”
“Aye, so I will, happy to oblige, thankee-sai.” He hurried off on the errand, taking one nervous, grinning look back over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t going to be shot out of hand.
Ten minutes later Jonas was headed west on the Great Road. He felt a ridiculous but nevertheless strong desire to simply kick his horse into a gallop and leave all this foolishness behind him: Thorin the graying goat-boy, Roland and Susan with their no-doubt mawkish teenage love, Roy and Clay with their fast hands and slow wits. Rimer with his ambitions, Cordelia Delgado with her ghastly visions of the two of them in some bosky dell, him likely reciting poetry while she wove a garland of flowers for his brow.
He had ridden away from things before, when intuition whispered; plenty of things. But there would be no riding away this time. He had vowed vengeance on the brats, and while he had broken a bushel of promises made to others, he’d never broken one made to himself.
And there was John Farson to consider. Jonas had never spoken to the Good Man himself (and never wanted to; Farson was reputed to be whimsically, dangerously
insane), but he had had dealings with George Latigo, who would probably be leading the troop of Farson’s men that would arrive any day now. It was Latigo who had hired the Big Coffin Hunters in the first place, paying a huge cash advance (which Jonas hadn’t yet shared with Reynolds and Depape) and promising an even larger piece of war-spoil if the Affiliation’s major forces were wiped out in or around the Shaved Mountains.
Latigo was a good-sized bug, all right, but nothing to the size of the bug trundling along behind him. And besides, no large reward was ever achieved without risk. If they delivered the horses, oxen, wagons of fresh vegetables, the tack, the oil, the glass—most of all the wizard’s glass—all would be well. If they failed, it was very likely that their heads would end up being whacked about by Farson and his aides in their nightly polo games. It could happen, and Jonas knew it. No doubt someday it would happen. But when his head finally parted company from his shoulders, the divorce wouldn’t be caused by any such smarms as Dearborn and his friends, no matter whose bloodline they had descended from.
But if he’s been having an affair with Thorin ‘s autumn treat . . . if he’s been able to keep such a secret as that, what others has he been keeping? Perhaps he is playing Castles with you.
If so, he wouldn’t play for long. The first time young Mr. Dearborn poked his nose around his Hillock, Jonas would be there to shoot it off for him.
The question for the present was where to go first. Out to the Bar K, to take a long overdue look at the boys’ living quarters? He could; they would be counting Barony horses on the Drop, all three of them. But it wasn’t over horses that he might lose his head, was it? No, the horses were just a small added attraction, as far as the Good Man was concerned.
Jonas rode for Citgo instead.
6
First he checked the tankers. They were just as had been and should be— lined up in a neat row with their new wheels ready to roll when the time came, and hidden behind their new camouflage. Some of the screening pine branches were turning yellow at the tips, but the recent spell of rain had kept most admirably fresh. There had been no tampering that Jonas could see.
Next he climbed the hill, walking beside the pipeline and pausing more and more frequently to rest; by the time he reached the rotting gate between the slope and the oilpatch, his bad leg was paining him severely. He studied the gate, frowning over the smudges he saw on the top rung. They might mean nothing, but Jonas thought someone might have climbed over the gate rather than risk opening it and having it fall off its hinges.