The road to Liechtenstein. There lay the greatest danger, with little he could do about it except avoid attention. Meanwhile they needed rest as well as food. He’d carried Lotta much of the time-most of the time that afternoon-grateful she was small, and Edouard and Berta were a lot more tired than he. He wished he was in the shape he’d been in at Oujda or Chilton Foliat, or Benning or Camp Robinson, but even so he was doing pretty well, tapping the Web of the World. If it weren’t for the damn blisters …
Close below the lower basin, he cloaked the others and left them to rest near the trail, then scouted till he found a secluded opening facing the late sun. He led the others there, and they unshipped the blankets. Then Macurdy worked on their feet until, to Edouard’s awe, they could actually see new pink skin covering the rawness. Finally Macurdy worked at flushing the fatigue acids from their legs and buttocks; after a day like this, they’d stiffen seriously if nothing effective. was done. With Berta and Lotta, he worked without touching legs or buttocks. Berta he didn’t want to excite. As for Lotta he remembered the images in her trauma vortices.
Berta watched everything he did, asking questions, intent on learning. She couldn’t see the energy threads, but perhaps with practice … Certainly Kurt’s methods were much more precise than those she’d used.
Lotta too had watched and listened, and still without speaking, duplicated his actions. When Macurdy asked her if she saw clouds of light around people, she looked away shyly. At least, he thought, it wasn’t fearfully.
When he’d finished his healings, they napped. He intended later to send Edouard and Berta to the cow camp to buy food. In these times, a couple hiking in the mountains might well seem suspicious, certainly if they weren’t wearing hiking clothes. But that suspicion would be less for the two of them alone than if they had a child with them wearing sandals.
It was near evening when Edouard and Berta approached the cow camp, Edouard carrying the pack now. The camp consisted of a cabin that housed the herd girls, along with the pans and utensils they used to make butter and cheese; and a springhouse, woodshed, storage shed, two long cow sheds, the hay shed, a privy, and a guest cabin for the men when they came to make hay.
A large dog bounded toward the couple, but kept some distance, not threatening, or even barking after sounding his initial alarm. His strong tail waved tentatively.
Meanwhile Macurdy and Lotta waited a couple of hundred feet away, invisible. The dog paid them no heed–either couldn’t see them, or simply didn’t notice them standing motionless against a background of forest.
The barking brought two aproned “herd girls” from the cabin, one a graying woman in her fifties, square, with strong square hands, the other a shy-seeming girl, slight and blond, perhaps twelve years old. The older woman, Edouard supposed, provided the know-how and confidence. The younger no doubt helped her milk and cut firewood, herded the cows and learned the trade. Their auras reflected basic mild contentment, but just now, the older did not entirely trust the visitors.
Both Edouard and Berta tried to look as fit and vigorous as they could, which was easier now that they weren’t limping. Edouard told the women they were on a hiking holiday. Macurdy’s pack tended to support the story, though it would have been better had it resembled the usual German rucksack.
Using some of Macurdy’s counterfeit reichsmarks, Edouard bought new butter, uncured cheese, freshly baked bread, and a jug of buttermilk, promising to return the jug before they left.
“Where will you sleep tonight?” the woman asked. “It gets very cold at night, with so much snow left. The sun goes down, and ‘poof’, it is freezing! We always keep the cows in at night until after it has melted.”
Edouard and Berta looked at one another, then back at the woman. “What do you suggest?” he asked.
“You can stay in the hay shed tonight. I will charge you-” The woman thought a moment. “One reichsmark.” Edouard didn’t hesitate. Reaching into his pocket, he gave her another reichsmark, and thanked her.