Bullock simply had a sense of ethics, at least where the people of the Buskin
were concerned. He would not make their lives harder than they already were.
I could not help liking him on some levels.
“You're not going to pursue the Krage thing, then?”
"Oh, yeah. Of course. The bodies are missing. But that's not unusual. Probably
turn up across the river in a couple days, if they're dead. Or screaming for
blood if they're not.“ He tapped a name on his list. ”This guy hangs around the
same place.
Maybe I'll talk to this guy
Raven while I'm there."
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Who?”
He looked at me strangely. I forced myself to relax, to look casual. His
eyebrows dropped. "Guy named Raven.
The foreigner who was supposed to be feuding with Krage.
Hangs out the same place as this one guy on my wood-gatherer's list. Maybe I'll
ask him a few questions.“ ”Raven. Unusual name. What do you know about him?"
"Just that he's a foreigner and supposed to be bad news.
Been around a couple years. Typical drifter. Hangs out with the Crater crowd."
The Crater crowd were the Rebel refugees who had established themselves in
Juniper.
“Do me a favor? It's a long shot, but this guy could be the ghost I was talking
about the other day. Stand off a ways. Pretend you never heard the name. But get
me a physical description. And find out if he's got anybody with him.”
Bullock frowned. He didn't like it. “Is it important?”
“I don't know. It could be.”
“All right.”
“Keep the whole thing under your hat if you can.”
“This guy means something to you, eh?”
“If he's the guy I knew, that I thought was dead, yeah. Him and me got
business.”
He smiled. “Personal?”
I nodded. I was feeling my way now. This was touchy. If this was my Raven, I had
to go careful. I didn't dare let him get caught in the coils of our operation.
He knew too damned much. He could get half the Company officers and noncoms put
to the question. And made dead.
I decided Bullock would respond best if I kept it mysterious, with Raven an old
enemy by implication. Somebody I would do most anything to jump in the dark, but
not somebody important in any other way.
“I got you,” he said. He looked at me somewhat differently, as though glad to
discover I wasn't different after all.
Hell, I'm not. But I like to pretend I am, most of the time. I told him, “I'm
going back to Duretile. Got to talk to a couple buddies.”
“Can you find your way?”
“I can. Let me know what you find out.”
“Will do.”
We separated. I went up the hill as fast as forty-year-old legs would carry me.
I got Elmo and Goblin off where nobody could overhear us. “We maybe got a
problem, friends.”
“Like what?” Goblin wanted to know. He had been aching for me to talk from the
minute I rounded him up. I guess I looked a little ragged around the fringes.
“There's a guy named Raven operating down in the Buskin. The other day, when I
was down there with Bullock, I thought I saw a guy who looked like our Raven
from a distance, but I shrugged it off then.”
They quick got as nervous as me. “You sure it's him?” Elmo asked.
“No. Not yet. I got the hell out of there the minute I heard the name Raven. Let
Bullock think he's an old enemy I want to stick a knife in. He's going to ask
around for me while he's doing his own business. Get me a description. See if
Darling is with him. I'm probably off in the wild blue yonder, but I wanted you
guys to know. In case.”
“What if it is him?” Elmo said. “What do we do then?”
"I don't know. It could be big trouble. If Whisper had some reason to get
interested, like because he hangs around with the Rebel refugees here. . . .
Well, you know."
Goblin mused, “Seems Silent said Raven was going to run so far nobody would ever
find him again.”
“So maybe he thought he'd run far enough. This is damned near the end of the
world.” Which, in part, was why I was so nervous. This was the kind of place I
could picture Raven having gone to ground. As far from the Lady as you could get
without learning to walk on water.
“Seems to me,” Elmo said, “we ought to make sure before we panic. Then decide
what to do. This might be the time to put our guys into the Buskin.”
“That's what I was thinking. I already got a plan in front of Whisper, for
something else. Let's tell her we're going with that, and have the guys watch
for Raven.”
“Who?” Elmo asked. “Raven would recognize anybody who knows him.”
"Not true. Use guys who joined up at Charm. Send Pawnbroker just to make sure.
He's not likely to remember the new guys. There were so many of them. If you
want somebody reliable to run the thing, and back them up, use Goblin. Park him
where he can stay out of sight but keep his hands on the reins."
“What do you think, Goblin?” he asked. Goblin smiled nervously. “Give me
something to do, anyway. I'm going out of my skull up here. These people are
weird.”
Elmo chuckled. “Missing One-Eye?”
“Almost.”
“All right,” I said. “You'll need a guide. That'll have to be me. I don't want
Bullock getting his nose any deeper into this. But they think I'm one of his men
down there. You'll have to follow me from a distance. And try not to look like
what you are. Don't make it hard on yourselves.”
Elmo stretched. “I'll get Kingpin and Pawnbroker now. You take them down and
show them a place. One can come back for the others. Go ahead and scope it out
with Goblin.” He left.
And so it went. Goblin and the six soldiers took rooms not far from the
moneylender Krage's headquarters. Up on the hill I pretended it was all for the
cause. I waited.
JUNIPER: TRAVEL PLANS
Shed caught Asa trying to sneak out. “What the hell is this?”
“I need to get out, Shed. I'm going crazy up there.”
"Yeah? You want to know something, Asa? The Inquisitors are looking for you.
Bullock himself was in here the other day, and he asked for you by name.“ Shed
was stretching the facts slightly. Bullock's interest had not been intense. But
it had to have something to do with the Catacombs. Bullock and his sidekick were
in the Buskin almost every day, asking, asking, asking questions. He didn't need
Asa meeting Bullock face-to-face. Asa would either panic or crumble under
questioning. Either way, Marron Shed would get into the heat damned fast. ”Asa,
if they catch you, we're all dead."
“Why?”
“You were spending those old coins. They're looking for somebody with a lot of
old money.”
“Damn that Raven!”
“What?”
“He gave me the passage money. As my share. I'm rich. And now you tell me I
can't spend it without getting grabbed.”
“He probably figured you'd hold off till the excitement died down. He'd be gone
by then.”
“Gone?”
“He's leaving as soon as the harbor opens.”
“Where's he headed?”
“South somewhere. He won't talk about it.”
“So what do I do? Keep scrambling for a living? Damn it, Shed, that's not fair.”
“Look on the bright side, Asa. Nobody wants to kill you anymore.”
“So? Now Bullock is after me. Maybe I could have made a deal with Krage. Bullock
don't deal. It ain't fair! All my life. . . .”
Shed did not listen. He sang the same song all too often.
“What can I do, Shed?”
“I don't know. Stay holed up, I guess.” He had a glimmer of a notion. “How about
you get out of Juniper for a while?”
“Yeah. You might have something. That money would spend just fine somewhere
else, wouldn't it?”
“I don't know. I've never traveled.”
“Get Raven up here when he shows up.”
“Asa. . . .”
“Hey, Shed, come on. It won't hurt to ask. All he can do is say no.”
“Whatever you want, Asa. I hate to see you go.”
“Sure you do, Shed. Sure you do.” As Shed ducked out the doorway, Asa called,
“Wait a second.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh. . . . It's kind of hard. I never did thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“You saved my life. You brought me back, didn't you?”
Shed shrugged, nodded. “No big thing, Asa.”
“Sure it is, Shed. And I'll remember it. I owe you the big one.”
Shed went downstairs before he could be embarrassed further. He discovered that
Raven had returned. The man was in one of his animated discussions with Darling.
Arguing again. They had to be lovers. Damn it all. He waited till Raven noticed
him watching. “Asa wants to see you. I think he wants to go with you when you
leave.“ Raven chuckled. ”That would solve your problem, wouldn't it?”
Shed did not deny that he would be more comfortable with Asa out of Juniper.
“What do you think?”
"Not a bad idea, actually. Asa isn't much, but I need men. I have a hold on him.
And him being gone would help cover my backtrail."
“Take him with my blessing.”
Raven started upstairs. Shed said, “Wait.” He didn't know how to approach this,
because he didn't know if it was important. But he'd better tell Raven.
“Bullock's been hanging around the Buskin a lot lately. Him and a sidekick.”
“So?”
“So maybe he's closer than we think. For one thing, he was in here looking for
Asa. For another, he's been asking about you.”
Raven's face went empty. “About me? How so?”
“On the quiet. My cousin Wally's wife Sal? Her brother is married to one of
Bullock's cousins. Anyway, Bullock still knows people down here, from when
before he got on the Custodians. He helps them out sometimes, so some of them
tell him things he wants to know. ...”
“I get the picture. Get to the point.”
“Bullock was asking about you. Who you are, where you come from, who your
friends are-things like that.”
“Why?”
Shed could only shrug.
“All right. Thanks. I'll check it out.”
JUNIPER: BLOWING SMOKE
Goblin stood across the street, leaning against a building, staring intently. I
frowned angrily. What the hell was he doing on the street? Bullock might
recognize him and realize we were playing games.
Obviously, he wanted to tell me something.
Bullock was about to enter another of countless dives. I told him, “Got to see a
man about a horse in the alley.”
“Yeah.” He went inside. I slipped into the alley and made water. Goblin joined
me there. “What is it?” I asked.
"What it is, Croaker, is it's him. Raven. Our Raven. Not only him, but Darling.
She's a barmaid in a place called the Iron Lily."
“Holy shit,” I murmured.
“Raven lives there. They're doing a show like they don't know each other that
well. But Raven looks out for her.”
“Damnit! It had to be, didn't it? What do we do now?”
“Maybe bend over and kiss our asses good-bye. The bastard could be smack in the
middle of the body-selling racket. Everything we found could add up that way.”
“How come you could find that when Bullock couldn't?”
“I got resources Bullock doesn't.”
I nodded. He did. Sometimes it's handy, having a wizard around. Sometimes it's
not, if it's one of those bitches up in Duretile. “Hurry it up,” I said. “He'll
wonder where I am.”
“Raven has his own wagon and team. Keeps it way across town. Usually only takes
it out late at night.” I nodded. We'd already determined that body-runners
worked the night shift. “But. . . .” he said, "and you're going to love this
but, Croaker. He took it out in the daytime, once, a while back. Coincidentally,
the day somebody hit the Catacombs."
“Oh boy.”
“I looked that wagon over, Croaker. There was blood in it. Fairly fresh. I date
it about when that moneylender and his pals disappeared.”
“Oh boy. Shit. We're in for it now. Better get. Going to have to think of a
story for Bullock now.”
“Later.”
“Yeah.”
At that moment I was ready to give up. Despair overwhelmed me. That damned fool
Raven-I knew exactly what he was doing. Getting together a fat bunch of running
money by selling bodies and plundering graves. His conscience wouldn't bother
him. In his part of the world, such things were of much less consequence. And he
had a cause: Darling.
I couldn't get away from Bullock. I wanted desperately to run to Elmo, but I had
to trudge hither and yon asking questions.
I looked up the northern slope, at the black castle, and thought of it as the
fortress Raven had built.
I was going off the deep end. I told myself that. The evidence wasn't yet
conclusive. . . . But it was. Enough. My employers did not wait on legal
niceties or absolute evidence.
Elmo was rattled, too. “We could kill him. No risk him giving anything away
then.”
“Really, Elmo!”
“I didn't mean it. But you know I'd do it if the choice got narrow enough.”
“Yeah.” We all would. Or we'd try. Raven might not let us. He was the toughest
son-of-a-bitch I'd ever known. “If you ask me, we ought to find him and just
tell him to get the hell out of Juniper.”
Elmo gave me a disgusted look. “Haven't you been paying attention? Right now the
only way in or out is the one we took. The harbor is frozen. The passes are
snowed in. You think we could get Whisper to fly some civilian out for us?”
“Civilians. Goblin says Darling is still with him.”
Elmo looked thoughtful. I started to say something else. He waved a hand for
silence. I waited. He finally asked, “What would he do if he saw you? If he's
been hanging around with the Crater bunch?”
I clicked my tongue. “Yeah. I didn't think of that. Let me go check something.”
I hunted Bullock up. "You or the Duke got somebody inside the Crater bunch?''