The Sword-Edged blonde (16 page)

No. I
wanted
Janet. But Cathy was everything I
should
want.

Shit, I thought as I rolled onto my side. I couldn’t believe I was actually losing sleep over this. This was just a job, after all. Cathy was my boss, not my damn soul mate. I was making way too much out of it.

I looked through the smoke at Cathy’s bedroll for a long moment before I belatedly realized it was empty. I sat up and heard splashing in the creek. I pulled on my pants and went to check on her.

Cathy lay crossways in the shallow water with her back against a rock. She was naked, of course, and as I watched she ducked her head under and came up with a gasp of happiness. I’d never heard that sound from her before. If a sound like that could still exist in the world, I thought, maybe fate was telling me I’d suffered enough.

I called out, softly so I wouldn’t startle her. “Sorry, but I saw you were gone and came down to see if you were okay.”

“I just couldn’t pass up the chance for a bath, even a primitive one,” she said. She made no effort to cover herself, although the moonlight twinkling on the water preserved her modesty. She kicked her feet like a child. “You have
no
idea how good this feels.”

“Probably not,” I agreed.

She turned onto her stomach and crossed her ankles above the water. For a moment only the creek made any sound. Finally I said, “Guess I’ll go back to camp.”

“I couldn’t sleep, either,” she said. “I can’t help thinking this is all some big, elaborate game, and we’re pieces the players would gladly sacrifice. Not a good feeling.”

“No.”

She looked back over her shoulder at me. “So since we both can’t sleep, why don’t you come out for a swim?”

“Not much of a swimmer.”

“Oh, come on. Those feet of yours could use it, if nothing else. Do it for me.”

“I’ll pass.”

She stood up in the knee-deep water, hands at her side, unashamed. Her short red hair swept back from her face. The moon cast highlights on her straight shoulders, the tops of her breasts and the sides of her hips. The rest of her body glowed pale gray against the sparkling river.

I’d seen plenty of naked women, but never one who seemed
so
naked, exposing not just her skin but some aspect of herself hidden far beneath her tough-girl
personality. That was it, I realized: she was a
girl
now, untested and untouched in the ways of adult women. It had nothing to do with physical virginity and everything to do with a heart filled with things that had long ago been driven from my own.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said.

“I’m already pretty surprised.”

“It’s the only thing you’ve ever asked me for.”

She turned her back to me. There was, indeed, a tattoo of a dancing girl across her shoulder blades, the legs extending down her spine. “Worth the wait?”

“I dunno. Can you make it dance?”

“Not sober, I can’t.” She faced me again. “So,” she said after a moment. “What do you think?”

“Nice ink.”

“And the canvas?”

I bit my lip. The rest of the evening played out before me now; I’d undress and join her in the river, we’d make love until the cold water drove us out, then we’d return to the fire and continue until we fell asleep. And tomorrow everything would be different.

“The canvas is nice,” I said. “But I really only know about ancient art.”

She walked toward me, making little bow waves with her shins. “Some of the modern stuff can be pretty exciting.”

“My taste is for the classics.”

She stepped out of the water in front of me, shining and soft and very, very desirable. Even though she was tall for a girl, she had to tilt her head up to see me with those big guileless eyes, unashamed of anything in her life. Then she smiled. “Even the classics were new once.”

I took the deepest breath I’d managed in years. She put her hand on my chest, stepped closer and gazed into my eyes. “Care for a little art appreciation?” she said softly, then tiptoed so she could kiss me.

I let her, but I didn’t respond. She settled back on her heels and scowled. “What?” she asked, in her old voice.

I couldn’t look at her. I mumbled, “I’m not really up for this right now.”

She grabbed me around the waist and pulled her body tight against mine. Her smile returned. “That’s not true,” she said in a soft growl.

“Hey, it’s nothing personal, he always gets up a half-hour before I do.” Instantly I regretted it. Even in the moonlight—maybe because of the moonlight—I saw tears fill her eyes. She strode quickly back to the water’s edge and stopped, her back to me, arms wrapped around her sides. Her voice did not weaken. “You’re a jackass, LaCrosse. And you just missed your chance.”

With that she splashed back into the water and swam away downstream. I sighed. I had no idea at the time whether I’d been noble or idiotic.

Now, though, I know.

T
he second marker was another horse head silhouette on a rock face. To reach it Cathy and I traveled a fairly tortuous route along a narrow canyon ledge shadowed by mocking crows and silent, watchful buzzards. Once, as we negotiated a sharp turn, we surprised a wildcat, or rather it surprised us. I almost lost my balance and tumbled to the forest below, but Cathy caught me, the cat scrambled up out of sight, and we continued on without incident. The map did not indicate the path’s increasing danger, and I wondered what other important information it omitted.

This second horse image was formed of shiny black obsidian inside a wall of whitish slate, a reverse image of the first. Cathy also discovered that, if you stood in the right spot, a tiny chink reflected the sun so that the beast appeared to have one glowing, vaguely malevolent eye. This one also looked like a natural formation, but it seemed unlikely that two such identical mineral deposits would be found within a day’s walk of each other. We consulted the map again and set out for the third and final marker.

Cathy never spoke of that night by the stream. She came back to camp fully dressed, went to sleep without a word and awoke at dawn just like always. She acted as if nothing unusual had happened, and I did the same. I couldn’t believe she was letting me off the hook so easily, and kept waiting for the blow I knew must be coming. But it never did.

B
ACK IN THE
present I murmured, “Easy, sweetheart,” to the horse as we reached the remains of the third marker. I’d taken an alternate route around the mountain’s base to avoid the treacherous ledge. “Nothing’s gonna gitcha.” Her hooves clacked nervously against the rocky ground, and she repeatedly tossed her big head. I didn’t understand why this one bothered her more than the other two, but I finally gave in and led her down the slope a ways before I returned to look more closely.

When we first found it thirteen years earlier, the third marker had been a relief carving of a woman on horseback, done in the style of Delavan, far to the east. That puzzled me then, although I later learned the explanation. Hidden in a crevice like a shrine, it would’ve been invisible had Cathy’s map not been accurate and precise about its location. Once we found it, we knew our destination was near.

But now that marker had been utterly obliterated. Someone had thoroughly chiseled the image out of its rock home and left a shallow, ragged crater. I could imagine how difficult carving it must have been in that narrow, tight space; getting both the tools and the elbow
room to destroy it so completely must have been equally hard. Obviously none of Epona’s people could have done it, but who else would hate it so much?

The area outside the crevice shrine provided a spectacular view of the mountains ahead. In the distance the tallest peaks, including Mount Ogachic itself, sported snowcaps testifying to their height. Nearer, the low ones cut jaggedly into the sky, so close together it seemed impossible anyone would travel, let alone live, here.

Our old trail showed no sign of recent use. For all I knew, I was the first person to travel it since I used it to leave after the encounter with Epona. Here in the thin, dry air change came slowly; what changes waited in the hidden valley below?

I was putting off the inevitable, but it seemed the right moment for reflection. I needed to make sure my head was on straight before I made the final part of the journey. I knew what I’d left in the valley ahead; I was less sure what I’d find now, or how I’d feel about it.

My horse took me away from the shrine with all the alacrity the terrain allowed. We headed down into the complex series of passes and gullies that had once deposited Cathy and me at the doorstep of the Queen of Horses.

O
UR TRIP BACK
then took quite a bit longer because we were on foot. Following the map, we descended from the mountains, emerged at last onto a tall, narrow ridge and stopped, breathless from both the exertion and the sight that greeted us.

Below us stretched a small valley completely encircled by ridges and peaks. Unlike the rest of the Ogachic
range or the land around Poy Sippi, this valley was alive with verdant foliage. Meadows and forests alternated on the rolling hills, and a network of small ponds and streams twinkled in the sunlight. It was so awash in trees and grass that it reminded me of the old stories of the Summerlands where folks waited between lives. “Wow,” I said.

“How does nobody know this is here?” Cathy asked softly. I knew what she meant; the journey was arduous, but not unreasonably so, and with a paradise like this at the other end the path should’ve been well-worn by now. Hell, Poy Sippi was only three days’ hike away. But the trail we followed showed no sign of recent traffic.

“I guess there’s no chance we’re in the wrong place,” I suggested.

“I can read a damn map,” she fired back.

“But there’s no roads, no trails, no smoke from fires.” The implication was plain: however beautiful, the valley appeared to be uninhabited.

“We’re in the right place, according to the map,” Cathy insisted. Her fists clenched in frustration. “But so help me Goddess, if there’s no one here—”

I pointed. “Look.
Someone’s
here.”

A human figure appeared at the top of the nearest hill and descended the grassy slope. Something about its vaguely awkward movement held my gaze until suddenly I realized what I saw. “It’s a
kid
. A little girl.”

The distance made it hard to guess her age, but the way she flounced down the hill implied she was about five. She had long dark hair decorated with multicolored ribbons, and her dress seemed too big for her.
Cathy and I both scanned the surrounding hills and forests, but saw no other people.

“She’s all dressed up,” Cathy said. “You think she’s lost?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“We can’t just let her run around loose, she’ll get hurt.”

“Let’s just watch a while,” I said guardedly.

Without warning, a herd of horses topped the same hill and bore rapidly down on the little girl. They were huge, wild animals, with no sign of the sleekness brought on by domestication. At the front of the herd, clearly its leader, ran a snow-white beast I assumed was a stallion. I estimated about two dozen of them, and the sound of their passage over the soft ground reached us like thunder heard beneath a thick blanket.

Cathy and I both started forward, and simultaneously caught ourselves. We were several minutes away, at least; rescue was out of the question. The herd was on the child in seconds, swarming over her in a rumbling wave of hooves and snorts. “Son of a bitch,” Cathy muttered, expressing our mutual frustration.

The horses turned at the bottom of the hill, ran along the flat, narrow gully and vanished. The soft grass bore the marks where they’d torn divots from the earth. My eye backtracked their passage, looking for the trampled corpse of—

The little girl stood intact, upright and happily twirling right where she’d been before the horses appeared.

“You see that?” Cathy asked, her voice soft with disbelief. “They missed her. They all missed her. What are the chances?”

I shook my head. “I’d give a year’s pay for that kind of luck, though.”

People appeared at the top of the hill. Even at this distance we heard the cheers and applause. Everyone crowded around the child as if she’d accomplished some miracle, which from our vantage point was certainly true. The adults were from a variety of races, and wore colorful clothes like you’d see at a festival. It was the wrong time of year for the harvest, and late for a spring fertility dance, but there was no doubt they were ready to celebrate. One woman scooped the girl in her arms and kissed her like only a mother would. The people disappeared back down the opposite side of the hill, the little girl perched on the woman’s shoulders, everyone still cheering. No one even glanced in our direction.

As the noise faded, I said, “
That
was weird. Were you expecting this?”

Cathy shook her head. “No way. I assumed I’d find Epona Gray alone.”

“Well . . . I suppose it’s possible they have nothing to do with her.”

She glanced skeptically at me. “You wanna bet?”