Tim wasn't entirely sure he wanted to share whatever this strange fellow ate for his supper, but he'd had none of his own, and the smell wafting from the pot hung over the fire was savory.
Reading the cast of his young visitor's thoughts with an accuracy that was unsettling, the Covenant Man said: "It'll not poison thee, young Tim."
"I'm sure not," Tim said . . . but now that poison had been mentioned, he wasn't sure at all. Nevertheless, he let the Covenant Man ladle a goodly helping onto a tin plate, and took the offered tin spoon, which was battered but clean.
There was nothing magical about the meal; the stew was beef, taters, carrots, and onions swimming in a flavorsome gravy. While he squatted on his hunkers and ate, Tim watched Bitsy cautiously approach his host's black horse. The stallion briefly touched the humble mule's nose, then turned away (rather disdainfully, Tim thought) to where the Covenant Man had spread a moit of oats on ground which had been carefully cleared of splinters--the leavings of sais Cosington and Marchly.
The tax collector made no conversation while Tim ate, only kicked repeatedly into the ground with one bootheel, making a small hole. Beside it was the basin that had been tied on top of the stranger's gunna. It was hard for Tim to believe his mother had been right about it--a basin made of silver would be worth a fortune--but it certainly looked like silver. How many knucks would have to be melted and smelted to make such a thing?
The Covenant Man's bootheel encountered a root. From beneath his cloak he produced a knife almost as long as Tim's forearm and slit it at a stroke. Then he resumed with his heel: thud and thud and thud.
"Why does thee dig?" asked Tim.
The Covenant Man looked up long enough to flash the boy a thin smile. "Perhaps you'll find out. Perhaps you won't. I think you will. Have you finished your meal?"
"Aye, and say thankya." Tim tapped his throat three times. "It was fine."
"Good. Kissin don't last, cookin do. So say the Manni-folk. I see you admiring my basin. It's fine, isn't it? A relic of Garlan that was. In Garlan there really were dragons, and bonfires of them still live deep in the Endless Forest, I feel sure. There, young Tim, you've learned something. Many lions is a pride; many crows is a murder; many bumblers is a throcket; many dragons is a bonfire."
"A bonfire of dragons," Tim said, tasting it. Then the full sense of what the Covenant Man had said came home to him. "If the dragons of the Endless Forest are in deep--"
But the Covenant Man interrupted before Tim could finish his thought. "Ta-ta, sha-sha, na-na. Save thy imaginings. For now, take the basin and fetch me water. You'll find it at the edge of the clearing. You'll want your little lamp, for the glow of the fire doesn't reach so far, and there's a pooky in one of the trees. He's fair swole, which means he's eaten not long ago, but I still wouldn't draw water from beneath him." He flashed another smile. Tim thought it a cruel one, but this was no surprise. "Although a boy brave enough to come into the Endless Forest with only one of his father's mules for company must do as he likes."
The basin was silver; it was too heavy to be anything else. Tim carried it clumsily beneath one arm. In his free hand he held up the gaslight. As he approached the far end of the clearing, he began to smell something brackish and unpleasant, and to hear a low smacking sound, like many small mouths. He stopped.
"You don't want this water, sai, it's stagnant."
"Don't tell me what I do or don't want, young Tim, just fill the basin. And mind the pooky, do ya, I beg."
The boy knelt, set the basin down in front of him, and looked at the sluggish little stream. The water teemed with fat white bugs. Their oversize heads were black, their eyes on stalks. They looked like waterborne maggots and appeared to be at war. After a moment's study, Tim realized they were eating each other. His stew lurched in his stomach.
From above him came a sound like a hand gliding down a long length of sandpaper. He raised his gaslight. In the lowest branch of an ironwood tree to his left, a huge reddish snake hung down in coils. Its spade-shaped head, bigger than his mama's largest cooking pot, was pointed at Tim. Amber eyes with black slit pupils regarded him sleepily. A ribbon of tongue, split into a fork, appeared, danced, then snapped back, making a liquid sloooop sound.
Tim filled the basin with the stinking water as fast as he could, but with most of his attention fixed on the creature looking at him from above, several of the bugs got on his hands, where they immediately began to bite. He brushed them off with a low cry of pain and disgust, then carried the basin back to the campfire. He did this slowly and carefully, determined not to spill a drop on himself, because the foul water squirmed with life.
"If this is to drink or to wash . . ."
The Covenant Man looked at him with his head cocked to one side, waiting for him to finish, but Tim couldn't. He just put the basin down beside the Covenant Man, who seemed to have done with his pointless hole.
"Not to drink, not to wash, although we could do either, if we wanted to."
"You're joking, sai! It's foul!"
"The world is foul, young Tim, but we build up a resistance, don't we? We breathe its air, eat its food, do its doings. Yes. Yes, we do. Never mind. Hunker."
The Covenant Man pointed to a spot, then rummaged in his gunna. Tim watched the bugs eating each other, revolted but fascinated. Would they go on until only one--the strongest--was left?
"Ah, here we are!" His host produced a steel rod with a white tip that looked like ivory, and squatted so the two of them faced each other above the lively brew in the basin.
Tim stared at the steel rod in the gloved hand. "Is that a magic wand?"
The Covenant Man appeared to consider. "I suppose so. Although it started life as the gearshift of a Dodge Dart. America's economy car, young Tim."
"What's America?"
"A kingdom filled with toy-loving idiots. It has no part in our palaver. But know this, and tell your children, should you ever be so unfortunate as to have any: in the proper hand, any object can be magic. Now watch!"
The Covenant Man threw back his cloak to fully free his arm, and passed the wand over the basin of murky, infested water. Before Tim's wide eyes, the bugs fell still . . . floated on the surface . . . disappeared. The Covenant Man made a second pass and the murk disappeared, as well. The water did indeed now look drinkable. In it, Tim found himself staring down at his own amazed face.
"Gods! How did--"
"Hush, stupid boy! Disturb the water even the slightest bit and thee'll see nothing!"
The Covenant Man passed his makeshift wand over the basin yet a third time, and Tim's reflection disappeared just as the bugs and the murk had. What replaced it was a shivery vision of Tim's own cottage. He saw his mother, and he saw Bern Kells. Kells was walking unsteadily into the kitchen from the back hall where he kept his trunk. Nell was standing between the stove and the table, wearing the nightgown she'd had on when Tim last saw her. Kells's eyes were red-rimmed and bulging in their sockets. His hair was plastered to his forehead. Tim knew that, if he had been in that room instead of only watching it, he would have smelled redeye jackaroe around the man like a fog. His mouth moved, and Tim could read the words as they came from his lips: How did you open my trunk?
No! Tim wanted to cry. Not her, me! But his throat was locked shut.
"Like it?" the Covenant Man whispered. "Enjoying the show, are you?"
Nell first shrank back against the pantry door, then turned to run. Kells seized her before she could, one hand gripping her shoulder, the other wrapped in her hair. He shook her back and forth like a Rag Sally, then threw her against the wall. He swayed back and forth in front of her, as if about to collapse. But he didn't fall, and when Nell once more tried to run, he seized the heavy ceramic jug that stood by the sink--the same water-jug Tim had poured from earlier to ease her hurt--and brought it crashing into the center of her forehead. It shattered, leaving him holding nothing but the handle. Kells dropped it, grabbed his new wife, and began to rain blows upon her.
&nb
sp; "NO!" Tim screamed.
His breath ruffled the water and the vision was gone.
Tim sprang to his feet and lunged toward Bitsy, who was looking at him in surprise. In his mind, the son of Jack Ross was already riding back down the Ironwood Trail, urging Bitsy with his heels until she was running full-out. In reality, the Covenant Man seized him before he could manage three steps, and hauled him back to the campfire.
"Ta-ta, na-na, young Tim, be not so speedy! Our palaver's well begun but far from done."
"Let me loose! She's dying, if he ain't killed her already! Unless . . . was it a glam? Your little joke?" If so, Tim thought, it was the meanest joke ever played on a boy who loved his mother. Yet he hoped it was. He hoped the Covenant Man would laugh and say I really pulled your snout that time, didn't I, young Tim?
The Covenant Man was shaking his head. "No joke and no glammer, for the basin never lies. It's already happened, I fear. Terrible what a man in drink may do to a woman, isn't it? Yet look again. This time thee may find some comfort."
Tim fell on his knees in front of the basin. The Covenant Man flicked his steel stick over the water. A vague mist seemed to pass above it . . . or perhaps it was only a trick of Tim's eyes, which were filled with tears. Whichever it was, the obscurity faded. Now in the shallow pool he saw the porch of their cottage, and a woman who seemed to have no face bending over Nell. Slowly, slowly, with the newcomer's help, Nell was able to get to her feet. The woman with no face turned her toward the front door, and Nell began taking shuffling, painful steps in that direction.
"She's alive!" Tim shouted. "My mama's alive!"
"So she is, young Tim. Bloody but unbowed. Well . . . a bit bowed, p'raps." He chuckled.
This time Tim had shouted across the basin rather than into it, and the vision remained. He realized that the woman helping his mother appeared to have no face because she was wearing a veil, and the little burro he could see at the very edge of the wavering picture was Sunshine. He had fed, watered, and walked Sunshine many times. So had the other pupils at the little Tree school; it was part of what the headmistress called their "tuition," but Tim had never seen her actually ride him. If asked, he would have said she was probably unable. Because of her shakes.
"That's the Widow Smack! What's she doing at our house?"
"Perhaps you'll ask her, young Tim."
"Did you send her, somehow?"
Smiling, the Covenant Man shook his head. "I have many hobbies, but rescuing damsels in distress isn't one of them." He bent close to the basin, the brim of his hat shading his face. "Oh, dearie me. I believe she's still in distress. Which is no surprise; it was a terrible beating she took. People say the truth can be read in a person's eyes, but look at the hands, I always say. Look at your mama's, young Tim!"
Tim bent close to the water. Supported by the Widow, Nell crossed the porch with her spread hands held out before her, and she was walking toward the wall instead of the door, although the porch was not wide and the door right in front of her. The Widow gently corrected her course, and the two women went inside together.
The Covenant Man used his tongue to make a tch-tch sound against the roof of his mouth. "Doesn't look good, young Tim. Blows to the head can be very nasty things. Even when they don't kill, they can do terrible damage. Lasting damage." His words were grave, but his eyes twinkled with unspeakable merriment.
Tim barely noticed. "I have to go. My mother needs me."
Once again he started for Bitsy. This time he got almost half a dozen steps before the Covenant Man laid hold of him. His fingers were like rods of steel. "Before you go, Tim--and with my blessing, of course--you have one more thing to do."
Tim felt as if he might be going mad. Maybe, he thought, I'm in bed with tick fever and dreaming all this.
"Take my basin back to the stream and dump it. But not where you got it, because yon pooky has begun to look far too interested in his surroundings."
The Covenant Man picked up Tim's gaslight, twisted the feed-knob fully open, and held it up. The snake now hung down for most of its length. The last three feet, however--the part ending in the pooky's spade-shaped head--was raised and weaving from side to side. Amber eyes stared raptly into Tim's blue ones. Its tongue lashed out--sloooop--and for a moment Tim saw two long curved fangs. They sparkled in the glow cast by the gaslight.
"Go to the left of him," the Covenant Man advised. "I shall accompany you and stand watch."
"Can't you just dump it yourself? I want to go to my mother. I need to--"
"Your mother isn't why I brought you here, young Tim." The Covenant Man seemed to grow taller. "Now do as I say."
Tim picked up the basin and cut across the clearing to his left. The Covenant Man, still holding up the gaslight, kept between him and the snake. The pooky had swiveled to follow their course but made no attempt to follow, although the ironwoods were so close and their lowest branches so intertwined, it could have done so with ease.
"This stub is part of the Cosington-Marchly stake," the Covenant Man said chattily. "Perhaps thee read the sign."
"Aye."
"A boy who can read is a treasure to the Barony." The Covenant Man was now treading so close to Tim that it made the boy's skin prickle. "You will pay great taxes some day--always assuming you don't die in the Endless Forest this night . . . or the next . . . or the night after that. But why look for storms that are still over the horizon, eh?
"You know whose stake this is, but I know a little more. Discovered it when I made my rounds, along with news of Frankie Simons's broken leg, the Wyland baby's milk-sick, the Riverlys' dead cows--about which they're lying through their few remaining teeth, if I know my business, and I do--and all sorts of other interesting fiddle-de-dum. How people talk! But here's the point, young Tim. I discovered that, early on in Full Earth, Peter Cosington was caught under a tree that fell wrong. Trees will do that from time to time, especially ironwood. I believe that ironwood trees actually think, which is where the tradition of crying their pardon before each day's chopping comes from."
"I know about sai Cosington's accident," Tim said. In spite of his anxiety, he was curious about this turn of the conversation. "My mama sent them a soup, even though she was in mourning for my da' at the time. The tree fell across his back, but not square across. That would have killed him. What of it? He's better these days."
They were near the water now, but the smell here was less strong and Tim heard none of those smacking bugs. That was good, but the pooky was still watching them with hungry interest. Bad.
"Yar, Square Fella Cosie's back to work and we all say thankya. But while he was laid up--for two weeks before your da' met his dragon and for six weeks after--this stub and all the others in the Cosington-Marchly stake were empty, because Ernie Marchly's not like your steppa. Which is to say, he won't come cutting in the Endless Forest without a pard. But of course--also not like your steppa--Slow Ernie actually has a pard."
Tim remembered the coin lying against his skin, and why he'd come on this mad errand in the first place. "There was no dragon! If there'd been a dragon, it would have burned up my da's lucky coin with the rest of him! And why was it in Kells's trunk?"
"Dump out my basin, young Tim. I think you'll find there are no bugs in the water to trouble thee. No, not here."
"But I want to know--"
"Close thy clam and dump my basin, for you'll not leave this clearing while it's full."
Tim knelt to do as he was told, wanting only to complete the chore and be gone. He cared nothing about Peter "Square Fella" Cosington, and didn't believe the man in the black cloak did, either. He's teasing me, or torturing me. Maybe he doesn't even know the difference. But as soon as this damn basin is empty, I'll mount Bitsy and ride back as fast as I can. Let him try to stop me. Just let him tr--
Tim's thoughts broke as cleanly as a dry stick under a bootheel. He lost his hold on the basin and it fell upsy-turvy in the matted underbrush. There were no bugs in the water here, the Covenant Ma
n was right about that; the stream was as clear as the water that flowed from the spring near their cottage. Lying six or eight inches below the surface was a human body. The clothes were only rags that floated in the current. The eyelids were gone, and so was most of the hair. The face and arms, once deeply tanned, were now as pale as alabaster. But otherwise, the body of Big Jack Ross was perfectly preserved. If not for the emptiness in those lidless, lashless eyes, Tim could have believed his father might rise, dripping, and fold him into an embrace.
The pooky made its hungry sloooop.
Something broke inside of Tim at the sound, and he began to scream.
The Covenant Man was forcing something into Tim's mouth. Tim tried to fend him off, but it did no good. The Covenant Man simply seized Tim's hair at the back of his head, and when Tim yelled, the mouth of a flask was shoved between his teeth. Some fiery liquid gushed down his throat. Not redeye, for instead of making him drunk, it calmed him. More--it made him feel like an icy visitor in his own head.
"That will wear off in ten minutes, and then I'll let you go your course," the Covenant Man said. His jocularity was gone. He no longer called the boy young Tim; he no longer called him anything. "Now dig out thy ears and listen. I began to hear stories in Tavares, forty wheels east of here, of a woodsman who'd been cooked by a dragon. It was on everyone's lips. A bitch dragon as big as a house, they said. I knew it was bullshit. I believe there might still be a tyger somewhere in the forest--"
At that the Covenant Man's lips twitched in a rictus of a grin, there and gone almost too quickly to see.
"--but a dragon? Never. There hasn't been one this close to civilization for years ten times ten, and never one as a big as a house. My curiosity was aroused. Not because Big Ross is a taxpayer--or was--although that's what I'd've told the toothless multitude, were any member of it trig enough--and brave enough--to ask. No, it was curiosity for its own sake, because wanting to know secrets has always been my besetting vice. Someday 'twill be the death of me, I have no doubt.
"I was camped on the Ironwood Trail last night, too--before I started my rounds. Only last night I went all the way to the trail's end. The signs on the last few stubs before the Fagonard Swamp say Ross and Kells. There I filled my basin at the last clear stream before the swamp begins, and what did I see in the water? Why, a sign reading Cosington-Marchly. I packed up my gunna, mounted Blackie, and rode him back here, just to see what I might see. There was no need to consult the basin again; I saw where yon pooky would not venture and where the bugs hadn't polluted the stream. The bugs are voracious flesh-eaters, but according to the old wives, they'll not eat the flesh of a virtuous man. The old wives are often wrong, but not about that, it seems. The chill of the water has preserved him, and he appears to be unmarked, because the man who murdered him struck from behind. I saw the riven skull when I turned him over, and have put him back as you see him now to spare you that sight." The Covenant Man paused, then added: "And so he'd see you, I suppose, if his essence lingers near his corse. On that, the old wives reach no consensus. Still all right, or would you like another small dose of nen?"