Winger was one of those freaks of nature who just open their eyes and are wide-awake. She was upright, looking aft, before I managed to sit up.
“Where?” I could see lights back there, sure. On about two hundred boats, most of them just like our own, what landlubbers politely call bumboats, home and business for the families operating them.
Skid got down so I could sight along his arm. “Skylar Zed’s tub. Works the east-west, same as us. Don’t come north.”
“Oh “ I couldn’t see the boat he wanted me to see, let alone tell who owned it. I faked it. I told Winger, “This is getting irritating
She grunted. She’d sprawled out again, completely without self-consciousness. She reminded me of Saucerhead more and more, Yet she was different Less intense, more relaxed. Tharpe does worry about what people might think. Winger plain didn’t care—or faked that so well it made no difference, I guess when you’re as oversize as she is, you make adjustments.
I looked some more. At least in the light of the running lamps there was nothing wrong with the way she looked. She was just big. “Hey. Tell me about Winger.” I wasn’t sleepy anymore.
“What’s to tell? I was born and I’m still around. What you see is what you get.”
“The usual stuff. Where are you from? Who were your people? How come you’re out here with me instead of holed up somewhere with a house full of little Wingers?”
“Where’d you come from, Garrett? Who’re your people? How come you’re here instead of back to your place with a pack of little Garretts?”
“I see. Only I don’t mind telling.” I told her about my family, none of whom are alive. I told about my years in the Fleet Marines. I tried but couldn’t really explain what I was doing on the boat. Not in terms she understood. “As for kids, I like them fine but I think I’d make a lousy father. I still have some growing up to do myself, at least by the accepted standards.”
“That ain’t fair, Garrett.”
“Hey, I was just passing the time. You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“We going to be friends, Garrett?”
“I don’t know. Could be. Hasn’t a lot gotten in the way so far.”
She chewed that some, leaned back, spat over the side, turned to check our tail, laid down again. “How old you figure me for?”
“My age. A little younger, maybe. Twenty-eight?”
“You’re more generous than most. I’m twenty-six. I do have a kid. Be almost twelve now. I couldn’t handle that life. I walked. It’s usually the man leaves the woman with the brats.”
I didn’t say anything. Not much you can say when somebody tells you something like that. Nothing that doesn’t sound judgmental or insincere.
“I lug around a lot of guilt. But no regrets. Funny, huh?”
“Things turn out that way sometimes. I’ve been through some of that.”
“Like this little jaunt?”
“Huh?”
“You don’t hide so well behind the smart mouth and weary attitude, Garrett. We ice this Chodo, you’re going to take on a shitload of guilt.”
“But no regrets.”
“Yeah. And you know something? That’s why I wanted in. The money and the rep I can use, but it wasn’t just for that. It’s ‘cause I figure you for one of the good guys.”
“I try.” Probably too hard. “But when you get down to it, there isn’t much difference between the good guys and the bad guys.” I used some of my cases to illustrate.
She told me how she’d become a bounty hunter. Mostly by accident. Right after she’d left her family she’d killed a much-wanted thug who’d tried to rape her. She traded the remains for a reward and had found herself with a reputation for having more guts than sense and a big chip on her shoulder
“The rep’s the thing, Garrett. You build it right, you nurture it, you save a lot of trouble. You take this Chodo. Nobody bucks him because of his reputation.”
“He backs it up.”
“You got to do that. Ruthlessness is the key. You, now, your rep is wishy-washy except for keeping your word and not letting people mess your clients around. You might be tough, but you ain’t hard. You get what I’m saying? Somebody hires you to get him out from under blackmail, you don’t just go cut some bastard’s throat and have done with it. You try to finagle it so nobody gets hurt. Lot of people figure you for soft in the center, you go that way. Figure they’ve got an edge.”
“Yeah.” I understood. But I didn’t make any sudden New Year’s resolutions.
“I figure you’ll waste this chance. You off Chodo, you’ll never let anybody know.”
“You’re beginning to depress me.”
She laughed. “You heard the one about the nuns, the bear, and the missing honey?” She told the story. It was about what I expected. She followed it with another. She kept telling them. She knew every bad, off-color joke ever invented and this world, with all its tribes, offers plenty of absurd possibilities.
“I surrender,” I said “I won’t be depressed if you won’t tell any more stories.”
“Great So now let’s figure out what we’re going to do about that other boat.”
I glanced downriver. I still couldn’t tell anything. “Skid. Can you run inshore and let us off without them back there knowing?”
He reflected. “Around Miller Point, up ahead. Be out of their sight maybe twenty minutes. But I thought you wanted to go to the Portage.”
“You go ahead upriver after we get off. Lead that boat along with you.”
“You’re paying the freight. You heard the man, laddies. Cut it close going around the point. Lucky for you,” he said to me “Channel’s close in there.”
When the time came, we did it fast. It worked. Skid headed upriver. Winger and I heard the second boat creak past as we worked our way through the dense growth beside the river. She punched my arm, grinned.
We started our hike cross-country. My body kept threatening to put a curse on me for mistreating it so.
42
I guessed it was just past midnight. We were a mile from Chodo’s place, which was easy to see. “Party must be roaring,” I observed. “Either that or there’s a forest fire over there.”
“We’re coming in from the north, we better head over there, move in closer later.”
“Yeah. Better stay behind this ridge, too. Never know who might spot us if we don’t.” We were in a vineyard. There were grape-growers’ houses nearby.
“You said that already.”
“You said that about heading north three times, too.”
“You nervous, Garrett?”
“Yeah. You?”
She seemed cool. “Scared shitless.”
“It doesn’t show.”
“You learn.”
The sky went berserk toward Chodo’s place. I said, “Sounds like the morCartha brought their show to the country.” We couldn’t see them, light or no, with the ridge in the way. We decided not to go over and look. Everybody at the kingpin’s place would be out gawking.
We found us a comfortable jump-off place fifty yards north of Chodo’s property line. The morCartha were still at it, off and on. “Those flying rats could wake the dead,” I grumbled.
“We got time to kill. We’re ahead of schedule.” The plan was to wait for Crask and Sadler to draw the thunder-lizards around front once they gave up on me and decided to take their best shot. Then we’d move, hoping my amulet still worked.
“Yeah.” I tried making sense of the racket. “I don’t like that.” I stood up. Standing, I could see the occasional dot swoop through the light over the kingpin’s house. A deadly battle over there, near as I could tell. “Why did they bring it out here?”
“Oh, sit down and sweat blood like I am.”
If there was no attack by Crask and Sadler, or none we could detect, we would move about three o’clock, the coolest hour of the night, when the thunder-lizards would be sluggish. With them slow and maybe ignoring us on account of my amulet, we’d onl
y need to worry about dogs, armed guards, booby traps, and whatever I didn’t know about.
Winger laid back and stared at the stars. “Be enough light, anyway. I can handle the dogs. Better hope those morCartha clear off, though.”
I grunted. Dogs make me nervous. Not afraid, just nervous.
“You got a special woman, Garrett? That little Sparky, hanging around your place?”
“Sparky?”
“The carrot top. I put the name Sparky on her in my own head.”
“Oh. Yeah. I have one or two.”
“One or two?”
“Tinnie Tate. The one who got stabbed. And one named Maya I kind of like. I haven’t seen her lately.”
“I heard some about her. People talk. Besides them two. Anything going? You got kind of a rep that way, you know.”
“Highly exaggerated, I’m sure. Those things have a way of getting blown out of proportion. Nah. Nobody else special. Except maybe Eleanor.”
“That Sparky?”
“No. The blonde on my office wall. She’s a good listener.”
“Nothing going with Sparky, eh?”
“Just wishful thinking. Why?”
“No reason. Just wondering. We got time to kill.”
What? “Oh.” Sometimes I’m real slow. I started fumbling for excuses that wouldn’t leave any hurt feelings. “I don’t know. Condition I’m in . . .”
Boy, howdy! Who’d a thunk it . . .?
Winger started grabbing stuff. “Somebody coming. And we’re running late.”
No lie. Me, the mission-oriented old Marine, forgot why I was out in the middle of a grape orchard freezing my aching body in the wee hours. You betcha. My weakness again. When that Winger decided to be a woman, she popped and sizzled Sparky . . . Carla Lindo had nothing on her then.
Amazing. Utterly amazing.
“Easy, Garrett.” Dark shapes drifted closer. “Crask and Sadler.”
Winger and I finished our scrambling around. Those two settled on the hillside. Crask said, “Sneaky, sneaky Garrett. You was supposed to meet us around front. We’d’ve never found you, wasn’t for all the puffing and snorting.”
“Easy, lady,” Sadler said “Easy. Ain’t gonna be no trouble. I don’t blame you for not showing, Garrett. Not after this afternoon.”
“You heard, eh?”
“Yeah. Some. We was too late to save your ass. We did try. We figured you was gone and counted you out when we heard about the coach and the thunder-lizard.”
Crask said, “Bunch of farmers took it down right after sundown, you care about that. They was still skinning it when we come out.”
Sadler continued, “Along about sundown we heard from a friend what seen you talking to the sheela here. We counted you out anyhow.”
Crask said, “You got to be the luckiest bastard that ever lived. We changed the whole plan when we heard about the coach. Then we changed it again when we heard you was alive.”
Sadler said, “We figured we wouldn’t show where you was supposed to meet us, just in case you did. But we’d watch, and then we’d follow you in when you went.”
“Follow me? What made you think I’d do it on my own?”
“You got to. Chodo’s after your ass. You got to get his first or kiss yours good-bye. You’re mush on the inside, but you ain’t stupid. You do what you got to.”
Crask chuckled. What a pair of bastards. And not the least bit ashamed of themselves. Crask said, “We changed the plan again. Now we figure we ought to hit in a bunch. Something weird’s going on over there.”
Sadler asked, “You guys got any idea what the hell all that racket’s about?”
“MorCartha wars.”
“At Chodo’s place?”
I shrugged. “They hold them wherever they can get enough of them together.”
“Sounded like more than that to me. You miss it?” He kept a straight face Crask did, too. Those guys were inhuman
Winger said, “Ready when you are, Garrett.”
No kidding. I dreaded having the Dead Man find out about tonight. I’d never hear the end. Probably deserved it, too. “You guys want to rest up first?” I wasn’t going to tell them they couldn’t horn in. Not here. Not now.
“We’re ready,” Sadler replied. “You bring the stone?”
“I’m slow but I’m not stupid. Winger says she can handle the dogs.”
“They shouldn’t be no problem. We came prepared.” I could see him well enough to tell he thought I hadn’t.
He and Crask carried military spears and Venageti two handed sabers. They were loaded down with enough other hardware to start their own war. “Whenever you want,” he added.
“Let’s do it. Winger,” We started walking.
43
Chodo’s north wall wasn’t much. Was that intentional?
“Yeah,” Crask told me. “Farther to the house here. Most of them that try come this way. Sets them up so the dogs and lizards got more time to work.”
Wonderful. Being a genius, I’d selected exactly the course Chodo wanted me to choose.
Sadler said, “It’s sure turned quiet “ He was right. The morCartha had moved on.
“Gone dark, too,” Crask said.
It took me a moment to understand. The lights round the house had been extinguished “What about armed patrols?” We’d have trouble spotting them in the dark.
“Maybe.” That was Sadler. “But they’ll stay near the house. The lizards get unpredictable when they’re excited.”
“Glad you warned me.” Like I’d really counted on the amulet stone to turn the beasts blind.
We moved ahead a quarter mile, those two leading. They knew their way. Then Crask stopped. Sadler stopped. Crask said, “Something’s up. We should’ve run into a dog or lizard by now.”
I told him, “I’m not going to complain.”
“Watch out.”
We moved again. Seconds later I tripped, fell on my face. Just what I needed. Bruises on my bruises. I did manage to go down without hollering. “Hey!” I hissed. “Check this.”
This was a dead thunder-lizard. Healthy, it would have been my size. Cause of its poor health seemed to be a bunch of crossbow bolts. Hard to tell how long it had been unhealthy because those things are cold to begin with.
Crask and Sadler were not pleased. Sadler speculated, “Somebody got here before us.”
Crask muttered, “That explains the quiet.”
I asked, “You think somebody did our job for us?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. One lizard is down. That ain’t the whole pack. Maybe the rest are curled up with full bellies.”
Real helpful, those guys.
We found two more thunder-lizards turned into pin-cushions. Then a dead dog. “Something strange here,” I said. “I was a scout in the Marines. One guy couldn’t do this. It would take a gang. But they didn’t leave any sign. The only grass down was put that way by the animals.”
Crask and Sadler grunted. Winger observed, “The arrows are all in the back.”
They were. “So?”
She jerked a thumb skyward. The morCartha?
We were halfway to the house. Despite the absence of light, I could sense a hulking darkness where it stood.
The silence ended. So did the darkness.
An uproar broke out around the house, suddenly. Heavy fighting. The light developed more slowly. Sadler suggested, “Let’s don’t get in a hurry just yet, Garrett.”
I’d started moving. He was right. No sense galloping into something. We advanced slowly. The crash and clang declined.
The animals came out of nowhere. Crask and Sadler each skewered a thunder-lizard. Winger moved like a bullfighter, slashed a dog’s throat on the fly. Blood flew everywhere. It was over before I could decide who to help. I gurgled, “Don’t look like the stone is much good.”
Sadler snapped, “They didn’t come after you.”
Crask muttered, “Now we know they ain’t all dead.” We reached a barn. Crask said, “Let’s s
cope it out from the loft.”
We did, but that didn’t help much. Most of the light had faded. We saw two armed men directly opposite us, beside the house. Six more were doing something along the side of the house, toward its front. Winger said, “I see bodies.”
There were a lot of them. The men toward the front were moving some inside. Chodo must have brought a small army in for the festivities. Not mentioning the men down, there were thunder-lizards and dogs and morCartha all over the place. It had been ferocious out.
“Whatever happened, it’s over now.” I said.
So naturally the gods had to make me out a liar before I even finished talking. One of Chodo’s men took an arrow in the chest. The rest charged the darkness. After some noise and screaming most of them came back. Apparently they decided not to do any more picking up.
“Dwarves,” Sadler decided.
“Huh?” My repartee was up to standard.
“Dwarves attacked the place. Some of those stiffs are dwarves.”
What the hell was going on?
Either the Serpent’s buddies had tried to rescue her or Gnorst had taken a shot at getting her away from the kingpin. I put my money on Gnorst But that didn’t explain the morCartha I didn’t think.
I said, “I hope Chodo is as confused as I am. And drunk, too.”
Sadler said, “They ought to all be sobered up by now.”
“Don’t count on it. You remember how ripped they got last year.”
“I don’t see any more animals,” Winger said.
“No patrols, either,” Crask observed. “That’d mean he’s used up all the men he can afford. He’s keeping the rest in close.”
I said, “He’ll have the entrances covered. How do we get inside?”
“From up top. We climb the stonework on the northwest corner, swing out onto those beams, get onto the roof. We move across there, drop onto that balcony in the middle. See it? It shouldn’t be covered if he’s short on bodies and is thinking dwarves. Dwarves couldn’t get up there.”
“One of my favorite hobbies, climbing unfamiliar buildings in the dark.”