Bitter Gold Hearts

  I found the nothing I expected, though not exactly because there was nothing to be found. It was one of those cases of suddenly deciding you ought to be investi­gating something somewhere else. I heard a stir in the woods behind me. Not much of one. Thinking some of the dogs had gotten brave, I turned with the stick I still carried.

  “Holy shit!”

  A woolly mammoth stood at the edge of the woods, and from where I was it looked about ninety-three hands high at the shoulder. How the hell it had come up so quietly is beyond me. I didn’t ask. When it cocked its head and made a curious grunting noise, I put the heels and toes to work according to the gods’ design. The beast threw a trumpet roar after me. Laughing. I paused behind a two-foot-thick oak and gave it a stare. A mammoth. Here. No mammoth had come this close to TunFaire in the past dozen generations. The nearest herds were four hundred miles north of us, up along the borders of thunder-lizard country.

  The mammoth ambled out of the woods, laughed at me again, cropped some grass a couple of bales at a time while keeping one eye on me. Finally convinced that I was no fearless mammoth poacher, it eyeballed the vul­tures, checked the dead ogres, snorted in disgust, and marched off through the woods as quietly as it had come. And last night I’d been unconcerned because no wolf-man had been seen since I was a kid.

  Like I said, luck is not always with the bad guys.

  It was time to stop tempting it with the one out of ten and hike on back to my rig before the horses got wind of that monster and decided they would feel more comfort­able back in the city. Too bad Garrett had to ride shank’s mare.

  __XVIII__

  I sat on the buggy seat, beside the crossroads obelisk, and watched a parade of farm families and donkey carts head up the Derry Road. I didn’t see them. I was trying to pick between Karl Junior’s farm prison and Saucer head’s witch. The decision had actually been made. I was putting the thumbscrews on myself trying to figure if I was going to the farm first just to delay the pain skulking around the other place. No matter that I had to head the same direction to reach both and the farm was nearer. You don’t alter the past, turn the tide, or change yourself by brooding about your hidden motives. You will surprise yourself every time, anyway. Nobody ever figures out why.

  “Hell with it! Get up.”

  One of the team looked over her shoulder. She had that glint in her eye. The tribe of horses was about to amuse itself at Garrett’s expense.

  Why do they do this to me? Horses and women. I’ll never understand either species.

  “Don’t even think about it, horse. I have friends in the glue business. Get up.”

  They got. Unlike women, you can show horses who is boss. The bout with introspection rekindled my desire to lay hands on the people responsible for the human equiva­lent of sending Amiranda to the glue works. The exit to the farm was up on a ridgeline where the ground was too dry to hold tracks, and hidden by under­growth. I passed it twice. The third time I got down and led the team, giving the bushes a closer look, and that did the trick. Two young mulberry trees, which grow as fast as weeds, leaned together over the track. Once past them the way was easy to follow, though it hadn’t been cleared since Donni’s departure. I had to go through a half mile of woods, not a mile. It was dense in there, dark, quiet, and humid. The deerflies and horseflies were out at play, and every few feet I got a faceful of spider silk. I sweated and slapped and mut­tered and picked ticks off my pants. Why doesn’t every­body live in the city?

  I ran into a blackberry patch where the berries were fat and sweet, and decided to lunch on the spot. Afterward I felt more disposed toward the country, until the chiggers off the blackberry canes started gnawing. The track through the woods showed evidence of re­cent use, including that of the passage of at least one heavy vehicle. I had a feeling that, no matter what suspicions haunted me, I wouldn’t unearth one bit of physical evidence to impugn Junior’s version of what had happened. I kicked up a doe and fawn near the edge of the wood. I watched them bound across what once had constituted considerably more than a one-family subsistence farm, though now the acreage was wild and heavily spotted with wild roses and young cedars. The grass was waist high and some of the weeds were taller. A trampled path led down slope to what had been a substantial house. There were no domestic animals in sight, no dogs bark­ing, no smoke from either chimney, nor any other sign that the place was occupied.

  Still, I remained rooted, giving the wildlife time to grow accustomed to my presence and return to business. The Boga Hills loomed indigo in the distance. The most famous Karentine vineyards are up there. This coun­try was close enough to have some of the magic rub off, but hadn’t been turned into vineyards. I wondered if someone hadn’t gotten that idea and had abandoned the place when they found out why. Then I recalled Donni Pell. A girl who came from some kind of money who went to work for Lettie, on contract, supposedly because she liked the job. A girl who now supposedly owned a place that, a few years ago, had been in satisfactory shape for a quick sale to TunFaire’s land-hungry lords. I doubted it was part of the problem at hand, but it might be interest­ing to unravel the whys. Ten minutes of pretending I was scouting for the com­pany left me impatient to get on with it. I tied the horses, got down low, and started my downhill sneak.

  The place was as empty as a dead shoe. I went for the buggy, turned the team loose to browse while I prowled.

  Junior’s report was accurate down to the minutiae. The only things he hadn’t mentioned were that the well was still good and his captors had equipped it with a new rope and bucket. The horses awarded me a temporary cease­fire after I drew them a few buckets.

  There was no doubt that a band of ogres — or a mob equally unfastidious — had spent several days hanging around. Days during which they must have eaten nothing but chicken to judge by the feathers, heads, and hooves scattered around. I wondered how they had managed to pilfer so many without arousing the ire of the entire countryside. I did a modestly thorough once-over, with special at­tention to Karl’s lock-up. That room had the rickety furniture, cracked pitcher, filthy bedding, overburdened chamber pot reported. The chamber pot was significant. I concluded that its very existence meant I must surren­der my suspicions of Junior or radically alter my estimate of his intelligence and acting ability. If he had put to­gether a fake, he had done so with a marvelous eye for detail, meaning he had anticipated a thorough investiga­tion despite his getting home healthy and happy, which meant...

  I didn’t know what the hell it meant, except maybe that I had my hat on backward.

  Why the hell did Amiranda have to die?

  The answer to that would probably bust the whole thing open. Conscious that I had a passing duty to Amber as a client, I went over the place again with all due profes­sional care to overlook nothing, be that the tracks of a four-hundred-pound ogre with a peg leg or two hundred thousand marks gold hidden by throwing it down the well. Yes. I stripped down and shimmied down and floun­dered around in the icy water until I was sure there would be no gold strike. My curses should have brought the water to a simmer, but failed. I guess I just don’t have the knack.

  Four hours and the risk of pneumonia turned up just one thing worth taking along, a silver tenth mark that had strayed in among the dust bunnies against the wall where Junior’s blankets were heaped and hadn’t been able to find its way home. It looked new but it was a temple coin and didn’t use the royal dating. I’d have to visit the temple where it had been struck to find out when it was minted.

  But its very presence gave me an idea. It also gave me a bit of indigestion for not having thought to ask a few more questions while I’d had Junior on the griddle. Now I would have to get the answers the hard way — on the trip home. The hard way, but the answers I got were likely to be square. The sun was headed west. It wasn’t going to rebound off the hills out there. I had a call to make, and if I wanted to get it handled before the wolfmen came out to stalk the wily mammoth, I had to get moving. The horses let the armist
ice stand. They didn’t even play tag with me when I went to harness them up.

  __XIX__

  SAUCERHEAD’S directions to his witch friend’s place hadn’t included the information that there was noth­ing resembling a road near her home. In fact, any resem­blance to a trail was coincidental. That was wicked-witch-of-the-woods territory and anybody who managed to stum­ble into her through that mess deserved whatever he got. I had to do most of it on the ground, leading the team. The armistice survived only because they realized they would need me to scout the way back. When we hit the road again all deals would be off.

  The last few hundred yards weren’t bad. The ground leveled out. The undergrowth ceased to exist, as though somebody manicured the woods every day. The trees were big and old and the canopy above turned most of the remaining light. Lamplight pouring through an open doorway gave me my bearings. A rosy-cheeked, apple-dumpling-plump little old lady was waiting for me. She stood about four-feet-eight and was dressed like a peasant granny on a christening day, right down to the embroidered apron. She looked me over frankly. I couldn’t tell what she thought of what she saw. “Are you Garrett?”

  Startled, I confessed.

  “Took you long enough to get here. I suppose you might as well come on inside. There’s still a bit of water for tea and a scone or two if Shaggoth hasn’t got into them. Shaggoth! You good-for-nothing lout! Get out here and take care of the man’s horses.”

  I started to ask how she knew I was coming, but only managed to get the old flycatcher open before Shaggoth came out. And came out. And came out. That doorway was a good seven feet high and he had to crouch to get through. He looked at me the way I’d look at a decom­posing rat, snorted, and started unhitching the horses.

  “Come inside,” the witch told me. I sidled in behind her, keeping one eye on friend Shaggoth. “Troll?” I squeaked.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s got jaws like a saber-toothed tiger. Saber-toothed tiger. The goddamned growly things with the fangs.”

  She chuckled. “Shaggoth is of the pure blood. He’s been with me a long time.” She had me in the kitchen then and was dropping a tea egg into a giant mug that I wished was filled with beer. “The rest of his folk mi­grated because you pesky humans were overrunning ev­erything, but he stayed on. Loyalty before common sense.”

  I forbore observing that she was human herself.

  “They’re not a very bright race. Come. By the by, you’ll have noted that he isn’t sensitive to sunlight.”

  No. That hadn’t registered. Teeth had registered. “How come you know my name?” Great straight line to a witch. “How did you know I was co — geek!”

  Amiranda was seated beside a small fire, hands folded in her lap, staring at something beyond my right shoul­der. No. Not Amiranda. The essence of Amiranda had fled that flesh. That wasn’t a person, it was a thing. The pain would be less if I thought that way.

  “Excuse me?” I glanced at the witch.

  “I said Waldo told me you would come. I expected you sooner.”

  “Who’s Waldo? Another pet like Shaggoth? He can see the future?”

  “Waldo Tharpe. He told me you were friends.”

  “Waldo?” There must have been a little hysteria edg­ing my giggle. She gave me a frown. “I didn’t know he had a name. I’ve never heard him called anything but Saucer head.”

  “He’s not enthusiastic about being Waldo,” she admit­ted. “Sit and let’s talk.”

  I sat, musing. “So Saucer head jobbed us. The big dope isn’t as dumb as he lets on.” I kept getting drawn back to the corpse. It did look very lifelike, very undamaged. Any moment now the chest would heave, the sparkle would come back to the eyes, and she would laugh at me for being taken in. The witch settled into a chair facing mine. “Waldo said you’d have questions.” Her gaze followed mine. “I worked on her a little, making her look a little better, putting spells on to hold the corruption off till she can be given a decent funeral.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Questions, Garrett? I went to a good deal of trouble on Waldo’s behalf. What will you need to know?”

  “Anything. Everything. I want to know why she was killed and who ordered it done.”

  “I’m not omniscient, Garrett. I can’t answer that sort of question. Though 1 can surmise — which may not stand scrutiny in the light of what you already know — why. She was about three months pregnant.”

  “What? That’s impossible.”

  “The child would have been male had it seen the light of day.”

  “But she spent the last six months practically impris­oned in the house where she lived.”

  “There were no men in that house? Hers was a miracu­lous conception?”

  I opened my mouth to protest but a question popped out instead. “Who was the father?”

  “I’m no necromancer, Garrett. The name, if she knew it at all, expired with her.”

  “She knew. She wasn’t the type who wouldn’t.” I’d begun to get angry all over again.

  “You knew her? Waldo didn’t. Nothing but her name and the fact that you sent her to him.”

  “I knew her. Not well, but I did.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  I talked. It eased the pain a little, bringing her to life in words. I finished. “Did you get anything out of that?”

  “Only that you’re working in a tight place. A storm-warden’s family, yet. Did Waldo tell you that the assas­sins were ogre breeds?”

  “Yes.”

  “A curse on the beasts. Waldo hurt them, but not nearly enough. I sent Shaggoth to find them. He caught nothing but graves. There was nothing on the bodies to betray them.”

  “I know. I saw them myself. Tell Shaggoth to watch his step in the woods. There’s something out there that’s bigger than he is.”

  “You’re making a joke?”

  “Sort of. A mammoth did sneak up on me while I was looking at those ogre bodies.”

  “A mammoth! Here in this day. A wonder for cer­tain.” She rose and went to a cabinet while I sipped tea. She said, “I’ve been considering your situation since Waldo left. It seemed — and does more so now that I know who she was — that the best help I could offer would be a few charms you might use to surprise the villains.”

  I looked at Amiranda’s remains. “I appreciate that. I wonder why you’d commit yourself that way, though.”

  “For Waldo. For the woman. Maybe for your sake, laddie. Maybe for my own. Certainly for the sake of justice. Whatever, the deed was cruel and should be repaid in coin equally vicious. The man responsible should be... But your tea is getting cold. I’ll put another pot of water on to boil.”

  I got fresh tea, this time with fire-hardened flour bri­quets that must have been the scones mentioned earlier. I gave them a try. One should show one’s hostess the utmost in courtesy, especially when she is a witch.

  Shaggoth stuck his head in and grumbled something in dialect that sounded suspiciously like, “Where the hell did my scones go?” He gave me a narrow-eyed look when the witch replied.

  “Don’t you mind him,” she told me. “He’s just being playful.”

  Right. Like a mongoose teases a cobra.

  She sat down and explained how I could use the tricks she’d prepared for me. When she finished, I thanked her and rose. “If you can get Shaggoth to help me without breaking any bones in his playfulness, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  She looked scandalized at first, then just amused. “You’ve heard too many stories about witches, Garrett. You’ll be safer here than out in the moonlight. Shaggoth is the least malign of those creatures who haven’t yet emigrated. Consider the moon. Consider her ways.”

  Those who survive in this business develop an intuition for when to argue and when not to argue. Smart guys have figured out that you don’t talk back to stormwardens, warlocks, sorcerers, and witches. The place for reserva­tions is tucked neatly behind the teeth. “All right. Where do I bed down?”

>   “Here. By the fire. The nights get chilly in the woods.”

  I looked at what was left of Amiranda Crest.

  “She doesn’t get up and walk at midnight, Garrett. She’s all through with that.”

  I have slept in the presence of corpses often enough, especially while I was in the Marines, but I’ve never liked it and never before had I had to share my quarters with a dead lover. That held no appeal at all.

  “Shaggoth will waken you at first light and help you get her into your buggy.”

  I looked at the body and reflected that it would be along, hard road home. And once I got there I’d have to face the question of what to do with the cadaver.

  “Good night, Mr. Garrett.” The witch went around snuffing lights and collecting tea things, which she took to the kitchen. She started clattering around out there, leaving me to my own devices. I asked myself what the hell the point was of having nerve if I didn’t use it, rounded up a small herd of pillows and cushions, and tried to convince myself they made a bed. I tossed a couple logs on the fire and lay down. I stared at the ceiling for a long time after the clatter in the kitchen died and the light went with it. The flicker of the fire kept making Amiranda appear to move there in the corner of my eye. I went over everything from the begin­ning, then went over it again. Somewhere there was some nagging little detail that, added to the maverick coin from the farm, had me feeling very suspicious about Junior again.

  Sometimes intuition isn’t intuition at all, but rather unconscious memory. I finally got it. The shoes Willa Dount had shown me first time I went up the Hill. Those shoes. They deserved a lot of thought from several angles. In the meantime, I had to rest. Tomorrow was going to be another in a series of long days.