Destiny's Road (38 page)

Then up toward the lake.

The fresh new outhouses were closer to the inn than the old ones. Jemmy wondered if that was a mistake. Today they were conveniently close. In a few years, when they got ripe... or when the pit began leaking into the groundwater... and so his mind was led to the old outhouse middens.

Here, the men's. Now, where had the fern's gotten to? His nose led him to a patch of bare earth. He called, "Amnon, did someone set you to filling this in?"

Amnon shook his head. He was standing well back.

Now, who would have done hard labor here without first trying to get Amnon to do it?

Jemmy dug. The smell drove Amnon farther back.

He hadn't dug far when he uncovered a hand. He cleared enough to find Duncan Nick's face. The shovel set the head flopping loose.

"Amnon, his throat's cut. Take my word?"

"Sure!"

"I want to cover this up and leave it alone, at least till we talk to Barda. Got a better idea?"

"Want help?"

"No. You do everything else around here." He shoveled the dirt back. Not too deep. Now where was Amnon? Standing well back, maybe retching a little; trying to ignore the whole scene, stench and all.

Jemmy stooped over his pack. His back was to Amnon. He fished into the speckles bag and flung a handful of speckles over the mound; closed the bag and swung the pack onto his shoulders in a smooth turn that brought Amnon into view. Amnon had noticed nothing.

"Amnon?" He gave Amnon the malachite cube. "You heard what I told Winnie. Don't show it around."

"Okay. What if I wanted the rest of what's in there?" Jemmy laughed. "Well, you've already got a shovel." You had to trust somebody.

Barda was in the kitchen, and every cabinet was open. "Just wondering where to put things," she said, and looked around. "Isn't that... ?"

Jemmy spilled the contents of the pack across the kitchen floor. "You tell me. Is that Duncan's loot?"

She stared. "No birdfucking allowed!"

''It's the law.''

"Yes. Yes, of course it must be....hat birdfucker must have hidden it here, and then they took him off to the Windfarm. Of course he wanted us back here. With just the least of that we could have... Jemmy, tell me what happened."

Jemmy told it. Barda listened with a face like stone. At one point she asked, "Andrew just strolled toward you and you scrambled up a cliff?"

"I did."

"But why? I mean, yes, I remember you argued about the prole gun, but we all stopped him killing the ones who wouldn't go. Jemmy, what will we do without Andrew?" Barda wondered miserably.

She looked up. "Sorry."

Jemmy said, "Here's how I saw it. Andrew can't kill the chef and still keep the Swan going. What would he have if he didn't have the Swan?"

He waved at the treasure heaped on the floor. "Every time you cried about not having the money for something to make the Swan a real inn, I saw Duncan Nick not saying anything. The rest of us all said something inane. Duncan Nick and his friends with no names hid out here after they robbed some houses. One of them might have it, or your proles might have the loot, or they gave it back to the owners. Or maybe Duncan Nick hid it at the Swan. And maybe Duncan told you in private... ?"

Barda shook her head.

"Or told Andrew? Then you'd have money and we'd all be set. But that isn't what happened. Duncan took seven days to get himself a little less pale, a little better fed.

"Now, Andrew knew Duncan much better than I do. If I could see all that, Andrew might just wait for Duncan to grab the loot and run.

"I saw Duncan missing for a day. I saw Andrew set off for town to

buy supplies. They'd have to come back in his pack, of course. So why was his pack already full of heavy stuff? And he'd set me up to join him, alone. He was clearing up a loose end, Barda."

"So you lay in wait."

"Barda, he was lying in wait, and I thought I knew where, and I still missed him. He must have been under the roots on the fisher tree."

She studied him a little longer, then said, "You're rich now. You could...why didn't you run?"

"Where?"

"All right. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it all back."

"Duncan's in the old fern latrine pit with his throat cut. We covered it up again. It's none of the Parole Board's business."

"No."

"Someone still has to go in and buy supplies," Jemmy said. "Amnon and Winnie?"

"You told them both about this. Why?"

"I wanted someone with me when I brought you this. I thought maybe you'd do anything for the inn."

"Such as?"

"It's early," Jemmy said. "I'm going to get some fish for dinner." He set Andrew's pack beside the loot of three houses, and left. Barda's eyes bored into his back.

He still didn't know.

If Andrew was to be sent to Destiny Town with everybody's money, then Andrew had to want to come back. He had authority here, and nowhere else. Still... would Barda have offered him more? Say, the life of a man who snatched a gun away from him?

Jemmy didn't know, and it wasn't ever going to matter.

He passed a few people, and waved and went on. The men's old cesspit hadn't been filled in. Jemmy stopped and sprinkled speckles around the edge, and was reminded that he couldn't leave yet.

When he reached the lake, Willametta Haines was perched on a perfect rounded white rock, fishing. Jemmy took up position beside her. He handed her the speckles bag. "Would you take this, please?"

"Why? You're the chef."

"Accidents happen. I don't want to get it wet."

She took it. "What're you doing?"

"Going to circle the lake."

"Want company?"

He said, "Sure." Then he handed her an ear crescent, a tiny snake made of silver wire.

"Where did you get this?"

He fitted it onto her, and then he told her.

She scrambled backward. A safe distance away, she threw the ear crescent at the lake water and ran.

He waited until she was out of sight. Then he kept walking, around the lake and uphill. He kept the pole, awkward as it was. There would be lakes and rivers.

He didn't expect to be hunted. Jemmy Bloocher disappears after admitting that he's killed the trusty. Did he run? Or did someone take offense? Who cares? But anyone who tried to follow Jemmy would surely expect to find him on the Road.

Uphill he climbed. Swan Lake nestled in another wrinkle in the fabric of the land, another crest with another valley beyond. From the crest he could look into the next valley. Earthlife colors, then Destiny black along the bottom, then Earthlife again.

That day and the next three, he stuck to the crest. He made forays into the valley to hunt and gather. In time he descended to the Road. When he met the caravan he was welcome: he had money. He'd saved out half before he gave the rest to Barth.

Part Three

Wave Rider

The Otterfolk enjoy boat rides. We want to try a mixed crew.

-William Granger, Xenobiology

Jeremy Winslow had shaped a reclining chair for himself out of sand.

Out beyond the waves, blue and white water sparkled and flashed. A tiny pale shape bobbed up and down. Chloe was sitting on a board with her back to Jeremy, surrounded by small dark shell-topped heads.

It was off season. Wave Rider's clientele might think that they came for the Otterfolk. hut they came for each other's company too. When a caravan wasn't in, nobody else came either. The folk who tended Wave Rider could all relax a little.

Only a little. Entropy ran fast at the shoreline, and Barbara Barenblatt had brought a large family: a husband, four young children, and a sister doubling as baby-sitter, all in the three-back suite. Barry and Brenda were cleaning it up while they were out; Brenda's husband, Lloyd, had gone yesterday for supplies, and he'd seen Karen tending a cauldron of Soup.

And Jeremy was nursing a twisted knee, hut it wouldn't keep him idle forever. He was shelling peas under a net to keep sand out. His hands moved without distracting him much.

Out beyond Chloe, the water humped. Chloe saw it. She was paddling, turning. Small heads popped up around her, a dozen, twenty. The hump in the ocean rolled toward her. Chloe paddled madly. Jeremy watched, nodding. Good, good, you're on, good, stand now.

She stood. The board slid down the water slope in a flurry of Otterfolk. when Chloe veered they all veered.

No surfboard ever hit an Otterfolk.

The wave was breaking, and she skimmed away under the falling water. Otterfolk got lost, or let the wave roll over them just for the hell of it. A few were almost keeping up.

She looked good, his sister-in-law. He'd taught her to ride these waves. He'd be riding again after his knee healed. At forty-seven years of age, he couldn't expect that to happen fast.

Behind him, not loud, Jeremy heard a metallic thump and a highpitched yzp.

A moment to realize how queer that sound was. Another to wait for the yell of reassurance that didn't come. Then he was hop-running uphill, cane stabbing sand, right arm windmilling for balance.

He saw Karen, and he bellowed, "Barry! Brenda! Help!"

Karen had set the cauldron in a frame above the pit, in the sand below Wave Rider. The cauldron was on its side. He could see where chowder had spilled down Karen's right side, shoulder to hip and elbow.

"Barrbarrbarreee! Brenbrenbrendaaa!"

Her face was twisted in terror. Why wasn't she screaming? He shied from the answer: the nerves must have been seared lifeless. He got under Karen's shoulder, her left shoulder, just as she started to collapse. His own scream rose to incoherent agony as his knee buckled under her weight.

Brenda came running.

Jeremy was down on his knee, still supporting Karen. "Don't touch her where she's burned! Get under her here, here where I am, okay?" He transferred his burden. Karen was moaning. She'd started to realize how bad it was. She wasn't able to stand.

"Get her up to the inn!" Jeremy limped uphill, up sixty meters of old wooden stairs, shouting every few steps. "Barrbarrbarreee!"

"What?I was stowing meat and veggies." Lloyd was back.

Good! "Get ice! All the ice! Karen's been burned! Barrbarrbarreee!"

Lloyd disappeared.

Jeremy continued his hop-jump progress up the stairs from the beach, through Reception and into the kitchen. Lloyd had poured several pounds of ice over a towel in the sink. He rolled the towel up and rushed past Jeremy.

Brenda and Karen had reached the landing outside Reception. Karen was whimpering; her eyes rolled. A patch of skin on her upper arm had slipped. Lloyd and Brenda eased her down to the wood floor and settled the ice-filled towel across her. Jeremy slid a pillow under her knees.

Brenda asked, "Did you call anyone?"

Call? "Lloyd-" Phone?"No."

Brenda ran inside.

Karen wanted to hold his hand. He told her, "Don't worry. Brenda must be calling the City. What happened?"

"It was tipping over. I tried to stop it."

"Should have called me."

"No time. Your knee."

"Someone."

"I know." Her eyes closed, her hand went slack.

He found Brenda in Reception talking to the settler-magic box in her hand. "Karen Winslow. Wave Rider Inn. Got it?" The little projector behind the desk flashed white-on-blue print into the air and she said, "Yes. I'm her daughter, Brenda Winslow, but she'll probably come in with Daddy, Jeremy Winslow. That's right-" The air blinked ruby script at her, and she frowned. "Daddy? When were you born?"

"Twenty-seven eleven." The truth. He didn't know a better answer.

"Where?"

"Skip it.''

"Haven on the Crab, I remember. Daddy, they're having trouble finding your credit references."

Jeremy Winslow didn't answer. Brenda said, "You came here, so you took Mom's name. Would they have your name from before?"

"I hope not."

"Jeremy Hearst. Dad?"

"They won't find me."

His daughter gave him a long, hard stare. Then she told the phone, "Try Barry Winslow. Uncle Barry, Karen Winslow's brother." The screen flashed. "Yes, that's right. Daddy, see if you can find Uncle Barry!"

Jeremy hop-jumped away. He heard Brenda's voice continue behind him. "Yes, I'll have him phone and give you a reference, but send an ambulance now. She's burned over half her body! When can we expect...."

Barry was up two flights of stairs, making dust. Jeremy had to go up after him. Wave Rider had a high noise level. You got to where you barely heard the crashing waves, but you couldn't hear someone shouting either,

Barry moved fast for his age. Jeremy followed him down slowly, favoring the knee that hadn't worked right since the surfing accident. When he was alone, he let his face have its way.

His face wanted a twitching, teeth-clenching rictus sardonicus. His hands wanted to tear the banister apart. What was he going to tell Brenda? Or, when he must, Karen?

Whatever he told his daughter, he'd have to tell them all. Barry and Chloe would demand to know what was up, and they weren't just his in-laws, they owned part of the restaurant. He didn't see his other children much.

Harlow? Earth, he would have liked to talk to her! His stepmother-in law hadn't quite got along with Harold's children. After Harold's death she'd sold them what she owned of Wave Rider, not quite of her own choice. She ran a candle shop in Destiny Town itself, out of Jeremy's reach.

When Karen had survived this horror, she would have to know.

So he'd better build a story, Jeremy thought, gripping the railing as he limped down the stairs.

He'd had a story. It had bought him twenty-seven good years.