on it. If a man looks mean, I generally believe he is unless I have reason to change my mind. This one looked mean, and that was why I kept riding. He made me feel nervous.
He said, “What be you doing out here, boy? Be you out of your head? There be escaped Losels in these woods.”
I had short-cut hair and I was wearing my cloth coat against the bite in the air, but still I wondered. I wasn’t ready to dispute the point with him, though. I had no desire to linger around him. I didn’t say anything. I believe I said once that I don’t talk easily in strange company or large crowds.
“Where be you from?” he asked.
I pointed to the road behind us.
“And where be you going?”
I pointed ahead. No other way to go except cross-country. He seemed exasperated. I have that effect sometimes.
We had caught up to the others and the animals by then, and the man said, “Maybe you’d better ride on from here with us. For protection.”
He had an odd way of twisting his sounds, almost as though he had a mouthful of mush. It was imprecise, but I could understand him well enough. He wanted me to do something I didn’t want to.
One of the other outriders came easing by then. I suppose they’d been watching us all the while. He called to the hard man.
“He be awfully small, Horst. I doubt me a Losel’d even notice him at all. We mought as well throw him back again.”
The rider looked at me. When I didn’t dissolve in obvious terror—I was frightened, but I wasn’t about to show it—he shrugged and one of the other men laughed.
The hard man said to the others, “This boy will be riding along with us to Midland for protection.” He smiled, and the impression I had of a cat, a predatory cat was increased.
I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving along. One of them looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes. I felt uncomfortable to look at it.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
What the man did then surprised me. He said, “I do think so,” and reached for the gun in his saddle boot.
I whipped my sonic pistol out from under my coat so fast that he was caught leaning over with the rifle half out. His jaw dropped. He recognized the pistol for what it was and he had no desire to be fried.
I said, “Ease your guns out and drop them gently to the ground.”
They did, watching me all the while with wary expressions. When all the rifles were on the ground, I said, “All right, let’s go.”
They didn’t want to move. They didn’t want to leave the rifles. I could see that. Horst didn’t say anything. He just watched me with narrowed eyes and made me anxious to be done and gone.
One of the others held up a hand and in wheedling tones said, “Look here, kid . . .”
“Shut up,” I said in as mean a voice as I could muster, and he did. It surprised me a little. I didn’t think I sounded that mean. Perhaps he just didn’t trust that crazy kid not to shoot him if he prodded too hard.
After twenty minutes of easy riding for us and harder walking for the creatures, I said, “If you want your rifles, you can go back and get them now.”
I dug my heels into Ninc’s sides and rode on. At the next bend I looked back and saw four of them holding the packhorses and creatures, while the last beat a dust-raising retreat down the road.
I put this episode in the “file and hold for analysis” section of my mind and rode on, feeling good. I think I even giggled once. Sometimes I even convince myself that I’m hell on wheels.
Chapter 15
I WAS NINE WHEN DADDY GAVE ME a family heirloom, the painted wooden doll that my great grandmother brought from Earth, the one with eleven smaller dolls inside it. The first time I opened it, I was completely amazed, and I like to watch other people when they open it for the first time. My face must have been like that as I rode along the road.
First there were fields. As I traveled along the road and the day wore on, the country leveled into a wide valley and the trees gave way to fields. In the fields, working under guard and supervision, were