powder? A deep uneasiness begins to tug at him.
Outside, some of the fellows have already taken to their horses, waiting to set out. The night is dark and quiet—sunrise is still hours away. He finds Denit tightening his saddle and delivers Hargrove’s message.
Denit pats his hand along his saddlebag. “Already taken care of.”
Jack shuffles down to his horse, feeling like he’s about to throw his dinner all over the ground. He pets his hand down the coarse mane and it makes him think of Balazir—probably standing over on the ridge where the Nezra’s fires are burning. He hooks into the stirrup and pulls himself onto his new horse, then rides over to join the other men.
“Gonna be a long ride,” says Trevor, a tanner from the outpost.
“I know.”
“Denit said you were a fighter.”
“I was a soldier.”
Trevor smiles. “Where do you put our chances?”
“I’m… trying not to think of that.”
“Smart man.”
“You?” asks Jack. “Were you a fighter?”
Trevor rolls up his sleeve and shows tributaries of old scars. “Convoys used to get attacked all the time. Hard work setting a new line.”
“What about Hargrove?”
“Oh yeah. He was quite a bruiser back in his day.”
The kitchen light goes dim as Hargrove snuffs the candles. He looks around the dark kitchen, sighs, and walks back to the front room. A small ornamental cupboard hangs by the doorway, each shelf containing a row of neatly arranged pipes. Hargrove waves his finger before them, tracing over each row, until he lands on one resting on the middle shelf—rich umber wood with a thin carven stem. He slips it into his pocket, then shambles out the back door and climbs atop his horse.
“All right,” he sighs, sliding into the saddle. He shines a toothy grin over his shoulder, then snaps the reins and gallops into the yawning dark.
Wisps of sunlight creep into the tarnished sky as Thomas and his beleaguered pony straggle into the oasis. The front door is closed, the windows shuttered. The eaves are sagging a bit, the clapboards paling, but still in all it looks as it did when he left home some forty years ago. He pulls the reticent pony to the porch and reaches a shaky hand out to touch it, fearing it to be yet another hallucination. He digs his fingers into the wood and collapses on the steps. The pony, smelling water, fights against its lead and Thomas lets it slip from his fingers. It makes a straight shot down to the river, lumbering slowly on its knobby legs.
Thomas rolls onto his belly and works himself onto all fours. He crawls the last few feet to the front door, then curls his hand into a fist and knocks. Never before in his life has he knocked on this door—always just walked right through—and it saddens him, the realization that this is no longer his home. He reaches up and tries the knob and the door swings open with a high-pitched whine. The interior is dark and quiet. Thomas pulls himself to his feet and stumbles inside.
“Ryan!”
No answer.
He clumps across the front room, thousands of memories shooting off in his brain like fireworks. The same old rug is laid out of the floor, worn thin with age. He sees his father’s old chair, broken down and shoved into the corner. Through the open door, he looks in at the side room where he and Ryan used to play.
“Ryan!”
There is a jumble of old books and papers laid out on the side table and Thomas makes for them. His head knocks into one of the winged models and sets it rocking back and forth. A journal is laid out on top of the pile, its leather cover draped open. There is his own youthful face smiling back at him, drawn with the neat lines and feathered crosshatching that he recognizes as his own. He looks into the shaded gray eyes, shards of clean pulp peeking through the irises to show the light twinkle. There is his brother, spray of cowlick across his forehead. It comes rushing back. They stood on the back porch so the light was better. He set the old polished glass in the corner, and he sketched quick because Ryan was too antsy to sit still for very long. He drew rough lines and filled in the finer details later. His mother asked for a tracing of it to hang next to her desk upstairs.
Thomas holds the leather cover in his hand and wanders away toward the kitchen, letting