Goblin brought me the man Asa, and insisted we wait for Elmo
before questioning him. He had sent someone to dig Elmo out of
Duretile, where he was trying to placate Whisper. Whisper was
getting goosed by the Lady regular and taking it out on anyone
handy.
Goblin was unsettled by what he had learned. He did not play the
usual game and try to make me guess what was going on. He blurted,
“Asa says him and Raven had a run-in with Bullock. Raven is
dead. He lit out. Darling is on her own down there.”
Excitement? Better believe it. I was ready to put the little man
to the question, then and there. But I controlled myself.
Elmo was a while showing up. Goblin and I got damned antsy
before he did, while Asa worked himself up for a stroke.
The wait proved worthwhile. Elmo did not come alone.
The first hint was a faint but sour odor that seemed to come
from the fireplace, where I’d had a small fire lighted. Just
in case, you know. With a few iron rods set by, ready to be heated,
so Asa could look them over and think, and maybe convince himself
he ought not to leave anything out.
“What’s that smell?” somebody asked.
“Croaker, you let that cat in again?”
“I kicked him out after he sprayed my boots,” I
said.
“Like halfway down the hill. Maybe he got the firewood
before he left.”
The odor grew stronger. It wasn’t really obnoxious, just
mildly irritating. We took turns examining the firewood.
Nothing.
I was in the middle of a third search for the source when the
fire caught my eye. For a second I saw a face in the flames.
My heart nearly stopped. For half a minute I was in a panic,
nothing but the face’s presence having registered. I
considered every evil that could happen: Taken watching, the Lady
watching, the things from the black castle, maybe the Dominator
himself peeking through our fire . . . Then
something calm, back in the far marches of mind, reiterated
something I hadn’t noticed because I had no reason to expect
it. The face in the flames had had only one eye.
“One-Eye,” I said without thinking. “That
little bastard is in Juniper.”
Goblin spun toward me, eyes wide. He sniffed the air. His famous
grin split his face. “You’re right, Croaker. Absolutely
right. That stink is the little skunk himself. Should have
recognized it straight off.”
I glanced at the fire. The face did not reappear.
Goblin mused, “What would be a suitable
welcome?”
“Figure the Captain sent him?”
“Probably. Be logical to send him or Silent
ahead.”
“Do me a favor, Goblin.”
“What?”
“Don’t give him no special welcome.”
Goblin looked deflated. It had been a long time. He did not want
to miss an opportunity to refresh his acquaintance with One-Eye
with a flash and a bang.
“Look,” I said. “He’s here on the sneak.
We don’t want the Taken to know. Why give them anything to
sniff out?”
Bad choice of words. The smell was about to drive us
outside.
“Yeah,” Goblin grumbled. “Wish the Captain had
sent Silent. I was all worked up for this. Had him the biggest
surprise of his life.”
“So get him later. Meantime, why not clear this smell out?
Why not get his goat by just ignoring him?”
He thought about it. His eyes gleamed. “Yeah,” he
said, and I knew he had shaped my suggestion to his own warped
sense of humor.
A fist hammered on the door. It startled me even though I was
expecting it. One of the men let Elmo in.
One-Eye came in behind Elmo, grinning like a little black
mongoose about to eat snake. We paid him no heed. Because the
Captain came in behind him.
The Captain! The last man I expected to reach Juniper before the
Company itself.
“Sir?” I blurted. “What the hell are you doing
here?” He lumbered to the fire, extended his hands. Summer
had begun to fade, but it was not that cold. He was as bear-like as
ever, though he had lost weight and aged. It had been a hard march
indeed. “Stork,” he replied.
I frowned, looked at Elmo. Elmo shrugged, said, “I sent
Stork with the message.”
The Captain expanded, “Stork didn’t make any sense.
What’s this about Raven?”
Raven, of course, had been his closest friend before deserting.
I began to get a glimmer.
I indicated Asa. “This guy was in the thick of it from the
beginning. Been Raven’s sidekick. He says Raven is dead,
down . . . What’s the name of that place, Asa?”
Asa stared at the Captain and One-Eye and swallowed about six
times without being able to say anything. I told the Captain,
“Raven told stories about us that turned his hair
grey.”
“Let’s hear the story,” the Captain said. He
was looking at Asa.
So Asa told his tale for the third time, while Goblin hovered,
listening for the clunk of untruth. He ignored One-Eye in the most
masterful show of ignoring I’ve ever seen. And all for
naught.
The Captain dropped Asa completely the moment he finished his
tale. A matter of style, I think. He wanted the information to
percolate before he trotted it out for reexamination. He had me
review everything I had experienced since arriving in Juniper. I
presumed he had gotten Elmo’s story already.
I finished. He observed, “You’re too suspicious of
the Taken. The Limper has been with us all along. He doesn’t
act like there’s anything up.” If anyone had a cause
for malice toward us, the Limper did.
“Nevertheless,” I said, “there’re wheels
within wheels within wheels with the Lady and the Taken. Maybe they
didn’t tell him anything because they figured he
couldn’t keep it secret.”
“Maybe,” the Captain admitted. He shuffled around,
occasionally gave Asa a puzzled look. “Whatever, let’s
not get Whisper wondering any more than she is. Play it close.
Pretend you’re not suspicious. Do your job. One-Eye and his
boys will be around to back you up.”
Sure, I thought. Against the Taken? “If the Limper is with
the Company, how did you get away? If he knows you’re gone,
the word will be out to the Lady, won’t it?”
“He shouldn’t find out. We haven’t spoken in
months. He stays to himself. Bored, I think.”
“What about the Barrowland?” I was primed to find
out everything that had happened during the Company’s long
trek, for I had nothing in the Annals concerning the majority of my
comrades. But it was not yet time to exhume details. Just to feel
for high points.
“We never saw it,” the Captain said.
“According to the Limper, Journey and the Lady are working
that end. We can expect a major move as soon as we have Juniper
under control.”
“We haven’t done squat to prepare,” I said.
“The Taken kept us busy fussing about the black
castle.”
“Ugly place, isn’t it?” He looked us over.
“I think you might’ve gotten more done had you not been
so paranoid.”
“Sir?”
“Most of your trail-covering strikes me as needless and a
waste of time. The problem was Raven’s, not yours. And he
solved it in typical fashion. Without help.” He glared at
Asa. “In fact, the problem seems solved for all
time.”
He had not been here and had not felt the pressures, but I did
not mention that. Instead, I asked, “Goblin, you figure Asa
is telling the truth?” warily. Goblin nodded.
“How about you, One-Eye? You catch any false
notes?”
The little black man responded with a cautious negative.
“Asa. Raven should have had a bunch of papers with him. He
ever mention them?”
Asa looked puzzled. He shook his head.
“He have a trunk or something that he wouldn’t let
anybody near?”
Asa seemed baffled by the direction my questions had taken. The
others did too. Only Silent knew about those papers. Silent, and
maybe Whisper, who had possessed them once herself.
“Asa? Anything he treated unusually?”
A light dawned in the little man’s mind. “There was
a crate. About the size of a coffin. I remember making a joke about
it. He said something cryptic about it being somebody’s
ticket to the grave.”
I grinned. The papers still existed. “What did he do with
that crate down there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Asa . . . ”
“Honest. I only saw it a couple times on the ship. I never
thought anything about it.”
“What are you getting at, Croaker?” the Captain
asked.
“I have a theory. Just based on what I know about Raven
and Asa.”
Everyone frowned.
“Generally, what we know about Asa suggests he’s a
character Raven wouldn’t take up with on a bet. He’s
chicken. Unreliable. Too talkative. But Raven did take up with him.
Took him south and made him part of the team. Why? Maybe that
don’t bother you guys, but it does me.”
“I don’t follow you,” the Captain said.
“Suppose Raven wanted to disappear so people wouldn’t
even bother looking for him? He tried to vanish once, by coming to
Juniper. But we turned up. Looking for him, he thought. So what
next? How about he dies? In front of a witness. People don’t
hunt for dead men.”
Elmo interrupted. “You saying he staged his death and used
Asa to report it so nobody would come looking?”
“I’m saying we ought to consider the
possibility.” The Captain’s sole response was a
thoughtful, “Uhm.” Goblin said, “But Asa did see
him die.”
“Maybe. And maybe he only thinks he did.” We all
looked at Asa. He cowered. The Captain said, “Take him
through his story again, One-Eye. Step-by-step.” For two
hours One-Eye dragged the little man through again and again. And
we could not spot one flaw. Asa insisted he had seen Raven die,
devoured from within by something snake-like. And the more my
theory sprung leaks, the more I was sure it was valid.
“My case depends on Raven’s character,” I
insisted, when everybody ganged up on me. “There’s the
crate, and there’s Darling. Her and a damned expensive ship
that he, for godsakes, had built. He left a trail going out of
here, and he knew it. Why sail a few hundred miles and tie up to a
dock when somebody is going to come looking? Why leave Shed alive
behind you, to tell about you being in on the raid on the
Catacombs? And there’s no way in hell he’d leave
Darling twisting in the wind. Not for a minute. He would have had
arrangements made for her. You know that.” My arguments were
beginning to sound a little strained to me, too. I was in the
position of a priest trying to sell religion. “But Asa says
they just left her hanging around some inn. I tell you, Raven had a
plan. I bet, if you went down there now, you’d find Darling
gone without a trace. And if the ship is still there, that crate
wouldn’t be aboard.”
“What is this with the crate?” One-Eye demanded. I
ignored him.
“I think you have too much imagination, Croaker,”
the Captain said. “But, on the other hand, Raven is crafty
enough to pull something like that. Soon as I can spring you,
figure on going down to check.”
“If Raven’s crafty enough, how about the Taken being
villainous enough to try something against us?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
He faced One-Eye. “I want you and Goblin to save the games.
Understand? Too much clowning around and the Taken will get
curious. Croaker. Hang on to this Asa character. You’ll want
him to show you where Raven died. I’m heading back to the
outfit. Elmo. Come ride with me part way.”
So. A little private business. Bet it had to do with my
suspicions about the Taken. After a while you get so used to some
people you can almost read their minds.
Goblin brought me the man Asa, and insisted we wait for Elmo
before questioning him. He had sent someone to dig Elmo out of
Duretile, where he was trying to placate Whisper. Whisper was
getting goosed by the Lady regular and taking it out on anyone
handy.
Goblin was unsettled by what he had learned. He did not play the
usual game and try to make me guess what was going on. He blurted,
“Asa says him and Raven had a run-in with Bullock. Raven is
dead. He lit out. Darling is on her own down there.”
Excitement? Better believe it. I was ready to put the little man
to the question, then and there. But I controlled myself.
Elmo was a while showing up. Goblin and I got damned antsy
before he did, while Asa worked himself up for a stroke.
The wait proved worthwhile. Elmo did not come alone.
The first hint was a faint but sour odor that seemed to come
from the fireplace, where I’d had a small fire lighted. Just
in case, you know. With a few iron rods set by, ready to be heated,
so Asa could look them over and think, and maybe convince himself
he ought not to leave anything out.
“What’s that smell?” somebody asked.
“Croaker, you let that cat in again?”
“I kicked him out after he sprayed my boots,” I
said.
“Like halfway down the hill. Maybe he got the firewood
before he left.”
The odor grew stronger. It wasn’t really obnoxious, just
mildly irritating. We took turns examining the firewood.
Nothing.
I was in the middle of a third search for the source when the
fire caught my eye. For a second I saw a face in the flames.
My heart nearly stopped. For half a minute I was in a panic,
nothing but the face’s presence having registered. I
considered every evil that could happen: Taken watching, the Lady
watching, the things from the black castle, maybe the Dominator
himself peeking through our fire . . . Then
something calm, back in the far marches of mind, reiterated
something I hadn’t noticed because I had no reason to expect
it. The face in the flames had had only one eye.
“One-Eye,” I said without thinking. “That
little bastard is in Juniper.”
Goblin spun toward me, eyes wide. He sniffed the air. His famous
grin split his face. “You’re right, Croaker. Absolutely
right. That stink is the little skunk himself. Should have
recognized it straight off.”
I glanced at the fire. The face did not reappear.
Goblin mused, “What would be a suitable
welcome?”
“Figure the Captain sent him?”
“Probably. Be logical to send him or Silent
ahead.”
“Do me a favor, Goblin.”
“What?”
“Don’t give him no special welcome.”
Goblin looked deflated. It had been a long time. He did not want
to miss an opportunity to refresh his acquaintance with One-Eye
with a flash and a bang.
“Look,” I said. “He’s here on the sneak.
We don’t want the Taken to know. Why give them anything to
sniff out?”
Bad choice of words. The smell was about to drive us
outside.
“Yeah,” Goblin grumbled. “Wish the Captain had
sent Silent. I was all worked up for this. Had him the biggest
surprise of his life.”
“So get him later. Meantime, why not clear this smell out?
Why not get his goat by just ignoring him?”
He thought about it. His eyes gleamed. “Yeah,” he
said, and I knew he had shaped my suggestion to his own warped
sense of humor.
A fist hammered on the door. It startled me even though I was
expecting it. One of the men let Elmo in.
One-Eye came in behind Elmo, grinning like a little black
mongoose about to eat snake. We paid him no heed. Because the
Captain came in behind him.
The Captain! The last man I expected to reach Juniper before the
Company itself.
“Sir?” I blurted. “What the hell are you doing
here?” He lumbered to the fire, extended his hands. Summer
had begun to fade, but it was not that cold. He was as bear-like as
ever, though he had lost weight and aged. It had been a hard march
indeed. “Stork,” he replied.
I frowned, looked at Elmo. Elmo shrugged, said, “I sent
Stork with the message.”
The Captain expanded, “Stork didn’t make any sense.
What’s this about Raven?”
Raven, of course, had been his closest friend before deserting.
I began to get a glimmer.
I indicated Asa. “This guy was in the thick of it from the
beginning. Been Raven’s sidekick. He says Raven is dead,
down . . . What’s the name of that place, Asa?”
Asa stared at the Captain and One-Eye and swallowed about six
times without being able to say anything. I told the Captain,
“Raven told stories about us that turned his hair
grey.”
“Let’s hear the story,” the Captain said. He
was looking at Asa.
So Asa told his tale for the third time, while Goblin hovered,
listening for the clunk of untruth. He ignored One-Eye in the most
masterful show of ignoring I’ve ever seen. And all for
naught.
The Captain dropped Asa completely the moment he finished his
tale. A matter of style, I think. He wanted the information to
percolate before he trotted it out for reexamination. He had me
review everything I had experienced since arriving in Juniper. I
presumed he had gotten Elmo’s story already.
I finished. He observed, “You’re too suspicious of
the Taken. The Limper has been with us all along. He doesn’t
act like there’s anything up.” If anyone had a cause
for malice toward us, the Limper did.
“Nevertheless,” I said, “there’re wheels
within wheels within wheels with the Lady and the Taken. Maybe they
didn’t tell him anything because they figured he
couldn’t keep it secret.”
“Maybe,” the Captain admitted. He shuffled around,
occasionally gave Asa a puzzled look. “Whatever, let’s
not get Whisper wondering any more than she is. Play it close.
Pretend you’re not suspicious. Do your job. One-Eye and his
boys will be around to back you up.”
Sure, I thought. Against the Taken? “If the Limper is with
the Company, how did you get away? If he knows you’re gone,
the word will be out to the Lady, won’t it?”
“He shouldn’t find out. We haven’t spoken in
months. He stays to himself. Bored, I think.”
“What about the Barrowland?” I was primed to find
out everything that had happened during the Company’s long
trek, for I had nothing in the Annals concerning the majority of my
comrades. But it was not yet time to exhume details. Just to feel
for high points.
“We never saw it,” the Captain said.
“According to the Limper, Journey and the Lady are working
that end. We can expect a major move as soon as we have Juniper
under control.”
“We haven’t done squat to prepare,” I said.
“The Taken kept us busy fussing about the black
castle.”
“Ugly place, isn’t it?” He looked us over.
“I think you might’ve gotten more done had you not been
so paranoid.”
“Sir?”
“Most of your trail-covering strikes me as needless and a
waste of time. The problem was Raven’s, not yours. And he
solved it in typical fashion. Without help.” He glared at
Asa. “In fact, the problem seems solved for all
time.”
He had not been here and had not felt the pressures, but I did
not mention that. Instead, I asked, “Goblin, you figure Asa
is telling the truth?” warily. Goblin nodded.
“How about you, One-Eye? You catch any false
notes?”
The little black man responded with a cautious negative.
“Asa. Raven should have had a bunch of papers with him. He
ever mention them?”
Asa looked puzzled. He shook his head.
“He have a trunk or something that he wouldn’t let
anybody near?”
Asa seemed baffled by the direction my questions had taken. The
others did too. Only Silent knew about those papers. Silent, and
maybe Whisper, who had possessed them once herself.
“Asa? Anything he treated unusually?”
A light dawned in the little man’s mind. “There was
a crate. About the size of a coffin. I remember making a joke about
it. He said something cryptic about it being somebody’s
ticket to the grave.”
I grinned. The papers still existed. “What did he do with
that crate down there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Asa . . . ”
“Honest. I only saw it a couple times on the ship. I never
thought anything about it.”
“What are you getting at, Croaker?” the Captain
asked.
“I have a theory. Just based on what I know about Raven
and Asa.”
Everyone frowned.
“Generally, what we know about Asa suggests he’s a
character Raven wouldn’t take up with on a bet. He’s
chicken. Unreliable. Too talkative. But Raven did take up with him.
Took him south and made him part of the team. Why? Maybe that
don’t bother you guys, but it does me.”
“I don’t follow you,” the Captain said.
“Suppose Raven wanted to disappear so people wouldn’t
even bother looking for him? He tried to vanish once, by coming to
Juniper. But we turned up. Looking for him, he thought. So what
next? How about he dies? In front of a witness. People don’t
hunt for dead men.”
Elmo interrupted. “You saying he staged his death and used
Asa to report it so nobody would come looking?”
“I’m saying we ought to consider the
possibility.” The Captain’s sole response was a
thoughtful, “Uhm.” Goblin said, “But Asa did see
him die.”
“Maybe. And maybe he only thinks he did.” We all
looked at Asa. He cowered. The Captain said, “Take him
through his story again, One-Eye. Step-by-step.” For two
hours One-Eye dragged the little man through again and again. And
we could not spot one flaw. Asa insisted he had seen Raven die,
devoured from within by something snake-like. And the more my
theory sprung leaks, the more I was sure it was valid.
“My case depends on Raven’s character,” I
insisted, when everybody ganged up on me. “There’s the
crate, and there’s Darling. Her and a damned expensive ship
that he, for godsakes, had built. He left a trail going out of
here, and he knew it. Why sail a few hundred miles and tie up to a
dock when somebody is going to come looking? Why leave Shed alive
behind you, to tell about you being in on the raid on the
Catacombs? And there’s no way in hell he’d leave
Darling twisting in the wind. Not for a minute. He would have had
arrangements made for her. You know that.” My arguments were
beginning to sound a little strained to me, too. I was in the
position of a priest trying to sell religion. “But Asa says
they just left her hanging around some inn. I tell you, Raven had a
plan. I bet, if you went down there now, you’d find Darling
gone without a trace. And if the ship is still there, that crate
wouldn’t be aboard.”
“What is this with the crate?” One-Eye demanded. I
ignored him.
“I think you have too much imagination, Croaker,”
the Captain said. “But, on the other hand, Raven is crafty
enough to pull something like that. Soon as I can spring you,
figure on going down to check.”
“If Raven’s crafty enough, how about the Taken being
villainous enough to try something against us?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
He faced One-Eye. “I want you and Goblin to save the games.
Understand? Too much clowning around and the Taken will get
curious. Croaker. Hang on to this Asa character. You’ll want
him to show you where Raven died. I’m heading back to the
outfit. Elmo. Come ride with me part way.”
So. A little private business. Bet it had to do with my
suspicions about the Taken. After a while you get so used to some
people you can almost read their minds.