Dies the Fire (32 page)

Havel had the traditional disdain for hand-to-mouth drifters to be expected in someone who came of four generations of hard-rock miners—unionized workingmen intensely proud of their dangerous, highly skilled labor. It had been amplified in the Corps, where there was no excuse for failure. He was surprised this specimen had ever learned any sort of trade, but perhaps he'd been on the wagon more when he was younger.

Astrid asked a question, her voice sharp. Waters answered, and an incomprehensible conversation followed involving tillering and laminations, hot-boxes and clamps, hand-shock and finger pinch.

“Will,” Havel said, after a few sentences. “Take Astrid and Mr. Waters off, and discuss bowmaking, would you? And check him out on the target.”

He waited, thinking and trying not to listen to the occasional whimpering of Waters's children, or to notice the expression of hopeless pessimism on his wife's face, born of far too many broken promises and failed hopes.

Instead he paged through a book of Will's, an illustrated
History of Cavalry,
by two Polacks named Grbasic and Vuksic—or Grabass and Youpuke, as he mentally christened them. They certainly seemed to know their field, though according to them a Pole on horseback was the next thing to an Archangel with a flaming sword.

I wish I'd read more of this sort of thing before the Change,
he thought wistfully.
It's interesting, and now all I have time to do is mine it for the useful parts.

He was looking at the equipment of a Polish
pancerny
horseman of the seventeenth century when the three returned; as Hutton had said, it looked simple and practical, enough so that they had some prospect of making an equivalent set of kit.

“Excuse us for a moment, please,” Havel said.

Waters stood back by his wife and children as the three spoke; both the adults stared in mute desperation at the conversation they couldn't hear, and flinched when eyes went their way.

“He can shoot, Mike,” Astrid said. “Better if his hands weren't shaking, but he's quite good—not as good as me, but better than Signe, on moving targets. And he really does know how to make bows. Traditional bows, not compounds—traditional forms with modern materials, that is.”

Will shrugged. “He can handle woodworker's tools,” he said grudgingly, and sounding faintly surprised. “I think I could pick up most of what he knows, in a couple or three months. We'll have to sort of experiment to find out how to use horn and sinew and bone glue instead of fancy wood laminates and fiberglass and epoxy anyways, but we got Astrid's bow to work from.”

More quietly: “He's still trash, though, Boss. Bad news.”

“Granted.” Havel sighed. “We'll have to give him a try, though; long-term, it's a skill set we really need. I'll put the fear of God in him and we'll see how it works; we can always cut him loose.”

Waters began babbling as soon as Havel walked towards him, and then cut it short as the younger man nodded to his wife: “Mrs. Waters, why don't you go over there to our cookfire? Angelica Hutton handles our supplies, and I think she could find you and your children something to eat, and help you get settled here.”

An incredulous smile showed, just for an instant, what Jane Waters had looked like in her last year of high school, and she hustled away moving the children before her as if afraid he'd change his mind. Havel jerked his head, and walked out of hearing distance of the others with Waters beside him. Certain things had to be done in private for decency's sake.

“Sir, let me tell you how grateful—”

“Can it,” Havel said.

He didn't raise his voice or gesture, but judging from the doglike grin of submission Waters at least knew a hard man when he met one. The problem with his kind was that the lessons usually didn't stick. . . .

“Waters, I know you'd say anything you thought I wanted to hear right now because you're hungry, so save it.”

The older man made a pathetic attempt at dignity. “Mr. Havel, a man has to feed his children.”

“That's true. And you must have been some sort of a man once; you learned a trade, at least, and held a steady job for a while. But now you're a loser and a drunk—I know the signs. So let's make things real clear. You listening?”

He waited until the man's eyes met his, and he could see that—at least for the moment—he'd stopped running through the perpetual list of excuses that were probably the background music of his life.

“I'm taking you on against my better judgment, and this is a taut outfit. I don't tolerate whining, shirking or dirt. You and your family
will
keep yourselves clean, you
will
work, and you
will
obey all the rules. You're low dog in this pack until you show you deserve better, so you'll also obey anyone I appoint to strawboss you, including that damned orange cat over there if I say so, cheerfully and without complaint. You're here on sufferance. The first time you screw up, or go on a bender and slap your wife and kids around, or any trash tricks like that, I will personally beat the living shit out of you. The second time I will beat the living shit out of you and throw you out on your ass. Is all this clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don't call me sir. I work for a living. Boss will do, if you have to use something besides my name. After you've eaten, you can bring your gear over. Remember what I said about the rules, because if it isn't all ready and all clean by tomorrow morning, you're not coming with us. Move!”

B
emused, Michael Havel whistled as he lowered the binoculars and wiped a hand across his dust-caked face; then he made a futile attempt to scratch under the edge of his sleeveless boiled-steerhide jacket.

They were on the flats where the Middle and South Clearwater met, a half mile from the little town of Kooskia, with steep rocky slopes all around them to hold the air and reflect the bright spring sun; the smell of spray from the brawling rivers was tantalizing.

It was a hundred miles south and west from the place the Piper Chieftain had crashed, twice that as feet and hooves and wheels went; weeks of hard slow travel.

“Well, spank me rosy,” Havel said, nodding westward. “Those guys look like they're out to get General Custer.”

They were also just inside the Nez Perce reservation boundary.

Beyond the waiting men was a bridge over a river gray-blue with snowmelt; beyond that, the town proper—as proper as a place with less than a thousand inhabitants could be—and a high conical hill studded with tall pines; more hills reared a little beyond, green-tawny with new grass pushing up through last year's, and fingers of pine reaching up the ravines. Beyond that were rolling prairies, farming and ranching country; he'd driven through this way before the Change, and flown over it more than once.

It was hard to remember that godlike omniscience, ten thousand feet up with hundreds of horsepower at his command.

Havel wasn't surprised to see armed and mounted men strung across the valley road; every town and community they'd run across that hadn't collapsed kept a watch on the roads and checked travelers. Their scouts had probably reported the Bearkillers coming yesterday or early this morning.

The way some of them were dressed, though . . .

Several of the horsemen waiting for them a hundred yards further west along the road were in full Indian fig—feather bonnets and face paint and buckskin—stuff you usually didn't see outside a powwow and even there only on the dancers. Two of their mounts were Appaloosas, beautiful animals with dappled white rumps and bold strong lines. Sitting their horses a little apart were white men, in the usual denim-and-Stetson-or-feed-store-cap of the rural West. A lot of the Nez Perce reservation was leased to non-Indians, farmers and ranchers and a few small towns.

“It's quite a sight,” Will Hutton agreed, pushing back his helmet by the nasal bar and squinting against the bright sunlight and the sweat that stung his eyes.

“On the other hand, I'm wearin'
this
stuff, Mike,” he went on in a reasonable tone. The leather of his saddle creaked beneath him as the horse shifted its weight from one foot to another. “And it goes back a lot further than Custer.”

The Texan had their first complete set of chain-mail armor, a knee-length split-skirt tunic with sleeves to the elbow. All you needed to make it was a wooden dowel, a pair of wire cutters, pliers, and a punch and hammer . . . plus plenty of patience, which was why they had only one suit so far. Will and his pupils could turn out a boiled-leather vest in an afternoon, and every adult had one now; a chain hauberk took weeks.

Havel took the canteen from his saddlebow and drank; the lukewarm water tasted good, and he poured a little into his hand and rubbed it over his face. Then he offered the water bottle to Hutton, who'd run through two so far today.

The Texan took it gratefully, and tilted it back until water ran out of the corners of his mouth as his Adam's apple bobbed; sweat was pouring off him in rivulets, turning the linked metal rings dark. Nights were still chilly around here in April, and days comfortable-windbreaker weather, but thirty pounds of metal rings absorbed a lot of heat. The gambeson, the long quilted jacket underneath, was even worse. Its padding soaked up greasy sweat like a sponge, too; the powerful odor combined with the scents of horse and leather and oiled metal to make a composite stink not quite like anything Havel had come across before—although it had probably been quite familiar in the army of William of Normandy.

“Yeah,” Havel said, taking the canteen back. “But you're dressed up like Richard the Lionheart for a good practical reason, not just because of the way it looks.”

Although it does
look
formidable too.

The gear and helmet added bulk and menace to the older man's lean muscular toughness. Hauberks had to be individually tailored; Havel's was nearly finished, but Angelica and Signe and Astrid were doing something confidential with it.

I'm not looking forward to wearing that stuff myself, especially when it gets
really
hot,
he thought.
But I'd much rather be uncomfortable than dead or crippled.

“That fancy dress may be practical too, so to speak,” Hutton said, nodding his head towards the welcoming party. “These're hard times, Mike. People need somethin' to hold on to, besides the things that broke in their hands when the Change came. Might be that those old-time things are what these Indians need to get them through.”

Havel thought for a moment, then nodded. “Tell me something, Will: how come you're not running this outfit?”

Hutton grinned. “Two reasons. First is, I'm the only black man in it—you might have noticed we're sort of thin on the ground here in Idaho. Simpler to tell you what needs doing and let you get folks mad at
you;
'specially since you take advice pretty good for a dude your age.”

“Well, that's honest, if not very flattering. What's the other reason?”

“You were stupid enough to want the job, Mike,” Hutton said. “I ain't. ‘Boss' is just another word for ‘got a headache.' ”

Havel snorted laughter, then stood in his stirrups to wave at the reception committee. Several of them waved back, but he waited until another rider cantered in out of the north before he moved.

Josh Sanders drew rein; he was equipped much like the Bearkillers' leader, with boiled-leather protection, sword, shield, bow and helmet.

“That's all of them, Boss,” he said, pointing off towards the Nez Perce. “No ambush that I could spot.”

Havel nodded; the Hoosier was a first-rate scout, mounted or on foot.

“All right. Report to Angelica”—who was camp boss and in charge when he or Will wasn't there—“and tell her I want her and Will with me while we dicker and . . . hmmm, all the Larssons. Pam to keep everyone on alert, but don't be conspicuous about it.”

Sanders's eyebrows went up. Havel had never liked the blind-obedience school of discipline; when there was time, he preferred to explain things. It cut down on mistakes when people understood
why
they were doing something; he'd also never imagined he was infallible, and Sanders was smart. Letting your troops' brains lie fallow was wasteful and dangerous.

Besides,
he thought,
this may be a small outfit now, but Josh'll need to play leader too someday when we've grown.

“We want them to think we're tough but peaceful,” he said. “Will and Eric and I can do the tough; women, kids and old people along are more likely to make 'em think we're not looking for a fight.”