Jo Clayton - A Gathering Of Stones

He cobbled together harness and collar with bits of rope and the saddle blanket, tied the ends of the harness rope to the front corners of a piece of canvas he’d found rolled up in a closet in the kitchen and began hauling wood back to the house, everything he could scavenge. He worked steadily for the next several hours, back and forth, rails, posts, bits of barn roof, rafters, stall timbers, anything he could chop loose and pile on the canvas, back and forth, the wind battering them, the snow coming down harder and harder, smothering them. Until, at last, there was no wood left worth the effort of hauling it.

He cut the canvas loose and left it in the small foyer, took Neddio around to the shed and hitched him to one of the jars. Hauling proved slow, awkward work; Neddio balked again and again, he detested those ropes cutting into him, that weight dragging back on him. Simms patted him, coaxed him, sang him into one more effort and then one more and again one more.

Heading out of the house for the last of the jars, he heard a mule bray and a moment later, a second one.

“Visitors? Yah yah, Neddio, you can stand down a while till I see what’s what.” He stripped off his heavy outer gloves, tossed them inside, slapped the horse on the shoulder and waited until the beast had retreated into the semi-warmth of the parlor, then he followed the sound of the braying. He groped his way to the wall, found the gap. He could see about a foot from his nose, after that nothing but the flickering white haze so he was very wary of leaving the shelter of the wall, it would be all too easy to get so turned around and confused he couldn’t find his way back to the house. He stood in the gap, leaning into the wind and listening. The mules were off to his left, not far from the wall though he couldn’t see them. He whistled, whistled again. The sound died before it reached them, sucked into the keening of the wind. That was no good. He began to sing, a calling song he’d learned from his outlander grandmer when he was a child. She died when he was six, but he still remembered her songs and the things she’d taught him. He sang across the wind, willed the mules to hear him and come. He sang until he was hoarse-until two dark shapes came out of the snow and stopped before him.

They were hitched to, a light two-wheel dulic, the reins loose, dragging on the ground. The driver was a large lump mounded along the driver’s bench, unconscious or dead. Didn’t matter, the mules were alive, he had to get them into shelter.

Still singing, he teased them closer and closer until he could take hold of a halter and retrieve the reins. He led them along the driveway and took them into the parlor, stripped off their harness and chased them into the corner where he’d spread some straw he’d retrieved from under a section of barnroof and piled up for bedding. After a minute’s thought, he pulled the improvised harness off Neddio and sent him after them; the last jar could stay in the shed until they needed it. If they did.

Now for the driver, he thought. Dead or alive? Well, we’ll see.

He shivered as he plunged into the wind and snow, groped over to the dulic and climbed into it. He burrowed through layers of scarves and cloaks until he could get his fingers on the man’s neck, poked about until he discovered the artery and rested his fingertips on it. The man’s heart was beating strongly, but he was very very cold. Something not wholly natural about the chilly flesh, he didn’t know what it was, but it bothered him. Still, he couldn’t leave him out here to freeze. Offing someone when the blood was hot, well, that was a thing could happen to anyone, cold blood was different, and by damn his blood and everything else was cold. He pried up the massive torso, gritted his teeth under the weight and length of the man, got as much of him as he could wrapped around his shoulders and began the laborious process of getting back to the ground without injuring his load or doing serious damage to himself.

Ten sweaty staggering minutes later, he laid the stranger out on the tiles in front of the kitchen fire. He left him there and went to fetch in the gear and other supplies from the dulic, piled the pouches and blanket roll on the table and went back for a second load. There was more baggage than he’d expected, this was no wandering beggar, whatever else he was.

When the last load was in and piled on the table, he went to look at his patient. The man hadn’t changed position and wasn’t showing any signs of waking. Simms touched his brow. No fever. He was still cold but not quite so deathly chill. You’ll do for a while. I sh’d get those wet clothes off, but that can wait. Dulic first, then I deal with the door an’ take care of the stock, then it’s your turn, friend. Plenty of time for you. I be glad, though, when you wake and tell me what in u’ffren you’re doin’ out here. Wonderin’ makes me itch.

After he pulled the dulic back of the house and rolled it into a shed, he inspected the door he’d knocked down; he and Neddio had tramped back and forth across it dozens of times but even Neddio’s iron shoes had done little to mark the massive planks of mountain oak, glued together and further reinforced by horizontal and diagonal two-by-fours of the same oak nailed onto the planks with hand-forged iron nails. He muscled the door into the opening, propped it against the jamb, walked one of the jars against it to keep the wind from blowing it down again.

The two mules were tail switching and fratchetty, they kicked at Neddio if he went too close to them, nipped at Simms when he shifted some of the straw into another corner for his horse, even followed him, long yellow teeth reaching for arms and legs or a handy buttock, when he went to lay a fire in the parlor fireplace, though they didn’t like the fire much and retreated to their corner when it started crackling briskly. Keeping a wary eye on them, he dragged one of the parlor benches to the hearth and spread corn along it from a corn jar in the foyer. He rolled an ancient crock from the kitchen, filled it with water, took a look round and was satisfied he’d done what he could to make the beasts comfortable.

In the kitchen, he filled the tin tank in the brick stove and kindled a fire under it so he’d have hot water to bathe his patient; he laid another fire in the stoke hole, filled one of the stranger’s pots from the spring, dropped in dried meat from his own stores and lentils and barley from jars in the parlor, along with some of the tubers and herbs from the garden and set it simmering on the grate. He put teawater to heating beside the stew and went to inspect the stranger.

He was a long man, six foot five, six, maybe even seven with shoulders of a size to match his length. He had been a heavy man, big muscles with a layer of fat; he’d lost the fat and some of the muscle, his skin hung loose around him. He w’d make a han’some skel’ton. Simms smiled at the thought and drew his fingers over the prominent bones of the man’s face. Beautiful man. Thick coarse gray hair in a braid that vanished down the cloak. Brows dark, with only a hair or two gone gray. Eyelashes long and sooty, resting in a graceful arc on the dark poreless skin stretched over his cheekbones. Big, powerful man, but Simms got a feeling of fragility from him, as if the size and strength were illusions painted over emptiness. Beautiful shell, but only a shell.

He turned the stranger onto his stomach, eased his head around so his damp hair was turned to the fire and began stripping the sodden clothing off him, boots first, boot liners, knitted stockings, two pairs, wool and silk with the silk next to the silk. Gloves, fur lined. Silk glove liners. Fur-lined cloak. Silk-lined woolen undercloak. Wool robe, heavily embroidered over the chest, around the hem and sleeve cuffs. Silk under-robe. Wool trousers. Silk underwear. Whoever he was, he was a man of wealth and importance. What he was doing crossing the Grass in winter, alone… itch itch, wake up an’ talk t’ me, man, ‘fore my head explode.