Glen Cook - The Silver Spike

Smeds gaped. There were pounds and pounds of coins, some of them even gold. There were rings and bracelets and earrings and broaches and necklaces and some of them boasted jewels. He’d never seen so much wealth in one place.

Fish said, “There’s probably a lot more. I just picked up what was easy to find and quit when I had as much as I could carry.”

Smeds looked at Tully. “And you wanted to cut out because the whole thing was a big bust.”

Tully looked at the pile, awed. Then his expression became suspicious and Smeds knew he was wondering if Fish had hidden the best stuff where he could pick it up later. Typical Tully Stahl thinking, and stupid.

If Fish had wanted to hold out he would have just hidden the stuff and not said anything. Nobody would have known the difference. Nobody was interested in that town. Nobody even wanted to think about what happened there.

“What’s this?” Fish asked, glancing from Tully to Smeds.

Smeds said, “He was whining about how the whole thing was a big damned bust and he was sick of it and wanted us to go home. But look here. Even if we don’t have no luck with the tree we made out like bandits. I could live pretty good for a good long time on a share of this.”

Fish looked from Tully to Smeds and back again. He said, “I see.” And maybe he did. That old man wasn’t anybody’s fool. He said, “Timmy, you got a good eye for this kind of thing. Why don’t you separate that out into equal lots?”

“Sure.” Timmy sat down and ran his hands through the coins, laughing. “Anybody see anything he’s just got to have?”

Nobody did.

Timmy was good. Not even Tully found any reason to complain about his divvying.

Fish said, “There’s bound to be more over there. Not to mention a lot of steel that could be cleaned up and wholesaled if we brought a wagon up and carried it back.”

After they squirreled their shares, Tully and Old Man Fish headed back to town. Smeds didn’t want to go anywhere near the place but figured he had to go along to keep Tully honest. Timmy wouldn’t go at all. He was happy building up the woodpile.

Looting the town made for a ten-day full-time job, what with having to clean up all the weapons and some other large items of value and then bundling them protectively and hiding them for later recovery. They came up with enough money and jewelry and small whatnots to make a heavy load for each of them.

Even Tully seemed pleased and content. For the moment.

One night, though, he said, “You know what bugs me? How come nobody else in the whole damned city of Oar ever got the same idea I did? I’d have bet my balls that after this long we’d be up to our asses in guys trying to glom on to that spike.”

Old Man Fish grunted. “I’ve been wondering why no one’s come to see what happened to the garrison.”

Nobody had any ideas. The questions just sort of lay there like dead fish too ripe to be ignored and too big to shove out of the way.

Fish said, “I reckon it’s time we torched her and seen if she’s going to do it or not. That woodpile gets any bigger Timmy ain’t going to be able to throw them that high.”

Smeds realized he was reluctant to take the next step. Tully didn’t seem too anxious, either. But Timmy had a grin on ear to ear. He was raring to go.

Tully leaned over and told Smeds, “Little dip did some torch work back in town. Likes to see things burn.”

“We got a good day for it here,” Fish said. “A nice breeze to whip up the fire. A hot, sunshiny day, which is when we know it’s asleep the deepest. All we have to do is look in our pants and see if we got some balls, then go do it.”

They looked at each other awhile. Finally, Smeds said, “All right,” and got up. He collected the bundle of brush that would be his to throw. Fish and Timmy got theirs. Tully had to go along.

They lit the bundles off down in the bottom of the hole the monster dug, then jumped out and charged the mountain of sticks from the windward side. They heaved their bundles. Tully’s, thrown too far away, fell short, but that did not matter.

They ran like hell, Smeds, Timmy, and Fish in straight lines, Tully zigging and zagging. The tree did not wake up before they’d all made the cover of the woods.

The fire had reached inferno proportions by then.

Random bolts of blue lightning flailed around. They did not come for long, though.

Smeds could feel the heat from where he crouched, watching. That was one bitch of a bonfire. But he was not impressed. What he was, mainly, was sad.

The fire burned the rest of the day. At midnight Timmy went to check it out and came back to say there was still a lot of live coals under the ash and he hadn’t been able to get near it.

Next morning they all went to look. Smeds was astounded. The tree still stood. Its trunk was charred and its leaves were gone, but it still stood, the silver spike glittering wickedly at eye level. And it did not protest their presence, no matter how close they got.

That was not close enough. There was a lot of heat in the ash still. They hauled water from the river and splashed down a path. Timmy Locan volunteered to take the pry bar and go pull the spike.

“I can’t believe it,” Tully said as Timmy leaned on the bar and the tree didn’t do anything about it. “I can’t goddamned believe it! We’re actually going to do it!”

Timmy grunted and strained and cussed and nothing happened. “This son of a bitch ain’t going to come! Oh!”

It popped loose. Timmy grabbed at it as it sailed past, grabbing it left-handed for a second.

Then he screamed and dropped it. “Oh, shit, that bastard is hot.” He came running, crying, and shoved his hand into the last bucket of water. His palm was mostly red and beginning to show patches of blister already.

Fish took a shovel and scooped the spike out of the ashes. “Look out, Timmy. I’m fixing to dump it in there.”

“My hand...”

“Ain’t good to do a bad burn that way. You head back to camp. I got some salve there that’ll do you a whole lot better.”

Timmy pulled his hand out. Fish dumped the spike. The water hissed and bubbled. Fish said, “You carry the bucket, Smeds.”

Just as Tully said, “We better make tracks. I think its starting to wake up.”

It was hard to tell against that sky, but it did look like there were tiny flecks of blue out on the ends of the smallest surviving twigs.

“The spike ain’t conducting heat into the heartwood anymore,” Fish said. “Scat,” he told the backs of a lot of pumping legs and flailing elbows.

Smeds looked back just before he plunged into the woods. Just as the tree cut loose with a wild, undirected discharge. The flash nearly blinded him. Ash flew in clouds. The pain and disappointment and... sorrow?... of the tree touched him like a gentle, sad rain. He found tears streaking his face and guilt in his heart.

Old Man Fish puffed into camp one step ahead of Tully, who was embarrassed because the old-timer had outrun him. Fish said, “We got a lot of daylight left. I suggest we get the hell on the road. Timmy, let me look at that hand.”

Smeds looked over Fish’s shoulder. Timmy’s hand looked awful. Fish didn’t like the look of it either. He stared at it, grunted, frowned, studied it, grunted again. “Salve won’t be good enough. I’m going to collect up some herbs for a poultice. Thing must have been hotter than I thought.”

“Hurts like hell,” Timmy said, eyes still watery.

“Poultice will take care of that. Smeds. When you get that spike out of the bucket don’t touch it. Dump it on that old blanket. Then wrap it up. I don’t think anybody ought to touch it.”

“Why the hell not?” Tully asked.

“Because it burned Timmy badder than it should have.