“Screw it. We been out here all damned spring and half the summer and we ain’t got nowhere. I’m going to be a North Side bum all my life. I just got a big head for a while and thought I could get above myself.”
Smeds looked out at the tree. Timmy Locan was out there throwing sticks, a mindless exercise that never bored him. He was tempting fate today, getting closer than ever before, policing up sticks that had flown wide before and chucking them onto the pile around the tree. That was less work than gleaning the woods for deadwood. The nearby forest was stripped as clean as parkland.
Smeds thought it looked like they could set the fire any day now. In places the woodpile was fifteen feet high and you couldn’t see the tree at all.
What was Tully up to? This whining and giving up fit in with his behavior since their dip in the river, but the timing was suspect. “We’ll be ready to do the burn any day aow. Why not wait till then?”
“Screw it. It ain’t going to work and you know it. Or if you don’t you’re fooling yourself.”
“You want to go home, go ahead. I’m going to stick it out and see what happens.”
“I said we’re going home. All of us.”
Right, Smeds thought. Tully was cranking up for a little screw your buddy. “What you want to bet you come up outvoted three to one, cousin? You want to go, go. Ain’t nobody going to stop you.”
Tully tried a little bluster, coming on like he thought he was some kind of general.
“Stuff it, Tully. I ain’t no genius, but just how dumb do you think I am?”
Tully waited a little too long to say, “Huh? What do you mean?”
“That night you went chickenshit and run off to the river on us. I got to thinking about how you done that to me before. You ain’t going to pull it on me this time, Tully. You ain’t taking off with the spike and leaving old Smeds standing there with his thumb up his butt.”
Tully started protesting his innocence of having entertained any such thoughts. Smeds watched Timmy Locan throw sticks. He ignored Tully. After a while he watched Fish approach from the direction of the town. The old man was carrying something over his shoulder. Smeds couldn’t make out what it was. He hoped it was another of those dwarf deer like the old man had got a couple weeks back. That had been some good eating.
Timmy spotted Fish. He lost interest in his sticks, wandered over.
It wasn’t a deer Fish had, it was some kind of bundle that clanked when he dropped it in front of the log. He said, “Smell’s gone over there. Thought I’d poke around.” He opened his bundle, which he had folded from a ragged blanket. “Those guys didn’t take time out to loot when they went through over there.”
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
