legitimately a thief, and Dolores's first impulse had been to use a prole gun on the toolshed, and Andrew Dowd- Murder in every face.
The Road straightened after a time. Now Jemmy could see several klicks ahead, though a dip hid part of it. Then he was over the dip, watching Andrew hike along the river's edge. Now, by a small blackbronze tree, he stopped and looked down into the water.
Then moved on.
Jemmy followed. Andrew must have expected Jemmy to start later. He hadn't looked back. Jemmy lost him around a curve, and couldn't see him when that stretch of Road reappeared.
The Road stayed a steady twenty-five meters wide, with a jagged bluff on the left, river and bluff on the right.
Where he'd seen Andrew stop, Jemmy, with his breath gone fast and the hairs rising on his neck, edged to the water and looked down.
The rock was split. A Destiny fisher tree's oversized roots were prying the rock apart. Jemmy moved back to center and, after a moment, kept walking.
Left and ahead, the red rock turned ragged and jagged: a steep slope with deep cracks half-filled with loose landslide-shattered rock. Okay. Jemmy called, 'Hoy, Andrew!'
No answer came, but Jemmy turned in a quick circle, and Andrew was ten meters behind him, laughing. 'How on Earth did you get past me?'
'Don't know. Did you stop for lunch?'
'No, a quick dip.' Andrew strolled toward Jemmy. But his hair was dry, and Jemmy turned and ran straight at the red rock cliff.
Finding Andrew behind him had been a shock, but he'd already picked his path and he took it now, straight up the cliff, avoiding the loose rock. He didn't look back until he reached a flat spot as wide as his foot. Andrew was just below him and climbing fast, his pack swinging like something heavy and broken.
Jemmy climbed, breathing hard through a grin. He'd done this the whole length of the Crab. He could see his path, and there wasn't any better on this stretch.
A hundred and twenty meters up, the rock turned sheer. He edged
sideways toward a heap of shattered rock standing at a forty-degree slope. He paused there to glance back.
Andrew paused too, blowing hard, teeth showing in a laugh. He shouted, 'I thought you brought the lunch!'
'Just a watermelon,' Jemmy called. 'Hope you brought a knife!'
'You bet!'
'Seen Duncan lately?'
'Lately, yes!' Andrew lunged toward him, panting like a bellows now, across red rock and onto red scree. Jemmy climbed with some care. He thought he could climb faster than Andrew, but a slide would be bad might be bad for Andrew too, but the game was to live.
The peak of the rockslide was sheer again but for a notch of sorts, a setting for his feet and a hold for his left hand. Jemmy set himself before he looked back.
Andrew was far below and making little progress.
Jemmy threw a rock at him. Then another, and another, without waiting.
They fell in front of Andrew, all three. He wasn't throwing hard enough, but his aim was good. Andrew screamed something foul... fowl, actually. Jemmy caught the echo.
Jemmy screamed back, 'It's the law!,' and he set himself and hurled. Andrew threw too, but his rock fell far short. His second throw started him sliding, and he flattened himself against the scree and tried to stay there. Jemmy's falling rock hit him-somewhere-and so did the next, and Jemmy threw three more before he had to stop for breath. Andrew was sliding. He couldn't stop. Jemmy hadn't planned on that. By now Andrew Dowd might have come to believe the unbelievable: that Jemmy Bloocher could beat him at climbing. If the slide didn't kill him, Andrew would have a chance to rest, to hide, to run now and kill him later.
There was just no help for it. Jemmy spread himself as flat as possible and crawled backward down the scree.
Andrew was out of sight. He couldn't have edged off the scree, though. Last time Jemmy saw him, those rocks were carrying him right to the bottom. Now Jemmy edged off to the side, onto solid rock, and looked down. Andrew was far below.
Jemmy began throwing.
Andrew got a little farther. But the rocks were hitting him, and he had to strike back. It was in his bones. He scrambled backward and reached bottom in a near landslide, crawled out from under, braced himself against a rock projection and started throwing.
It was not a fair contest.
Andrew gave up: turned his face to the rock and took the hits, and suddenly leapt up and threw three, and curled up again. Jemmy, with his arm hanging like a lead weight, started down.
He hadn't picked the quickest path this time, but the route that would keep Andrew in sight. Wherever he could stop he threw a rock. At the end he was walking toward Andrew, knowing that Andrew would uncurl and charge him with that great weed cutter they'd found in the outbuilding. He stopped out of knife's range and threw rocks from point blank until he knew that Andrew was dead.
The weed cutter was under him.
The pack wasn't on him. He pulled Andrew's body out of sight from the Road, rolled some rocks over it and left it there.
Jemmy found the pack when he'd nearly reached the Road. Andrew hadn't tried to hide it. He never expected Jemmy to live to find it, and he'd wanted to be rid of the weight.
Winnie and Amnon were doing nothing much at the bridge. Jemmy stopped in the middle and spilled the pack in front of them.
Winnie said 'Yeep!' and covered her mouth. Amnon said, 'What in...isn't that Andrew's... no birdfucking allowed.'
'It's the law. I thought you'd better see this,' Jemmy said. 'I don't recognize most of it. Is this what I think it is?' He held up a stack of thin paper printed with holograms: little windows into a composite view of Sol system, sun and planets and moons blazing against black.
'It's money,' Winnie said.
Jemmy fished among half-familiar things. A wide silver belt buckle. Handfuls of rings and ear crescents, jeweled and elaborately shaped. A tiny statue group: old men and a kibbitzer around a chess set, in inset jade. A malachite cube. 'What's this? And this, and this?'
'I never actually saw-'
'That's a phone.'
'And I think that's a book, an old holy book. And that's a lighter.'
At a touch, a point on the lighter turned white hot. Jemmy kept it. 'All right. We have to give the rest of this to Barda. Will you come with me?'
Amnon said, 'We're supposed to be guarding-'
'I'll stay,' Winnie said. 'You go, Amnon.'
'That's Andrew's pack,' Amnon said.
Jemmy repacked the pack, holding out the malachite cube and two ear crescents. He said, 'Not anymore. Andrew tried to kill me. I won.'
'Andrew's dead?'
Jemmy looked at Amnon. He hadn't considered the big man a threat. 'How do you feel about that?'
Amnon rubbed his jaw. 'I guess we all knew he'd try to kill you. That stuff with the prole gun. You won?'
'Yeah. Winnie, here.' He gave her the ear crescent and helped her fit it. 'You shouldn't wear it much. Maybe not at all. In Destiny Town they might know where it came from. Here, well, you know.'
'Thank you.' She kissed him.
Once upon a time....welve days ago?....mnon had handed a monstrous weapon back to Jemmy. And Jemmy had to trust someone.
