Bella did not have that problem. She tossed the water in his face, then threw the mug against the floor at his bare feet. It shattered, the noise sharp and loud. “Completely self-sufficient, you said. Never let anyone even know we’re here, you said. And now I find out you’ve been going to the market in town regularly?” By the end her voice had risen to a considerable shriek, and I was glad she wasn’t yelling at me.
Buddy took a step back toward the door. “Well, I had to-”
She was right up in his face now, hands on her hips. “You had to lie to me? To our children? You had to do that?” She smacked him across the back of the head. “We live knee-deep in goat shit and dead leaves, and you sneak off to town?”
He looked past Bella Lou at me, his expression desperate.
I stood and said, “Bella Lou, before you crack his head like a walnut, I’d sure like him to show me where the dragon people are.”
She turned that seething glare on me, and I responded with my blandest smile. She snapped, “Sure, might as well get some honest work out of him. I’m going for a walk.” She pushed past me and went out the back door. “Shut up!” she bellowed when the goats in the pen started bleating. Her muttering was so loud it carried back to us for several moments until she disappeared into the woods.
I turned back to Buddy, who looked like a convict granted a scaffold reprieve. “She’s got strong opinions,” I said.
“And a strong right arm,” he agreed, rubbing the back of his head.
“Maybe you shouldn’t lie to her next time,” I said.
“I don’t need your damn city advice,” he mumbled. Then he scooped his cap from the hook and, with as much dignity as he could muster, jammed it on his head. “Come on, then.”
I followed him outside. Two good-sized pig carcasses hung by their feet from a nearby tree, blood draining onto the ground; even I could spot them as plump, farm-raised livestock. Buddy pulled on big muddy boots, took the reins of a scraggly pony from the hitching post and mounted in a single leap. The pony visibly sank under his weight. The various tools and implements hanging from the saddle jingled. I mounted my horse and, after battling with her for a few moments, got her under control. “Buddy,” I said, “first I want you to show me where you found me. It’s close to where you’ve seen the dragon people, isn’t it?”
He nodded without looking at me.
I knew it had to be. They’d taken us from the road to their lair, tortured Laura until she died, then carried us to the cliff, all sometime between midnight and dawn. These woods were thick and would be slow to travel, especially for three men carrying two bodies and leading a recalcitrant horse. They couldn’t have taken us very far.
Buddy led me down trails I never would have spotted on my own. His pony had a much easier time of it than my horse, and more than once I thought of insisting we continue on foot. My nag tossed her head and fought any nudge to her flank as we descended an easy but perilously thin ledge to the bottom of a gully, then followed the dried creek bed. Above us the walls grew higher and steeper, until the place almost qualified as a canyon. I got queasy when it also began to look familiar.
Suddenly my horse stopped and would not continue, no matter what names I called her. She pawed at the ground, her hooves clacking on the stones from the old riverbed. I was considering a good smack with the flat of my sword when the wind changed and I smelled what had halted her.
“It’s just up here,” Buddy said, his pony unaffected by the odor.
“I know,” I said, swung off my saddle and released the reins. The horse backed up a step as if tensing to bolt, but I glared at her and she stopped. She lowered her head and began munching on the grass sprouting between the smooth rocks.
I tried really hard to get a grip on myself. After all, I’d seen plenty of dead horses, plenty of dead people, in my life. This was just another crime scene I needed to check for clues. So why did it feel like I was about to see the corpse of my best friend? I parted my lips and breathed through my clenched teeth as I approached the big object lying on the ground just ahead.
The flies were doing their job, and the rest of the forest disposal crew were no slackers, either. But most of her was still there. Huge slashes across Lola’s flanks showed where she’d been cut with a knife or a sword, most likely to drive her off the cliff. She was far too smart to just jump on her own. In the patches of bare dirt between the stones I saw prints from coyotes, raccoons, possums and other varmints, as well as the wagon tracks from where Buddy had picked up Laura and me.
Buddy, leading his pony, stopped beside me. He held a cloth over his face. “The fall might not’ve killed her right away,” he said clinically. “Coulda just broke her ribs. Then she’d suffocate, or drown in her own blood if her lungs got poked.”
I clenched my fists. “Say anything else, Buddy, and I’ll open a fresh jug of Bella Lou on you.”
He grumbled petulantly, “Hey, it’s just a horse; it’s not like it’s a person or anything.”
“Buddy,” I said with supreme self-control, “why’d you pick us up? You don’t strike me as the help-out-your- fellow-man type.”
“Didn’t want anyone to come looking for you and find us,” he said to the ground.
I looked at the cliffs. The sky above them was blue, cloudless and magnificent. Where had those men been standing that night? “How was I laying when you found me?”
“Flat on the ground.”
“No, I mean, could you tell which side I’d been thrown off?”
He nodded and pointed. It was almost, but not quite, a straight vertical drop, and I saw the place where I’d hit the base and rolled the rest of the way to the bottom. That little bounce had been what saved me. “The dragon people live somewhere up there?”
Buddy made a noncommittal sound muffled by the scarf.
I yanked it away from his face. “Buddy, I got a bellyful of pissed-off and I’m looking for somewhere to throw it up. It could be on your head just as easily as anywhere, so don’t give me a hard time.”
He turned white, which could’ve been just from the stench, and snatched the scarf back. “About half a mile down, there’s a cut that leads to a trail. It comes back along the top of the cliff up there. If you follow it, it’ll take you to a little shack. Only seen it from a distance, but… it’s theirs.”
I dug a coin from my pocket and gave it to him. He stared at it. “What’s this for?”
I nodded at the tools on his pony. “You got a shovel with you?”
“Yeah.”
I indicated Lola’s carcass. “Bury her.”
“The horse?”
“ Yes, the horse! ” I yelled.
He quickly pocketed the money. “Okay, fine. Sure thing. I’ll get right on it.”
“I’ll be back to check,” I assured him as I turned to mount Lola’s completely inadequate replacement.
FIVE
Buddy had told the truth: the cut hit the canyon at a right angle, provided an easy ascent and led to a trail that ran along the cliff top. Smooth as it was, the damn horse still balked at it, and I’d have made faster progress had I let the nag ride me. She picked her way up the cut like a barefoot spinster, then seemed determined to turn down the trail in the opposite direction from the one I wanted. After implying many things about her parentage under my breath, I got her pointed the right way, parallel with the edge of the cliff.
Eventually I reached the spot where I’d been tossed to my presumed death. Far below, Buddy dug lethargically at the grave. He looked up, saw me and waved, then returned to work. I had no delusions he’d do a good job.
The stony ground showed evidence of recent activity, but nothing more definite. I’d also crossed some sort of weather line, because up here the breeze was chilly on my sweat-damp skin. Out of nowhere the horse suddenly snorted and balked again, and a moment later the reason hit me: another out-of-place odor, this one very like lamp oil.
