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Lady read something in his face. "If necessary, we can split up."
He reined the black mare about sharply, blocking the mule's path. "Hell, no. I've got enough on my
mind wondering how to take care of you with you right here."
"You may not like the idea, but it's still an option if we need one. We can't afford to leave out any
possibilities."
And, damn it, he knew she was right. But he didn't tell her so. He just seesawed the bit ever so lightly
in the mare's mouth and she backed up to let the mule by.
Lady looked at him. "I can see you throttling down anger as if it were some kind of beast and your will
was a club. I remember you before Gillander died, a gangly boy who used to watch when he thought I
wasn't looking. You weren't angry then. Where did you find all that rage? Do you cultivate it on
purpose?"
"I think of it as skill."
Her shoulders swayed easily with the mule's swinging walk. "Then you acquired it. From where?"
"You mean from whom. I was furious when Gill died. I thought that if any of the Protectors had known
how to fight worth a damn, it wouldn't have happened. If I could have fought well enough, it wouldn't
have happened. So when I heard about this& man& who knew a hundred ways to kill, I asked Charlie
for leave from my studies to go find him."
"What did Charlie say?" She brushed a stray bit of hair from her forehead.
"He told me the man was a murderer and if I wanted the bounty, to go for it. That I'd find him nesting
in the ruins about twenty miles south of here."
She gave him that two color appraising look of hers. "How old were you then?"
"Fifteen. I'd just turned fifteen and I was scared shitless. I mean, it wasn't like I was going out to find a
master who would teach me everything he knew, even though that's what I wanted him to do. And it
didn't seem likely I could talk him into it."
They were companionably silent, as the two beasts picked their way across a four-lane-wide track,
broken and incomplete, that abruptly disappeared about twenty yards from them in a yawning chasm.
Lady made a face at him. "Tell me about the murderer. Did you catch up with him?"
"Yes and no."
"Sweet heaven," she muttered fiercely. "What happened?"
"Well, I not exactly caught up with him."
"You must have learned something from him!"
Thomas smiled at her. "It took me a year and a half, trailing him. Every time I got close, he'd try to kill
me. I'd survive it, and I did my damnedest not to forget how he'd done it. That was how I learned. My
apprenticeship was one of survival. After fifty tries or so, he took me in. He was a nester. I learned
everything else I could."
"Then what?" Her attention was rapt.
"Then, when I could best him, I brought him back. Charlie read him his rights and I executed him."
"Jesus! You can be a cold bastard."
He wrapped the reins tightly about his left hand and stroked the worn leather. "No," he said slowly. "An
angry one. Everything that I learned on survival, I learned from that murderer. Everything good in life,
I learned from a harmless old man who died because he could never be as ruthless as that murderer."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You asked a question, you have an answer. And I'll give you something more I don't want
you coming with me because that murderer told me the surest way to kill a man: take him In-City." His
muscles tightened and the black mare, taking it as a signal, strode out ahead of the mule, pointing her
muzzle from the ruins' edges toward the area known as In-City.
* * *
Thomas knelt down and examined the tiny, roughshod hoofprint. "Donkeys," he said. Excitement
flickered through him.
"Wild?"
"This far past the fringe of the ruins? I doubt it. There's no reliable forage deep inside there, and burros
know that. I think we've crossed the trail we've been looking for."
Lady's face lit up jubilantly. The expression glowed in her eyes. "We're close to finding them so soon?"
"Maybe." Thomas straightened. He pointed out the probable pathway the donkeys had taken. "The
prints are deep enough that I think they're laden, but don't go congratulating ourselves yet nesters use
burros, too. There's thistle and gorse and foxtail growing abundantly on these outer boundaries."
Lady gave him a look he could not interpret as she countered, "but if it's them, to have caught up so
soon "
He mopped his brow against the noonday sun. "It's not impossible. Charlie probably gave the escort
instructions to lay low. If so, the kids wouldn't have left until late yesterday, from whatever bolt hole he
told them to hide in."
"How do you know that "
He mounted and turned Cindy's head toward the donkey track. "I don't. But I know what I would have
done in Charlie's shoes."
"Well, you could have told me. I was a little worried about& wasting time."
He looked back over his shoulder to catch her blushing. "Wasting time? Lady, I could have come up
with about five different things to call what we did most of last night, but wasting time wouldn't have
been one of them."
"That wasn't what I meant."
"Forget it. I know what you meant. Believe me, as nice as it was to sleep in a real bed with you I
wouldn't have been there if I thought we were behind by several days. I can't afford to be led around by
my dick."
That turned her blush to a deep rose. Her lips, slightly swollen from the night's activities, set
themselves in a firm line. Thomas turned back around in the saddle to hide his smile, thinking that he
had finally had the last word with her.
* * *
The scribe bowed low, as only his sinuous form could let him. The movement bothered his aging form,
but he did not heed his aches. He had served long and well and would continue to do so until it was
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