A bruised sky lowered its clouds on Owlhoot Holler and let loose torrential rains, rains that filled the creek to overflowing with foul water and spilled up into the garden. The plants turned to slimy blackened fronds; an ominous rumble filled the air. Blaine turned her eyes up to the mountain slope, barely able to see through the rain pounding her face, searching for the cause of it — and recoiling when she found it. The trees were sliding right off the hill! They built momentum, crashing to the ground, tangling, rolling —
— rushing down toward the Kendricks homestead.
“Blaine!”
Willum, on the porch, his chubby face contorted in fear. “Blaine!” he shrieked again, terror distorting his voice.
“Willum!” she cried, and ran for him, reaching out to scoop him up as each step forward took her further and further away. Despair grabbed her ankles, tripping her, slowing her. “Willum!”
And the trees came crashing down.
~~~~~
Blaine startled awake, scared by the intensity of the dream — and found her ears full of sound, an extraordinary howl cutting through the night. She lay in the bed she shared with Lenie and shivered, spooked, and still stuck in the twilight between asleep and awake.
As if she’d never heard a critter howl. It wasn’t nothing but a dog or a rare wolf, lonely in the night. Nothing to raise her hackles over.
The uneasiness clung to her; she suddenly realized that she’d heard this very noise four days earlier — on the ridge, right before she found the visitors; the day before Dacey Childers had walked into their yard. Visitors, she suddenly realized, who hadn’t yet shown up to trade anything. All travelers need supplies...
And here it came again. Spirits of Those Before! She felt it vibrate through her body before she actually heard it, a low noise that lifted to a howl, clear and mournful and somehow menacing all at once. The sound shivered across her neck, this time joined by a brief chorus that quickly died and did not repeat.
Blaine slid out of bed and into the chill of a woodstove nearly gone out, leaving her heavily sleeping sister undisturbed. Pulling the door open a crack, she sniffed the cold night air — as if the air would bring her any answers. After a moment, she heard Rand rustling in his loft bed.
She turned to find him watching her, and whispered, “Wolves?”
“No.” Rand shook his head and left it at an angle that told her he was as puzzled as she. “Dogs,” he concluded. “But no one went a’hunting our hills last night. Leastways, no one that checked with Daddy.”
His whispered answer gave her no peace, for it would have been more like Rand to grunt “dogs” and roll over for a few more moments of sleep.
Blaine returned to the bed and patted the footboard in search of her clothes. She quickly donned them, feeding a few logs into the stove before quietly slipping through the door. Rand would assume she was visiting the privy, but...
She had a sudden hankering to know if those strangers were still there.
She drew water and set kindling on the porch, then fed the chickens and left the pail out so Cadell would know that she had done it. If she had some semblance of her chores done, things would go easier when she returned, even if she did delay the disking he had planned for the day.
It was breaking light when she finally did stop at the outhouse, on her way to the springhouse trail and the strangers. The ridge trail was easy to follow despite the shadow the opposite mountain threw, and Blaine climbed up into the sunlight even as it crept down the hill toward her. Clouds bloomed in the sky, hazy and red and proclaiming rain. Worse news for her; if Cadell couldn’t get the garden disked, breaking up the great clods of plowed earth before it rained, she’d be in certain big trouble.
But not enough to make her turn back, not with the thought of the strangers in her head and the echo of the howl still in her ears. She put the rain from her mind and paid attention to her feet; the mountain top was almost half a morning from home if she slacked her pace, and she didn’t have that much time to waste.
When she reached the ridge Blaine turned north, toward the mouth of the hollow, aiming for her favorite rock — a jutting, rough boulder that pushed aside the trees in its lone stance at the top of the world. It was twice Blaine’s height but she knew the hand-holds, and she knew that no one would ever think to look for her there. That alone had been enough to make it a favorite perch, never mind that it was a place to study the maze of mountains that wove and undulated around her own hollow. It was from there that she’d learned the subtle flavors of the seasons, and learned to know from a glance just what kind of mood the mountains were in.
Today she gave the rock only a wistful glance, and used it as a marker to cross over to the downslope on the other side of the ridge, down into Fiddlehead Holler and the side of the hill still blanketed in frost and shadow.
As sudden and eerie as the first time, the early morning howl repeated itself — a crystal clear noise cutting through the peace of the mountain, and through Blaine’s peace of mind. The fine hair on her arms stood up.
Quit your foolishness. It was just from going from out of sun into shadow, that was all. Plain old goosebumps from cold. She continued down off the mountain, her progress somewhat more cautious than before, and the blinder already clutched in her hand. She heard the muted morning noises that meant the strangers were waking, and grew more cautious yet.
Hesitating just within sight of the men, when they were still only fractions of people moving behind bare-branched trees, she realized all at once that she should have simply told her daddy what she’d seen, and borne the consequences.
But she hadn’t, and now here she was.
Steeling herself, she crept in above their camp, heading for the clump of rhododendrons with last year’s limp, dead-looking leaves hanging down and looking like wept tears. Moving with painful slowness, glad for her dull brown clothes and the perpetual dampness of late spring leaf-cover on the ground, she finally got close enough to take a good look. So many of them!
Three times as many as the last time she had been here. And not one of them had come to talk to her daddy, head of the closest homestead to their camp.
Most of the men were just waking. Only a few were up, crouching to stir faded fires into flame. Hunkered in above the slight scoop in the terrain that held the camp, Blaine made herself very still while her gaze skipped over the normal camp activities and settled in on the flurry of movement just below her.
It took a moment to sort out the details, to realize what she saw — that the lump on the ground between four of the strangers was a man, that the funny noise was his choked cry of pain.
That the man was Dacey.
She gasped; she couldn’t help it. Almost immediately she realized the danger she had put herself in with that faint sound — but the strangers were too busy with Dacey to note it. Tied at the wrists and ankles and perched haphazardly against a rotted-out sycamore, he answered their murmured questions with a single shake of his head, sending his untrimmed bangs into his eyes. Blaine winced as one of the men backhanded him, though it clearly wasn’t the first time. The trickle of blood dripping down his chin followed a path already forged, and his face held a storybook of bruises.
Not strangers passing through. Not here for trade. Oh, no.
And definitely not from the mountains, not even distant ones — not with the odd, clipped speech patterns that came to her ears in the fits and starts of their demanded questions, not with those clothes. Dacey wore what she expected to see on a man: rough homespun and leather, and a thick short-waisted wool jacket that gave him reach to his belt knife — now merely a conspicuously empty sheath. The strangers, on the other hand, wore thick, hard leather strapped over their arms and chests, and over padded, finely woven shirts and trousers. Their boots were padded along the shins, almost like a good pair of snake guards — but it was far too early in the season to worry about snakebite.
And they wore long blades, blades of which she’d never before seen the like. Sheathed, heavy-hilted blades far too big ever to be called hunting knives. The kind of blades not meant for anything but killing people. Swords.
The man who had hit Dacey stood apart from the others. He alone was not covered with the hard leather, but wore soft and comfortable-looking clothes topped by a warm cloak. In the hills, only women folk wore cloaks, and only on the fanciest outings — but Blaine wasn’t tempted to think of this man as anything but masculine and dangerous. He stood back from Dacey now, the cloak spread wide by his elbows as he adopted a posture of finality, hands on hips.
“We’re going to get our answers,” he said, no longer speaking in the confidential murmurs of his questioning. “By now I hoped you’d realize that. I’m not particularly interested in torturing it out of you.” His dark eyes were hard. “But I will.”
Blaine frowned at the sound of his voice — smooth and quiet, and not at all in keeping with his attitude or actions. And even though his speech had those unfamiliar clipped patterns, there was still a kind of rhythm to what he was saying, one that made him pleasant to listen to and totally at odds with the words themselves. The man gestured without turning around, and one of the strangers stopped warming his hands by the main campfire and scooped up a pouch, which he presented with a stiff salute.
Dacey tensed; Blaine could see it from her perch, no further away than from the Kendricks’ porch to the barn. Tense, and... Scared. Oh, he was scared. “There ain’t no point in this,” he said, his voice intense...though his face held no hope. “I ain’t got nothing you need to know. I’m here on my own, and nary anyone else knows aught about you.”
“So you’ve said,” the man replied, dark amusement in his eye. “But we’d like to know other things. How did you find us? Why can’t you be made nekfehr?”
Blaine frowned, losing the word in the man’s accent. Hard enough just to think, finding herself so close to such pure meanness, so close to where a man sat hurting — and about to take more of it, she had no doubt of that.
The man hefted the pouch. “And of course I don’t believe that you’ve come after us all by yourself. Not to worry, Dacey Childers. I’ve got a way to show you more fear than you thought a man could handle. Then, I think you’ll do anything — anything — to avoid that fear again. Even if that means telling us your precious secrets.” He fumbled in the pouch, extracting something small, something dark and ugly and — from the way he handled it — sticky.
Blaine loathed the sight of it.
Two of the men knelt to take Dacey’s arms. A third, donning gloves, took the small blot of darkness and grabbed Dacey’s jaw. Blaine watched in shock. They’re going to make him swallow it like a dog worming mix.
Only this was no wormer; she knew it and Dacey knew it. He fought them with every wile he had, tearing cloth and flesh. His mouth clamped shut, his eyes grim and hopeless, he kicked — connecting solidly, and sending the gloved man down the hill on his back. Blaine gave a silent cheer, inner hope cut abruptly short as a hulk of a man joined the fray and simply sat on the prisoner, dealing him a resounding pair of slaps that left him dazed and panting. The gloved man scrambled forward and poked darkness into Dacey’s mouth.
The conflict began anew; Dacey flung his head to first one side and then the other, evading their hands as he sought to spit out the vile lump — and although all three of the others were larger than he, Blaine found herself leaning forward, her hands clenched into fists and her heart crying out for him, hoping, hoping hard —
The leader stepped calmly into the fray and covered Dacey’s nose and mouth with his ample hand.
Dacey fought for air; his back arched, his body bucking, eyes widening...and finally, as Blaine’s lungs ached in sympathy, rolling back in his head.
The man released him. Blaine groaned quietly as the strange pill went down with Dacey’s first whooping gasp for air — though not easily, not to judge by the gagging and choking.
With quick, rough efficiency, ignoring his struggle to draw a clean breath, the men tied Dacey’s hands to his belt and left him. The leader stood before him another moment, waiting, until Dacey regained the wits to look up, bleary-eyed and conquered. The man shook his head, a gesture of false pity. “You should have cooperated,” he said. “We’ll leave you alone, now, and when we come back, I think you’ll be more than willing to talk to us.”
Not wormer. And not poison, not when they still wanted something from him.
Then what?
Dacey sat alone, propped against the sycamore stump, eyes closed and defeat on his face.
She should leave. Now. The strangers were distracted, breaking fast around the campfire. She couldn’t imagine how any of them had the stomach for food after what they’d just done, but they acted like nothing out of sorts had happened. Blaine shuddered, thoroughly chilled in both body and soul.
But...somehow she felt she had witnessed too much of this man’s drama to leave now.
She crept a few feet sideways, a few feet closer to him. A slick patch of leaves skidded out from beneath the hand that held the blinder, and in clutching for solid ground, she lost hold of it. Dacey’s head swiveled; he looked straight at her. She stared back, aghast, exposed, and hating that he knew she had witnessed his futile struggles. He had too much privacy about his ways to take that well. He met her gaze with eyes that had recently held courage and confidence, and now only revealed bleak hopelessness. It was only a moment of silent communication — though she wasn’t at all sure the meaning of it — and then Dacey looked the other way. So his gaze might not give her away, she realized suddenly, and briefly closed her eyes in a sudden wash of helplessness. Helpless to help.
She took up the blinder again.
Beads of sweat broke out on his face, a face that had suddenly gone grey. Blaine watched, appalled, as he began to tremble, as his breathing turned quick and panting, becoming jerky gasps. As his eyes glazed, the pupils huge, he pulled against his bonds, then fought them outright — mindless and random resistance, opposing no one but himself.
Blaine had never heard a man moan in fear before. She found it a terrible sound.
And then the low howl, now almost familiar, tingled through her body, rising slowly to audible sound. Dacey cried out in response, a sudden and harsh noise that sent Blaine tumbling backwards in surprise. She could only watch for a few more horrified seconds, long enough to see the leader lift his head from his meal and give a satisfied nod. Then, as the man looked away again, Blaine ran.
Under the cover of Dacey’s screams, she ran.
She flung herself up the mountain, on all fours more than she was upright, and then slid down the other side with just as much careless haste, a journey that seemed to take forever and left her legs trembling from effort, too tired to catch her when she stumbled at the bottom of the slope behind their farm.
Rand, who had watched her noisy progress with evident surprise, stuck his pitchfork in a wheelbarrow of compost and just looked at her a moment, his dark brows lowered.
“Rand!” Blaine gasped, climbing to her feet again and making it to his side where she clutched his arm for support, unable to spare the breath to tell of her discovery.
“And what were you doing up there anyway?” he inquired as she tried gather herself together. She waved the question away — today might be the first time she had come down in his sight but he knew well enough how much time she spent in the hills.
“Rand,” she said, barely able to voice words through her panting, “there’s men — over the ridge — in Fiddlehead. They got Dacey. Tied him up and—” she gulped, unable to come near to explaining what she’d seen. “They got swords —”
“Swords!” Rand snorted. “Didja fall asleep chewing on some strange weed? You been dreaming again, Blaine.” He shook his head and muttered again, “Swords!”
Chewing a weed? Blaine straightened herself and smacked her hands on her hips, putting all she had into her indignation. “Rand Kendricks, do I look that dumb? A weed! An’ do I look like I’ve been sleeping up over the rise or do I look like I’ve just run back from the other side of this hill?”
“Well,” Rand admitted, jerking his pitchfork from the manure and gently bouncing the tines off the ground at his feet, “You kinda look like you run a ways.” He hesitated, squinting down at her, his square-jawed face uncertain.
Blaine braced herself — Rand’s squint was a signpost of his reluctance. “I seen this, Rand! Men, across the ridge, and they ain’t up to any good! I seen ’em days ago, and they’re still there!”
The squint stayed in place. “You tell this to Daddy, you’ll hit real trouble. Use sense, Blaine. You know you always think those dreams are real right at first. “
“But —” Blaine started, as the rest of her protest died unspoken. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of reason to say such a thing. She did have dreams, and sometimes she did wake from them — trees, rushing down the hill — even at seventeen years old, and needed her mommy’s comfort, reassurance that the things she’d seen so vividly were not real. “But this ain’t right at first, Rand, not any more! I’m telling you certain truth!”
“All that aside, it’s a far fetch to think a whole mess of men wouldn’t notice you snuck up on ’em, and then you just walked away from ’em, pretty as you please. An’ you know if I’m saying that, Daddy’s just pure gonna laugh out loud. You done a pretty fair job over the years of convincing him you don’t even care to go face the spiders in the springhouse.”
“He’d believe me iff’n you back me,” Blaine said, hurt blooming in a small place inside her, knowing she could never explain about the blinder. Never. “You know he would.”
“You’ve just got that Dacey feller on your mind,” Rand said kindly. Infuriatingly. “Him an’ all his tales. Blaine, you run to Daddy with this dream and he won’t believe nary a word, no matter what I speak for you. He’ll tell you never go in them hills again, and right off start looking for a husband who’ll settle you down.”
Cadell didn’t understand her to begin with — not her nor her dreams nor her unhidden reluctance to start her own family. He would likely do just as Rand said — and that wouldn’t help Dacey, it wouldn’t help him one bit. It wouldn’t warn her family about those men, with their swords and their fearsome ways. “Come with me, Rand,” she begged. “You’ll see what I seen, and Daddy’ll listen to you.”
Rand grinned, a rueful expression. “Can’t, little sister. Got plenty to do around here — Daddy’s got through pitching his fit cause you was nowhere to be found, and he’s got me spreading the old manure pile out in the garden. He wants it done timely, and he ain’t in no mood for another one of us to slack off, iff’n you follow my meaning.” He pulled her long braid, a gentle tug to jog her out of her scowl.
She glared at him. “All right, then!” Tired and afraid and grieved by the lack of support she’d counted on, Blaine lost her temper but good. “I’ll go back there myself, and after it’s been long enough, you’ll come and find me!” She turned her back on him and marched out of the barnyard and back up the hill, ignoring the cry of protest from her tired legs.
“Blaine!” Rand called, sounding uncertain. “Spirits, Blaine, don’t cause yourself trouble over a dream!”
Blaine only straightened her back and continued to climb, boldly, the blinder stuck safe in her pocket. This time she didn’t care if her daddy did see her, not if it meant he followed her, too.
But once she was out of sight of the Kendricks farm, her shoulders slumped and she leaned over, hands braced on her knees, to relieve the ache in her legs. It was then she felt the first cold ping of rain against the back of her neck.
She almost laughed out loud, and decided, as she straightened and tugged her woven wool jacket back into place, that she wasn’t at all surprised that the rain was trying to discourage her, too.
She resumed her climb, more slowly now; the rain drizzled steadily onto her head, dripping down her ragged bangs to trip off her eyelashes. The sweat she had built up turned cold and clammy inside her clothes, and she ducked her head and clambered on — fervently hoping she’d scared Rand into following her, although he was as stubborn as she and could just as well wait out the day before his assurance gave way to worry.
The rain, never enthusiastic, faded off as Blaine reached the ridge — but a low rumble of thunder warned that it was not yet over, despite the sudden bright slash of sun. She reached her rock and climbed it, glad to rest, and to spread her skirts out in the sunshine. Sprawled on her back, exhausted and lulled almost to dozing by the lazy thunk of a wood hen driving at a dead tree, she nonetheless immediately stiffened at the sound of scuffing feet and grumbling voices. Rand, so soon? And with someone else along?
She rolled over on her stomach and peeked over the edge of the rock. Instead of Rand, she saw two men in fine cloth and hard leather coming from the other direction, and she turtled her head right back out of sight.
“I still say it’s a deer trail — maybe fox,” one of them said, sounding irritated. Blaine didn’t have to take a second look to know they were talking about her own tracks.
“Do deer run the hills like they do the flatlands?” his partner asked uncertainly. “I don’t see any clear hoof prints.”
“How do I know? The sooner we get a few of these families helping us, the better. Then instead of all this sneaking around and trying not to get lost, we can watch them do the work.”
The voice grew loud enough that they must be right next to the rock, and Blaine shrank against it, even though she knew they couldn’t possibly see her. When their unfamiliar accents didn’t fade, she realized they were resting right there below her, their backs to her rock. She groaned inwardly — but her breathing stopped altogether when she heard them speaking of how useful these mountain-grown trees would be. About searching out the sassafras groves.
Her book said something about sassafras. And it used sassafras in almost all the recipes that she could see. But the way he said it, the way he spoke of the groves, like there was a specific grove, something special, and not just the occasional tree along a ridgeline.
The meeting hall was made of sassafras, she suddenly remembered; the building was so old, the wood so faded from its normal burnt orange bark-lining, that hardly anyone mentioned it anymore. But the logs were smaller than most building logs, and if you scratched one, you could still smell the spicy scent of the living tree.
It had taken quite a few trees to build the hall, there was no escaping that fact. And quite a few trees meant...once, at least, there had been a grove of them. A grove these strangers seemed to know about. No, groves.
Up on her rock, hidden, the blinder once more in her hand anyway, Blaine grew bold enough to scowl. Rand just had to follow her, had to help reveal them and their strange plans, before all of Shadow Hollers was took by surprise, and facing those swords.
Then she had another sudden thought, one that sent her heart to racing. They were following her trail. They could trail her right back to the homestead!
No. She took a deep breath. No. She’d been over two sections of bare, gritty rock. Surely they would lose her trail there. Surely they would give up when they got that far, considering that they still weren’t sure if they were following deer, fox, or human. Blaine’s light step in the woods might just do well by her this day.
At last the men had moved on; she strained to follow their conversation as it faded, but they had turned to recounting lewd stories, anyway. She waited a good long piece after their voices dwindled, and then climbed down the rock, blinder clutched securely in her teeth.
This time her descent from the ridge was careful, as stealthy as she could make it. At least she didn’t have to make any effort to cover her trail — the two men and their big careless feet had blazed a path in last fall’s flattened leaves, and she easily kept within their marks. Her final approach was one step at a time, with plenty of opportunity to remember to breathe in between, to be thankful again for her bland clothes, to remind herself of the blinder. As long as she stayed silent and slow, it would keep her hidden; she’d had enough close calls with her cousins in the barn to know that much for sure.
Most of the men were gathered in the middle of the camp, where they sat on the ground with slicker capes over their heads to keep off the fitful drizzle that had started again. From the tone of his voice, the leader instructed them about something, though she could hear none of the individual words. Blaine blinked a raindrop out of her eye and crept closer, worming through the rhododendrons, looking to see if Dacey was where she’d left him.
She’d been gone several hours. There was no telling what else they might have done with him. Or to him.
But, no, he was there. Motionless. Asleep? Not dead, please not dead. With an eye on the camp, Blaine crept back to her old position above Dacey and then some closer. Enough to see the rise and fall of his chest beneath the gape of his coat, where his struggles had pulled it open and no one had bothered to close it. Enough to see that after a few short hours, his face suddenly looked like it belonged to an entirely different man. Haggard, drawn...haunted. Drained of the quiet spirit she’d seen in him, facing Cadell over the supper table. And battered by more than human hand.
He stirred, then — she thought it was the rain dropping off his nose that roused him. After a hard look at the camp, Blaine set the blinder aside and made a quiet rustle in the leaves. He shifted, barely enough to see her, brief surprise on his face. Maybe he thought she had been there all along.
At least he seemed to be in his right mind again. With a glance down at the camp and a moment to convince herself that they could not hear her over the distance and above the sound of trees shedding old rain, Blaine inched even closer and murmured, “Rand is coming to help,” even though she was sure of no such thing.
Dacey nodded and closed his eyes, looking infinitely weary, and not very hopeful. She couldn’t blame him; she’d promised Rand, but all he had was her. She hugged her jacket closed, tired and cold and uncertain, jamming the blinder into her pocket along with her hand.
The gust of wind warned her, would have warned anyone who knew these mountains, though the plainsmen below ignored it. Blaine hunched inside her partial shelter as the drizzly rain, driven by the a suddenly frenzied wind, lashed around in a dozen directions. Another instant, and the sky abruptly opened up in a wild deluge of rain and thunder and lightning.
Even halfway down the mountain, the sky was never far away; the storm enveloped them, wrapping the camp in chaos. Simultaneous lightning and thunder terrified the mules while the wind wrapped the men in their slickers, fighting them at every turn, strobing the camp with brilliant flashes of light against the storm-dark air. Rain stung Blaine’s face, tripping her eyelids closed more than they were open — but she saw enough to recognize the tumult below.
She didn’t even think about it. Suddenly she found herself sliding down to Dacey, fumbling her pocketknife from her skirt to cut at the ropes that bound him. They were thick and many but she didn’t pause to answer the fearful prickling at her neck, the sure inner voice crying, they’ve seen us! or to check the cuts she inflicted on herself. Then she had him free, and he stumbled to his feet on awkward legs that didn’t seem ready to carry him.
He grabbed her arm — or maybe she grabbed his arm — and they ran, both of them slipping on rain-slick leaves and stumbling over root and rock hidden by rain in their eyes. With terror on their heels they ran south along the side of the slope, clawing their way upward with the instinctive desire of the hunted — go to high ground. When the storm slackened — almost as suddenly as it had started — they were still holding on to each other, and by tacit agreement, they sank to the ground.
“I can’t believe you did that.” Panting, Dacey shoved the wet hair from his eyes, still looking plenty dazed but eyeing her with some incredulity nonetheless.
“Daddy always said I didn’t have no sense,” Blaine gasped back. They listened to each other breathe for a while, until the sound faded enough to hear the drip of water from the trees and the occasional rustle of small indignant animals. In the face of her own audacity, Blaine retreated to practical matters. She wrung the water out of her skirt and said, “They’re lowlanders. I heard ’em say so. They sure don’t know nothing of our spring storms. Pure luck, that was.”
“Not all luck,” Dacey said, giving her a look she couldn’t read. He got to his feet with some effort, hesitating halfway up; she stood, wanting to offer her hand and not sure of it — he was so private, this one was — and then he was standing beside her. He gave her a wry little grin and struck out along the ridge.
Blaine just stood there, entirely befuddled. Was he walking off, just like that?
But he turned and looked at her, then gave a little jerk of his head, an indication that she should come along.
She didn’t. “Reckon I’ll head home now.” Home to warn Cadell — to convince him.
“There ain’t nothing but trouble that way,” Dacey said shortly. “Trouble for your family, if those men find us on your farm. This ain’t no easy matter you’ve got yourself into, girl.”
“Blaine,” she said, polite but pointedly. “And what did they want from you? What do they want from us?”
“Blaine.” He looked at her a moment, and then straightened his back some. “Blaine, you can’t go home. Not now. You know they saw you, even just a glimpse. How long do you think it’ll take to find you there? You seen what they can do. You want your family facing that?”
Fear gripped her, made her rigid. “Then I gotta warn ’em, Dacey, how can I not warn ’em?”
He took a few quick, sudden strides, startling her, coming right up to her. “Because it’ll do ’em more harm than good right now, that’s how!” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes — eyes surrounded by bruises, by puffy flesh and split skin, though the rain had washed away all but traces of blood. Exhausted, haunted eyes that drove home his every word. “I done warned your daddy already, Blaine, that night I was there. Right now we got to go back to my last camp, and then we’ve gotta leave your hills for a piece.” He startled her again, then, resting a gentle hand on her arm, giving it the slightest of squeezes. “I’m obliged and owing you, Blaine. I hope you don’t come to regret what you just done...but I reckon you will.”
As she blinked in surprise, he turned and moved off again. Still, she hesitated, weighing his words against what she’d seen, and what she knew. He’d warned Cadell already. And I warned Rand. Had either of them listened? Would they actually be prepared for those sword-bearing strangers?
Not likely.
Briefly, she considered making her way home despite Dacey’s convictions, but couldn’t bring herself to deny what he’d said. Bad enough if those men found her at the farm...what would they do to the rest of her family, for harboring her?
He stopped again, turned his head just the slightest bit to say back at her, his voice gentle and understanding, “Blaine. It’s best.”
Numbly, Blaine found herself following him.
~~~~~~~~~~