A Hero's Curse Read Free Page B

from the road. He’s putting new soles on my leather shoes. They wear out quickly.
    I hear Uncle Cagney’s frame jerk around, facing the road. “Sure enough,” he murmurs. “Your dad was right, you are good.”              
    I blush at the compliment because it came from Dad. I can’t always tell what he notices. I also can’t really tell Uncle Cagney it was Tig this time. Tig surreptitiously bites my ear. I swat his face.
    “Who is it?” I ask. Now I, too, can hear the shuffle in the dust. Whoever it is must still be several hundred yards away.
    “Can’t tell,” says Uncle Cagney. I can hear that he is tense, too, but he doesn’t get up or change position.
    Only a couple of minutes pass before Tig whispers in my ear again. “It’s Grel Jorgenson.”
    “It might be our neighbor, Grel Jorgenson,” I say. Even though his farm is closest to ours he has never come this far up the valley, this close to the Valley of Fire.
    I can feel Uncle Cagney look at me for a long second. “That it might be. We better see what he’s about.” He sets aside his tools and my shoes and pushes up his bulky frame.
    “Evenin’,” Grel calls.
    “Evenin’,” Uncle Cagney responds.
    “They didn’t take the bait,” Grel says.
    Uncle Cagney slaps the log pillar that supports the roof over the porch, making the whole porch shake. Tig is startled and hisses, his claws digging into my shoulders.
    “Are they coming tonight?” Uncle Cagney asks.
    “No. You won’t be seein’ them for probably two days. Too many of ’em are herdin’ folks back down the valley. They’re waitin’ for another squad from the capitol. Arrestors, out of Plen, if I heard right. Not just the usual thugs.”
    Uncle Cagney just grunts, then asks, “Can you take the animals now?”
    “Ya,” Grel says, in the same clipped tone.
    “What’s going on?” I interject.
    Uncle Cagney moves around the porch toward the pens where our mare Sassafras and the rest of our animals are kept. “We’re leaving sooner than expected is all.”
     

Chapter 3
     
    U ncle Cagney leaves me gaping on the porch. Tig narrates as Grel hooks Sassafras to the cart and loads our chickens, pig, and two goats. Then he creaks away down the drive, and he, too, is gone. A wisp of wind blows through the emptiness left behind, and I hear the lonely sound of weeds rolling through the field. Now that the sun has set a chill has descended. Far off in the Valley of Fire some creature barks, and the sound echoes through the dry evening air.
    “That’ll be enough for one day,” Uncle Cagney says. He is quiet all evening, ignoring all my attempts to pry information from him. I finally get frustrated and go to my room, leaving him to smoke his pipe in front of the fire.
    I get up the next morning to hear Uncle Cagney announce we will be going on his courier route for the kingdom. “Got to get things delivered, you know,” he says in an overly cheerful voice. He takes my arm and leads me to the wash basin. He must be preoccupied because he usually leaves me on my own. I wish I could tell him how much I hate being pampered. I want every bit of independence I can manage, and I feel people rob me of that precious freedom by pampering. I can’t think of a nice way to say it, though, and I want him to tell me what’s going on, so I wash my face instead of lashing out. I would have snapped at Mom, and of course Dad would never have tried to baby me.
    Uncle Cagney moves away to look into breakfast. When I come back into the kitchen I move around the table toward my place and walk into a chair that Uncle Cagney must have pulled out. It falls over, and I blush. Not because I don’t knock things over—it happens all the time—it just goes back to the pampering thing. This time though Uncle Cagney lets me put the chair right and doesn’t fuss over me at all. I appreciate that.
    I am excited to be getting out. I’ve always begged to go with Uncle Cagney on his courier routes,