Book 1 - The Silver spike Read Free Page B

that nobody
knew who did it. But busting through the tangle of the woods was
awful, even with Old Man Fish finding the way.
    Tully hated it worse than Smeds, but he backed the old man
up.
    Smeds had to admit they were right. What he didn’t have to
admit was that the expedition was worth the slapping branches, the
stabbing, tearing briars, and the for gods’ sake spidenvebs
in the face.
    Or maybe the worst was the blisters on his feet. Those started
practically before they got out of sight of Oar. Even though he did
everything Old Man Fish told him to do, they just kept getting
worse. At least they didn’t get infected. That jerk Timmy
kept telling cheerful little tales about guys in the army who had
had blisters that had gotten infected and they’d had to have
their feet or legs chopped off. Dipshit.
    Fourth night in the woods he had no trouble sleeping. In fact,
he was getting to that point where he could sleep whenever he
stopped moving. The old man observed, “You’re starting
to toughen up. We’ll turn you into a man yet,
Smeds.”
    Smeds could have killed him then, but it was too much work to
get out of his pack straps and go over and do it.
    Maybe the pack was the worst part of it. He had to lug eighty
pounds of junk on his back, and what they had eaten of the food
part hadn’t lightened the load a bit.
    They reached their destination shortly after noon eight days
after they departed Oar. Smeds stood just inside the edge of the
forest and looked out at the Barrowland. “That’s what
all the fuss was about? Don’t look like shit to me.” He
sloughed his pack, plopped down on it, leaned against a tree, and
closed his eyes.
    “It ain’t what it used to be,” Old Man Fish
agreed.
    “You got a name besides Old Man?”
    “Fish.”
    “I mean a front name.”
    “Fish is good.”
    Laconic bastard.
    Timmy asked, “That our tree out there?”
    Tully answered, “Got to be. It’s the only one there
is.”
    Timmy said, “I love you, little tree. You’re going
to make me rich.”
    Tully said, “Fish, I think we ought to rest up some before
we go after it.”
    Smeds cracked an eyelid and glimmed his cousin. That was as
close as his cousin had come to complaining since the expedition
had started. But Tully was a big-time bitcher. Smeds had wondered
how long he would hold out. Tully’s silence so far had helped
Smeds keep going. If Tully wanted it bad enough to take what he had
been, then maybe it really was as good as he talked.
    The big hit? The one they had been seeking all their lives?
Could it be? For that reason alone Smeds would endure.
    Fish agreed with Tully. “I wouldn’t start before
tomorrow night. At the earliest. Maybe the night after. We have a
lot of scouting to do. We’ll all have to learn the ground the
way we learn the geography of a lover.” Smeds frowned. Was
this no-talk Fish? “We have to find a secure place to camp
and establish a secondary base for emergencies.”
    Smeds could not keep quiet. “What the hell is all this
shit? Why don’t we just go out there and chop the damned
thing down and get out of here?”
    “Shut up, Smeds,” Tully snapped. “Where the
hell have you been for the last ten days? Get the shit out of your
ears and use your head for something besides keeping them from
banging together.”
    Smeds shut up. His ears were open, suddenly, and they had caught
a very sinister undertone in Tully’s voice. His cousin had
begun to sound like he regretted letting him in on the deal. Like
maybe he was thinking Smeds was too dumb to be left to live. Right
now he had on that same contemptuous look Fish wore so often.
    He closed his eyes, shut out his companions, let his mind roll
back over the past ten days, picking up things that he had heard
without really hearing because he had been so busy feeling sorry
for himself.
    Of course they couldn’t just strut out there and chop the
damned tree down. There were soldiers watching the Barrowland. And
even if there weren’t any