"So she is, young Tim. Bloody but unbowed. Well . . . a bit bowed, p'raps." He chuckled.
This time Tim had shouted across the basin rather than into it, and the vision remained. He realized that the woman helping his mother appeared to have no face because she was wearing a veil, and the little burro he could see at the very edge of the wavering picture was Sunshine. He had fed, watered, and walked Sunshine many times. So had the other pupils at the little Tree school; it was part of what the headmistress called their "tuition," but Tim had never seen her actually ride him. If asked, he would have said she was probably unable. Because of her shakes.
"That's the Widow Smack! What's she doing at our house?"
"Perhaps you'll ask her, young Tim."
"Did you send her, somehow?"
Smiling, the Covenant Man shook his head. "I have many hobbies, but rescuing damsels in distress isn't one of them." He bent close to the basin, the brim of his hat shading his face. "Oh, dearie me. I believe she's still in distress. Which is no surprise; it was a terrible beating she took. People say the truth can be read in a person's eyes, but look at the hands, I always say. Look at your mama's, young Tim!"
Tim bent close to the water. Supported by the Widow, Nell crossed the porch with her spread hands held out before her, and she was walking toward the wall instead of the door, although the porch was not wide and the door right in front of her. The Widow gently corrected her course, and the two women went inside together.
The Covenant Man used his tongue to make a tch-tch sound against the roof of his mouth. "Doesn't look good, young Tim. Blows to the head can be very nasty things. Even when they don't kill, they can do terrible damage. Lasting damage." His words were grave, but his eyes twinkled with unspeakable merriment.
Tim barely noticed. "I have to go. My mother needs me."
Once again he started for Bitsy. This time he got almost half a dozen steps before the Covenant Man laid hold of him. His fingers were like rods of steel. "Before you go, Tim--and with my blessing, of course--you have one more thing to do."
Tim felt as if he might be going mad. Maybe, he thought, I'm in bed with tick fever and dreaming all this.
"Take my basin back to the stream and dump it. But not where you got it, because yon pooky has begun to look far too interested in his surroundings."
The Covenant Man picked up Tim's gaslight, twisted the feed-knob fully open, and held it up. The snake now hung down for most of its length. The last three feet, however--the part ending in the pooky's spade-shaped head--was raised and weaving from side to side. Amber eyes stared raptly into Tim's blue ones. Its tongue lashed out--sloooop--and for a moment Tim saw two long curved fangs. They sparkled in the glow cast by the gaslight.
"Go to the left of him," the Covenant Man advised. "I shall accompany you and stand watch."
"Can't you just dump it yourself? I want to go to my mother. I need to--"
"Your mother isn't why I brought you here, young Tim." The Covenant Man seemed to grow taller. "Now do as I say."
Tim picked up the basin and cut across the clearing to his left. The Covenant Man, still holding up the gaslight, kept between him and the snake. The pooky had swiveled to follow their course but made no attempt to follow, although the ironwoods were so close and their lowest branches so intertwined, it could have done so with ease.
"This stub is part of the Cosington-Marchly stake," the Covenant Man said chattily. "Perhaps thee read the sign."
"Aye."
"A boy who can read is a treasure to the Barony." The Covenant Man was now treading so close to Tim that it made the boy's skin prickle. "You will pay great taxes some day--always assuming you don't die in the Endless Forest this night . . . or the next . . . or the night after that. But why look for storms that are still over the horizon, eh?
"You know whose stake this is, but I know a little more. Discovered it when I made my rounds, along with news of Frankie Simons's broken leg, the Wyland baby's milk-sick, the Riverlys' dead cows--about which they're lying through their few remaining teeth, if I know my business, and I do--and all sorts of other interesting fiddle-de-dum. How people talk! But here's the point, young Tim. I discovered that, early on in Full Earth, Peter Cosington was caught under a tree that fell wrong. Trees will do that from time to time, especially ironwood. I believe that ironwood trees actually think, which is where the tradition of crying their pardon before each day's chopping comes from."
"I know about sai Cosington's accident," Tim said. In spite of his anxiety, he was curious about this turn of the conversation. "My mama sent them a soup, even though she was in mourning for my da' at the time. The tree fell across his back, but not square across. That would have killed him. What of it? He's better these days."
They were near the water now, but the smell here was less strong and Tim heard none of those smacking bugs. That was good, but the pooky was still watching them with hungry interest. Bad.
"Yar, Square Fella Cosie's back to work and we all say thankya. But while he was laid up--for two weeks before your da' met his dragon and for six weeks after--this stub and all the others in the Cosington-Marchly stake were empty, because Ernie Marchly's not like your steppa. Which is to say, he won't come cutting in the Endless Forest without a pard. But of course--also not like your steppa--Slow Ernie actually has a pard."
Tim remembered the coin lying against his skin, and why he'd come on this mad errand in the first place. "There was no dragon! If there'd been a dragon, it would have burned up my da's lucky coin with the rest of him! And why was it in Kells's trunk?"
"Dump out my basin, young Tim. I think you'll find there are no bugs in the water to trouble thee. No, not here."
"But I want to know--"
"Close thy clam and dump my basin, for you'll not leave this clearing while it's full."
Tim knelt to do as he was told, wanting only to complete the chore and be gone. He cared nothing about Peter "Square Fella" Cosington, and didn't believe the man in the black cloak did, either. He's teasing me, or torturing me. Maybe he doesn't even know the difference. But as soon as this damn basin is empty, I'll mount Bitsy and ride back as fast as I can. Let him try to stop me. Just let him tr--
Tim's thoughts broke as cleanly as a dry stick under a bootheel. He lost his hold on the basin and it fell upsy-turvy in the matted underbrush. There were no bugs in the water here, the Covenant Ma
n was right about that; the stream was as clear as the water that flowed from the spring near their cottage. Lying six or eight inches below the surface was a human body. The clothes were only rags that floated in the current. The eyelids were gone, and so was most of the hair. The face and arms, once deeply tanned, were now as pale as alabaster. But otherwise, the body of Big Jack Ross was perfectly preserved. If not for the emptiness in those lidless, lashless eyes, Tim could have believed his father might rise, dripping, and fold him into an embrace.
The pooky made its hungry sloooop.
Something broke inside of Tim at the sound, and he began to scream.
The Covenant Man was forcing something into Tim's mouth. Tim tried to fend him off, but it did no good. The Covenant Man simply seized Tim's hair at the back of his head, and when Tim yelled, the mouth of a flask was shoved between his teeth. Some fiery liquid gushed down his throat. Not redeye, for instead of making him drunk, it calmed him. More--it made him feel like an icy visitor in his own head.
"That will wear off in ten minutes, and then I'll let you go your course," the Covenant Man said. His jocularity was gone. He no longer called the boy young Tim; he no longer called him anything. "Now dig out thy ears and listen. I began to hear stories in Tavares, forty wheels east of here, of a woodsman who'd been cooked by a dragon. It was on everyone's lips. A bitch dragon as big as a house, they said. I knew it was bullshit. I believe there might still be a tyger somewhere in the forest--"
At that the Covenant Man's lips twitched in a rictus of a grin, there and gone almost too quickly to see.
"--but a dragon? Never. There hasn't been one this close to civilization for years ten times ten, and never one as a big as a house. My curiosity was aroused. Not because Big Ross is a taxpayer--or was--although that's what I'd've told the toothless multitude, were any member of it trig enough--and brave enough--to ask. No, it was curiosity for its own sake, because wanting to know secrets has always been my besetting vice. Someday 'twill be the death of me, I have no doubt.
"I was camped on the Ironwood Trail last night, too--before I started my rounds. Only last night I went all the way to the trail's end. The signs on the last few stubs before the Fagonard Swamp say Ross and Kells. There I filled my basin at the last clear stream before the swamp begins, and what did I see in the water? Why, a sign reading Cosington-Marchly. I packed up my gunna, mounted Blackie, and rode him back here, just to see what I might see. There was no need to consult the basin again; I saw where yon pooky would not venture and where the bugs hadn't polluted the stream. The bugs are voracious flesh-eaters, but according to the old wives, they'll not eat the flesh of a virtuous man. The old wives are often wrong, but not about that, it seems. The chill of the water has preserved him, and he appears to be unmarked, because the man who murdered him struck from behind. I saw the riven skull when I turned him over, and have put him back as you see him now to spare you that sight." The Covenant Man paused, then added: "And so he'd see you, I suppose, if his essence lingers near his corse. On that, the old wives reach no consensus. Still all right, or would you like another small dose of nen?"