Coyote Horizon (14 page)

The following day we crossed the confluence of the West and East Channels and entered the Medsylvania Channel. To our right lay the northern coast of Midland, the lower steppes of the Gillis Range just visible on the southeastern horizon; to our left, on the far side of the broad channel, lay Medsylvania, its rocky shores and dense forests dark and forbidding. That far north, winter still lingered, yet with spring approaching, the snow was beginning to melt. Boulder-sized chunks of ice, carried downstream from the North Circumpolar River, bobbed along the channel like miniature icebergs, making the passage treacherous. George hugged the Midland coast as much as possible, keeping the engines at one-third throttle; Donny stood at the bow, calling out to his uncle whenever the boat came too close to some ice, yet even so there were occasional bumps and scrapes as the hull collided with something that came up too fast for George to dodge.

It was slow going, and so we didn’t reach New Boston until almost twilight. I’d been there only a few times in the past, and never by choice. The most northern of Coyote’s settlements, it was also the most remote; its closest neighbor on Midland was Defiance, nearly fifteen hundred miles away on the other side of the Gillis Range. Like Leeport, New Boston was a river town, a shipping port for the coal, nickel, and iron mines located farther inland, yet even Leeport was a bustling metropolis compared to this lonely place. As the
Helen Waite
chugged into the shallow harbor, I saw lights gleaming within the windows of log houses and wood-frame buildings and heard the low gong of the lighthouse bell as the watchman signaled our arrival.

“Hope you have a place to stay.” George twisted the wheel to follow the harbormaster’s lamp to the nearest available slot in the pier. “Me and the boys are sleeping aboard.”

“Uh-huh. I’ve always had good luck with the Revolution . . .”

“Why are you staying aboard?” Goldstein stood next to us in the pilothouse, leaning against the railing. “You said you were going to pick up coal . . . Why not sleep in a decent bed while you’re here?”

“No, thanks. We’ll stay on the boat.”

“I insist.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, Goldstein produced a money clip stuffed with enough colonials to plug a leak in the hull. “You’ve done well by us. Let me make it up to you.”

Once again, George and I exchanged a glance. “Put that away, Mr. Roth,” the captain said. “First, we’re going ashore tonight just long enough to get a bite to eat. So far as accommodations are concerned . . . I appreciate the offer, but there’s nothing in town much better than what we have here. Second, this isn’t . . . shall we say, the safest place to be.” He nodded toward Kennedy, who stood silently beside his boss. “If I were you,” he added, “I’d keep your friends close and your money even closer, if y’know what I mean.”

“I . . .”

“Do what he says.” I gave Goldstein a hard look. “You hired me to be your guide. So let me do my job, all right?”

“Of course. Certainly.” The wad disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Kennedy handed him his cloak; he pulled it on, tugging the hood over his head. Once again, Morgan Goldstein became Irving Roth, an anonymous traveler. Or so I hoped.

Once we tied up at the pier and George paid the harbormaster, we went into town, leaving Jose behind to watch the boat. Fish-oil lamps illuminated our way along the muddy main street; potholes covered by thin skeins of ice crunched softly beneath our boots. The evening air was cool, warmed by the aroma of fish and herbs, boiled meat and tobacco. Kiosks lined both sides of the street, their tables offering skins, handmade jewelry, liniments, secondhand electronics. Prostitutes and hard-eyed men lingered in doorways, watching us as we passed by.

The Revolution Inn was located a couple of blocks from the waterfront, a ramshackle two-story building that looked as if it had been hammered together by a crew of drunk carpenters. Which probably wasn’t far from the truth; despite the patriotic name, the Revolution was little more than a beat-up tavern, with sawdust on the floor and benches in front of a fireplace half-filled with ash and soot. There were a few guest rooms upstairs, and although they were most commonly used by the local hookers, they’d do for the night.

Once I paid the barkeep for two rooms, we parked ourselves at a vacant table in the corner. Dinner was creek-crab stew, watery and undercooked; one bite, and Morgan pushed aside his plate, muttering that he’d rather go hungry. I distracted myself by studying the crowd. It was early evening, and already the place was full: fishermen, farmers, a handful of loggers and miners who’d come down from the mountains for a night on the town. I polished off my stew—it was wretched, but since it was probably the last hot meal I’d have for a few days, I made myself eat it—then left the table and wandered over to the bar, ostensibly to buy a drink but really to ferret out some information.

It didn’t take long for me to find out what I needed to know. The barkeep remembered Joe Cassidy, all right; he’d come through town about two months ago, along with seven other people: four men and three women. They’d stayed in New Boston just long enough to buy supplies, then they hired a local boatman to ferry them across the channel to Medsylvania. As luck would have it, the same boatman was at a table on the other side of the room; at first he pretended not to recall who I was talking about, but the jug of bearshine I bought for him and his cronies helped restore his memory. Sure, he remembered those people . . . and for a modest fee of
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200, he’d be happy to give me and my friend Mr. Roth a ride to the exact place where he’d dropped them off.

Something about me must have smelled like money. Either that, or I’d spent too much time lately with rich people. We dickered for a bit, and finally agreed that he’d get fifty colonials up front, and the rest once our feet touched dry land on the other side of the channel. I went back to our table and reported what I’d learned.

Goldstein wasn’t happy with the arrangement. “Two hundred for a lift across the channel?” he muttered, glaring at me from across the table. “Hell, we could buy our own canoe for that kind of money.”

“Sure, we can . . . but what would we do with it?” I took a drink of ale. “This guy knows exactly where he put off Joe and his pals. Chances are, they’re not far from that spot. Without knowing that, though, we could wander up and down the coast for weeks and not find them.”

Goldstein considered this for a moment, then turned to George. “Mr. Waite, if you knew where to go . . . that is, if we were to get directions from this fellow Sawyer just met . . . ?”

“Not a chance.” George shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m not about to risk my boat trying to make landfall on a shore that doesn’t have a deep harbor.
Helen
draws too much water for that sort of thing.”

“I’ll pay you . . .”

“Uh-uh.” He picked up his mug. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. Roth, but this is as far as I go.” George looked at me again. “I’ll wait until Camael”—by this he meant four days from now—“for you to do your business, but if I haven’t heard from you by then, we’re going to have to cut you loose. My people in Clarksburg are waiting for their coal, and every day I hang around here means that I lose money.”

“I understand. Thanks for being willing to wait.” I looked at Goldstein again. “So there it is, Morgan . . . Mr. Roth, I mean.” He blanched when I said his real name; George and Donny pretended not to notice. “Either we take our chances with that guy over there, or George carries us back home. Your call.”

Goldstein scowled, then slowly let out his breath. “You know I don’t have a choice,” he said quietly. “Mike . . . ?”

“I’ll stay here.” Kennedy was the only one at the table who seemed to like creek-crab stew; he was working on his second helping. Meeting Goldstein’s gaze, he went on. “Look, chief, Joe and I never got along. That’s a fact. If I go with you, he’ll just get pissed off when he sees me. You’ve got a satphone. If you run into any trouble, you call me and I’ll come to the rescue.”

Goldstein seemed so hesitant that, for a moment, I thought he was going to abort the rest of the trip. The place had clearly given him the willies—not that I blamed him—and for the first time, I think, he’d come to realize exactly what it meant to leave behind even a rough excuse for civilization and venture into the wilderness. The temptation must have been great: abandon Cassidy to whatever uncertain fate had befallen him, pay George for return passage to Leeport, then retreat to the comforts of his estate, where he could play with his horses and spend his free time making even more money.

Yet there was something within him that simply wouldn’t let this go. For better or worse, he had to see this through. Joseph Walking Star Cassidy was his friend . . . perhaps his only friend. Like it or not, he couldn’t give up.

“We’ll do it,” he murmured. “Dammit, we’ll do it.”

Without another word, he pushed back his chair, stood up, and marched across the room to the stairs. He left so suddenly that it took Kennedy a moment to remember his duty; he quickly left the table, following his boss upstairs. I wondered if his job included tucking in the boss’s bedsheets and singing him a lullaby.

George watched them go, then quietly shook his head. “Sawyer, I appreciate the work, and you won’t hear me complain about the money . . . but if you ever bring aboard someone like that again . . .”

“I hear you, man.” And indeed, I was beginning to have second thoughts about the entire business.

The boatman’s name was Merle—no last name, or at least none that he was willing to give me; “Just call me Merle,” he said—and his craft was a single-masted pirogue that he used to inspect the trotlines he’d rigged along the Midland side of the channel. Once Goldstein and I loaded our gear aboard, we cast off from the dock, with the boatman and me using the oars until we were clear of the harbor, at which point he unfurled the sail and set out across the channel.

It had rained during the night; a dense fog lay low and thick upon the water, making it difficult to see more than a few dozen yards ahead. Yet the boatman knew the channel well; he steered between the ice floes, tacking against the cool morning breeze that drifted up the river. At first he said little to us, but after a while he began to ask questions: who were we and why were we so interested in finding the guys he’d carried over to Medsylvania last Barchiel. I told Just-Call-Me-Merle that my name was Just-Call-Me-Sawyer and my friend was Just-Call-Me-Irving, and the rest was none of his business. He got the message and shut up after that.

It took a little more than an hour to cross the channel, but much longer than that to reach the place where he’d dropped off Walking Star and his companions. It turned out to be the mouth of a narrow creek, about sixty miles southwest of New Boston; the
Helen Waite
had cruised by it only yesterday. Yet George wouldn’t have been able to take his craft safely that way even if we’d known of its existence; as we glided closer, I caught sight of jagged rocks just beneath the pirogue’s flat keel. The tugboat would have run aground.

Merle lowered the sail and unshipped the oars once more, and we paddled the rest of the way to shore. We beached the pirogue just above the creek; Merle remained in his boat, not lifting a finger to help us as Goldstein and I unloaded our packs, waded through the ice-cold water, and hauled them to the rocky shore.

“You sure this is the right place?” I asked.

“Yessir. Right on this very spot, that’s where I left ’em.” Merle had produced a tobacco pouch from his jacket; as he spoke, he pulled out a chaw and tucked it into his right cheek. “Last time I saw ’em,” he said, pointing to the tree line a few yards away, “they were headed . . .” He hesitated, then grinned. “Y’know, I think I done forgot.”

I glanced at Goldstein. He reached into his jacket, pulled out his money clip, and counted out
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150. I coughed; he scowled and added another
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50. “Yeah, I think I remember now,” Merle said as he took the money. “Right thataway, through those trees.” He pointed to the thicket of faux birch that formed the tree line just a few yards from the river-bank. “That’s as much as I know.”

“Thanks.” Wading ashore, I picked up my pack. “You got a satphone code in case we need a pickup?”

“Yup.” Merle spit brown fluid into the river. “Nancy Oscar two-two-three-niner. If my ol’ lady picks up, ask for me. Just call me . . .”

“Merle. Got it. Thanks for the ride.”

“Think nothing of it.” Merle thrust an oar into the water and shoved off. “Good luck,” he called back, then he sidestroked until the prow of his boat was pointed back the way we’d come.

“Think he was being honest with us?” Goldstein was seated on a nearby boulder; he’d taken off his boots and opened his pack, and was in the process of exchanging his waterlogged socks for a dry pair. “He could have dropped us off anywhere, you know.”

“He could, but what’s the point?” I didn’t mind hiking in wet socks—they’d dry out soon enough—so I hoisted my pack and settled its straps upon my shoulders. “He knows better than to lie to us.”

“Why . . . ?”

“Because people out here in the boonies play it straight, Mr. Goldstein. Word gets around that you’re a liar, then no one trusts you anymore . . . and when the chips are down, that kind of trust is more precious than all the money you’ve got in the bank.” As I spoke, I was scanning the tall grass between us and the tree line. “Of course, you already know that, don’t you?”

He said nothing, only grunted as he relaced his boots. Once again, I doubted that Morgan Goldstein had seen much more of Coyote than what he’d viewed from the windows of a gyro. After fifty Earth-years of human colonization, almost two-thirds of the planet was unexplored; even Medsylvania barely felt the human presence. The population was growing, but the world itself was still untamed. With any luck, it would remain that way for a long time to come.

“So which way do we go?” he asked.