Dreamsnake (5 page)

“I’ll wake her.” Merideth leaned over Jesse and kissed her lips, held her
hand, whispered her name. She took a long time to awaken, muttering and pushing
Merideth’s hands away.

“Can’t we let her sleep any longer?”

“It’s safer to wake her for a while.”

Jesse moaned, cursed softly, and opened her eyes. For a moment she stared up
at the tent, then turned her head and saw Merideth.

“Merry
…
I’m glad you’re back.” Her eyes were very
dark brown, almost black, strange with her red hair and high complexion. “Poor
Alex—”

“I know.”

Jesse saw Snake. “Healer?”

“Yes.”

Jesse gazed at her calmly, and her voice was steady. “Is my back broken?”

Merideth started. Snake hesitated, but she could not evade the directness of
the question even for a short time. Reluctantly, she nodded.

Jesse relaxed all at once, letting her head fall back, staring upward.

Merideth bent down, embracing her. “Jesse, Jesse, love, it’s
…
”
But there were no more words, and Merideth leaned silently against Jesse’s
shoulder, holding her close.

Jesse looked at Snake. “I’m paralyzed. I won’t heal.”

“I’m sorry,” Snake said. “No, I can’t see any chance.”

Jesse’s expression did not change; if she had hoped for reassurance, she did
not reveal disappointment. “I knew it was bad when we fell,” she said. “I heard
bone break.” She raised Merideth gently. “The colt?”

“He was dead when we found you. He broke his neck.”

Jesse’s voice mingled relief, regret, fear. “It was quick,” she said. “For
him.”

The pungent odor of urine spread through the tent. Jesse smelled it and
turned scarlet with shame. “I can’t live like this!” she cried.

“It’s all right, never mind,” Merideth said, and went to get a cloth.

While Merideth and Snake cleaned her, Jesse looked away and would not speak.

Alex returned warily. “The mare’s all right.” But his mind was not on the
mare. He looked at Jesse, who still lay with her head turned toward the wall,
one arm flung across her eyes.

“Jesse knows how to pick a good horse,” Merideth said, attempting
cheerfulness. The tension was brittle as glass. Both partners stared at Jesse,
but she did not move.

“Let her sleep,” Snake said, not knowing whether Jesse was asleep or not.
“She’ll be hungry when she wakes up. I hope you have something she can eat.”

Their frozen attention broke in relieved if slightly frantic activity.
Merideth rummaged in sacks and pouches and brought out dried meat, dried fruit,
a leather flask. “This is wine—can she have that?”

“She hasn’t got a serious concussion,” Snake said. “The wine should be all
right.” It might even help, she thought, unless alcohol makes her morose. “But
that jerky—”

“I’ll make broth,” Alex said. He pulled a metal pot from a jumble of
equipment, drew his knife from his belt, and began to cut a chunk of jerky into
bits. Merideth poured wine over shriveled sections of fruit. The sharp sweet
fragrance rose and Snake realized she was both thirsty and ravenous. The desert
people seemed to skip meals without noticing, but Snake had reached the oasis
two days ago—or was it three?—and she had not eaten much while sleeping off the
venom reaction. It was not good manners to ask for food or water in this region,
because it was worse manners not to offer. Manners hardly seemed important right
now. She was shaky with hunger.

“Gods, I’m hungry,” Merideth said in astonishment, as if reading Snake’s
feelings. “Aren’t you?”

“Well, yes,” Alex said reluctantly.

“And as hosts—” Apologetically, Merideth handed Snake the flask and found
more bowls, more fruit. Snake drank cool-hot spicy wine, the first gulp too
deep. She coughed; it was powerful stuff. She drank again and handed the flask
back. Merideth drank; Alex took the leather bottle and poured a generous portion
into the cooking pot. Only then did he sip the wine himself, quickly, before
taking the broth outside to the tiny paraffin stove. The desert heat was so
oppressive that they could not even feel the heat of the flame. It flickered
like a transparent mirage against the black sand, and Snake felt fresh
perspiration sliding down her temples and between her breasts. She wiped her
sleeve across her forehead.

They breakfasted on jerky and fruit, and the wine, which struck quickly and
hard. Alex began to yawn almost immediately, but every time he nodded, he
staggered to his feet and went outside to stir Jesse’s broth.

“Alex, go to sleep,” Merideth finally said.

“No, I’m not tired.” He stirred, tasted, took the pot off the fire, set it
inside to cool.

“Alex—” Merideth took his hand and drew him to the patterned rug. “If she
calls us, we’ll hear her. If she moves, we’ll go to her. We can’t help her if
we’re falling over our own feet from weariness.”

“But I
…
I
…
” Alex shook
his head, but fatigue and the wine stayed with him. “What about you?”

“Your night was harder than my ride. I need to relax a few more minutes, but
then I’ll come to bed.”

Reluctantly, gratefully, Alex lay down nearby. Merideth stroked his hair
until, in a few moments, Alex began to snore. Merideth glanced at Snake and
smiled. “When he first came with us, Jesse and I wondered how we could ever
sleep with such a noise. Now we can hardly sleep without it.”

Alex’s snore was loud and low, and every so often he caught his breath and
snuffled. Snake smiled. “You can get used to nearly anything, I guess.” She took
one last sip of wine and returned the flask. Merideth, reaching for it, suddenly
hiccupped, then, blushing, stoppered the bottle instead of drinking.

“Wine affects me too easily. I should never use it.”

“At least you know. You probably never make a fool of yourself.”

“When I was younger—” Merideth laughed at memories. “I was foolish then, and
poor as well. A bad combination.”

“I can think of better.”

“Now we’re rich, and I’m perhaps a little less foolish. But what good is it
all, healer? Money can’t help Jesse. Nor wisdom.”

“You’re right,” Snake said. “They can’t help her, and neither can I. Only you
and Alex can.”

“I know it.” Merideth’s voice was soft and sad. “But it will take Jesse a
long time to get used to that.”

“She’s alive, Merideth. The accident came so close to killing her—isn’t it
enough to be grateful for, that she’s alive?”

“To me, yes, it is.” The words had begun to slur. “But you don’t know Jesse.
Where she’s from, why she’s here—” Merideth stared groggily at Snake,
hesitating, then plunging ahead. “She’s here because she can’t stand to be
trapped. Before we were together, she was rich and powerful and safe. But her
whole life and all her work were planned out for her. She would have been one of
the rulers of Center—”

“The city!”

“Yes, it was all hers, if she wanted it. But she didn’t want to live under a
stone sky. She came outside with nothing. To make her own destiny. To be free.
Now— the things she enjoys most will be beyond her. How can I tell her to be
glad she’s alive, when she knows she’ll never walk on the desert again, or find
me a diamond for some patron’s earring, never gentle another horse, never make
love?”

“I don’t know,” Snake said. “But if you and Alex see her life as a tragedy,
that’s what it will be.”

Just before dawn the heat eased slightly, but as soon as it grew light the
temperature rose again. The camp was in deep shade, but even in the protection
of the rock walls the heat was like a pressure.

Alex snored and Merideth slept peacefully near him, oblivious to the sound,
one strong hand curled over Alex’s back. Snake lay on the tent floor, facedown,
arms outstretched. The fine fibers in the pile of the rug prickled softly
against her cheek, damp with her sweat. Her hand throbbed but she could not
sleep, and she did not have the energy to rouse herself.

She drifted into a dream in which Arevin appeared. She could see him more
clearly than she could remember him when she was awake. It was a curious dream,
childishly chaste. She barely touched Arevin’s fingertips, and then he began to
fade away. Snake reached for him desperately. She woke up throbbing with sexual
tension, her heart racing.

Jesse stirred. For a moment Snake did not move, then, reluctantly, she raised
herself. She glanced at the other two partners. Alex slept soundly with the
momentary forgetfulness of youth, but sheer weariness lined Merideth’s face and
sweat plastered down the shiny, black curls. Snake left Merideth and Alex alone
and knelt by Jesse, who lay face down as they last had turned her, her cheek
resting on one hand, her other hand shielding her eyes.

She’s feigning sleep, Snake thought, for the line of her arm, the curl of her
fingers, showed not relaxation but tension. Or wishing it, like me. Both of us
would like to sleep, sleep and ignore reality.

“Jesse,” she said softly, and again, “Jesse, please.”

Jesse sighed and let her hand fall to the sheet.

“There’s broth here when you feel strong enough to drink it. And wine, if
you’d like.”

A barely perceptible shake of the head, though Jesse’s lips were dry. Snake
would not allow her to become dehydrated, but she did not want to have to argue
her into eating, either.

“It’s no good,” Jesse said.

“Jesse—”

Jesse reached out and laid her hand over Snake’s. “No, it’s all right. I’ve
thought about what’s happened. I’ve dreamed about it.” Snake noticed that her
dark brown eyes were flecked with gold. The pupils were very small. “I can’t
live like this. Neither can they. They’d try—they’d destroy themselves trying.
Healer—”

“Please
…
” Snake whispered, afraid again, more
afraid than she had ever been in her life. “Please don’t—”

“Can’t you help me?”

“Not to die,” Snake said. “Don’t ask me to help you die!”

She bolted to her feet and outside. The heat slammed against her, but there
was nowhere to go to escape it. The canyon walls and tumbled piles of broken
rock rose up around her.

Head down, trembling, with sweat stinging her eyes, Snake stopped and
collected herself. She had acted foolishly and she was ashamed of her panic. She
must have frightened Jesse, but she could not yet make herself return and face
her. She walked farther from the tent, not toward the desert where the sun and
sand would waver like a fantasy, but toward a pocket in the canyon wall that was
fenced off as a corral.

It seemed to Snake hardly necessary to pen the horses at all, for they stood
in a motionless group, heads down, dusty, lop-eared. They did not even flick
their tails; no insects existed in the black desert. Snake wondered where
Merideth’s handsome bay mare was. These are a sorry lot of beasts, she thought.
Hanging on the fence or lying in careless heaps, their tack shone with precious
metal and jewels. Snake put her hands on one of the roped wooden stakes and
rested her chin on her fists.

At the sound of falling water she turned, startled. At the other side of the
corral, Merideth filled a leather trough held up by a wooden frame. The horses
came alive, raising their heads, pricking their ears. They started across the
sand, trotting, then cantering, all in a turmoil, squealing and nipping and
kicking up their heels at each other. They were transformed. They were
beautiful.

Merideth stopped nearby, holding the limp, empty waterskin, looking at the
small herd rather than at Snake. “Jesse has a gift with horses. Choosing them,
training them
…
What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. I must have upset her. I had no right—”

“To tell her to live? Maybe you don’t, but I’m glad you did.”

“It doesn’t matter what I tell her,” Snake said. “She has to want to live
herself.”

Merideth waved and yelled. The horses nearest the water shied away, giving
the others a chance to drink. They jostled each other, draining the trough dry,
then standing near it and waiting expectantly for more. “I’m sorry,” Merideth
said. “That’s all for now.”

“You must have to carry a great deal of water for them.”

“Yes, but we need all of them. We come in with water and we go out with the
ore and the stones Jesse finds.” The bay mare put her head over the rope fence
and nuzzled Merideth’s sleeve, stretching to be scratched behind the ears and
under the jaw. “Since Alex came with us we travel with more
…
things.
Luxuries. Alex said we’d impress people that way, so they’d want to buy from
us.”

“Does it work?”

“It seems to. We live very well now. I can choose my commissions.”

Snake stared at the horses, who wandered one by one to the shady end of the
corral. The vague glow of the sun had crept up over the edge of the wall, and
Snake could feel the heat on her face.

“What are you thinking?” Merideth asked.

“How to make Jesse want to live.”

“She won’t live uselessly. Alex and I love her. We’d take care of her no
matter what. But that isn’t enough for her.”

“Does she have to walk to be useful?”

“Healer, she’s our prospector.” Merideth looked at Snake sadly. “She’s tried
to teach me how to look and where to look. I understand what she tells me, but
when I go out I’m as likely as not to find nothing but fused glass and fool’s
gold.”

“Have you showed her your job?”

“Of course. We can each do a little of the other’s work. But we each have a
talent. She’s better at my job than I am at hers and I’m better at hers than
either of us is at Alex’s, but people don’t understand her designs. They’re too
strange. They’re beautiful.“ Merideth sighed, holding out a bracelet for Snake
to see, the only ornament Merideth wore. It was silver, without stones,
geometric and multilayered without being bulky. Merideth was right: it was
beautiful, but it was strange. ”No one will buy them. She knows that. I’d do
anything. I’d lie to her, if it would help. But she’d know. Healer—“ Merideth
flung the waterskin to the sand. ”Isn’t there anything you can do?“