Read Online A Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak - Free Book Online

I need upon my back.”
    â€œI have against the trip a ham, a slab of bacon, flour, salt, blankets, a spyglass.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘spyglass’?”
    â€œA double-barreled spyglass.”
    â€œBinoculars, you mean.”
    â€œFrom long ago,” she said. “Paid as a fee by a man who was very much afraid and came to seek my help.”
    â€œBinoculars would be handy,” Cushing said.
    â€œThere, you see. I would not hold you up. I am spry of foot and Andy is a fey horse. He can slip along so softly he is never noticed. And you, noble seeker of a legend, would not leave a helpless woman …”
    He snorted. “Helpless,” he said.
    â€œSo, laddie, you must see that we could be of aid to one another. You with your prowess and Old Meg with her powers—”
    â€œNo,” he said.
    â€œLet us go down to the house,” she said. “There we’ll find a modicum of buckwheat flour to make some cakes, a jug of sorghum, perhaps a slice of ham. While we eat, you can tell me about this thing you seek and we will lay our plans.”
    â€œI’ll eat your cakes,” he said, “but it will gain you nothing. You are not going with me.”

8
    They set out with the first light of the rising moon. Cushing took the lead, pondering how it had come about that he had agreed to let Meg come along. He had kept on saying no and she had kept on saying yes and here they were, the two of them together. Could it have been witchery? he asked himself. If that should be the case—it might be, after all—it could be all right to have her with him. If she could perform witchery on others as well as she had on him, perhaps it was all right.
    Although, it was cumbersome, he told himself. One man could slip through the woods with no thought for anyone but himself, could keep a low profile, could travel as he willed. This was not possible with two people and a horse. Especially with the horse. He should have said, he knew, “It’s all right for you to come along, but the horse must stay behind.” Face to face with Andy, he’d not been able to say it. He could no more have abandoned Andy than all those years ago he could have abandoned the animals when he left the coulee.
    Meg had said that Andy was a fey horse and Cushing did not know about that, but when one laid eyes upon him, it could be seen that he was a loving and a trusting horse. A humble horse, as well, with no illusions about being a noble charger. A patient animal that relied on human kindness and consideration. He was a bag of bones, but despite that, there was about him a certain air of competency.
    Cushing headed southwesterly, striking for the Minnesota River valley, as Meg had said they should. The Minnesota was a small, meandering stream that wriggled like a snake between low bluffs to join the Mississippi at a little distance south of where, the night before, he had crossed the larger river. The valley was heavily wooded and would afford good cover, although following its windings would add many miles to the westward journey.
    He wondered, thinking of it, where they might be going. Somewhere in the West; that was all he knew. That was all Wilson had known. But how far west and in what part of the West? On the nearby high plains, or in the foothills of the Rockies, or even in the great southwestern deserts? Blind, he told himself, so blind a seeking that when one thought of it, it seemed an errant madness. Meg, when he had told her of the Place, thought that she could recall once hearing such a legend, but she could not remember when she’d heard it or whom she’d heard it from. But she had not scoffed at it; she was too glad of a chance to flee the city to engage in any scoffing. Somewhere along the way, perhaps, they’d be able to pick up further word of it. As they went west there might be someone they’d encounter who had further word of it. That is, if there were