Read Online Coyote Rising by Allen Steele - Free Book Online Page B

fault that she was disturbed. Someone had hurt her a long time ago, and now . . .
    “Excuse me. I think I need to visit the privy.” Allegra pushed back her chair, stood up. “If you’d gather the dishes and put ’em over there, I’ll wash them tomorrow.”
    “Okay.” Sissy continued to stare at her. “If there’s any food left, can I give it to my chickens?”
    “Sure. Why not?” She tried not to laugh. Her best friend was a lunatic who cared more about her damn birds than anything else. “I’ll be back,” she said, then opened the door and stepped outside.
    The night was darker than she’d expected; a thick blanket of clouds had moved across the sky, obscuring the wan light cast by Bear. She regretted not having carried a lamp with her, yet the privy was located only a couple of dozen feet behind her house, and she knew the way even in the dark.
    She was halfway across the backyard, though, when she heard the soft crackle of a foot stepping upon dry grass, somewhere close behind her.
    Allegra stopped, slowly turned . . . and a rod was thrust against her chest. “Hold it,” a voice said, very quietly. “Don’t move.”
    Against the darkness, she detected a vague form. The rod was a rifle barrel; of that she was certain, although she couldn’t see anything else. “Sure, all right,” she whispered, even as she realized that the voice had spoken in English. “Please don’t hurt me.”
    “We won’t, if you cooperate.” We won’t? That meant there were others nearby. “Where’s Cecelia?”
    “I don’t . . .” It took Allegra a moment to realize that he meant Sissy. “She’s gone. I don’t know where she is . . . maybe at the fiesta.”
    By then her eyes had become dark-adapted, and she could make out the figure a little better: a bearded young man, probably in his early twenties, wearing a catskin serape, his eyes shaded by a broad hat. She carefully kept her hands in sight, and although he didn’t turn it away from her, at least he stepped back a little when he saw that she wasn’t armed.
    “I rather doubt that,” he murmured. “She doesn’t go into town much.”
    “How would you know?”
    A pause. “Then you know who I am.”
    “I’ve got a good idea. . . .”
    “Get this over, man,” a voice whispered from behind her. “We’re running out of—”
    “Calm down.” The intruder hesitated, his head briefly turning toward her cabin. “Is she in there?” She didn’t answer. “Call her out.”
    “No. Sorry, but I won’t.”
    He let out his breath. “Look, I’m not going to hurt her, or you either. I just want to talk to—”
    “She doesn’t want to talk to you.” Allegra remembered the com Chris had given her. It was on her bedside table, where she had put it before she had taken her afternoon nap. Even if she could get to it, she wasn’t sure how much difference it would make. The Proctors were a long way off, and these men sounded as if they were anxious to leave. “If you want to speak to her, you’re going to have to go in there yourself.”
    He took a step toward the cabin. “Carlos, damn it!” the one behind her snapped. “We don’t have time for this! Let’s go!”
    Carlos. Now she knew who he was, even if she had only suspected it before: Carlos Montero, one of the original settlers. The teenager who had sailed alone down the Great Equatorial River, charting the southern coast of Midland the year after the Alabama arrived. Like the other colonists, he’d vanished into the wilderness when the Glorious Destiny showed up. Now he was back.
    “So you’re Rigil Kent,” she whispered. “Glad to make your acquaintance.”
    “Guess they found my note.” He chuckled softly. “I imagine Chris doesn’t have much good to say about me.”
    “Neither does his mother. Please, just leave her alone.”
    “Look, I don’t want to push this.” He lowered his gun. “Would you just deliver a message . . . ?”
    “Damn it!” Now the second