Dreamsnake by Vonda D. McIntyre Read Free Book Online Page B

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