Free Children of the Gates by Andre Norton

while the tail beat the sandy soil.
    Nick wanted to use the flashlight he had taken from his saddlebags. But, though he longed to see what had so affected the cat, he did not want to run the risk of drawing the attention of what might be prowling out there.
    He could hear nothing at all except what were, as far as he could tell, normal noises of the night. What Jeremiah could see, or hear, remained lost to his less efficient senses.
    The cat cowered to the ground, tail still. He no longer growled. Across the sky something large and dark moved silently. There was a slow, single flap of wings, and it was gone. Jeremiah streaked back, leaping Nick’s knees to reach the interior of the shelter.
    But the sound that followed his return—Was it laughter? Not loud, hardly above an evil chuckle, it sounded. And it seemed to Nick to come out of the air, not from ground level. That flying thing? Nick drew on logic, reason—though logic and reason from the past had little to do with this world. How much was real, how much imagination?
    Now that it was morning and they were preparing to leave, he found disbelief easier.
    “Too bad you’re havin’ to leave your fine big bike.” Mrs. Clapp was inducing Jeremiah to enter a woven basket, a form of imprisonment he was protesting. The cat turned his head suddenly and seized her hand between his jaws, though he did not apply the pressure of a true bite.
    “Now, now. would you be left here, old man?” She scratched behind Jeremiah’s ears. “Get in with no more fuss about it. It is me who’ll have the carryin’ as you well know. An’ when have I ever made it the worse for you?”
    She closed the lid, fastened it with quick efficiency.
    “Yes.” She spoke to Nick again. “A fine big bike an’ one that cost you a good penny too, if I have eyes in m’ head to guess. This country’s not for ridin’ though—less’n we get ourselves some of the white ones—”
    “White ones?” He slung his saddlebags together over his shoulder and turned his back on the bike, trying to put it out of mind.
    “Them what belong to the People. Ah, a fine proud sight they are, ridin’ on their white ones. Horses those are, or enough like horses to give ’em the name. We’ve seen ’em twice at their ridin’, always between the goin’ of the sun an’ the comin’ of dark. A fine sight.” She reached for a small pack to one side, but Nick had his hand on it before her fingers closed on its carrying loop.
    “You have enough to look after with Jeremiah,” he said.
    Mrs. Clapp chuckled. “That I have. A big old man he is—ten years about. No . . .” Her round eyes showed a trace of distress. “Over forty years back—that’s how you said it now, didn’t you? Forty years—that I can’t believe somehow. Almost a hundred and ten that would make me, an’ I’m no granny in front of a fire. An’ Jeremiah—by rights he’d be long gone. But he’s here an’ I’m as spry as ever. So I ain’t goin’ to believe in your forty years.”
    “Why should you?” Nick returned. “It’s a time that does not hold here, that’s certain. I read something once—does time pass us, or do we pass it? And we can add to that now—how fast or slow?”
    “Slow, I’ll speak up for the slow!” She smiled. “Ah, now, hand me over m’ collectin’ tote. I’ll just have that handy. It’s a good lot of things to fill the stomach snug, like you can find just marchin’ along. Drop ’em into a stew an’ you’ll be smackin’ your lips an’ passin’ up your bowl for more.”
    She slung the woven grass band supporting what was a cross between a basket and a tote bag made of reeds over her stooped shoulder. And, with Jeremiah’s basket firmly in hand, trotted out, Nick following.
    They all carried by shoulder bands, or knapsack fashion, similar bags. And Nick noted each also kept close to hand the iron defense, either in the form of one of the small tools from the jeep, or, in the case of Stroud, a