Way of the Wolf

by James Axler

  The albino nodded, understanding.

  "What about me, Dad?" Dean asked.

  Ryan looked at his son. Since his return from the Nicholas Brody School and the experiences they'd been through of late, Dean appeared steadier, more mature. "Feel up to a little recce?"

  Dean smiled. "Sure."

  "Jak?" Ryan asked, shifting his gaze to the teenager. "Your call."

  The albino looked at Dean. "You listen? Move when say move? Quiet when say quiet?"

  "Yeah."

  Jak turned back to Ryan and nodded. "Look for anything special?"

  "Horses," Ryan answered, "in case we have to leave quick. Any gear we might need in a hurry if we don't have to dicker for it. Self-heats, ring-pulls, road rations." He flicked his eye over to J.B. "You going to take a look at the gunsmith's?"

  "When we finish up here," J.B. replied, "I planned on that being the next place we go. If it's open, I'll give it a look, see what's what. You going to be around?"

  "Somewhere. I'll be close." Ryan tossed the Armorer a key. J.B. caught it with a quick flick of his hand, then opened the door and guided Mildred into the room they were going to share. "Jak, you and Dean okay with a room to yourselves?"

  The albino nodded, and caught the key Ryan threw him. "We go in, get settled. Get gone soon."

  "Hey, Dad," Dean said, "what if I find something I want?"

  "Come talk to me. Mebbe we'll figure something out."

  Ryan turned to Doc. "You and Albert feel okay about bunking up?"

  "Verily, my dear Ryan," Doc responded, "I find I enjoy my small companion's versatility for conversation. Our companionship for the nonce will be quite pleasant."

  "I'll take your word for it." Ryan tossed the old man a key. "You going to be around?"

  "In the ville," Doc replied, "there's a place called Cobb's that has a reputation for good literature and fine wine."

  "Keep your ass covered."

  "Tighter than the proverbial duck's," Doc said.

  Ryan followed Krysty into the room. She sat on the bed, pulling off the second of her stitched blue cowboy boots. She wiggled her toes luxuriously.

  "We've got to see if they have something that passes for a general store in the ville, lover," she said with a grimace after she examined her boots. "And mebbe get a new pair of heels. These are tore all to pieces."

  Ryan nodded and crossed the room. He moved the curtain from the window overlooking the balcony. The air inside the room was thick and unmoving. He opened the balcony door and felt the circulation improve almost immediately.

  A horse-drawn wag parked out on the street in front of a building with a sign that read Mercantile. The driver tied up his reins and climbed out of the wag, walking across the uneven wooden boardwalk. Three boys joined him, walking just behind him.

  Ryan shifted his gaze, taking in as much of the ville as he could.

  "What's on your mind?" Krysty asked.

  "Trader always had a saying," Ryan said, "about how calm water covered everything. Even a man drowning in it." He nodded at the ville. "I look out there, all I see is calm water when things should be muddied up some. Kirkland calls the tune in this ville, and everybody else seems to dance. Me, I'd kind of like to know what the piper's got under his sleeve."

  Krysty joined Ryan at the window. She ran her fingers across his hard, flat stomach. Ryan liked the feel of her, and liked thinking about the clean bed and the possibility of a bath and whatever came after. He took her hand in his, splaying his fingers between hers and holding tight.

  "Mebbe it's only calm water out there," she suggested.

  "Mebbe," Ryan agreed. But the uniform calmness about the ville unnerved him. Liberty had been a cunning, heartless bastard. It gave a man pause for some reflection thinking about what tied a man like Kirkland to Liberty. And he wasn't going to forget Albert's story about the wholesale slaughter anytime soon.

  A discreet knock sounded at the door.

  Krysty disengaged from Ryan. "Yes," she called.

  Ryan glanced at the young maid standing in the doorway. The girl's eyes were brazen and bold, meeting his own with no shyness.

  "I've got your water on the way up, ma'am," the maid said. "Aunt Maim asked me to tell you and your man that she'd enjoy your company for supper tonight. She said to tell you that she understood it was short notice and everything."

  "When?" Ryan asked.

  "At eight o'clock," the maid replied. "After the evening church services."

  "Sure," Ryan said. He glanced at his chron. "How long is that from now?"

  "A couple hours." The maid covered a faked cough, then trailed her fingers down the gap in her blouse. Another button had evidently come loose on her trip down and back up the stairs. "She has some clothing you can borrow for tonight. She likes to have something of a formal dinner. Gussied up and all."

  "Tell her we'll accept," Krysty said. "Have you got a kitchen available?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Cook is one of the best in these parts. Aunt Maim wouldn't have no other. A lot of people in the ville set store by her larder and the meals we serve out each day."

  "What have you got in the way of fresh fruit and cheeses?"

  "Apples and pears," the maid replied. "And we've got a half dozen different cheeses."

  "I'd like a plate sent up shortly after the bathwater," Krysty said.

  "Yes, ma'am. Aunt Maim said to tell you she had some rhubarb wine if you've a mind to sample some. She said you might be hungry from your trip, too. But she said to save some space for dinner because she's having Cook do some special dishes."

  "Tell her thank you for us," Krysty said.

  The maid nodded, her eyes still focused entirely on Ryan. "It's Chastity," she stated.

  "What?" Ryan asked.

  "My name," the maid replied. "It's Chastity."

  "I'll remember that."

  "You do it," she said without hesitation. "I'll see to it you get anything you want. Aunt Maim told me to make sure your stay at the inn was a good one. Told me to see to it personal."

  Krysty crossed the room and closed the door in the maid's face. She turned back to Ryan, her face reflecting her amusement. "Guess we don't have to wonder where she's coming from."

  "No," Ryan agreed. The girl's attentions didn't affect him. A strong man in Deathlands brought out the sexuality in a woman looking for somebody to protect her when she knew she couldn't do the job herself. She was only reacting the way she'd trained herself to react. "Guess she outgrew her name some time ago."

  "Doubt if she remembers the passage."

  "Be interesting to find out if any of the others got the same invitation we got."

  Krysty nodded. "If you run into little Miss Big Eyes outside—"

  "I'll tell her she's late with the hot water."

  "You do that."

  Ryan grinned, then let himself into the hallway, relieved when he saw the maid was nowhere around. He knocked on J.B.'s door.

  "Who's knocking?" the Armorer called out.

  "Me," Ryan replied.

  "Come ahead."

  Ryan opened the door carefully. J.B. wasn't a man to creep up on.

  The Armorer stood in the center of the room on the table. A bed slat blocked the balcony door from sliding open. J.B. worked the curtain cord through a bent nail sticking out from the ceiling. The nail was obviously in a new position.

  "Redecorating?" Ryan asked.

  J.B. shot him a wry glance. "We walked into this whitewashed ville, doesn't mean angels live here. I'm just taking a few precautions to make sure we get to walk back out of here."

  Mildred came back out of the bathroom. "Running water would help things, but sleeping high and dry is a good enough thought for the moment. They got a pitcher of fresh water in there if you're dry, John." She nodded at Ryan. "Making a social call?"

  "Krysty and me got invited to dinner tonight. Wondered if you'd been treated to the same invitation."

  J.B. shook his head. "I got plans to see the gunsmith. Mildred and I
will figure something out for ourselves."

  "Probably wouldn't be a problem to set an extra plate or two."

  "I kind of like the idea of spreading ourselves out a little more," the Armorer said. "Get what we need as fast as we can, get ourselves set up to leave if trouble comes along." He stepped off the table and grabbed the curtain cord. Then he took up the M-4000.

  "Dinner's at eight. To be sociable, we'll probably hang around until ten and talk. We get any later than that, come looking. If you're not in by then, I'll do the same."

  "Sounds good." J.B. sat the straight-backed, wooden chair on the table. He cradled the shotgun across it, pointing at the door. A couple lashes of another piece of the curtain cord secured it into place. Then he threaded the long cord through the nail and through the trigger guard, as well, fixing it so a drawer from the chest of drawers worked as a counterweight to pull the trigger. He attached the cord to the doorknob.

  Ryan observed the setup. It wasn't anything fancy or elaborate, just deadly. And that was all it had to be. When the door was opened by anyone who didn't know the shotgun was in place, they'd get blasted stepping into the room.

  "If you come by later," J.B. said meaningfully, "you want to make sure you knock."

  Chapter Six

  "Those guys still following us?"

  Jak glanced over at Dean, as if he were talking to the boy, but actually he used the reflection in the glass of a leather worker's shop on the other side to check on the three men trailing them. There was no sign of the deputy that had first trailed them from the inn. "How many you find?"

  "Three," Dean answered.

  "Three's right." Jak ran a hand across his clothing, touching the hafts of his hidden knives. "Now, which three?"

  "A test?" Dean grinned at his companion.

  "Mebbe. Good to know if we agree on targets."

  Some of the smile left Dean's face. "You think they're going to try to brace us? Wouldn't that be bastard stupe after what Kirkland and the sheriff said?"

  "Stupe to ignore possibility," Jak argued. "Mebbe these friends with Liberty. Mebbe found after we get here."

  Dean nodded. "Guy behind us on the right side of the street. Got a limp in his left leg. Man directly behind us. I keep track of him by that stinking cigar he's smoking. And the guy up ahead of us carrying the bull-snake whip with the silver handle. Mighty stupe to carry something that lights up so well after dark."

  "Those are three," Jak said. "Good eye. See deputy anywhere?"

  Dean shook his head.

  "Got ask where he is."

  "The sheriff did make a big deal out of the fact that we were going to be followed everywhere, didn't he?"

  "Yeah."

  "Not likely that he lost us in all this rush of folks out this late at night, is it?"

  Jak looked at the empty streets. A few of the windows spilled warm yellow light out onto the wooden boardwalks. The sound of music came from up ahead, punctuated by the roar of drunken voices and ragged cheers. "Not likely," he agreed.

  "It's going to be hard to get away from these guys and get a look at those stables," Dean said.

  Jak knew that. He was already working on resolving the problem. If it had been just him, he probably could have melted into one of the shadows getting fat between the buildings. And maybe Dean was even good enough to avoid detection the same way, if they'd been out in the rough, in the trees and underbrush that were a lot more forgiving of a wrong move than the straight lines and angles of a villescape.

  "Mebbe not," the albino said. "Want look at girls?" He pointed his chin toward the gaudy house in front of them. The open door spewed the piano music and bawdy talk out onto the street.

  Dean tried to keep a smile from his face. "Okay." He struggled to sound complacent, but Jak could hear the excitement in the younger boy's voice.

  "Like girls, Dean?" Jak asked.

  "Sure. I mean, who wouldn't?"

  "Girls can be rattlesnake mean," the albino warned.

  "Guys can be a lot meaner."

  "Yeah." Jak nodded. "But not matter how pretty guy is, if you not turned that way. Think wrong about girl, your head all stupe inside. Think so much, forget rattlesnake mean. Till wake up, find dick laying on chest."

  "Don't have to be like that. You had Christina for a while."

  Jak closed off the pain he still felt from his wife's and daughter's deaths. Even his acceptance that such things happened didn't let him completely forget. He was strong enough to move on afterward, and strong enough every now and then to spend quiet moments thinking about them, wondering how his life might have been different. "Not always like that," he admitted. "Enough like that, don't let many close."

  "I understand that." Dean paused at the doorway, peering in over the bat-wing doors.

  A big man with a shaved head and a huge walrus mustache graying at the ends stepped forward through the bat-wing doors. He wore a leather vest with fringe and had incredibly hairy shoulders. He carried a billy club in one hand, waving it slightly like he was really looking forward to using it. "Something I can do for you two?" he asked.

  "We come to see the show," Dean said. His eyes were locked on the naked dancer twirling around a brass pole mounted on the center stage inside the small, low-ceilinged room.

  The bald man studied them in an exaggerated fashion, then kept his eyes on Dean. "You look a little young for the Brass Ass, boys."

  Jak lowered his hand to the butt of the .357 pistol. "Used to going my own way."

  A distasteful look covered the bald man's face. "No reason to go getting all heated up."

  "Standing in doorway. Cover charge fine. You making decision not."

  "I'm not looking for any trouble, friend," the bald man said.

  "Me, neither," Jak replied. "Looking kill time, not man."

  "Fuck! It don't take much to put you on the prod, does it?" The big man took a step back.

  "No." Jak took the step forward. His hand never left the Magnum blaster. Ryan didn't want any trouble in the ville until they figured out the way of it, but the albino wasn't used to walking away from trouble. "Got cover charge?"

  "Cost you some jack."

  "Know Dr. Kirkland?" Jak asked.

  "Yeah, sure." The big man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "The doc's inside. He's a regular. Everybody knows him."

  "Kirkland paying."

  The big man looked like he didn't believe it. "Mebbe we ought to go ask the doc."

  Jak nodded. "Go with you."

  Unhappily the big man led the way into the building. Smoke wreathed the room, tainting the smell of everything. The albino's nose wrinkled in protest at the stink of soured sweat and stale beer, and he could already feel the acrid stench of the smoke burning at his nasal passages. He stayed close to the big man, watching as he signaled two other men who approached quickly.

  The room was laid out in an H, and the crossbar of the letter pattern was the runway jutting from the center of the curtained stage. As with every other building in the ville, this one had been cobbled together from bits and pieces of other buildings and houses. The pieces fit well together, though.

  With the low ceiling, everything in the room seemed closer, including the naked girl on the runway. Her skin resembled warm, burnished butter with the glow of oil lanterns flooding over it. The shadows battled the light, even the glow of the lanterns hanging from the semicircle in front of the stage, and clung to the girl. The effect made her even more erotic in appearance.

  She was in her late teens, baby fat still clinging to her hips, thighs and breasts. Her dark brown hair was razored close, cut just above her eyebrows and flowing down even with the line of her jaw. She wore only an orange bikini bottom, leaving her full breasts swinging free. As she swung to the music played by the pianist in the far corner of the room, she hooked her fingers in the bikini straps and tugged them up, offering momentary glimpses of the fleecy down barely covered by the material. Her smile was plastic, and the bumps and grinds she offered were for the
jack only.

  Dean's steps became a little awkward as they made their way through the mazes of tables and chairs. Invective followed them as they blocked the views of the onlookers.

  Jak's hand closed around his blaster's butt. Gunplay wasn't on his agenda, but he wasn't going to be manhandled, either. He locked eyes with the bald man. "Kirkland," the albino reminded him. "Somebody draws on me, you first die. Won't miss."

  For a moment the bald man hesitated, swallowing hard. He waved to the two approaching men again, keeping them back. He resumed his path through the tables.

  Kirkland sat up front in a private booth. The doctor, now in dark pants and an open-throated shirt, sat alone in the booth. His attention was focused entirely on the dancing girl, only diverting momentarily to the glass in front of him.

  The bald man approached Kirkland and leaned down to whisper into his ear.

  Jak glanced around the room, knowing he and Dean were drawing more than their share of attention. A look back at the doorway confirmed the three men had followed them in from the street. He rested his gaze on Dean for a moment.

  All of Dean's attention was riveted on the dancer, who was almost peeling the bikini bottom, one hand disappearing into her pants in a frenzy of suggestive movement. The girl's face wrinkled up in a pantomime of lust.

  "You like the girls?" Jak asked.

  "Oh, yeah," Dean answered.

  "Never showed much interest before. What teach at school?"

  "Didn't get to this part," Dean replied.

  Jak studied the younger boy, getting a flash of insight the way he sometimes did. "Was girl at school?"

  Dean shook his head. "Not rightly."

  From the way Dean answered, Jak knew he wasn't getting all the story. Dean sometimes talked with Ryan and Krysty about things that had happened at the school, and even went over some of the schoolwork he'd learned with Doc, which led to long conversations that Dean seemed more interested in than he'd showed before.

  Kirkland looked up at Jak and Dean, then waved them over with a smile on his face. The bald man held up a hand, stopping the approach of the other men.

  Jak led the way to the table, aware that he was drawing attention from the other men in the room. He sat in one of the proffered chairs across from Kirkland. Dean took another.