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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
say ought not ask him what was on his mind."
"I've got a line of credit," J.B. said. "Put up by Kirkland. Wanted to see what I
could get for it." He was conscious of Anna falling into place at his back.
Phillips hung the MAC-11 in a specialty holster at his right side. He spit at his
feet, then rubbed it away. "Kirkland's a smart man, but he's got the conscience of
a rabid dog."
"You're the first person in Hazard I've heard speak out against him."
"That's because you haven't talked to everybody in our happy little ville." Phillips
turned and walked into the room beyond. "Come on in and sit a spell."
J.B. followed the old man, noting how the hump was large enough and high
enough that it almost made Phillips look like he had two heads in the darkness.
He heard the movement around them and knew they weren't alone. He used his
peripheral vision and noted at least three more bodies.
Phillips drew a self-light across a rough cover. Light flared to life and banished
some of the shadows. He cupped the flame in his hands and moved it toward a
lantern another man held out. When the wick was burning good, the man
replaced the hurricane glass and adjusted the flame.
Light spread out over the room, illuminating tables and chairs and a couple sofas
spread out across a generous living space. Barren walls enclosed the space,
holding no windows and no decorations. Two long rectangular tables sat at one
end. Four men sat around the farthest one. All of the men had handblasters on the
table in front of them, close in beside the metal plates piled high with beans and
meat, thick chunks of carrots and potatoes. A tray of yellow corn bread acted as a
centerpiece for the table.
"Have you ate since you been in the ville?" Phillips asked.
"No."
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
"You're welcome to our table." He gestured toward the small wood stove in the
corner. Two big pots sat on the surface, steam still rising up from both. "Bread's
fresh, just out of the oven."
J.B. noted the design with interest. He'd seen many like it, had even helped build
several when he'd been a kid back in Cripple Creek. The residual heat from the
wood stove was channeled up through the flue, and a baking box was built off the
main pipe. But the flue on this stove didn't run straight up as most did. Instead, it
ran off to the side and disappeared through a wall.
"Got it run so it can't get blocked off?" the Armorer asked.
"Out back of the main building," Phillips said, nodding. "Tapped into a fireplace
of the glassmaker. He runs his ovens most of the time because he's always
making glassware. Folks use it for canning what goods they raise, and for being
sociable. We don't cook unless the glassmaker is working."
"And if he gets sick or takes a day off?" J.B. asked.
"Hardtack," one of the men at the table said, "and cold biscuits. You think we
don't say some prayers for that old glassmaker come sick season in winter, you
got yourself another think coming." He had a full beard and a thick scar over his
left eye that had blue tattooing from a gunshot fired close.
"Nobody notices you don't have a smoke flue?" J.B. asked.
"We got one," Phillips answered. "Even run smoke through it on occasion. But
tying it into our main system here and letting Kirkland and his people have us at
their mercy isn't exactly what we're willing to risk."
"I'll take a plate," J.B. said.
Phillips reached up into a cupboard and took down a metal plate. He dipped a
large portion of meat, beans and vegetables onto the plate, then took a big spoon
from a glass near the sink area and passed it over with the plate.
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
J.B. walked to the table where the other men were and sat down. One of them
shoved the bread over. "Got your own well, too?" the Armorer asked. He broke a
corn bread square and swabbed it through the bean broth.
"Of course. Have to be self-sufficient for the necessities."
J.B. bit into the corn bread, savoring the salty grease flavor of the bean broth. The
taste took him back, just as the company of rough men around him, to a time long
past. He understood the siege mentality, if not the why of it. As he ate, he began
to get a different picture of Hazard, and he didn't like what he was looking at.
Phillips sat across from him, getting into the chair with difficulty. "None of
Kirkland's people have been this far into my gun shop since we rebuilt it."
"What have you got against Kirkland?" J.B. asked. He ate with both hands on the
table, watching the company he was in. Anna stood against the wall to his left,
deliberately on the wrong side for him to make a quick draw against, and in a
position that gave her a full field of fire without endangering anyone else in the
room.
The five men in the room besides the gunsmith were all hard and rangy. They
kept their eyes on him.
"Same as most other people in the ville who kind of want to run their own lives,"
Phillips replied. "He keeps us here, won't let us go."
J.B. swept his gaze around the room. "Seems like you got yourself a small army
here. Don't see how you could be kept from leaving if that's what you decided
you wanted to do."
"Looking on the face of it, that's what you'd think. But that's just looking on the
face of it. My momma, God rest her soul, popped me out of her belly after being
exposed to a hot-rad area on an overland trip my daddy took when he should
have been seeing to it she stayed comfortable. You look at me now, you see a
man been down some hard roads. Can you imagine what I must have looked like
while I was some pissant newborn? I mean, we're born into this world ugly
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
anyway. But me?" He barked harsh laughter.
"Must have been a sight," J.B. agreed.
"Damn straight, it was." Phillips rubbed his hump as if trying to massage away
the old memory. "My daddy, he was all ready to stove in my head and be done
with it. Only Momma didn't let him. Said she'd buried enough dead births, and I
was the first one born live. Figured she had something wrong with her insides. He
left her, but she managed to keep us both alive. Turns out I was real good with
my hands. By ten and twelve years old, I was helping feed us by working on
things other people brought to us."
J.B. nodded. "You going to eat, or did I take your plate?"
"We eat in shifts," Phillips replied. "Against getting poisoned."
J.B. understood immediately. "You trade out for food?"
"Yeah. No room for a garden down here, and got no place to raise beef, either.
Gives us a certain vulnerability."
"So you eat far enough apart that the symptoms would show up?"
"Yeah."
J.B. scooped up more beef and beans, chewing it thoroughly. "And if somebody
gets poisoned?"
"Simple. I blow up the building and go out of business. Want some coffee sub to
go with that meal?"
J.B. nodded.
Phillips looked at one of the young men, who got up and took the coffeepot from
the stove. He poured a ceramic cup full, then handed it to the Armorer. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]