“She kin to the kine, as well?” Doc whispered, making Mildred giggle nervously.
Ryan half turned toward them, narrowing his eye, the angry expression on his face reducing both Mildred and Doc to instant silence.
“You outlanders? Must be. Know every fucker from Bramton and miles around. What you want?”
“Name’s Ryan Cawdor. These are some of my good friends. Passing through. Saw the sign saying you sold totems.” He pointed to it with the four-and-a-half -inch barrel of the big SIG-Sauer.
“Fancy blaster don’t mean shit. Musket ball from a self -make can chill you just as quick an’ easy.”
“You won’t find any of us arguing with that,” J.B. said, taking off the fedora, his glasses twinkling in the watery sunlight that had broken through the clouds. “Might I point something out that could be of interest?”
Ryan wondered why the Armorer was copying Doc’s old-fashioned way of speaking, guessing that J.B. had figured it might impress the thuggish woman.
“What fuck you talkin’ about?”
“Just felt you should know, lady, that one barrel of your scattergun’s blocked with mud.”
The woman stared at him with eyes that were as warm and friendly as a week-dead cod. “Lotta mistakes. I ain’t no lady. Not my scattergun. My old man’s. He’s not here. Out catfishin’ in swamps. Last thing is that it ain’t fuckin’ mud in the blaster. It’s from where I stirred the dog stew with it last night. So, you don’t know fuck. Probably have to use both hands to find your shrimp-limp dick.”
“Homecoming queen from charm school,” Jak muttered, standing at the back of the group.
Doc stepped forward to chance his arm against the slatternly harridan.
“We are but poor strangers who make our way toward the eternal city.”
“If you mean Norleans, then you’re a fuckin’ long way off the trail, you stupe old goat.”
It crossed Ryan’s mind that the best, quickest and cleanest thing to do might be to put a bullet through the brutishly low forehead and then move on.
But some of the other houses in the scattered ville were close by, and be knew how intensely tribal the Cajuns were against all outlanders. He didn’t fancy being hunted through the swamps by a gang of keen-eyed raggedy men. It had happened to him before and the memory wasn’t pleasant.
“You sell totems?” Jak asked.
“What the fuck happened to your hair, sonny?” She bellowed with laughter at the albino. “Somethin’ scare you to death? Come look at what I got inside. Might have some dye for your hair. Make you look like a fuckin’ man again.”
“You got a name?” Ryan said.
“Sure. Madame Maigris. Folks call me Mudchuck behind my back. Not to my face.”
She spun and went back inside. Ryan saw she was wearing men’s work boots under the trailing, torn hem of her ankle-length dress.
He shrugged his shoulders and led the way inside, Krysty at his heels, the rest of the group following them into the shadowed, musty ulterior.
The cold voice from the darkness stopped everyone. “No stupe moves. Nobody hurt.”
Chapter Ten
“Put your fucking pistol away, you triple-stupe old idiot. Now! Before I ram it up your skinny ass and pull both triggers. These are outlanders, interested in buying a totem or two.”
“Sorry, angel heart.”
Ryan’s eye had adjusted quickly to the dim light inside the store, focusing on the old man who was sitting in a wheel-backed rocking chair, to one side of a cobwebbed window, holding a double-barreled flintlock pistol in both his bony hands. At first glance he looked like he might be around a hundred years old.
“Man could easy get himself shot, doing something foolish as that,” Ryan snarled, conscious of how close he’d come to blowing the old man away. Part of his anger was directed inward for having walked so carelessly into the shack without taking some elementary security precautions.
“He don’t mean no harm, mister.” The arrogance and foul-mouthed hectoring vanished in a heartbeat. “Baptiste’s my fourth husband. Kind man, most times. But he got caught badly by” She hesitated, carrying on along a different tack. “Never been the same since. Repeats hisself a lot. Lost his idea of what fuckin’ time of day or night it is. Shadow of the man he was.”
“Rare blaster,” J.B. commented. “Mind if I take a look, Madame Maigris?”
“Baptiste, show the outlander your pistol.”
“My precious blaster”
“Show him or I’ll take the quirt to your chicken balls! Right now!”
The old man offered the pistol with trembling fingers. The Armorer took it and held it angled to the light that came through the open doorway, nibbing with his thumb at a dark, silvered maker’s plate.
“Dated 1815,” he said. “William Parker. Gun maker to His Majesty and the Honorable Board of Ordnance. Two thirty-three, High Holbom, London.”
“Nice, “Ryan said.
J.B. sniffed. “Was once. Give me a week in a decently equipped workshop and I could make it good.” He balanced it in his right hand. “Not charged with ball.” He peered at it. “Flint and powder, but no bullet.”
“Gimme my precious pistol,” the old man moaned, grabbing it from the Armorer and pointing it at Ryan. “Bang, you’re dead. Bang, you’re undead. They’re all undead and we’re all dead. Forever and ever. Oh, man!”
Madame Maigris reached down and slapped him across the cheek, making his false teeth rattle. “Enough,” she said, then smiled at Ryan and the others. “Shadow of the fucking man he was.”
“What are the undead?” Mildred asked.
The woman turned and offered a broader smile, marred by the dreadful state of her teeth and the nervous tic in one corner of her mouth. “Tales of old women. The buried ones who walk again. Slaves to the voodoo masters.”
“I seen them,” Jak said. “When little. Worked for baron with power. Died in fire.”
The woman looked toward the door, making a halfhearted attempt at crossing herself. “Don’t listen to those old men’s tales. Satan uses lazy tongues to spread his mischief. Look, since Baptiste gave you all such a nasty moment, least I can fucking do is make it up.”
“No need,” Ryan said. “Best we move on, anyway. We’re with a friend whose wag”
But Madame Maigris wasn’t paying much attention to him. “Place is in such a shitting filthy state. Still got some nice totems. Look around the place. Pick what you like. Free jack to you all.”
While old Baptiste sat in the corner and mumbled, smiling at his fingertips, Ryan and the others looked around the cramped little shack.
It was hard to know what most of the stuff was. Everything was covered in a layer of dust that felt oddly sticky to the touch, making you want to wipe your palms on your pants after holding anything.
Jak moved to stand by Ryan. “Lot voodoo stuff,” he whispered.
“Seen crucifixes.”
“Sure. Some upside down. Chickens’ claws. Rabbit feet. Vials dried blood. Glass eyes. Candy skulls. Corpse candles. All kinds stuff I remember.”
“Good quality, ladies and men,” the woman said, pushing her bulk between them, picking up beads and ribbons from trays, holding them out in her beefy hands.
“I don’t really see anything I fancy,” Krysty told her. “No offense.”
“None taken. Wouldn’t like to sell or trade your hair, would you, my dear?” She ran her fingers through it, making Krysty shrink from her. “Lovely, lovely color. Worth a fortune in some of the villes north and east. Or in the gaudies of Norleans. Do you a good deal on it.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Krysty said, moving away and wincing as Madame Maigris was reluctant to let her go and tugged at the fiery hair.
“Who runs the ville?” Ryan asked, edging toward the door of the fetid little hut.
“The Family,” the old man said in a surprisingly clear, firm voice.
“What family?”
“Just called the Family,” Madame Maigris replied. “Live in the big house to the north of the ville.”
She turned to Jak. “Fact is, youngster, I wondered if you was a cousin or something similar to that. Some of them got that snow hair and white skin. But I see you fuckin’ ain’t.”
“Did you say you’d give us a present?” Mildred asked. “Pretty little cross here.”
“Take it an’ welcome, dear lady. Solid gold and proof against any evil of day-stalking or night-creeping.”
The crucifix was on a slender chain that Mildred suspected was closer to brass than gold. But it was nicely worked and held a tiny figure of Christ.
“Well, thanks, Madame Maigris. I’ll take it.”
“Much use as tits on a bull,” Baptiste shouted, aiming the flintlock pistol again, waving it around dangerously close to J.B.’s face.
“Ignore him, please. Nothing else any of you would like as a memory of Madame Maigris?”
Krysty had a tiny crystal pendant on a silver chain, holding it to the door, watching the way that it seemed to glow with a yellow-green light.