“Everything cool, strangers?”
Ryan nodded to her. “Everything’s fine. Dry handed. All right if we set down?”
“Sure. Make yourself at home. Jerky and beans and creamed potatoes all around?”
Ryan glanced at the others, getting nods from everyone. “Sounds fine.”
“You come far, mister?” the old man asked as they arranged themselves at two of the remaining tables.
“Enough. We’re traders. Travel in clothes of all sorts. Had us some bad luck. Lost our rig into a swollen river about three days back. South of here.”
Mom had been on her way through a pair of dirty bat-wing doors toward the kitchen out back. Now she halted. “That mean you’re out of jack?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
Ryan nodded. “Sure I’m sure.”
“We had us some trouble with outlanders. Ate their fill and then sat there calm as sunshine on a cloudy day and told me they can’t pay.”
“What happened to them?” J.B. asked, assiduously polishing his glasses on a corner of the check tablecloth.
“They paid.”
The taller of the trappers finished the dregs of a mug in front of him. “Everyone gets to pay at Mom’s Place. One fuckin’ way or another.”
He laughed, joined by his companion. Ryan observed that none of the three younger men at the table together had shown a flicker of expression since they came in.
“You boys done?” the woman asked. “Want it added on your slate?”
Chairs scraped back, and the muskets were picked up. “Yeah, Mom. Be good. We’ll be back in ten days.”
“Unless the Apaches get you first,” the old man said quietly.
“You got Indian trouble around here?” Krysty asked, absently wiping a fork on the cloth.
The woman sniffed. “Some. Say, that’s some right pretty hair you got there, missy. Closest thing I ever saw to a tumble of living fire.”
“The heathen are losing their race against the forces of righteousness,” one of the young men said.
“Amen,” the other two chorused, crossing themselves.
“You fellows anything to do with the Children of the Rock?” Ryan asked.
There was a sudden stillness in the eatery that you could have carved wafer thin.
The hunters stopped, right by the door, faces turned from Ryan to Mom to the trio of men. The old-timer was frozen in the act of sipping at a chipped cup of coffee sub.
“You mean us, outlander?” asked the skinny one of the three. “Us?”
“If the cap fits.”
“Meaning…?”
Ryan sniffed. “Meaning that we’ve been seeing all sorts of signs on walls for the Children of the Rock. Looked like it was some kind of religious ville. You three keep praying and crossing yourselves. So, it seemed more than possible that you might all have something to do with the Children of the Rock.” He paused. “Whoever they are.”
The woman behind the counter gave a gap-toothed smile. “Good guess, outlander. These young—”
“The prattle of an empty-minded woman is like the shaking of a hollow gourd,” said the lean man, who seemed to be leader of the three seated men.
“I was only—”
” ‘Only’ is the first step on the trail to the bottomless swamps of heathen eternity, Mrs. Fairchild. Best you say no more. Go cook the jerky for these folks.”
Mom shrugged, halfheartedly wiping at the bar top. A gust of cold air swept into the room as the front door opened and closed behind the two trappers. The old man dabbed at his mouth with a linen kerchief and also made his way out. He hesitated as though he was going to say something, then changed his mind and walked out in silence, leaving behind a handful of small jack on his table. Mom turned and went out into the kitchen. Ryan stared at the three men. “Guess my hearing’s getting poor,” he said. “Didn’t catch the answer to my question about the Children of the Rock.”
One of them, with a straggly mustache, laughed, but it got nowhere near his pale blue eyes. “You know that the cat found itself burning on the barbecue from asking too many questions, stranger.”
“What are you frightened of?” Krysty asked, leaning back in the bentwood chair.
“Frightened? What in the name of the Almighty makes you think that?”