The Armorer shook his head doubtfully, swatting away a hornet with his fedora. “Guess not.”
“Why?”
“This place closed up in January 2001. It would have had the best and latest blasters of the day. What they called car guns and house guns. Small caliber, pretty pistols. Berettas and Colts. Big mothers like the later Pythons and the Pumas. And hunting rifles from Spain and Czechoslovakia.”
“Sure.” Ryan wouldn’t argue with J.B. when it came to discussing weaponry.
“I seen what them double-poor dirties had. Old black-powder muzzle-loaders and muskets that were old before the winters came. Nothing from a store like this one here.”
They moved a little farther on. Krysty stopped, tugging at Ryan’s sleeve and halting him, while the others waited.
“What is it, lover?”
“I heard those swampwags again. Way off, behind us.”
“That’s no problem. If’n it comes to a firefight in a place like this, we could take on the whole of the baron’s fucking sec-men army.”
“There was something else.”
“Yeah?”
“Whistling.”
“I heard a whistle,” said Lori, her blank face lighting for a moment.
“You did? When?”
The two women looked at each other. Lori answered Krysty, fumbling for the right words. “Soon gone. Not a long time. High and weak.”
“That’s it. Very high frequency, Ryan. Repeated pattern of notes. Like a signal.”
“Ahead or behind us?” asked J.B.
She pointed wordlessly down the street, in front of them.
“Far off?” asked Ryan.
She shook her head at the question. “Difficult, love. All these buildings. Not used to it. Even back home in Harmony it wasn’t like this.”
“I doubt, Miss Wroth, if there are many places like this left in the whole of the United States of America. I beg pardon. In the whole of Deathlands.”
AT RYAN’S ORDERS, they spread out even more.
They covered both sides of the sunlit street, their blasters ready, their nerves stretched tight with tension. In this part of West Lowellton the greenery hadn’t gained so much of a stranglehold, and the street was still fairly clear and the buildings mainly undamaged.
Ryan squinted so that the line of small stores became hazy, the outlines blurring and softening. And it became like an old vid from before the wars. All it lacked were the smiling, bustling throngs of women and children, busy at their shopping. And there were no cars. All the old vids seemed to show roads jammed with wags.
On the right was an ice-cream parlor, its sign fallen down and disintegrated into splinters of chipboard. Another realtor’s sign boasted that it found houses For the people and by the people . There was also a store selling do-it yourself outfits for home security, ever a barometer of social fears and neuroses.
One of the roofs that had given in to the ravages of a hundred years was composed of red shingles. It had been called the something Hut; the first word had vanished.
They first saw the graffiti in an empty lot next door.
It was sprayed in a shimmering white paint, in ornate, rolling letters three feet high, on the wall of a hardware store.
THIS LAND IS OUR LAND. KEEP OUT ALL LIVING DEAD AND FRENDS OF THE BARRON.
The paint reflected the sun, making Ryan blink.
“Over there,” said Krysty, pointing to more painted lettering. This time it was scrawled across the main window of T-Shirt City .
Looking around, Ryan crossed over to examine it. TEN MORE STEPS AND YOU DEAD, it said.
He reached out with the index finger on his right hand, hugging the G-12 in his left hand. Touching the rolling letters, he stared in disbelief at his finger.
Sticky and fresh with its smear of white paint.
Chapter Thirteen
“IT’S LIKE THE DMZ in ‘Nam,” said J. B. Dix. “Read ’bout, it, No-go region, for both sides. What we heard ’bout this Baron Tourment, he controls most of the land round Lafayette. But not this ville of West Lowellton.”
“White wolf,” said Ryan. “Or snow wolf. Take, your pick. What we heard back in Moudongue, it’s renegades. Gang of wolf’s-heads. Outlaws.”
“Slumgullions,” commented Doc Tanner.
“How’s that?” asked Finnegan.
The old-timer bared his strong yellow teeth in a ferocious grin. “Good word, is it not? A cant perversion of the tongue, but it sounds like what it means.” Licking his lips, he savored the word again. “Slumgullion. A rowdy fellow, living beyond the law. And as we are all aware, to do that you most be honest.”