Devil Riders

“Nuke me, but you’re packing brass,” Bart said, covering the rounds with a hand and sliding them out of sight. “What are you, the Trader’s bastard?”

“Could be,” J.B. said, resting an arm on the counter and briefly opening his fingers to expose a pile of cartridges. “And if we were looking to avoid that person, which would be the best direction for us not to travel?”

Bart arched an eyebrow at the man and clamped his mouth tight. “I’ll have a girl bring the drinks,” he said woodenly, all traces of friendliness gone.

“Well, that went poorly,” J.B. muttered as they walked away from the counter.

“Gaza has these folks scared to the bone,” Ryan agreed, glancing backward. The bartender avoided his look. “Mebbe we should visit the baron and see what we can learn from him directly.”

“You mean, pretend we’re mercies and try to hire on for the job of chilling the Trader?”

“We’ve done it before.”

“Not always with success,” J.B. stated flatly.

As they crossed the room, a group of sec men watched the companions closely and started to whisper among themselves. Ryan spotted them and marked the group as possible trouble.

Returning to their table, the men told the others what had happened. Just as they finished, some feminine laughter sounded from upstairs and the floor began thumping in a familiar pattern.

“Got idea,” Jak said, inclining his heads toward the stairs. “Go talk girls. Never knew gaudy slut won’t talk for extra jak and no sweating.”

“They’d know everything,” Mildred agreed. “Probably more than the baron does about what was happening in his ville.”

“Food first,” Ryan decided, pulling a box closer to the table. “Going to be a long night, no matter how this goes.”

A girl who looked more like a gaudy slut than a waitress brought over a tray of mugs filled with water and left without saying a word.

“Wait a minute before drinking,” Mildred said, taking a container and sniffing carefully. Lifting the mug to the flickering candlelight, she inspected the coloration of the contents, then dipped in a finger and placed a drop on the back of her hand, then touched the tip of her tongue to the drop.

“Clean,” she announced at last.

“And clear,” Ryan added, checking his rad counter. More than once, they had bought water only to find it hotter than the bottom of a glass lake. After quenching their thirst, the companions got their food two at a time and settled down to eat. During the meal a few sec men wandered upstairs drunk, and a few came stumbling down the stairs fixing their pants and tucking in their shirts. A bald man stopped near the table and leered at Krysty, but she placed her revolver on the table and he moved off quickly muttering under his breath.

“If Jak gets nothing upstairs,” Ryan stated, laying aside his wooden spoon, “we’ll get back and start work on the wag so it’s ready to leave at dawn.”

“Leave for where?” Krysty said, chewing a mouthful of her stew. There was meat in the mix and some veggies, but also a lot of gritty corn. The kernels had to have been ground between pieces of sandstone. Or house bricks.

“Grandee,” Ryan answered, taking the last chunk of flat bread and stuffing it into his mouth to chew it soft.

“We can use that place near the river as a base to start searching the Deathlands,” he continued after swallowing, “until we find somebody who knows something.”

“Gotta go there anyway,” J.B. agreed, dipping his bread into the water to try to soften the stuff. The bread swelled a little and he chewed it carefully, finding more grit in the flat bread. Damn sand was everywhere. Had to be mighty uncomfortable for the girls working overhead.

“That seems to be our best plan so far,” Mildred said, cleaning her spoon on a spare chunk of bread before tucking the spoon back into her jacket pocket. “I’ll get something for Dean and Doc.” Standing, she checked her blaster, then headed for the fireplace. A couple of the drunks watched her pass, but none of them got in her way.

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