He limped out of the little cabin, taking a deep breath of the fresh, cool air, using the stick to steady himself. The moon was sailing low, and there was already the faint lightening of the sky, heralding the arrival of the false dawn.
HE AND KRYSTY WATCHED Pittsburg Landing coming to early-morning life, the dawning sun reflected off the rolling waters of the wide Tennessee.
There was a faint haze hanging above the surface of the water, and clouds of tiny gnats darted and danced, occasionally falling victim to the silvery leap of a large trout.
They saw Ma Jode opening up the Stor, pausing to give them a wave, hawking up a ball of phlegm that she spit at a lean mongrel that was slinking by.
“All’s right with the world,” Krysty stated.
“Wonder how Dean’s getting along,” Ryan said, leaned on his stick, experimentally moving the wounded leg. It certainly seemed easier this morning.
“Knowing the kid, he’s probably taken over the running of the school by now.”
THEY WERE JUST FINISHING an excellent breakfast when Judas Portillo made his appearance.
The local guide to Shiloh battlefield saw himself as something of a fop and dandy. He was a little below average height, slim, with long hair greased back with a heavily scented pomade. His face was fleshy with the beginnings of a third chin, the lips thick and fleshy, his eyes dark and liquid with unusually heavy lids.
His clothes had a faded grandeur to them. He wore a frock coat, not unlike Doc’s, but without the macabre patina of great age, and two mother-of-pearl buttons were missing. His pants were tapered, dark blue, with a strip of black satin down the outside of each leg. Portillo’s ankle boots looked as if they had been polished early that morning in a room with inadequate light. Parts of them were still smeared with river mud, and other parts gleamed like a mirror. He had an elegant jabot of slightly stained lace at his throat, which he tugged at constantly.
As always in Deathlands, when he met a stranger for the first time, Ryan weighed him up for weaponry.
There was a small-caliber revolver of indeterminate make with pearl grips on his right hip, and an enormous bowie knife balanced on the left. Ryan also had a shrewd suspicion that there was a derringer, probably in a spring release, tucked away up the right sleeve.
His hat was a cream-colored Stetson decorated with turkey feathers. As he arrived at their table, he took it off with a sweeping gesture and bowed to Ryan. “I am Judas Portillo,” he said, in a surprisingly broad Southern cracker accent. “Have I the honor of addressing the Ryan Cawdor?”
“You’re addressing a Ryan Cawdor,” the one-eyed man replied with a grim smile.
Portillo forced a smile in return, which flickered for a moment across his well-shaved jowls and then disappeared. “You wish to be shown around the battlefield?”
“Yeah. How much?”
Portillo shrugged his shoulders. “Just a small handful of jack if you’re pleased.”
“I got a very small handful of jack,” J.B. said. “Very small.”
The smile hesitated again. “I am sure that you outlanders won’t disappoint me.”
“I’m sure,” said Ryan. “Just so long as you don’t disappoint us, Judas.”
They settled their account with Ma Jode, who insisted on hugging them all and wishing them well in their journeying, assuring them that their raft would be safe and snug at the landing when they returned.
IT WAS SURPRISINGLY CLOSE to the river, an easy walk that took only a short time. Even Ryan, with his healing wound, enjoyed the morning stroll.
They had passed through rolling fields of wheat and barley, along narrow, high-walled lanes and lines of trim picket fences that divided meadows where horse-drawn plows went about their placid business.
Doc stopped, waving away some persistent flies. “By the Three Kennedys! But this is truly a pastoral idyll. It quite takes me back to my days of yore when I would lend a hand with the harvest.”
“Good land,” Portillo said quietly.
“This the scene of the battle?” Krysty asked as they paused on a crest of land, looking toward the northwest. The light mist had burned off, and it promised to be a fine day.