The street was trampled mud, with a couple of stores, brothels and saloons scattered along it. The rest of the place was tents and huts lining narrow alleys that did double service as thoroughfares and open sewers.
Few of them had anything that remotely approached a lawn. Most had open muddy yards, filled with all manner of filthy and noisome rubbish. Some had cords of wood, ready for the biting winters. Ryan saw a wheelless tractor, rusting away, with two or three more unrecognizable pieces of broken agricultural machinery beside it.
Smoke drifted low over the ville, carried on a fresh easterly wind off the ocean.
There were very few people around. Most of them looked ragged, shambling along with their heads shrouded in old blankets or shawls. At a distance it wasn’t possible to tell their sex. A few mongrels came snarling and yapping out of one of the alleys, barking around the heels of the seven strangers, running whining when Doc caught their leader a brisk blow across the scarred muzzle with his sword stick.
The noise attracted attention, and tent flaps peeled back and faces appeared at the smeared, cobwebbed windows of the nearest saloon, peering at the outlanders.
“Try there?” J.B. said, pointing toward the building. “Sign says it’s called the Lincoln Inn. And-” he peered to try to make out the faded paint, “-says that it offers clean beds by the night and good food.”
“One place’ll be like the next.” Ryan glanced around the suddenly deserted shantytown. “Let’s go see what they have to offer.”
TWO STORIES TALL, the Lincoln Inn was the most imposing building in the wretched ville. It was built from weathered wood, the first floor being taken up with a sprawling saloon. A staircase led to the shadowy second floor. An ill-matched assortment of tables and chairs stood around the splintered floor, occupied by half a dozen silent men, four of them playing a desultory hand of poker with a pack of greasy cards.
The man behind the bar was short and craggy, the top of his head shaved, with curling gray side-whiskers. His eyes were a bright, piercing blue, his cheekbones so prominent that it looked as if he’d swallowed a pelvis.
“Howdy there, outlanders. Belly up here and name your poison. Yes-siree.”
“Man’s seen way too many Roy Rogers movies,” Mildred whispered. “Like he’s playing a supporting part in a B-movie Saturday-morning special.”
“We got a range of gut rot’ll put hairs on your chests. Sorry, ladies. Nothing meant by that. Our own ladies are taking their afternoon siesta, but if any of you have a taste for some female company I can easy rouse them. Got a fine Mex girl, near virgin, weighs in close to three hundred pounds, gives any gentleman two downs for every up.”
“How about rooms for a night?” Ryan asked. “Just that and food.”
“We got. I know you, don’t I, mister? That one eye sort of sticks in a man’s mind. And you.” He pointed a bony finger at J.B. “Both rode with the Trader, didn’t you?”
There wasn’t any point in arguing with such a positive identification. The only question for Ryan and the others was how had this man been treated by Trader.
“Can’t say I recognize you.”
“Name’s Clinkerscales. Peter Clinkerscales. Hell of a mouthful, ain’t it? I was barkeep in a gaudy close to Butts, in the Darks. Was having trouble with some trappers. You two were there when Trader leaned on them and cleaned them out. Made sure they never came back to bother me.”
J.B. eased away the Uzi that had suddenly appeared as the man recognized him. “Sure. I remember. Dark night! Must’ve been at least ten years back.”
“All of that. Sorry, friends, but I don’t recall your names.” He tapped his forehead. “Accounted to my age and white port wine. Don’t seem to be able to remember things quite as well as I used to.”
Ryan introduced himself first, running through the list of everyone’s names. Clinkerscales insisted on enthusiastically shaking hands with all of them, grinning broadly, showing chipped, stained teeth.
“This is my gaudy,” he said. “I been waiting all this time to repay that good deed of Trader. You can have rooms and free food for as long as you like. And as much drink as your stomachs can handle. How about that?”