“Madam, I must say you have quite an eclectic collection of books,” the old man said.
“Out here, Doc,” Annie said, pouring drinks in glass jars, “I can’t be too choosy about what I’m able to get. I take whatever I can get my hands on.”
“Twain, Faulkner, King, Sheldon and names here that I am afraid I do not recognize, and I consider myself a learned man. Have you read them all?”
“As much as I’ve been able,” Annie said. “As many as caught my eye and held my attention. I’m still a working woman, and I have to put in time every day if I plan on keeping this place together.”
“Have you a favorite?”
Annie gestured to one of the men to hand out drinks. The man didn’t look too happy about it, and used only one hand to carry the wooden platter of drinks. The other he kept on his rifle. “Jack London,” she said. “I loved Call of the Wild and White Fang, and most of his other works. Brilliant writer.”
“Why Jack London?” Doc asked.
“Man wrote about it the way it was,” a new male voice said. “And the way it is.”
Ryan glanced at the doorway and watched as a big man doffed his fur cap and entered the room.
“This is my son,” Annie said. “His name’s Max, and he’s going to make sure the business we conduct is right and fair.”
Max carried his mother’s complexion, but most of the resemblance ended there. Ryan surmised that he had to have taken the majority of his looks from his father. Max had dark hair, plastered tight against his scalp from wearing the heavy fur cap, and tied into short braids. Nearly six and a half feet tall, he carried slabs of muscle on his broad frame. He wore leathers, all handmade and showing scars from hard wear.
“They come alone,” Max said, taking one of the jars of liquor. He took a deep drink without showing any of the effects of the alcohol. He kept a long-barreled .44 Magnum Colt Model 624 in his fist. A camp ax hung by a thong from his belt, balanced by three throwing knives on the other side. He wore a bow over his shoulder and twin quivers of arrows on his back. Knife handles showed from his boot tops, as well.
“Was anyone left on the boat?” Annie asked.
“Empty.”
“Anything on it they didn’t tell us about?”
“Not that I could find.” Max poured some more whiskey into his glass. “From what I saw, not all of these folks are together.”
“I know about Morse and his boys.”
Max nodded. “I watched those seven come up the hill together.” He pointed out Ryan and the others. “They move like one. Been together a long time, and in dangerous places from the looks of them.”
“You didn’t have a reason to go on that boat,” Dean stated angrily.
“Dean,” Ryan said, “back off.”
The boy’s color remained mottled, and Ryan knew the boy had inherited more from him than a mere physical resemblance. But the anger that resided in his son was going to have to be tempered if he was going to get a handle on it.
“It’s not right, Dad,” the boy said. “For all we know, this bastard set fire to the boat and burned it to the water-line.”
If he was offended by the accusation, Max didn’t show it. Instead, he seemed more amused than anything.
“We’d have seen the smoke,” J.B. stated.
“The boat’s still there,” Max said as calmly as if they were discussing the weather. “I didn’t do nothing more than look it over.”
“I reserve the right, as always, to look out for my own welfare, young man,” Annie said to Dean. “Your father knows this, and accepted it when he started up to this trading post.”
That was the truth, and Ryan knew it. They couldn’t have stayed with the boat and accomplished the trading. From the instant they’d left it behind, he’d been prepared to lose it. Now he recognized that Annie had read the commitment he’d made to getting the necessary supplies. It put them both on equal footing.