Max nodded.
“Then let’s have a look at the rest of it.”
“Later.”
Ryan’s voice hardened and took on an edge. “Now. You only make some of the rules around here, or we’re going to find out if J.B.’s faster than you or not. And when we open the ball on this thing, a lot of people are going to get chilled. And that’s an ace on the line.”
Max’s face reddened. “What do you want?”
“Some clothing,” Ryan said. He picked up the ammo boxes and stuffed them back in the mail pouch.
“You staying?” Max demanded, not moving a muscle.
“We’ll spend the night,” Ryan said. “But I’m telling you now that tonight is the end of the bargain. You try to hold us another one, blood’s going to be spilled. And that’s a promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“My favorite author, dear lady?” Doc asked, gazing into the woman’s eyes.
“Yes.” Annie sat across from him at a little table on a patio in back of the main house. A semicircle of wildflowers grew in the space provided between the wooden timbers used to make the patio and the path that led to the vegetable garden a little over fifty yards away.
“That would have to be Shakespeare,” Doc answered.
“Why?”
The stripped down, no-nonsense question caught Doc off guard for a moment, but he appreciated it for its honest intent. In his travels after being trawled to the future, he’d seldom met those who could hold forth a proper discourse of Shakespeare’s work. “Why do I like it?”
“Yes.”
“How familiar are you with his work, madam?”
“I’ve read all thirty-seven plays,” Annie said. “I’ve even got annotated versions of some of them. I’m familiar, though I’m no expert.”
“Truly,” Doc said, “I am impressed.”
“I like the stories he tells. But why do you like him so much?”
“For several reasons actually,” Doc said. “The stories themselves, though couched in archaic terms and words, considering our present state of affairs, are always timely. They are about the struggle between good and evil inside men and women, about the way they relate to their families and friends and the societies that surround them. Then there is the wordplay itself. Once you have gotten a grudging respect for this language we share, it is a marvel to see it used in the hands of a master. And Shakespeare isn’t meant to be read, dear lady. It’s meant to be heard. Have you never heard it read?”
“Never,” Annie admitted.
“And never read it aloud to yourself?”
“Doc, I’ve got a dictionary. The words I didn’t understand I looked up, but that doesn’t mean I can make them sound right. And most of those lines seem like they’re put together for a certain sound. Kind of like a song.”
“Which is most true,” Doc said. “There is a cadence in all of the immortal bard’s works. His work was meant for the stage, and even so, more meant to be heard than to be seen. Would you mind if I borrowed a volume from your library and gave a dramatic reading from it?”
“I wouldn’t mind at all,” the woman replied. “Which play would you like?”
Doc held forth a hand. “Move not, dear lady. I know the way back to your sanctum sanctorum. I shall go get it myself and be back in but a moment. Perhaps, though, you could get us some water. Something cold and clear to drink. Something that will soothe the vocal cords.”
“Tea with honey?” she suggested.
“That sounds divine.” Doc excused himself from the table and walked back into the patio door. They’d come through the kitchen to get to the patio, but the book room was beyond that.
He deliberately took the wrong turn at the T juncture and snapped the swordstick open in his fists. One thing Ryan had always been insistent on was knowing as much about the terrain as was possible. His detour could add to their small store of knowledge about the trading post.
The corridor ran straight and true, then butted up against a locked door. Working the layout of the house in his mind, Doc knew a lot of space yet remained on the other side of the door.