The maid nodded, her eyes still focused entirely on Ryan. “It’s Chastity,” she stated.
“What?” Ryan asked.
“My name,” the maid replied. “It’s Chastity.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“You do it,” she said without hesitation. “I’ll see to it you get anything you want. Aunt Maim told me to make sure your stay at the inn was a good one. Told me to see to it personal.”
Krysty crossed the room and closed the door in the maid’s face. She turned back to Ryan, her face reflecting her amusement. “Guess we don’t have to wonder where she’s coming from.”
“No,” Ryan agreed. The girl’s attentions didn’t affect him. A strong man in Deathlands brought out the sexuality in a woman looking for somebody to protect her when she knew she couldn’t do the job herself. She was only reacting the way she’d trained herself to react. “Guess she outgrew her name some time ago.”
“Doubt if she remembers the passage.”
“Be interesting to find out if any of the others got the same invitation we got.”
Krysty nodded. “If you run into little Miss Big Eyes outside—”
“I’ll tell her she’s late with the hot water.”
“You do that.”
Ryan grinned, then let himself into the hallway, relieved when he saw the maid was nowhere around. He knocked on J.B.’s door.
“Who’s knocking?” the Armorer called out.
“Me,” Ryan replied.
“Come ahead.”
Ryan opened the door carefully. J.B. wasn’t a man to creep up on.
The Armorer stood in the center of the room on the table. A bed slat blocked the balcony door from sliding open. J.B. worked the curtain cord through a bent nail sticking out from the ceiling. The nail was obviously in a new position.
“Redecorating?” Ryan asked.
J.B. shot him a wry glance. “We walked into this whitewashed ville, doesn’t mean angels live here. I’m just taking a few precautions to make sure we get to walk back out of here.”
Mildred came back out of the bathroom. “Running water would help things, but sleeping high and dry is a good enough thought for the moment. They got a pitcher of fresh water in there if you’re dry, John.” She nodded at Ryan. “Making a social call?”
“Krysty and me got invited to dinner tonight. Wondered if you’d been treated to the same invitation.”
J.B. shook his head. “I got plans to see the gunsmith. Mildred and I will figure something out for ourselves.”
“Probably wouldn’t be a problem to set an extra plate or two.”
“I kind of like the idea of spreading ourselves out a little more,” the Armorer said. “Get what we need as fast as we can, get ourselves set up to leave if trouble comes along.” He stepped off the table and grabbed the curtain cord. Then he took up the M-4000.
“Dinner’s at eight. To be sociable, we’ll probably hang around until ten and talk. We get any later than that, come looking. If you’re not in by then, I’ll do the same.”
“Sounds good.” J.B. sat the straight-backed, wooden chair on the table. He cradled the shotgun across it, pointing at the door. A couple lashes of another piece of the curtain cord secured it into place. Then he threaded the long cord through the nail and through the trigger guard, as well, fixing it so a drawer from the chest of drawers worked as a counterweight to pull the trigger. He attached the cord to the doorknob.
Ryan observed the setup. It wasn’t anything fancy or elaborate, just deadly. And that was all it had to be. When the door was opened by anyone who didn’t know the shotgun was in place, they’d get blasted stepping into the room.
“If you come by later,” J.B. said meaningfully, “you want to make sure you knock.”
Chapter Six
“Those guys still following us?”
Jak glanced over at Dean, as if he were talking to the boy, but actually he used the reflection in the glass of a leather worker’s shop on the other side to check on the three men trailing them. There was no sign of the deputy that had first trailed them from the inn. “How many you find?”