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but they would, by the living God, show you respect!
But the hardness had been tempered with wisdom and with a sense of what was
fair and what was not. Nobody looked to cheat or lie to the Trader and get
away with it. At the least you'd crawl away from a good smacking. At the worst
you lay in the dirt with rain pounding into your open eyes.
Now it was different.
The man still had the same hardness, but now it seemed to Abe to be overlaid
with a brutality that was at best casual and at worst considered.
"Want another helping, Abe?"
"No. Yeah, thanks. I will. Good meat."
"Better than rattler?"
"Yeah."
Trader nodded. "Better than the baked tongue of a baby puppy, Abe?"
"I guess so."
The older man lay down, staring up into the moving branches. "Better than&
better than the earlobes of Mex virgins, slow-boiled and served on a bed of
saffron rice with young peas and a cream and butter sauce?"
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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper
Abe laughed. "Can't recall ever eating a dish like that, Trader."
But there was no answering laugh from the other side of the fire. "I thought
you was with us when we raided them horse thieves in Juarez, Abe."
"No. Don't believe I was, Trader. You mean you& " He picked his way through the
potential mine field. "You telling me that you ate that food you said?"
This time Trader did laugh, throwing back his head and roaring out his
merriment.
"You triple-stupe sucker, Abe! Guess you fall for any dead trap I lay."
"Yeah," Abe agreed, wiping grease from his long mustache. "Figure I do."
THEY GOT AMBUSHED on the way to the lake. Two skinny old men, wearing a mix of
rags and filthy furs, each carrying an incredibly antique flintlock pistol,
stepped silently out behind them from the cover of a huge tumbled chestnut,
taking Abe and Trader by sur-prise.
"Move them blasters and get to be dead," said the taller of the pair in a
thin, reedy voice.
Trader had the Annalite across his shoulders, and Abe's big Python was
holstered.
In Deathlands you didn't look too much at the age or pedigree of the blaster
that threatened you. The man or woman holding it was far more important. Both
the ancients looked like they knew how to handle their pistols.
Abe and Trader turned slowly around, taking care not to make any sudden moves.
"Smelled your smoke a couple of days. Seen you got pretty blasters. Figured
we'd have them." The muzzles of the flintlocks looked as big as railroad
tunnels.
"Never met a man yet able to take my blaster away from me," Trader stated.
"But you ain't met Mick and Pat. We'll do that. Pat and Mick'll do it quick."
He
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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper giggled at his little rhymes. "So
you best lay the blasters down and then strip off them fancy clothes and you
get to walk away."
"Yeah, two naked jaybirds danglin' off into the woods," Mick cackled. "Don't
take too long to de-cide, strangers. Or old Liza here might bark at you. And
we might think about takin' us some funnin' with you before you go."
Abe was waiting for Trader to make a move. He was as certain as he could be
that the two old bastards would chill them the moment they put down their
guns.
They'd have done it from cover, but this way was safest of all. Trader himself
used to say that when you killed someone you tried to get two hundred percent
of the action on your side.
"Quick," warned the shorter of the pair.
They were only twenty feet or so apart. Safe range even for unreliable
flintlocks.
"No," Trader said.
"How's that?"
"You deaf as well as stupe?"
Abe felt his balls struggling to climb back into his body with terror. Any
second and the pistols would show him a burst of flame and black powder smoke.
"Lay them down, outlander, or "
"Know who I am?"
"Don't give a midnight fuck with a flyin' squirrel, mister. Just know you're
cold meat."
"They call me the Trader. Heard of me now? I got two war wags with fifty armed
men and women within a mile of here. They know me and Abe are camped out in
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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper the hills here for a day or so,
getting us some fresh air. They hear a shot and they'll ring the place. Give
you a hard passing."
"He's bluffin', Pat."
"I reckon so, Mick."
But Abe could hear the doubt, riding herd on their voices. The initial
boasting confidence had slithered away from them in twelve seconds of talk
from Trader.
"Then do it." Trader spread his hands wide. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]