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  "Hell, he doesn't need strong sec inside, not with that armor outside," J.B. murmured to Mildred.

  "What worries me is what it keeps in right now, not what it keeps out," the doctor replied.

  They followed Crow up a red carpeted staircase that ended in a pair of off white wooden doors. As they approached, the doors opened and a man appeared, staring down at them.

  There was no doubt who he was, as he was dressed exactly as the statues had portrayed him. When he smiled, it was as icy as his eyes.

  "Welcome to my home, good people. Welcome to the heart and soul of Salvation."

  Chapter Nine

  Baron Silas Hunter led the companions and Crow into the sumptuously furnished room from which he had emerged. There were windows on all sides of the long, hall-like room that had a long, polished oak table as its centerpiece. There were a dozen chairs, six on each side of the table, with a large, gilt-covered throne at the head. The light from the windows, depleted as it was by the ironwork that covered the glass, was augmented by a plethora of candelabra scattered around the room, resting along the length of the table, as well as reposing on the mantel and on plinths and small tables that lined the room's walls.

  The heels of Baron Silas's snakeskin cowboy boots click-clacked on the tiled floor as he walked easily along the table before gliding into the throne, swinging up his legs in one easy move so that his heels rested on the tabletop, feet crossed at the ankles. He pushed the Stetson hat back on his head and eyed the companions coldly, following in his wake. He gestured at them to be seated, and so they took positions, with Ryan, Krysty and Jak on one side, J.B., Mildred, Dean, and Doc on the other. Crow slipped into a position beside Jak.

  They waited in an expectant silence for the baron to speak.

  "So these are the hombres you spoke so highly of, Crow," he began.

  The Native American nodded.

  "They don't look that mean to me."

  "Mebbe we just don't have to," Ryan declared. He could see from the manner in which the baron was appraising them that the man's intent was to spur some kind of reaction so he could judge their individual and collective character.

  Ryan didn't appreciate those type of games. He had come thus far for a reason, but he couldn't be pushed…and wouldn't allow his people to be pushed.

  "Well," drawled the baron, "mebbe you do and mebbe you don't. You've come to Salvation, and this is my ville. I make the rules."

  "We've come here because we wanted to," Ryan returned.

  The baron watched the one-eyed man with glittering snake eyes and smiled a gimlet grin that contained no humor.

  "Wanted to come here rather than wanted to take your chances in the desert?"

  "If need be," Ryan answered. "Let's lay those cards on the table. We willingly gave up our blasters and worked for you in return for food, water and shelter. We agreed to come back here rather than stand and fight out there. And if you've taken any notice of what your man here has said," he added with a gesture toward Crow, "you'll know that we could have taken the blasters from your workmen and then taken your sec."

  "Easy to say," the baron rejoined.

  "Easy to do," J.B. said softly from where he sat, opposite Ryan.

  "You let your monkeys speak for you? Hell, even a benevolent son of a gaudy like me doesn't do that," the baron said gently, steeling this with a firm glance at Ryan that didn't flicker toward J.B.

  Krysty felt Jak stir at the insult and knew that although the albino mutie would show nothing on his scarred and impassive face, every muscle would be tensed for an angered attack. She gently moved her hand from her own lap to Jak's arm and squeezed his wrist. She didn't look away from the baron as she did this, but knew she had the intended effect when she felt Jak's tension relax against her grip.

  Crow had noted this group interplay and ruminatively scratched his chin. That would be something to mention to the baron later.

  Across the table, Dean had also reacted to Baron Silas's words, and Mildred spared him a glare while Doc laid a hand on his arm. The younger Cawdor had yet to learn the cool of his father. The flicker in the corners of Baron Silas's eyes gave away to the one-eyed warrior that he was watching them all intently, and Ryan grinned before he spoke again.

  "These people aren't monkeys, Baron," he said easily. "We've all been together a long time, and I'm leader 'cause someone has to make the decisions. But we watch for each other, and act for and with each other. That's how we survived, and that's why I figure we're valuable to you."

  Baron Silas cracked his impassive features with a raised eyebrow that could have indicated surprise. If it did, nothing was given away by his still frozen eyes.

  "Now, why do y'all think you may be valuable?" he asked in a flat tone.

  "Because if we weren't, or you didn't think that we could be, then we would have long since been chilled," Ryan answered.

  Baron Silas considered that for a moment, then said, "That's a damn good point, and one that can't rightly be answered that well. So I guess I'll have to give you that."

  "In which case, sir," Doc piped up after noisily clearing his throat as a preliminary to speech, "you may perhaps see fit to do us the justice of some manner of explanation. After all, from what our acquaintance Crow has told us, it would seem that you have taken some time and effort to build up this ville. Pray where do we fit in?"

  For the first time since he had stared to speak, Baron Silas took his full gaze away from Ryan and settled it on Doc.

  It was all Doc could do to avoid recoiling. The cold eyes and stone face were all too reminiscent for him of Jordan Teague, baron of Mocsin and the man who had been Doc's torturer when he had first been flung into the world of the Deathlands. Both men shared the ability to make one feel like an insect in amber, being appraised by a superior intelligence and being.

  Baron Silas noted this instinctive recoil and remembered it for future reference.

  "I'll tell you," he said finally and in almost hushed tones. "But first, I think we could all do with food. Hell, I know I could…"

  The baron clapped his hands three times, and the double doors opened. Two armed sec men came into the room, then exited again when they saw Hunter nod.

  J.B. looked at Ryan. They were both thinking that this had to be some kind of arranged signal. If so, the big question was had the baron arranged this to impress or overawe them in some way… Or did he actually live in his manner?

  Before either had a chance to say anything, the doors opened again and the sec men reentered, standing one on either side of the double doors. Following them came a procession of women, each carrying a silver tray containing dishes of food. The women, all of whom were well clothed in a variety of low-cut frocks and had similar physical characteristics—were all redheads either naturally or by dye and were large bosomed and small waisted although of varying heights. They were obviously picked by Baron Silas to follow his own preferences and weren't just employed as serving girls. As they placed the trays on the tables, they stood back against the walls. They were followed by more girls with pitchers of wine brewed from locally grown fruits, and water. Plates, cutlery and goblets were laid before the companions, Crow and the baron.

  "Interesting staff you have here," Krysty murmured, taking in the similarities between the serving girls, and also their differences. Despite the shape and the hair color, some of them were black, Hispanic or Native American in ethnic origin. It made for a bizarre mix of the similar and the different.

  "All my girls are handpicked," Baron Silas said, indicating them with a sweeping wave. "I only go for the best—like in everything," he added pointedly. "They're available if you wish…always assuming you don't have your own arrangements," he said with a brief glance at Krysty and Mildred. "Now eat, drink and then I explain."

  J.B. looked at Ryan and then cast an eye over the food and drink that lay on the table. There were meats, vegetables, and some strange breads and biscuits that seemed of uncertain origin. Ryan's eye met the Armorer's
over the top of the man's spectacles.

  "Crow," Baron Silas said, noticing their exchange and grasping the meaning.

  The Native American and the baron both reached for food and also took some of the wine. They began to eat and drink, and only when they had observed this did the companions join them.

  "You disappoint me," Baron Silas said through a mouthful of bread. "I'd expected less overt distrust."

  "Sometimes the obvious can pass you by," Ryan answered.

  "But what good would it have done?" Baron Silas continued, washing down the bread with some wine.

  "Didn't have to do any good—mebbe just a little prod," Ryan replied.

  The meal continued with little small talk. The companions exchanged a few words with one another about the meal, and any attempts by the baron to draw Ryan further were met with a bland response. They were too aware of the serving girls, who could possibly catch any comments that the baron or Crow may miss. The Native American, for his part, ate his meal in silence.

  When they had finished, the serving girls gathered everything that was left on the table and took it away. The two armed sec men—who had remained impassive in the doorway throughout—followed them out and closed the doors behind them, but not before the Native American had joined them. To all the companions, the fact that Crow had also departed meant that the real business was about to begin.

  They sat for a few moments in silence, the baron composing his thoughts.

  "So do we get to hear why we're here now, or is there a cabaret?" Mildred asked.

  Baron Silas fixed her with a stare that indicated that, for the moment, he wasn't sure whether she was serious. Then he began.

  "Salvation means a lot to me. A hell of a lot. Not just because it's made me rich, with more jack and booty than I know what to do with—which is never a bad thing—but because it's something that's taken a long time for me to build. I was just a kid when I first came here. My daddy brought all of us from a ville called Dallas that used to be a big predark place. 'Cept as how there wasn't much left of it after, on account of all the oil wells and refineries firing the whole area after the nukecaust. When it was okay to settle again, there just wasn't much left to settle."

  "They tried to farm that land, but my daddy always had this theory that the old wells shouldn't be dry. They weren't used up in the days before sky-dark, so why shouldn't there be some left, and why shouldn't we all exploit that, seeing as how fuel is the most valuable thing that there is these days?"

  Doc pursed his lips, blowing through them. "That is a sound piece of reasoning, I would say. And surely any baron who was sitting on such a potential source of trade and jack would jump at the chance?"

  Baron Silas allowed himself the luxury of a small grin that made him look as friendly as a sidewinder. "Well, now, you'd think it might, and mebbe it would have if there was any sense to anything. But Baron Angus Eddison of Dallas didn't want that. It was a small ville, and he couldn't devote time and manpower to getting the wells investigated or opened again."

  "So why not form alliances as you obviously have?" Krysty asked.

  "Because there ain't no one in these parts who'd pitch in unless they knew as they were onto a good thing, and there ain't no one who Baron Angus'd trust anyways. Stupe thing is that the only man he ever trusted was his son, Christian, and it was Christian who had the old man chilled so as he could take over. I've got an alliance with Christian, but I can't say as I'd trust the fucker. Then again, he'd be a fool to trust me," Baron Silas added reasonably.

  "So how end up here?" Jak asked, his piercing red eyes trained on the baron.

  Baron Silas met his stare with an equally piercing gaze. "My daddy was convinced that he could find a well to work and get rich, mebbe become his own baron. If Angus wasn't going to let him look for one in Dallas, then mebbe he'd just have to get out and find his own. He knew this land like his own skin, and so he knew that if he came here he had a chance of getting a well. There were some people here then, but it was so small that they didn't even have a baron as such."

  "Well, it took a long time to build a reasonable place for my ma and me, and then get the trust of the locals enough to start the search. They had some machinery and stuff that they'd salvaged, and they used wag parts for trade and also used their knowledge of how wags worked to barter their way with passing trade convoys. So they had some time when they wasn't doing so much work that they couldn't help. I guess my daddy had a vision of what he wanted to find, and what he wanted to make of it. And I guess the folks of Salvation were stupe enough to believe him and greedy enough to work at it."

  "Stupe enough?" Mildred broke in.

  "Yeah, mebbe they were at that. After all, there was no real proof that any of the wells were actually capable of being worked. Shit, even if you found one with oil, how the hell were you supposed to get that refinery and plant working to get it out and make it into fuel…liquid jack?"

  "Workable enough given their mechanical skills," J.B. mused.

  "Guess that was it." Baron Silas nodded. "Anyways, it took years. I grew up, and my daddy taught me all he knew, and showed me the old documents he used to piece together the knowledge he had for finding and testing the old wells. Shit, they're big enough to find, all right, if you've got a map reference, but actually seeing if they had anything left… That can sometimes be a dangerous business. You try and get the damn things to gush and if they do, then you run the risk of firing the bastards. That's what happened to Daddy. He was caught in the back-draft at a well and fried." He fell into a thoughtful silence.

  "And that's the well you're working?" Mildred asked in the sudden pause.

  Baron Silas shook himself out of his reverie. "Hell, no. That's the irony of it all. It was another dry one, with just enough to fire up, then fizzle out. It burned for about ten minutes, long enough to chill any poor bastard near enough, and fuck all else."

  "So you took over the search?" Ryan prompted.

  "That's about the size of it," Baron Silas nodded. "I had the know-how, and I had the people behind me. When he died, my daddy wasn't baron—there still wasn't one. But I made sure everyone knew that if the search was gonna continue, then I had to be baron and had to have the whip hand. It'd need a strong man to handle what would happen if we actually found a well.

  "So they made me the baron, and after a little more searching I finally found the motherlode. By this time we were a lot richer in Salvation anyway, 'cause word gets around and there's too many folks who'd want to be on that train when it starts rollin'. They don't wanna get left behind, and so they're all too willing to start paying you favors."

  "But they always want payback," Ryan pointed out.

  "Oh yeah, and they know they'll get it," the baron agreed. "And finally I hit paydirt, about two years back. Found a well, found it was still capable of a good yield and got it capped. But that's when the real work begins. You see, in order to get a well like that working, and to get that raw shit refined into usable wag fuel, that takes a lot of machinery. And to get that all built and working takes jack and manpower. Now that's something we didn't have enough of in Salvation. Y'all probably saw how small we were…still are."

  "You mean the walls?" J.B. mused. "They're an impressive construction."

  "And necessary—not just now," Baron Silas said. "Back in the day when we were still basically a wag-repair town, there was a lot of jack coming in, and a lot of valuable supplies. We also had trade convoys who were completely at mercy because they were being serviced. So sec was always a major concern. And when we were a small ville, we built the walls around where we lived and worked."

  "But now?" the Armorer queried.

  Baron Silas shrugged. "When we capped the well, that's when I knew that we had to get outside help. There was no way that we could pay or trade for all the materials we needed on our own, and no way that we had enough people in the ville to work on the well and refinery and still keep enough trade going to keep the ville alive. So that's when I sta
rted to make alliances. 'Cept that alliances means more people, and we ain't got the room. And there's nothing like that for making people a mite testy."

  THE MIND of Baron Silas traveled back momentarily to a few weeks before, when there had been a meeting in that very room of the barons involved in the alliances concerned with the well.

  As always, Baron Silas was at the head of the table. Standing behind him were two armed sec guards. He hated having armed sec in his own baronial halls, but figured it was a necessary precaution as all the other barons in attendance had their own armed guard, and to be without would be foolish. And Baron Silas Hunter didn't maintain his position by being foolish.

  There were eight barons in attendance, from the far-flung villes that had formed the alliance to reap the profits of the revitalized well. The bargaining had been hard, but the agreement had been forged over the amount of jack and manpower that each ville had guaranteed to the project, which in itself was determined by the size of the ville and its proximity to Salvation.

  Nearest Silas on each side of the table were Baron Silveen from Mandrake, and Baron Lord from Hush, curiously named because of the valley in which it was situated, which seemed to deaden all sound coming out and kept it secure from outside prying eyes. Next down were barons John the Gaunt from Haigh, and Red Cloud from Running Water. The latter was the ville from where Crow had originated, the foreman coming to Salvation as part of the project and being adopted as a close associate of Silas because of his qualities. Farther down the table—as they were farther from Salvation—came Baron Abraham and Baron Cay from the villes of Carter and Water Valley. Farthest away was Baron Howard from Baker, and the baron of Dallas, Eddison. Baker was the farthest distance of any ville from Salvation, yet Dallas was one of the closest. But, as in the days of Silas's father, the farmers of the new Dallas were skeptical of the oil well of Salvation.