Krysty's fingers on his arm told Ryan that she thought he was going too far.
"They aren't that bad! Anyway, what are you carrying, stranger?"
Without speaking, Ryan unholstered the 9mm SIG-Sauer P-226 and showed it to the dealer.
"Hollow tooth! That's one... I could do you a real good trade on that, friend."
"I'm not trading, and I'm not your friend," Ryan replied.
"Two hundred Snakefish jack," the gun dealer offered eagerly.
"No."
"Three hundred?"
Ryan shook his head. "Not selling."
"Four hundred and any blaster out of my stock, and that's my last and best offer."
"I told you..."
"Let me see it?" He held out his hand. "I'll give you a great deal, or my name's not Honest John Dern. Gimme."
"Two people get to hold this blaster," Ryan said coldly. "Me, and the man that chills me. Nobody else. Right?"
"Right. Sure. If you change your mind..."
Krysty was laughing as they walked on. "Can't blame the stupe for trying, lover."
The wind had veered, and the smell of gasoline had weakened considerably. Ryan and Krysty quickly noticed that nearly every store and house in the small township seemed to carry some kind of a snake emblem in a window. Sometimes it was ornately carved from a twisted piece of wood, sometimes a more symbolic shape of plaited string or wool. Most of the totem figures carried a silver collar around the throat.
Apart from the town hall, the largest and most elegant building in the ville was at the farther end of the street. Through a coat of fresh paint it was still possible to make out the name: Rex Cinema and Video Palace. But it was put into the shade by the blaring and colorful lettering across the front.
Come One. Come All. Worship at the Shrine of the Blessed Serpents of the Apocalyptic Gospel of the Martyred Marcus the Peripatetic.
Beneath it was a sheet of card, under clear perspex, which listed the days and times of the services. There was one due the following morning at seven o'clock.
"Early bird gets the snake," Krysty observed.
"Unless it's the one we got first. Baron seemed to think we should go."
"Then we should," she agreed.
The last notice was on a wooden board, screwed to the front wall of the building: Guardians of the Sepulcher of the Sacred Snakes. Norman Mote. Marianne Mote. Apostolic Apprentice, Joshua Mote.
Beyond the old movie house the ville ended. The road just faded out into the semidesert, vanishing into a deeply rutted dirt trail.
They turned and looked behind them, from Main Street to the desert beginning, just past the elegant town hall. Snakefish wasn't more than a couple of straggling blocks wide.
"No gaudies?" Krysty said questioningly. "No drinkers, either?"
"Nope. Not like Mocsin, or some of the real heavy frontier pest holes. This is all clean and decent."
"Yeah. And they worship snakes, lover. Don't forget that."
Doc and Lori were just coming out of a clothes shop as Ryan and Krysty walked past them. The store was called Handmaid and featured a marvelous patchwork quilt in the window, made of hundreds of tiny pieces of colored satins and silks.
"Spend any of your Snakefish jack, Lori?" Krysty asked.
"Nice skirt in there, but old miserable Doc said it cost too many."
"It was beautiful," Doc admitted ruefully. "Segments of lace, some old and some new, all stitched together, and it was kind of transparent. I fear that it cost more jack than we got in total and I decided that the garment would have lasted about zero seconds in the brush."
"Wouldn't have worn it out in sand, would I?" she pouted. "It was so pretty, Doc. I don't wear anything pretty now."
"One day, my dearest and most cuddlesome little dear one."
"Dear one, dear one, dear one," she mimicked, half-angry. "When's that?"
"Tomorrow. Always tomorrow. But one day, I promise you, Lori, it willbe tomorrow. I shall allow you to make an honest man out of me."
She flounced away from him, head in the air, leaving Doc with Ryan and Krysty.
"Should tan her ass, Doc," Ryan suggested.
Doc sniffed. "She's just seventeen, if you know what I mean, and the way that... I'm sure that used to be a song, once. Or I'm a poet and I don't know it. No, the girl's growing up and she's growing away. You can't cage the wind, Krysty. And I would never try."
"Want to walk back to the rooming house, Doc?"
"Thank you, Ryan. Good friends are a consolation against the grievous rigors of this parlous world. And I do appreciate your great kindness toward me. But I must walk that lonesome highway by myself."
"Keep away from the snakes!" Krysty shouted as the old man wandered slowly away.
One place that fascinated Ryan was a store selling memorabilia. Predark was its name. The window was dusty and the interior badly lit, despite the ville's electrical power, all of it provided by a huge gas-fired generator on the edge of town.
"Let's go in."
There was a brass bell above the door, and it tinkled like Lori's spurs as they pushed it open. It was a warm day, with dark chem clouds stippling the tops of the Sierras. Inside the store it was humid and quiet, the silence broken only by the ticking of a tall grandfather clock in the corner.
"Good afternoon, strangers. Come into my little cave of riches with a good heart. Be at peace with all men. Gentle be the selling and the buying and could you shut that coil-bound door?"
The last seven words were uttered in a raised voice laced with anger.
Krysty hastily pushed it closed, making the bell jingle once more.
"Keeps out the scale-blasted flies, you understand. Can I help you outlanders to any small curio or other?"
"This stuff all come from before the long winters?" Krysty asked, brushing the dust of the street from her long, fiery hair.
"Indeed. Much of Southern California took the big plunge into the Cific, down the Andreas. Lot of neutrons around here. My father and me been collecting since then. I pay packies to go scouring the old gulches and ghost villes."
At last he stepped out from the darkness, sliding through a curtain of clear glass beads that clicked softly.
The man was in his late fifties and wore a loose shirt, hand-woven in varying shades of purple and green. He sported old-fashioned glasses with lenses tinted a very deep blue, and he held his head on one side like a querulous parrot.
"I do not see well. An accident in a warm spot that became hot without my noticing it. Corneal damage, I believe. That is why I keep my humble establishment a touch gloomy. It pains me less."
"Mind if we look around?"
"Course not, Mr. Cawdor."
"How'd you name my name, Mr?.."
"Zombie and his two-wheelers help me in finding items for my store. He described you very well. My name is Brennan. Yes, the same as Baron Edgar. He is my brother. His nephew, Layton, is my grandson."
It seemed like he was going to go on and say more. Maybe a lot more. But a shadow fell across the window and he turned like a startled hare, taking three steps back to the shelter of his beaded curtain.
"It's all right," Krysty reassured him. "Friend of ours. Rick Ginsberg. Hey, Ryan. Looks like he's been laying out some jack on clothes."
The bell chimed thinly as the freezie entered the shop cautiously. "That you, guys? Thought I saw you from the bedroom. I changed that old suit for something more practical. Laid out most of my cash... I mean jack."
He was wearing a pair of faded Levi's, tucked into ankle-high hiking boots with studded soles, a washed-out work shut in light brown and a heavy-duty quilted jacket.