People on bikes or in horse-drawn carriages gave him a long look when they passed. When they noticed the Old One, however, they stopped and seemed to bow their heads in reverence, not taking their eyes off her until they were out of sight. In several instances she greeted them by name before they’d had a chance to announce themselves. Most times she simply bid them good day.
“I haven’t been back here in a dozen years,” Wareagle heard her mutter to Heydan. “Too long to remember the feel of everyone’s aura.”
Wareagle slowed, and the two women drew up even with him. He was conscious now of the fact that the two or three dozen residents about them had come to a dead stop and were watching their every move.
“Folks here don’t see white people very often, warrior. They see even less of Indians. Nice place to grow up, let me tell you, though.” The Old One turned to Heydan Larroux. “Maybe show you the house where I was born later, introduce you to my mammy.”
Heydan’s eyes bulged at the suggestion.
“Well, I’ll be gawdamned …”
Johnny turned toward the voice’s origin and saw a rail-thin black man emerge from the sheriff’s office. He wore a badge pinned to his shirt but had no gun. He stepped down from the curb and headed their way.
“Tyrell Loon, that you?” the Old One called in his direction.
“It be,” the sheriff returned happily.
He reached the Old One and kissed her hand, paying Heydan and Johnny no heed at all.
“I missed you,” she told him.
“We all missed you.”
“There was a need for my services elsewhere.”
“You fixin’ to stay?”
The Old One looked at him as if she were considering the prospects for the first time. “I just might at that. Years be ready to cash me in, Tyrell Loon. Person got to end things where she started them.”
Loon’s eyes scorned her. “You been sayin’ that since ’fore I had hair on my privates.” He stole a quick gaze at Heydan and then a longer one at Johnny. “What brings you back here?”
The Old One fixed her sightless gaze on Wareagle. “The warrior here saved my life. I come back to repay my debt.”
Tyrell Loon stuck out his hand and Johnny took it. “In that case, you done come to the right place.”
“And this here,” the Old One continued, “is my lady.”
“So you the one,” Tyrell said, taking one of Heydan Larroux’s hands in both of his and squeezing tenderly. “Was your donations built us the new school,” he said, and pointed to a small building at the very edge of town. He turned his finger toward an old church diagonally across the street from it. “Helped us rebuild the church, too. Gonna get us our own permanent preacher, soon as we can build him a house.”
“I never took much to men of that kind,” the Old One said. “Never saw the need.”
“Always figured that’s why No Town never had one.” Tyrell Loon looked the three of them over again. “We best go inside my office ’fore the town stands totally still a lookin’.”
He took the Old One’s hand and guided her toward the building with two stars marked SHERIFF. She stepped up onto the curb ahead of him. Johnny and Heydan walked behind them. Loon swung the door open, and bells affixed to the other side jingled. He led the Old One inside and then held the door for Johnny and Heydan.
Inside the room were a simple pair of desks, a dust-coated filing cabinet, and twin jail cells that were both presently unoccupied. The beds inside the cells were freshly made. The floors shone. A trio of stuffed game birds sat respectively atop the front counter, Loon’s desk, and the filing cabinet.
“Let me grab some chairs for ya.”
He set two rickety wood ones in front of his desk and then looked back at Wareagle.
“Don’t think I got one that’d fit ya.”
“I’ll stand,” Johnny said.
Loon helped the Old One into one of the chairs and then slid back behind the desk to take his own. “Now, what is it I can do for ya?”
“You up to some tinkering, Tyrell?” she asked him.
“Not much ’round these parts to tinker with.”
“There is today.”
Johnny handed over the miniature pager to the sheriff.
“I was in the Signal Corps over in ’Nam,” he explained, inspecting it. “Army done give me a great technical education. Guess you could say I haven’t done much with it.”
“We need to know the contents of the last message, Tyrell Loon,” the Old One told him. “Can your tinkering bring it up for us?”
“Don’t know. It’s possible, if this thing has the kind of memory chip I think it does. Let’s take a gander.”
He used a small screwdriver to pry the back off, and then a pair of thin explorers to work through the pager’s insides.
“I love tinkering,” he said without looking up. “Just like I figured. Chip keeps the last message received stored until one comes in to replace it. Yup, here we go….”
With a few more seconds of manipulations with his tools, he turned the pager over and gazed at its miniature screen.
“There it is.”
He slid the pager toward Johnny, who leaned over the desk to study the message that was scrawled across two tiny lines:
Livermore Air Force Base. Hanover, Kansas.
The final phase begins.
It must have been a signal to come in, a recall. The team of killers in the bayou would have gone straight there upon completion of their mission. Johnny had his next destination.
“Not alone, warrior,” the Old One shot at him, seeming to read his thoughts. “You can’t beat them alone.” She turned toward Loon and continued before Wareagle had a chance to object. “My warrior here has got hisself a problem, Tyrell. Got an enemy been doing plenty of harm and plans to do lots more. Got to be stopped.”
“Uh-huh,” Loon acknowledged.
“Big in number the enemy be now, though. Too much for one man to best, even my warrior. You hear?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How many men can you round up, Tyrell?”
Johnny spoke before the sheriff had a chance to. “I can’t let you do that,” he said to the Old One.
“I don’t remember asking your permission,” she shot back at him.
“You know what we’re dealing with.”
“But you don’t know the kind of man lives down here.”
“She’s right,” Tyrell said. “I’m not the only man here who paid his dues elsewhere ’fore he come home. Some of the older men was in Korea. More of the younger ones been to the ’Nam. You was there.” A statement.
“Yes, I was.”
“I can always tell. Never could figure out how. Anyways, most of the men here knows what it be like to fight for your life. And not just abroad, neither. No way. Some been fighting all their lives till they came here.”
Johnny looked down at the Old One. “We can’t fight this with just experience.”
“How about with the best weapons money can buy?” Heydan Larroux suggested. “I’ve got plenty stockpiled for emergencies. I’d bet they’d impress even you,” she said to Wareagle.
“Where are they?”
“New Orleans. In storage.”
“How many men you figure we need?” Sheriff Tyrell Loon asked the Old One.
“Twenty-five.”
“Make it twenty-four. Sorry, forgot the Indian. Make that twenty-three.”
“Why?”
“Got my reasons.”
A boy who cleaned up around the jail building came by seconds later. Tyrell whispered something in his ear and sent him on his way.