Chapter Twenty-Three

 

 

They parked the wags outside a roofless garage a couple of blocks from the Country Row Country Museums, Exhibition and Concert Hall.

 

Mike Sullivan called everyone together, checking where they were spending the night. A few had opted for one of the cheap flophouse hotels called the Hat Armadillo, but most were going to sleep in the cabs of the rigs.

 

Ryan and the others agreed that they'd stay close to the wags. It was a little after seven-thirty, with the light fading fast into a mild, velvety evening.

 

Sullivan passed by, spruced up, in polished crimson Western boots with silver scorpions embroidered across the toes. "Want to come along with me and some of the boys? Least we can do is watch your backs for you."

 

Ryan glanced around at the small circle of friends. "Reckon we might stay here awhile, then go take in the exhibition. Something different to do. After that?" He shrugged. "See which way the dice roll."

 

The farmer nodded, turning as a highly polished and chromed 4x4 pulled into the parking lot, squealing to a halt by where the sawed-off stumps of the pumps still rusted. A couple of young blond men, in cutoff jeans and hand-printed T-shirts, jumped out. Both of them sported big Browning automatics on their hips, with bandoliers of ammo crossed over their muscular chests.

 

They looked over at the group, their attention immediately driving in on first Mildred, then Jak. It looked as if they were about to say something out loud, then they noticed the armory carried by the outlanders and contented themselves with a muttered comment and a snigger, turning their backs and striding away together.

 

"That's what we're talking about," Sullivan said quietly. "Keep close and keep watchful. You need to head anywhere on the run, come back here. There'll be some of the boys here on watch all night."

 

"Thanks. We'll do that."

 

Ryan watched the sturdy figure stalk away toward the bright lights of Country Row.

 

 

 

"YOU GOT THE JACK, then y'all come back. Your pockets are high, then walk on by. Best show of its kind in all of Deathlands. Nothing like it nowhere."

 

"Anywhere," Krysty whispered under her breath. "Gaia! Why can't people bother to speak properly?"

 

"We going in?" Mildred asked eagerly.

 

"Sure. It's what we came for." Ryan grinned. "Triple-red all the way."

 

"We head for the wags if there's trouble," J.B. said. "Gather there."

 

Ryan nodded. "Sure. And try and keep the blasters holstered. Fists and boots if it's controllable."

 

 

 

THE EXHIBITION WAS ALMOST deserted, its rooms and passages ringing to overamplified country music, songs riding over each other, Dolly drowning out Tammy, and George blaring across a crackling Carter Family album.

 

Ryan couldn't believe just how cheap and tawdry the whole place was. The glass cases that held some of the costumes were fly stained and dusty, several of them with hairline cracks disfiguring the faded labels.

 

A stout woman in a short cowgirl skirt and high-heeled boots was sitting on a chair in the first room, flicking through a pile of brittle old mags. She looked up as they entered, switching on a welcoming lip-sticked smile that was as real as everything else in the place.

 

Her voice was a flat, dull monotone. "Hi, y'all, country fans and a big howdy-doodee Country Row welcome. If you like, I can be your guide and show you the wonders and tell you the tales and play you the"

 

"No, thanks," Krysty said. "Prefer to just look around on our own."

 

"Please yourself." The smile vanished like dew off a dawn meadow. The woman picked up the mag and carried on reading as though she'd never spoken to them.

 

They walked through, mostly in silence.

 

"Fake," Mildred said, looking at the car with an ill-dressed wax dummy stumped in the back seat. "Wrong model. Wrong color. I've seen pictures of the original. And that dummy looks like it weighs more than Hank ever did."

 

Jak was peering at a large display of the shirts of Conway Twitty, shaking his head. "If all his, how come lots different sizes?" he asked.

 

In another room a deep, portentous voice was reeling off a potted history of country, sprinkling the saga with the occasional anecdote.

 

"Music for the heart, not for the head. For the soul of decent folks. It's not smart music for bankers and lawyers, though some of the biggest fans have been professional men and women." There was a screen showing a succession of faces and scenes that had somehow gotten out of sync with the commentary, so a picture of the great Willie Nelson was identified as someone called Cornpone Cawson, the Hayseed Hick.

 

"Many greats of the industry, like Johnny Cash, worked as sharecroppers and came from dirt-poor families. Others, riding the high wave, tried to make similar claims. It was often said that the only cotton some of them picked was out of the top of aspirin bottles."

 

"I've had enough," Mildred said when they were about halfway through the echoing vault.

 

Doc cleared his throat. "I must admit that I have seldom if ever seen such a tarnished collection of rubbish and outright quackery and poodle-fakery. How they have the damned nerve to try to charge for people to come and admire this rubbish is quite beyond me."

 

"Because there's nothing else, Doc," Ryan said. "And when you got almost nothing, then even a real poor something's better than that."

 

"A philosophical truism, I suspect, my dear comrade," Doc agreed.

 

"Exit's over there," Jak said.

 

They passed a large display, behind chipped sec glass, of rare records, most of them in ancient vinyl, nearly all showing an aged yellow label and the word Sun.

 

Mildred peered at them, shading her eyes against the reflected light from the strips of harsh overhead neon, exclaiming at the rarity of some of the disks, then noticing the prices handprinted underneath.

 

"It's the album Waylon, Willie, Kris and Johnny cut together. I used to own this and nearly wore it out. Dates roughly from the 1990s. Title track's one of the finest country songs I ever heard. Jesus! Look at what they're asking for it."

 

J.B. joined her, taking off his glasses to read it more clearly. "Dark night! You could buy a pair of matched dragoons in the original box for that kind of jack."

 

Ryan laughed. "Least you buy blasters you can get to use them. Buy that record and what the triple-chill you going to play it on? Number of working players for that sort of disk that I've seen in Deathlands Reckon that I could probably count them on the fingers of both hands."

 

"Yeah, but the really wealthy barons could probably afford one. Like this Countess Katya that Sullivan was talking about. Maybe we should buy her a record as a kind of peace offering for when we reach her ville."

 

"Day I buy presents for barons, male or female, is the day I head for the rocking chair on the porch, so I can sit and rest alongside old Mose," Ryan said.

 

"Who's old Mose?" Jak asked.

 

"Just sort of a name." Ryan scratched his head. "Don't rightly know where it came from, either. Guess there must once have been a real Mose who wanted a rocking chair."

 

 

 

NIGHT HAD FALLEN FULLY over Country Row as they stepped out of the exhibition, along a concrete corridor that smelted vaguely of piss, pushing open a swing-barred door into an alley off the main drag.

 

As the steel door swung shut behind them, it muffled the overbearing noise of the relentless music.

 

Mildred took a deep breath. "That was a serious disappointment," she said. "Country's such a great and positive force for good. Combine it with a little old-fashioned rock, and you've just about got my favorite music. But what they had in there" She made a gesture of contempt. "Just a cheap way of getting a fast buck. Peddled like it all fell off the back of a wag and nobody gives a shit. What I'd like right now is to find a quiet bar and wash some of that taste out of my mouth."

 

"Sounds good," Jak said, clapping his long white hands softly.

 

Ryan led them out into the street. It was fairly quiet, with the various bars and eateries lining the strip. Most of them were ornamented with colored lights, some of them spelling out the names. Music filtered out from behind a variety of swing doors.

 

"Take your pick," he said.

 

"Quiet is a good choice," Mildred stated. "Less risk of real trouble."

 

They walked together along the center of the dusty, rutted street. Ryan's right hand rested gently on the butt of the SIG-Sauer, but he couldn't taste any threat in the air. A few townspeople strolled by, and several of the men lounging on the porches stared down at the outlanders. But it wasn't much more than the usual natural curiosity that would be encountered in any one of a thousand frontier pestholes, with their bars, gaudies, drunks and sluts.

 

"What an exercise in ingenuity has gone into thinking up some of these splendid names," Doc commented, pointing at some of them with the point of his cane Flying Burrito, Palace of Sin, Satan's Golden Bar, Hank's Way, Wheels of Thunder, San Joaquin, Adelita's Muncheria, Gipsy Sharon's, My Place, Sam'n'Ella's.

 

"That last one sounds the kind of joint where you might pick up food poisoning," Mildred said, laughing at some private joke that none of the others understood.

 

"How about that?" Krysty asked, pointing to a small, dimly lit bar that stood on its own on the southern side of the street. "Nice name. Might get some good vibrations from it."

 

It was just called Harmony.

 

 

 

A YOUNG BEARDED GUITARIST sat on a stool on a tiny stage oaf the far end of the bar, singing a beautiful, mournful song about leaving an L.A. freeway. A tall woman with cropped black hair leaned on the counter, idly wiping a glass with a green-checkered cloth.

 

Ryan glanced around as soon as they were inside, trying to size up the atmosphere, feeling for any sense of danger. There were about a dozen people in Harmony, sitting at five or six tables. Four of them were playing a quiet game of poker, the rest were nursing schooners of beer and talking in low voices.

 

They were all men, in a variety of Western clothes, shirts, jeans and working boots.

 

Every head turned at the appearance of the six strangers, but Ryan had the feeling that their arrival in Country Row had already been noted by the locals. Nobody seemed at all surprised to see either Jak's stark white hair, blazing in the gloom like a beacon, or Mildred's black skin and beaded hair.

 

"What can I get you folks?" called the woman from behind the bar. "Come right on in. Don't stand in the doorway, blocking up the hall."

 

There was a large round table, its top scarred and ringed from years of cold glasses, and the companions sat at it, Ryan picking the seat that faced the main entrance. J.B. chose the chair that gave the best view of a rear door, which presumably opened into an alley at the back.

 

"We got beer, some local wine and some better stuff from out west. And we got fruit juices. Could even do you some coffee sub if you wanted."

 

Ryan looked up at the woman. "You do food?"

 

"Sure. Nothing fancy. Soup. Chili and beans. Got some ham and pork if you fancy that."

 

Ryan picked the chili and a long beer. Krysty followed his choice, as did Doc. J.B. chose a plate of ham and pork with a bottle of chilled wine, which he shared with Mildred. She didn't feel that hungry and ordered a bowl of the soup of the day, which turned out to be turnip, leek and bacon. Jak took a long time making up his mind, eventually opting for the soup, followed by chili with a side order of bread and cheese, washing it all down with two glasses of beer.

 

They had finished and were beginning a last round of drinks before going back to the wags to settle for the night, when the doors swung noisily open and in came the two young rednecks who owned the smart 4x4. They were both drunk, sweating heavily and still flaunting their Brownings and the ammo belts.

 

Ryan instantly tasted the bitter iron of danger and eased himself a little away from the table, his hand falling to the SIG-Sauer, seeing that each of the other friends was beginning to react in a similar way.

 

"Well, now, Albert, my man, you notice that nasty stink in this clean bar?"

 

"Sure do."

 

"Must be the stink of that black pussy and that scaredy little white rabbit I see there."

 

"Must be, Elmore. Must be that's what that nasty ol'stink is in here."

 

They stood side by side, facing Ryan and the others, sloppy grins leaking over their raw, fleshy faces, brutish and confident.

 

The woman behind the bar also had a nose for serious menace and she came out, wiping her hands on the cloth. "Now, we got a nice quiet bar here and everyone's having a good time. Let's try and keep it that way."

 

"Fuck you, slut! You serve freaks, muties and darkies. Sweet Jesus on the cross knows what them others might be, as well. But they shouldn't be in a place with decent folks."

 

One or two of the drinkers at the other tables were starting to take some notice, and to Ryan's dismay he caught the whispering of support for the two intruders.

 

"Yeah, shouldn't be blacks in with whites. Not the way in Country Row."

 

"Then we should mebbe all leave?" Ryan said, surprised at how calm and steady his voice sounded, not betraying the hot rage that was already surging through him, starting to cover his good combat sense.

 

Elmore thought about that for a little while, hands on his hips, inches away from the etched butts of the Brownings. For a moment Ryan sort of hoped that they might just be able to walk out of this without blood. Sort of hoped.

 

Then the redneck shook his mane of blond curls. "No. Not just like that."

 

"Let's do it," Ryan said.