Deathlands 122: Forbidden Trespass by James Axler Read Free Book Online Page B

highlights in the morning sun as filtered through dusty, fly-crap-stained chintz curtains. “It’s a terrible thing.”
    Wymie nodded thanks, unable to speak. Dorden, who made and milled black powder on the far side of Sinkhole, had been a close friend of Wymie’s mother and father. He had been driven somewhat apart from the family after Tyler Berdone’s accident. Like so many others. Wymie still thought of him as a kindly uncle.
    He had already sweated through the vest, which didn’t match the suit coat he wore over it, straining to contain his paunch. “What happened to your parents, then, child?” the third visitor said in a cracked and quavering voice. “We heard they’re dead too.”
    “They got chilled,” she said.
    “Ah. How horrible that you had to witness that.” Heshook his wrinkled head, which showed even more bald skin that Dorden’s though, as if to compensate, his hair stuck out in wild white wings to both sides. “Only the good die young.”
    So long as you’re talking about Blinda, she thought. I wonder if you’d say that if you knew how often Mord talked about grabbing you some dark night and hanging you over a fire till you spilled the location of that fabled stash of yours.
    But Wymie’s stepdad had never acted on his gruesome fantasy, and never would’ve. Though this man’s hands shook like leaves in a brisk breeze most of the time, they steadied right down when he gripped a hammer or other tool. Or a handblaster. He was still the best shot for miles around with his giant old Peacemaker .45 revolver.
    Wymie had a hard time believing the stories that oldie Vin Bertolli had been the western Pennyrile’s biggest lady-killer in his prime. But that was decades ago: he had lived in and around Sinkhole for over half a century, since arriving as a young adventurer in his twenties who’d been forced to seek a quiet place to settle by a blaster wound that’d crippled his left hip some.
    “The outlanders did it,” Wymie said. “I saw the white face and red eyes of the murdering son of a bitch myself. I could almost reach out and touch him! But that taint Conn sticks up for them!”
    “You got to do somethin’ yourself then, Wymie,” Mance suggested. “I’ll help.”
    “Obliged,” she said.
    The older visitors exchanged uneasy glances.
    “Mathus Conn’s a good man,” Vin said. “A good man is hard to find.”
    To her surprise, Wymie found the stuffy air inside theboarding house could smell worse than it already did. The oldie ripped a thunderous, bubbling fart. Her knees actually weakened as the smell hit her.
    A black-and-white cat rubbed against the wrinklie’s shins, purring loudly. It’s like the little monsters are applauding him for out-stinking them, she thought.
    “How can he be good if he shields murderers of little girls?” she demanded.
    “I hear tell he wanted evidence that what you saw was really one of them outlanders, Wymie,” Dorden said.
    “I saw him with my own eyes!”
    “You saw an albino,” Dorden corrected her, “just like Shandy Kraft was. There’s likely one or two more in the world than just that skinny kid with the outlanders.”
    “Are you defendin’ them, too? Whose side are you on?”
    He raised his hands. “Yours, Wymie. We’re not blood kin, but I allus been close to your family. But Conn’s a good man, like Vin says. Always dealt square with everybody. Dealt square with your ma and your pa, while he was alive.”
    He didn’t mentioned Mord Pascoe. He didn’t need to. Wymie’s late stepdad never dealt square with anybody. And once the gaudy owner had caught him trying to cheat him one too many times, he refused to deal with him at all.
    “More’n that,” Dorden said, “he protects himself double good. And if anybody pushed Conn too hard without good reason, Tarley Gaines and his clan would step up to back him. And that’s a bunch nobody wants to mess with.”
    “If aidin’ and abettin’ little-girl-murderin’ outlanders