Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,7

Judd.

“Why quit?” Parlan asked. He dealt two hands of blackjack. Henry hit and busted. Parlan deliberately took a card that also put him over twenty-one.

“Have you tried to do much traveling in the past month?” Henry glanced at the cards. “Stay.”

Parlan took a card and won that hand.

“The Northeast and Southeast didn’t get hit as hard as other places, but the bigger cities in those places surely did,” Henry continued. “I’ve heard at least one-third of Toland is nothing but rubble and corpses. A couple of the big cities in the Southeast aren’t much better. The people who used to look for a big game aren’t looking to play cards these days. They’re looking to buy food and repair their homes. They’re looking to restore their businesses. They’re hiding in their houses when the sun goes down.” He sighed. “The travel bans are strictly enforced, at least for the trains. And anyone foolish enough to drive at night carries a loaded gun on the seat beside him, figuring that if he’s caught, a bullet in the brain will be more merciful than whatever will be done to him by what’s out there in the dark.”

“That’s what you’ve heard?” Parlan dealt a couple more hands, not asking if Henry wanted to hit or stay. Didn’t matter. It was just something to do with his hands.

“I was in a Southeast city playing in a high-stakes game when the news reports showed all the dead shifters that were killed by followers of the Humans First and Last movement. And I was still in that city when the Others retaliated.” Henry’s voice remained calm, conversational, but when he looked at Parlan there was fear in his eyes. “Traveling from town to town for games? Not the way I want to live anymore—mostly because I realized that I wanted to live.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Henry laughed quietly. “My sister and her husband live in a small town on the western side of Lake Honon. They own an old-fashioned general store—the kind of place where you can buy basic groceries and a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer along with a coloring book or a toy for the kids, and the wife can look through a box of patterns to make a new dress. They even have bolts of cloth and needles and thread and whatnot for sewing. A year ago they wanted to expand but couldn’t get a loan from a bank. So I put in the money and became a silent partner.” He smiled. “I figured I was tossing money out the window, but she’s my sister. Anyway, they got the building renovations done and purchased the merchandise they wanted to add. And now? They and their old-fashioned store survived when the Others ripped through all the human towns. Now they’re an important fixture in that part of their town and need help running the place.”

Parlan didn’t scoff, but it took effort to keep his voice politely interested. “You’re going to give up being a gambler to become a grocer?”

Henry nodded. “I’d made the decision before all of … this … happened. I’m glad I did. I had my sister’s reply in my pocket when I bought my ticket, showing that I was returning to family and a job. Wouldn’t have been able to cross back into the Northeast without that letter. The old life is gone, Parlan. The days of being able to cross the continent on a whim aren’t coming back anytime soon, if ever.”

It rippled through him, that same feeling that told him a game was going sour and it was time to walk away from the table.

Henry Hollis was right. It would take years for Toland to recover, if it ever came back to what it had been. From the things he’d heard, Hubb NE was a quagmire of displaced people pouring into that city, looking for food and shelter. Desperate people and professional gamblers did not mix. Lakeside? Something about Lakeside and the other towns in that area had always made him uneasy. Not because of the Others. He’d always successfully avoided contact with them. But he’d had the feeling there were other kinds of hunters in Lakeside who couldn’t be discouraged or bribed—and just might twig to why the Blackstones were such successful gamblers and swindlers.

That left Shikago. And once he’d worn out his welcome there? Then what?

“Where do you get off?” Parlan asked.

“Shikago is the closest station to the town where my sister