Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,95

the Elder Hills and saw nothing—and wondered if there was an Elder in its true form standing a few yards beyond the boundary, watching her. “Okay.”

Forgoing the walk for the dog’s sake—an excuse Barb didn’t question—Jana and Rusty played in the backyard while Barb put together a simple meal of sandwiches and salad.

Late that evening, as she wrote a short note to Tobias, asking for book recommendations on dog training, she thought about the howling.

We are here. According to Barb, the Wolves meant it as reassurance that they were keeping watch. But the answering howls? We. Are. Here. Should the humans hear that as a reminder or a threat?

* * *

* * *

The door to the private railroad car opened a finger’s length—enough for the barrel of a gun to be aimed at anyone sitting at the card table. But no gun appeared or was fired. Instead, Judd McCall said, “Parlan?”

“Come in.” Parlan placed the derringer on the table and resumed shuffling a deck of cards. He waited while Judd scanned the public side of the room, then fixed on the door that provided entry into what was, most of the time, his private space.

“Any company waiting for you?” Judd asked.

“No.” When the mood struck, he’d pick up a woman and use her well for a day or so, sometimes even letting her travel with him for a while if she had some interesting—and uninhibited—skills. Plenty of the saloon whores had indicated interest in having him for a night instead of some rough-and-tumble man, but he hadn’t reciprocated the interest lately.

The northern half of the Midwest Region was even more barren than he’d realized in terms of large towns and people who still had money. The southern half still had a few human-controlled cities along the gulf—places where the clan had previously set up shop for a few weeks before moving on—but he hadn’t paid enough attention and hadn’t realized the Midwest Region had been split and they would need another set of travel passes to reach the cities along the gulf.

No, that wasn’t true. He had been paying enough attention ever since that damn war, but people were still discovering the repercussions of the HFL movement trying to wrest control of the land from the Others. And the clan finding themselves in the wrong half of the Midwest Region was one of those repercussions.

He dealt four cards, faceup.

Judd raised an eyebrow. “Blackjack?”

“To pass the time.”

Everyone else in the clan liked to gamble, but some weren’t allowed to gamble outside the clan because they couldn’t always be trusted not to put something on the table that they shouldn’t. But Judd didn’t gamble. Not with cards or dice. And Judd wasn’t what you would call a rough-and-tumble man. He was too damn dangerous for that because Judd McCall liked to gamble with guns and knives. He liked to gamble on how long it might take a man to die from a particular wound.

“Game broke up early?” Judd tapped the table to indicate he wanted another card. “Busted.”

They set those cards aside and Parlan dealt another hand. “The ones who joined the game because it’s Earthday and they were bored and looking for something to do until the train could leave in the morning didn’t have enough cash to see them past a couple of hours of play. And the ones who hoped I’d take markers because they never figured to lay eyes on me again … I persuaded them to move along.” He sighed. “Barely making enough to meet expenses since those HFL idiots lost the war.”

“Sometimes you’re the one who floats us …” Judd pulled a handkerchief tied up as a bundle out of his coat pocket. “And sometimes another branch of the clan makes the profit.” He untied the bundle.

Parlan set the cards aside and picked up a diamond and emerald necklace. A modest piece. Probably a gift for an important anniversary—or the kind of gift a married man might give his mistress to keep her sweet and believing that he really was going to leave his wife. “Where did you find this?”

“Charlie Webb and Sweeney Cooke reported in. They found another of those hole-in-the-wall towns. They were thinking it might work as a base of operations for some in-and-out jobs, but Charlie noticed that two of the houses were occupied and figured they shouldn’t be touched since he wasn’t sure who, or what, occupied those places. They entered one of the other houses and helped themselves to whatever