Thirteen
He was right, in a way. It was unusual to see Perdition so quiet. The time that passed taught me that. It taught me names of the men there. And the women, too. There was a man, Mercer, who drank too much and thought far, far too little. There was a woman who ran the kitchens. She was a whip-thin woman and had a severe face, but she was a sweetheart.
Most things that I didn’t learn, though, were the problems that became most apparent.
For example, nobody explicitly talked about who was subordinate to who. Every group I’ve ever seen in my life has some people who dominate the conversation, and some people who didn’t. The meek may inherit the Earth, but the reality is that in the meantime, there were people ready to take advantage of anyone who wanted to go along to get along.
That was true of Perdition, too, of course. It was a unique place, where most things didn’t get paid for with money. It was run more like a family than home. There was an unspoken trust there. I didn’t know at the time that it was something you could only build up when you were a bunch of killers, and you’d been through Hell together.
So in some ways, it was an extraordinary town. There was a lot to learn there, and many things that were completely different from the rest of the world. But they weren’t that different. Not really. They were still human. Their quirks were just a little quirkier than most places.
All of that was, of course, a closely-held secret. Not the sort of thing that was discussed by Good and Proper Folk. And, of course, there was the fact that they weren’t Good and Proper Folk meant that they discussed even less. When things finally did happen, then there was plenty of time for discussion.
But not before. Nobody discussed anything unless it was going to profit them, and nobody was sure that talking to Baron was going to profit anybody. Baron, for his part, told me nothing. And everyone figured that if I learned something, I would immediately go straight to Baron myself and tell him. Anything said to me might as well have been said directly to Euler himself.
Which was a fair assessment. It made good sense. But it meant that I didn’t know the name Franklin Durham until I had already seen him around a dozen times. I’d never seen the name before on any Wanted posters; I’d never seen a picture of him.
All I knew was that there were a few people who seemed to always be the center of attention during supper; Baron was one of them, and the other was a tall, bulky guy with straw-colored hair that he wore close-cropped on top of his head.
He was a grim sort of man. If he ever smiled, he might have been good-looking. Of course, I wasn’t shopping around for men, either, so I put him out of my mind. There was nothing to be thought of him except that he was there, regardless of what I thought of him.
I was sitting at the bar, sipping on well-water that tasted a little bit sour to me. Some of the women drank whiskey with the men. I wasn’t one of them. Libations weren’t something that I’d ever been given to taking, and my mother had been clear about the dangers of alcohol.
But there was nothing else to be done with my days but sit in the common room and wait for something to happen. Which was why I was there when the sandy-haired man slid onto a stool beside me.
“You’re Baron’s woman, that right?”
I filled my mouth with water and ignored the question. I guess that partly, I was being a little petulant. I wanted to deny it, not because I hated Baron, but because I was angry. He hadn’t promised me a thing, and I knew it. But I had imagined something different, and I wanted things to go different. It wasn’t fair. The door was right there, though, and nobody would stop me going out of it. Not Baron; I was sure of that.
“Strong silent type, huh?”
I kept my peace a little longer. Swallowed my water. It went down smoothly, at least. Something about the water here had it catching in my throat a little more often.
“You know, I like that in a woman.”
“I don’t much care what you like.”
“Franklin,” he said. “I don’t believe we were properly introduced.”
“I don’t know that we needed to be,” I said sourly. I turned and slipped down from the stool.
“You’re not being very friendly,” he said.
“No, I suppose I’m not.”
“You’re a pretty lady,” he growled. There was an unspoken threat in it. “But you need to learn you some manners.”
I stepped around the bar. Leanne would be starting up supper in a few minutes, and I figured that she would want some help.
“I’ve got half a mind to turn you over my knee,” said Franklin.
I realized dimly that the entire room had gone as silent as the grave. There was something going on here, and I was at the center of it. I chose my next words carefully. I wasn’t looking for a paddling, but I was pretty sure that there was more in store for me if things went badly enough.
“I don’t think you ought to talk that way to Baron’s woman.”
Franklin pinched his lips together like he was trying to avoid saying something.
“We’ll see,” he said. I glared at him, turned, and stepped into the kitchen. And just about bowled over Leanne, who certainly hadn’t been eavesdropping. Because that would be improper.