“It’s still neater than my place,” I lied. “So tell me about these dragon people.”
She sat opposite me. “I thought you knew about them already,” she said suspiciously.
“I do; I’d just like to compare notes.”
She smiled. She had all her teeth, although a couple appeared destined for the dentist’s pliers. “You first.”
Well, no way around that; smoothly done, LaCrosse. So I gave her the sum total of what I knew. “There aren’t very many of them, they’ve got a place hidden around here somewhere and they aren’t afraid to hurt people to get what they want.”
She nodded. “That’s them, all right. When they first came here, we tried to be friendly and get to know them. In the woods, you always like to find out who you can trust, because you never know when you might need a hand. But whenever we’d run up on one of them, they’d get all crazy and chase us away.”
“How long ago did they come here?”
“About a month ago, I reckon. The first time I saw one, I was out gathering berries up near the tree line. The dirt’s all washed away there, and there’s places where it’s nothing but boulders. That’s where he was, at one of those rocky spots. He didn’t see me at first. He had a stick, like a fishing pole, about twice as tall as he was, with a rag tied on the end the way you’d make a torch. He even poured something that looked like lamp oil all over it. But he didn’t light it; he just started shoving it into the cracks between rocks, as far as it would go, real carefully, like he was… I don’t know, painting the insides of those crevices and things.”
“What did he look like?”
“He was a young guy. Had on nice clothes under a big camouflage cloak. The clothes made me think he was town trash-no offense-but he moved around like he was used to being outside.”
“Then what happened?”
“He kept painting cracks for a long time, very methodically, like it was his job or something. He didn’t notice me. Finally he stopped, and I decided to say hello. I thought maybe he’d lost something down in the rocks, and I could get Toy or Stick to wiggle down and get it for him. I asked if he needed any help.”
“What did he do?”
She chuckled. “He screamed at me and threw a knife. He called me a nosy whore and said he’d kill me if I ever told anyone I’d seen him.”
“He threw a knife at you?”
“Yeah. He just missed me. It stuck in a tree right by my head. I grabbed it and ran. Luckily I know these woods like I do this tabletop, because he came after me. But once I got out of sight, there was no way he could’ve found me. He looked for quite a while, though, screaming and cursing at me the whole time.”
“Do you still have the knife?”
“ ’Course. Want to see it?”
I nodded. She went to a trunk-sized box shoved up against the wall and opened it. Light glinted from the blades of a dozen knives clipped to the inside of the lid, ready for the day the king’s soldiers came to arrest them, I supposed. She picked one, pulled it loose and closed the box.
She handed it to me: five inches long, perfectly balanced and sharp on both edges. If you didn’t know about knives you’d never pick this one, because it was about as visually impressive as a nice letter opener. But I did know, and it told me that if the screaming guy had wanted to hit her, he probably could have. This was a pro’s throwing knife.
But what it told me most was that I was on the right track: embossed into the black handle was a dragon emblem identical to the one I saw on the man’s boots.
I tapped the design. “Is this why you call them the dragon people?” I asked.
She nodded. “Why do you?”
“One of them has the same thing on his boots.” I put the knife on the table. “Can I buy this from you?”
She shook her head. “We don’t use money. Money feeds into King Archibald’s repression.”
Slowly so I wouldn’t spook her, I drew my own knife from its hiding place in my boot. It was almost exactly the same size and weight and, since I’d left the filigree along the blade, looked much more expensive. “Can I trade with you, then?”
She took both knives and held them side by side, scrutinizing them like two cucumbers at the market. Then she handed me the dragon knife. “Sure. It’s probably bad luck for me to keep it, anyway.”
I slipped the new weapon into my boot just as heavy steps thudded on the porch outside. “I got us a couple of wild pigs,” a rough male voice called. “Ought to be good for a week, at least. Got ’em strung up to drain.”
“Buddy, you know you don’t have to gut ’em; I’ll do that,” Bella Lou called through the door. She smiled and shook her head. “I’m a lucky woman, all right. He spends all day hunting and still has the energy to field-dress ’em and start the blood running out.”
The front door opened and Buddy stepped into the room. He was a short, round man with arms the size of my legs, dressed in ragged, homemade clothes patterned to blend with the light and shadow of the forest. He’d removed his boots on the porch, and his broad, pasty-white feet slapped the floor with each step. He wore a big knife on his belt and his hands were bloody. Intense little eyes peered from under the floppy brim of his cap and said he was not pleased to see a stranger. He looked me over for a long, tense moment. Finally he growled, “Who’s this, Bella Lou?”
“This is Mr. LaCrosse,” she said.
“And why is he in my favorite seat?”
She kept her eyes cast demurely down. “He was asking about the dragon people.”
“We don’t know any dragon people,” he said as he hung his hat on a peg. He had a wild tangle of thin, ginger-colored hair around a sizeable bald spot.
“Your wife just said you did,” I pointed out.
His hard little eyes flicked back to Bella Lou. “Yeah, well, she’s not too smart sometimes. Ain’t that right?”
Bella Lou, eyes still averted, nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Buddy asked, “That your gray mare out there?”
I nodded.
“Pitiful excuse for a horse.”
“I know.”
“Bella Lou, get me some water.” He wiped his hands across his belly, leaving red smears on the fabric. As she jumped to get water from a barrel, he stepped close to me and looked down. “You are in my favorite chair.”
“I’m a guest,” I said. Buddy had, in the time it took him to walk across the room, gone from annoying me to truly pissing me off, and I halfway welcomed the chance to make a big deal out of something. “Don’t they always get the best seat in the house?”
Buddy tried his best glare on me. “You and your pitiful horse better leave, mister.”
“Sure. Just as soon as one of you tells me where I can find the dragon people.”
“I said before, we don’t know any dragon people.”
I smiled my brightest smile. “Then your wife’s a liar. Or you are.”
His face turned red. “Mister, get on your way or next time I’ll just leave you out there for the coyotes,” he growled.
I frowned, puzzled at the comment. He looked startled as well, and embarrassed, like he’d blurted out more than he should. Then I got it. “Oho,” I said softly, “so you’re the fellow who found me and brought me into town.”
His tough veneer turned out to be as substantial as a sneeze; the fear in his eyes could probably be seen back in Neceda. “I think you better leave, mister,” he said with no juice.
I loved it when a tactical advantage just fell out of the sky like that. I nonchalantly tipped my chair back. “I’m not ready to give up my seat just yet. Yeah, my friend at the stable described you. He didn’t know your name, but he’s seen you at the market in town before. You tried to sell my saddle to him.”
Now Bella Lou froze in the act of handing him his mug of rainwater. Her eyes grew big and, as I watched, began to sizzle with fury. “You were at the market? In town?”
Buddy looked helplessly from me to her, unable to think of anything to say.
