Schickel nodded. "Know you did, Madge, know you did. I was agreeing with you."

He turned to Krysty. "Straub's his own man. Trades in a special way. I reckon that you and the white- headed boy, Jak, will interest him a lot."

"Why? Why me and Jak in particular?"

"He can tell you that for himself. Likes to speak his own words, does Straub."

"Look forward to hear him," Krysty said tersely, tearing at a sinewy hunk of roasted deer. "Hope he isn't

going to keep us waiting too long."

"The waiting is over, lady. I'm Straub and I'm here."

Chapter Sixteen.

The voice was soft and gentle, with a strange caressing quality to it.

It reminded Krysty of her mother trying to persuade her to do something she wasn't keen to do.

It reminded Ryan of a high-class gaudy slut he'd once known near Aurora in the Carolinas. She'd been the

mistress of an elderly baron and wanted some tender young meat to carve, and picked on the dark-haired, brown-eyed youth with the scarred face and the missing eye. She'd had a voice that could've charmed birds down out of the tallest trees in the forest.

Dean remembered his mother Sharona's voice during the rare times that they weren't running and hiding. There'd been a small vacation cottage from predark, amazingly well preserved, in the Black Hills. The local Lakota had been friendly to the woman and her little boy. And at night, by the side of the crackling fire, Rona would tell her child tales of heroes and villains, while he gnawed on a crust smeared with wild honey.

Straub's voice didn't remind Abe of anything in particular, though he found himself turning around with a sudden and unanticipated smile on his face.

Trader remembered a golden girl in a cornfield on a golden Kansas afternoon when he was young and Mildred also found herself smiling at the friendly voice. Her father had a younger brother, Josh Wyeth, who'd been a Baptist minister in Alabama. He used to sit the skinny little girl with the ribboned plaitswho he called Millieon his knee and tell her stories of the Bible.

Jak heard the voice of Straub and, for some wholly unaccountable reason, thought of Mama Jeanne, the wise voodoo woman in the bayous, and her tale of the gator that changed himself into a smooth-talking man to try to charm little children down to the muddy deeps, among the gnarled roots of the ancient mangroves. There he would change back to a reptile again and devour them.

J.B. listened to the smooth, gentle voice, and he had a vision of an old breed gunsmith he'd once met, close to Norleans, a tiny, halt figure in a cane-backed wheelchair, his spine twisted sideways from a birthing accident. His eyes were as bright as chips of Sierra ice, and his delicate hands could turn a rusted, moldering relic into a fine piece of crafted weaponry. He had talked while he worked, and young John Dix had sat at his bench, sometimes handing him a chisel or an auger. But most of the time he would just sit and listen.

Doc had turned around at Straub's voice, blinking his rheumy old eyes.

Why did it remind him of Las Graces, New Mexico?

There had been a pueblo, forty miles or so north, and a kiva. Doc had been made welcome, and the shaman had taken him through a healing way that had eased all the tension and all the worries from his mind and body.

The voice of Straub reminded him of that ceremony.

But there was something different about it. Dark steps led down into the circular kiva, and the smell of the smoke and the voice of the elderly Navaho calmed him. But now it seemed as if the man wore a shape-changer mask that hid his face and altered his words, rendering evil for good. Doc blinked again, puzzled. Straub walked into the circle of light from the nearest of the fires, bowing slightly to the visitors.

He was slimly built, a little over six feet, around fifty, with a shaved head that glistened and reflected the orange flames. There was a large opal in his right ear, and a gold tooth glittered at the front of his mouth as he spoke.

Ryan noticed that the man had unusual eyes. They were so dark a brown they seemed to be almost black, with tiny flecks of silver whirling in them.

Straub wore a black shirt and black jeans with silver rivets. A silver snake was embroidered around his black Western boots, and a necklace of raw turquoise hung around his neck. He didn't appear to be armed.

He walked slowly around the main table, pausing to shake hands with each of the outlanders, muttering

their names as if to fix them in his memory.

His clasp was surprisingly strong, his eyes staring intently into Ryan's face. "Good to have such a large and well-armed party along with us," he said.

For an odd moment, Ryan felt slightly sick. The food in his mouth tasted of bitter ashes, and he nearly spit it out in the trampled dirt beneath the table.

Then Straub laughed quietly, and it felt like a spell had been broken.

Krysty was next along.

"Ah, the woman with the most wonderful hair of fire in all Deathlands. It is truly an honor to meet with you." He stooped and kissed her hand.

He paused and paid particular attention to Jak.

"A pure albino. Forgive my using the word, won't you, young man?"

"Why not? What I am."

Straub touched the great mane of stark white hair, running his fingers through it and holding the silken

strands so that they caught the reflected light from the fire.

He breathed out in a languorous sigh. "Magical. Truly magical. So fine and so long."

"I bet you say that to all the boys," said Mildred, next around the table.

Straub crouched and looked into her eyes. "You know about medicine," he said in an oddly accusatory

manner. "Now, how can that be? I see knowledge that" He straightened, his brow furrowed. "That I don't

understand."

Mildred saw sudden danger from this strange man, and she quickly changed the subject. "But you don't think very much of my hair?"

"I like the beading, Mildred Wyeth. But the hair itself is, forgive me, common."

"Oh, I forgive you. 'Course I do."

"Whereas both Krysty and Jak have absolutely wonderful hair. Among the most rare I have seen. And I

do know what I'm talking about."

"You don't spend all your time with these people?" Trader asked.

Straub looked at him. He ignored the question and asked one of his own. "The suffering has become less

over the last two or three years, hasn't it?"

"That comes under the roof of my fucking business, not yours," Trader retorted.

"You a seer?" Dean asked. "You can see things about people? Can you?"

"Sometimes, young man. Both Mildred and the venerable Doc have shades to their auras like none I've

known. And Krysty also." He shook his head. "But time is wasting and the food is getting cold."

Ryan felt as though a load had been removed from his shoulders. There had been the bizarre sensation of

countless ghostly fingers probing inside his skull, as though they were searching through a cobwebbed attic in an ancient mansion for something valuable long hidden. Straub went and sat at the head of the table, beside Schickel, the two men immediately becoming deeply involved in conversation.

Krysty leaned toward Ryan, her mouth almost touching his ear. "One to watch, lover," she whispered.

"Yeah. Felt like he was looking inside me."

"He was. Dean was right. Man's a seer. And I think he was also trying us all out as subjects for

hypnotism."

"Hypnotism! Never!"

Ryan hadn't realized that he'd raised his voice until he looked up from his plate to see those dark silvery

eyes staring intently at him, the pale lips breaking into a smile.

He lowered his tone. "I know there's something double weird about Straub."

"You felt it, lover. I did. We all must've done. It's dangerous not to accept the threat. That way he might

be able to gain control over one or more of our minds."

Ryan helped himself to a pair of ribs from the nearest dish. "All right," he said softly. "I did feel something happening. You reckon he has that power?"

Krysty nodded, still half turning, her hand over her mouth to conceal what she was saying. "I know it. Straub's one of the most lethal men I ever met."

But there was no more threat. The reverse was true, with everyone showing friendliness to the strangers.

The food, despite the poor cooking, put down a layer between backbone and belly, and the nine companions did justice to the meal.

Three of the women stood during the supper and sang together, unaccompanied. It was a song that none of the nine outlanders had heard before, about a sister wishing to visit a ville called Hammond and what happened to her there. The voices blended perfectly, striking pure, crystal harmonies. When it was over they all applauded. "A little something I wrote myself," Straub said, bowing. "Long ago."

Mildred leaned over to J.B. "I don't know, John," she breathed. "Thought at first that I never heard it, but I'm sure now there was something a tad familiar about it. Bet you a peanut to a candy bar that creepy bastard never wrote it."

Straub was looking at her, and Mildred felt herself flushing. Almost as if he could hear her words. Or read them out of the center of her mind.

Schickel banged on the table with the hilt of his hunting knife. "Friends, friends. Straub here has been telling me the results of your successful hunting. Some of which has delighted us all tonight."

Ryan leaned back on the bench, feeling the chill of dusk on his skin, and gazed up into the sable sky. The evening star had been glowing brightly for some time, now accompanied by the first pinpricks of light from countless other stars.