Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(20)

“Call me Ford,” he said, sounding a lot friendlier, as if Tag had spoken some sort of code when he’d switched languages. “And it is rude to talk in a language everyone doesn’t speak. Your accent is atrocious anyway.” He looked over at their SUV.

Charles opened his door, so Anna climbed out, too.

“Call me Ford,” said the stranger again, this time to Charles. He wasn’t looking at Anna, but she felt like he was very aware of her.

“Charles Cornick,” Charles said after waiting long enough Anna could have spoken if she wished. “And my wife, Anna.”

Ford rocked on his feet, looking at Charles a little differently than he had before, less welcome and more wary. He glanced at Tag. “You keep dangerous company, Carrottop.”

Tag didn’t lose the goofy smile designed to draw attention away from his cool gray eyes. “So do they.”

Ford grinned appreciably, and the tension in the air dropped back to where it had been before Charles introduced himself.

“Welcome to the Trading Post,” said Ford.



* * *



*

THE TRADING POST was a lot of things stuffed into one building. The room smelled of tobacco, coffee, and cinnamon, all overlain with a strong smoky scent, as if someone was smoking meat nearby. She’d smelled a little smoke outside—it was fire season—but this smelled less like burning trees and more like a cook fire.

The carpet was threadbare, with the floorboards peeking through here and there. Four card tables, of the folding sort, were squished together in one corner with chairs that looked like the same kind Anna’s high school orchestra had used—cheap, easy to stack, easy to clean.

Roughly half of the space not dedicated to tables was stocked like a tiny grocery store, with refrigerated goods stored in a double-sided, glass-fronted fridge. One of the walls consisted of a big walk-in freezer. A hand-lettered sign on the freezer door advertised locker space available above a price list for beef, pork, and venison sold in quarters, halves, or whole.

The remaining space was a very basic clothing store carrying jeans, blue T-shirts, a variety of flannel shirts, and brown leather lace-up boots. A glance at Ford showed he had done his clothing shopping here, and his boots looked suspiciously like black versions of the ones the store had for sale.

Along the back wall, shelves offered enough ammunition to arm a good-sized militia. In the corner next to the shelves was a huge old metal safe that looked very much like it belonged in a Hollywood Western-and-bank-robbery movie. Anna suspected it was more likely a gun safe than a bank safe, but there were no signs, so she couldn’t be absolutely sure.

There were two other people in the store, neither of them Native American. One of them was a woman of about Anna’s age with reddish-brown hair, and the other was a towheaded boy who looked about five. Both of them had also gotten their clothing from the store. Anna wondered where the drivers of the other cars were—and why people with cars didn’t drive the hour or so to Yreka to get clothes.

Without a word to the others in the store, Ford escorted them to one of the tables. Charles pulled out a chair for Anna. Tag pulled out another and looked at it doubtfully. Anna got it—he was a big man for such an insubstantial chair.

“Sit,” advised Ford. He glanced at the woman—but she was already bringing a glass water pitcher foggy with cold in one hand and four glasses in the other.

As Tag sat gingerly on the edge of the chair, the boy opened a door in the back and left the building. Anna caught a glimpse of him running as the door swung shut behind him. No one seemed worried about such a young child running out where there was nothing but forest, highway, and the river Anna had heard but not seen when she’d gotten out of the car.

“Here you are,” the woman said, setting the glasses around before bustling back into an alcove Anna’s first impression of the building had missed.

Tag opened his mouth, but Ford held up a hand. “Wait.”

The woman brought out four plates, each holding a mammoth slice of berry pie. Beginning with Anna, she placed the plates around the table.

Anna, aware of undercurrents, waited for someone to do something. Charles glanced at Ford, but then looked at the woman directly as he cut into the pie and took a bite. His eyebrow rose and he made a soft sound.

“Huckleberry,” he said in obvious approval. “I haven’t had a huckleberry pie in a very long time. Thank you.”

Which meant they weren’t dealing with the fae. Charles wouldn’t have said those words to someone who was fae. He would have praised the food, but he wouldn’t have thanked anyone.

Anna was sure by now they were dealing with people who weren’t quite human. The store smelled of smoke, of gun oil, of all the things lining the shelves and filling the fridge. But she couldn’t smell the man who sat at the table with them, or the woman who’d served them—just as she hadn’t picked up the scent of the boy.

The woman flashed Charles a big smile. “You’re very welcome. If you folks need anything else, I’ll be right outside,” she said.

Then she left by the same back door the boy had used.

They ate their pie. Anna had become a fan of huckleberries since her move to Montana, but she wasn’t fond of berry pie. Mostly they were—like this one—too sweet. The flavor was powerful—huckleberries were like that. She thought if they had used half the sugar, she might have enjoyed the pie. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t stop eating it. She glanced surreptitiously at Charles, but he was eating the way he usually did—like a well-mannered starving person who wasn’t sure where his next meal with coming from.