I tried to keep my eyes forward, like I’d seen it all before. Everybody in the Last County went to prayers enough to know better on both counts. Besides, he should’ve known better than to think desert dwellers would believe Djinn bled anything other than pure fire-or that anyone in Deadshot would believe themselves good folk. It’d been years since anyone round these parts had seen a real live First Being, let alone a Djinni. His wide grin looked desperate in the oily lamplight, and no wonder. A group of factory workers still in their uniforms huddled around a nomad in a busted-up wagon who was shouting about selling Djinni blood that’d grant good folks their hearts’ desires. A girl called out from a window with words that’d make an iron dragger blush. Like buzzards swarming to a fresh carcass.Ī man with a bloody nose was pinned up against a wall by two others while another drove his fist into the man’s face over and over. Might be that once upon a time the barn had served some honest horse trader, but that was years ago by the looks of things. A great big gutted-out barn at the end of the dusty street, it was swarming with bodies and blazing with light, propped up against a half-collapsed prayer house with a boarded-up door. It was the noisiest building in town, and that wasn’t saying nothing. It wasn’t hard to spot the pistol pit on the other side of Deadshot. All the better if I got out with a few coins in my pocket, too.
Tonight I was getting out of here with at least my life. I figured I looked more like some lost nomad than a real sharpshooter, but so long as I didn’t look like a girl it didn’t much matter. I was wrapped up to my eyes, and even hours after sunset I was sweating under the padding like a sinner at prayers. My hand snapped to my sheema before I could think better of it, checking it was still tightly fastened so the better part of my face was covered. The doors of the bar banged open, spilling out light and noise and a fat drunk with his arm around a pretty girl. Everything I owned belonged to my uncle anyway, according to law, down to the clothes on my back. I’d stolen the hat from my uncle, along with the horse. I tugged the wide brim of my hat lower as I stepped out of the yard.
Or maybe that was just his two black eyes. The kid sitting against the fence was sizing me up suspiciously. I slid from Blue’s saddle and tethered her to a post behind some bar called the Dusty Mouth. Then again, I wasn’t exactly up to no bad neither. They said the only folks who belonged in Deadshot after dark were the ones who were up to no good.
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