Burn Me Deadly: An Eddie LaCrosse Novel by Alex Bledsoe Page A

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