The trader didn't want any trouble, which was a relief. He nodded politely to Dan and said, “Hello, kid. How ya doin”?”

Don't call me kid! Anger automatically flared in Dan. Then it faded, and not just because the man was heavily armed. Gray streaked the trader's hair and whiskers. To him, Dan, with his own thin, scraggly, scratchy beard, was a kid, no two ways about it. So Dan nodded back and said, “Not bad. You?”

''Tolerable.” The trader considered, then nodded. “Yeah, I'm just about tolerable.”

“Cool,” Dan said. “Ask you something?”

“Well, you can always ask.” The older man's eyes narrowed. “I don't promise to answer, mind you. Your business is yours, and my business is mine.”

That wasn't necessarily so. The trader represented nobody but himself. Dan served the Valley and King Zev. Somehow, he didn't think the trader would be much impressed if he told him so. Instead, he said, “Did you do any of your business with the people there?” and pointed to Liz 's house.

“What if I did?” No, the trader wouldn't give anything away.

“Look, I'm not trying to get money out of you. I don't care about money,” Dan said. That wasn't exactly true. He cared plenty about his own money, but he was willing not to worry about the trader's. “There aren't any new taxes for trading here”-if there were, chances were they would have sparked an uprising- “and I'm not trying to shake you down.”

“Says you,” the trader answered. “If you knew how many lines I've heard… But I haven't heard one just like this, anyways. So if you aren't trying to shake me down, what the devil are you doing?” His leathery face was watchful, wary. He kept his hands well away from the pistols, but Dan would have bet he could have one in his grip in a hurry. And the matchlock wasn't even loaded.

“What I want to know is, what did you bring up here to trade with those people?” Dan said.

“You won't believe me if I tell you.”

“Try me.”

“Okay. Remember, you asked for it. I unloaded some magazines from Old Time, from the days just before the Fire came down.”

Dan did believe him. He sounded too pleased with himself to be lying. Dan was sorry he'd said he wouldn't ask about money-he wondered how much this guy had got. But what the man said fit in pretty well with what Liz had told him before, which also made him think the trader was telling the truth. So all he asked was, “What kind of magazines? Did they have to do with Old Time guns and stuff?”

“Nah. f could see people wanting those.” The trader shook his head. His greasy hair flipped back and forth under his hat. “These were just weird, man. I think they were mostly pretend stories. Why would you rare about those?” He sounded honestly puzzled.

Dan was puzzled, too. “That's all?” he asked.

“That's it. Cross my heart and hope to die.” The trader made the required gesture. For the first time, though, his eyes slipped away from Dan 's. Was he hiding something? If he was, Dan saw no way to make him turn loose of it. And the older man was impatient to be gone. “You gonna hassle me anymore?”

“Iwasn't hassling you,” Dan said. “You want to get hassled? I'll take you to my sergeant. He'll show you more about hassling than you ever saw.'“

“That's okay, kid, if it's all the same to you.” The trader's tone warned it had better be okay with Dan. Even so, he sounded amused as he went on, “I have met up with a sergeant or three in my time, and it's a fact that they can hassle better'n just about anybody.”

“You can say that again!” As soon as the words were out of Dan 's mouth, he wished he had them back. Now he'd given the trader something to use against him. That wasn't smart. But he didn't think Chuck would do much more than laugh. He hoped Chuck wouldn't, anyhow. Sounding as gruff as he could, he said. ““You can go.”

The trader touched the brim of his hat in what wasn't quite a salute. “Much obliged, buddy. You know, that trader's got a daughter about your age.” He jerked a thumb toward the house from which he'd come.

“I've met her.”“ Dan bit off the words.

“She's smart, too.” The older man didn't know how much trouble he was causing-or maybe he did know and didn't care. “If I were as young as you are, I'd try and spend some time with her. I would.”

“Right.” Dan said. If looks could have killed, the trader's fancy pistols wouldn't have done him a nickel's worth of good. Didn't he know that Dan wanted nothing more than to spend as much time with Liz as he could? And didn't he know that Liz didn't seem the least bit interested in doing the same thing?

Of course he doesn't know any of that, Dan realized. The trader had just set eyes on Liz for the first time. (Unless he'd come up here before the Valley took Westwood. But Dan thought that unlikely. The man would have talked about her differently if he had.) How could he know that Dan went over there whenever he found the chance? How could he know Dan was on his way over there now? Simple-he couldn't.

Or could he? His leathery, weathered face was much too cunning as he said, “Well, have a nice day, pal,” and ambled off.

He didn't look back over his shoulder to see whether Dan knocked on Liz 's door. Maybe that meant he didn't care. Then again, maybe it meant he already had a pretty good notion of what Dan would do.

Steaming, Dan tramped right past that door. He was, after all, supposed to be on patrol. But he looked back over his shoulder after he'd gone half an extra block. No sign of the trader. If the miserable fellow had hung around to see what Dan would do. he was gone now. And if he was gone now^?…

Dan hurried back to Liz 's house and knocked on the door. The barred little telltale at eye level opened up. Dan didn't think those were Liz 's eyes on the other side of it. He turned out to be right, because a man's voice said, “Oh, it's you. Wait a second.”

A thud meant the man was taking down the bar that held the door closed. When it swung wide, Dan found himself looking at Liz 's father. “Hello,” he said politely-he couldn't bring himself to call anybody in occupied Westwood sir. “Is Liz at home?”

Her father nodded. “Yes, she is, but you can't see her right now. She's busy in the kitchen. We've got to eat-nothing we can do about that-and getting food ready takes a lot of time.”

Dan nodded, too. He remembered his mother working a lot in her kitchen. He also remembered her grumbling about it. Chopping and cutting and plucking and gutting and tending the fires and cleaning up afterwards… Sometimes she'd dragooned him into helping, but women did most of the work in there.

“Ask you something?” Dan said.

“I make a point of never saying no to a musketeer who's carrying his gun,” Liz 's father answered. Dan wondered if he was telling the truth. Like the other trader, he was bound to have weapons of his own. But he wasn't showing any right now. And so…

“Why did you buy freaky magazines from that whiskery-scoundrel?”

Liz 's father looked startled for a moment. Then he smiled. “You must have run into Luke.”

“If that's his name,” Dan said. “But you didn't answer my question. Why did you? It could matter to the Valley.” He wanted the trader to understand he wasn't just being snoopy on his own.

“I don't see how,” Liz 's father said. “I'm interested in those kinds of magazines myself, the same way Liz is. They remind me how much we lost when the Fire fell. And. after I look at them, I can sell them. I'll make good money when I do, too.”

All you had to do was look around to see how much got lost when the Fire fell. The buildings, the rusting corpses of cars, the fancy firearms, the diseases people couldn't cure anymore… “Why do you need to be reminded?” Dan asked.

“Like I said, I'm interested.”

“Mrm.” Dan made a noise deep in his throat. “Are you interested because you're trying to scope out plans for Old Time weapons?” People nowadays could imitate some of them.