The main street of the town looked to Wales vaguely like a gypsy camp. Dusty cars were parked double along it, and there was a surprising number of men and women and kids about. The men all carried rifles or wore belted pistols. The children were pawing around in already-looted stores, and most of the women looked with a blank, tired stare at Wales and his guard.
They took him into the stone courthouse. In the courtroom, dimly lighted and smelling of dust and old oak, four men were seated around what had once been a press-table. One of Wales' captors spoke to the man at the head of the table.
"Got a prisoner, Sam," he said importantly. "This fellow. He was driving from the east."
"From the east, was he?" said Lanterman. "Well, now, he might just have come from the south and swung around town, mightn't he?"
He looked keenly at Wales. He was a gangling man of forty with a red face and slightly bulging blue eyes that had a certain fierceness in them. The others at the table were two heavy men who looked like farmers, and a small, dark, vicious-looking young man.
"You didn't," said Lanterman, "just happen to come from Pittsburgh, did you?" They all seemed to watch him with a certain tenseness, at this.
Wales shook his head. "I came from the east, all the way across state."
"And where were you heading?"
Wales didn't like the implications of that "were". He said, "To Castletown. I'm looking for my girl. It's where she used to live."