Sam didn't deal in compliments all that often. Here, where people needed to dig in and graft all the way through, there wasn't a whole lot of value to a pretty face and painted nails and looking a million bucks when nobody had change for a dollar.
But the laughter peeled off her face in seconds as the device skittered toward her, and the message blared up. And her face went white, stark as anything, and she bit her lip dark red.
"It ain't Cal," skimming, trying to dig through the Freenet to see some way of figuring her own friend alive. "Honey, y'all tell me folks ain't dead, tell me folks ain't dead." There wasn't nothing skim and easy about Sam just then, her hand was shaking, and she handed back his phone with a look of naked fear about it.
She didn't mind the Hellhounds none. Not Rodeo, who'd been plenty nice when she'd stumbled into his path, and didn't smart at a bunch of folks deciding they wanted to live their own way. But if they killed Cal dead in trying to do so, selfishness would rise real high, real quick.