Ryan laughed. “Tactful! She wants you and J.B. to be tactful. Does that mean warning them politely before you slit their throats open from ear to ear?”
The Armorer looked offended, drawing himself to his full five feet eight inches. “Dark night, Ryan! I can be just as tactful as the next man. Even more so.”
“Sure, sure. Main thing is that we get a plan together for Come in.”
There was another knock on the door, and in came Mildred, followed by Doc, the old man looking spruce with a carnation in his buttonhole.
“Lovely day,” he boomed. “Sun’s roasting out your eyeballs, Master Cawdor and Mistress Wroth. Even the laggard Dr. Wyeth here has been up and broken her fast before you.”
“Been planning, Doc,” Ryan said, “and I still haven’t recharged all of my sleep batteries yet.”
“Planning,” Krysty echoed disgustedly. “You should know this, both of you, because he’s bound to suck you into his ‘planning’ at some stage.”
“Any plan of the dear boy’s is going to be hunky-dory with me,” Doc said. “He has only to ask.”
“We’re going to rob some of the merchants visiting the ville for their convention.”
“What?” Doc frowned.
Krysty laughed at the shocked expression on his face. “It’s true, Doc. Thought you said any plan of Ryan’s was all right with you.”
“Why?” Mildred asked. “Why do we need so much jack? Aren’t we leaving to get back to the redoubt and the gateway?”
“Not yet.” Krysty looked at Ryan at her side. “He wants to take a trip on a riverboat.”
“Stealing. Upon my soul!” Doc looked at Ryan, sitting in the bed. “I confess to some doubts about this, old friend. ‘Thou shalt not steal’ is what the Good Book says. Then again, it says something about not killing, and we break that commandment often enough, almost on a daily basis.”
“Not talking about chilling, Doc. These guys’ll have too much jack, and we won’t have enough. Just sort of restoring the balance a little.”
“What an equivocator, Ryan. You would have made an excellent attorney, my dear friend. Truly you would.”
Ryan laughed. “Sounds like being a terminator, Doc. Can’t argue with you if that’s what it means.”
Doc shook his head. “Not quite, old friend. I cannot in truth say that I lend my approval to this proposed act of grand larceny.” He lowered his head to sniff at the flower. “So delicate. What was I saying? About the stealing. I confess that in my youth I always wanted to pass a little time on one of those magical vessels that plied the Mississippi. The tales of Mark Twain inspired such an interest.”
“So we’re going for it?” Ryan asked. Nobody spoke and he laughed. “Well, you don’t disagree. Then you can all get out so we can dress and launch the day on the road.”
RYAN HAD MET WOMEN like Dolores Stanwyck before, often running places like the Montana Queen. His guess was that she’d likely started as a low-grade gaudy slut, and used her native wit and intelligence to better herself, built up a store of jack and used it wisely, investing in property. Gaudies and saloons.
Now she was set up in Twin Forks like a queen herself, looking thoroughly respectable in a long black dress, fringed with white lace at collar and cuffs. A single strand of pearls circled her throat. A wide smile of welcome was on her powdered cheeks, Sierra ice in her blue eyes. She sat alone at a table with a shot glass of whiskey at her elbow.
“Good to meet a friend of John and Jak,” she said, giving him a firm shake of the hand, measuring him with a direct stare. “You want work, Ryan?”
“I don’t reckon, but thanks for the offer. We’re planning taking a trip to Crosstown on the Golden Eagle .”
“Need plenty of jack.”
“We got it. Partly what John and Jak have earned from you. Mostly what we had saved.”
She finally let go of his hand. “Heard you made a hole in your savings at Toby’s last night.”
Ryan laughed. “Guess you hear anything that moves in Twin Forks.”