Jak laughed. “So we’re going up Sippi. Looking forward. Could be real exciting.”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Sure could.”
Chapter Twelve
Jak and J.B. went to the Montana Queen after an early breakfast to tell Dolores that they were quitting. With nothing else to do, Ryan went along with them.
First thing he noticed was that the woman seemed edgy, not wanting to look him in the eye.
“Sorry to lose you guys. Lent some steel and muscle in here. Handled yesterday well.”
“Shame about the deaths,” Ryan said.
She laughed nervously. “Happens. Law in Twin Forks couldn’t punch their way out of a wet paper bag. You get a serious problem and you have to deal with it yourself, best way you can. And that doesn’t always mean doing the right thing. Just the safest thing. Way of living.”
Ryan nodded. “Way of the world. Same in most places in Deathlands.”
“You’re going to take a trip upriver on the Golden Eagle ? to Crosstown?”
J.B. answered her. “Yeah. Something we’ve all fancied, one time or another. They say the Eagle flies higher than the other stern-wheelers.”
Dolores was idly shuffling a pack of cards while she spoke, but she stopped and looked directly at the Armorer. “Flies high Sure does. But” She hesitated a long moment. “But it’s a rare trip that bodies don’t go over the side.”
Ryan felt the short hairs prickling at his nape. Over the years of surviving on the knife-edge, he’d learned to listen for the unspoken thoughts that lay behind the spoken words. There was something going on with Dolores Stanwyck.
“You think we shouldn’t go?”
He watched her hands. For a moment they froze, and her knuckles whitened. Then she took a deep breath and carried on shuffling and cutting the deck, her gaze back on the table. “No. Not my business what you do.”
“You got something more to say, Dolores?” he asked, pressing her, leaning over, hands on the green baize. “Best you tell us if you know something. Or it might go hard with you when we come back and find you lied to us.”
“Hey, mister, just back off.” Her angry reaction made Ryan realize two things that he was right in having a suspicion, and that he’d played it wrong by trying to pressure her.
Jak looked at him, obviously surprised by the turn events had taken. “Ryan?”
“It’s all right. Just got a feeling. See I was wrong. Sorry, Dolores.”
She was flushed, blinking fast, looking past him to a trio of her girls who were laughing at a private joke over by the bar. “All right, Ryan. Don’t like being accused of something I haven’t done. And I’ve done nothing.”
“Sure, sure.” He turned away. “Mebbe we’ll call in and see you on the way home again.” He made sure that she heard the threat in his voice.
“WHAT THAT ABOUT?” Jak asked as they walked back toward the boardinghouse, where the others were waiting for them. “Picked on her. Seems good woman to me. Tough. Honest.”
“Won’t argue with that, Jak. But there was something going on under the surface. She was tense and nervy. I just got the feeling that something had happened that made her like that, and it involved us and going on the paddleboat. But she’s been around too long to give it up easy. And I didn’t feel confident enough to try dragging it out of her.”
They were walking along a street that ran parallel to the river.
“Listen,” J.B. said, checking for a moment. “Sounds like a big boat coming in.”
There was the muffled sound of a stern-wheeler, its huge rear paddle thwacking at the surface of the Big Muddy. And then the mournful blast of its whistle echoed around the ville.
” Golden Eagle ?” Ryan glanced at his wrist chron. “Said it would dock some time this morning. Sails upriver dawn tomorrow. We should go aboard and book our cabins early. They reckon that she fills up fast.”
RYAN ALLOWED an hour and a half for the boat to discharge her passengers and freight, then went along on his own to make the bookings.
When he came out onto the quay, he was impressed at the sheer size of the vessel. She loomed over the warehouse, her twin funnels trickling a pillar of dark smoke. Ryan guessed that they probably kept the large boilers stoked with wood even when she was in port, saving the tedious process of cooling down and retiring.