Part 18 (1/2)
Purdy nodded: ”She's layin' up agin' the mouth of a coulee, 'bout two mile or so this side of Red Sand.”
Long Bill removed his hat, scratched his head, and stared out over the river. Finally he spoke: ”See her clost up?”
”Yup. Went right down to her.”
Another pause, and with a vast show of indifference Long Bill asked: ”Anyone in her?”
”No.”
”Any tracks around--like anyone had be'n there?”
”Not none except what I made myself. Look a-here, Bill; what you so d.a.m.ned anxious to find that ferry fer? It would cost you more to haul it back upstream than what it would to build you a new one.”
”Sure they wasn't no one there? No one could of got off her an' struck back in?”
”Not onless they could of flew,” opined Purdy, ”how'd she come to bust loose?”
Long Bill burst into a tirade of profanity that left him breathless.
”I'll tell you how come she bust loose,” he roared, when he had sufficiently recovered to proceed, ”that d.a.m.ned son of a--of a Texian stoled her--him an' the pilgrim's woman!”
”Texan!” cried Purdy, ”d'ye mean Tex--Tex Benton?”
”Who the h.e.l.l d'ye s'pose I mean? Who else 'ud have the guts to steal the Red Front saloon, an' another man's woman, an' my ferry all the same day--an' git away with it? Who would?” The infuriated man fairly screamed the words, ”Me--or you--not by a d.a.m.n sight! You claim to be a horse-thief--my Gawd, if that bird ever turned horse-thief, in a year's time horses would be extincter than what buffaloes is! They wouldn't be _none_ left fer _n.o.budy--nowheres_!”
It was some moments before Purdy succeeded in calming the man down to where he could give a fairly lucid account of the happenings in Timber City. He listened intently to Long Bill's narrative, and at the conclusion the ferryman produced his dodgers: ”An' here's the rewards--a hundred fer Tex, an' a thousan' fer information about the woman.”
Purdy read the hand-bill through twice. Then for several minutes he was silent. Finally, he turned to Long Bill. ”Looks like me an' you had a purty good thing--if it's worked right,” he said with a wink.
”Wha' d'ye mean?” asked the other with sudden interest.
”I mean,” answered Purdy, ”that I've got the woman.”
”Got the woman!” he repeated, ”where's Tex?”
Purdy frowned: ”That's what I don't know. I hope he's drownded. He never landed where she did. They wasn't no tracks. That's the only thing that's botherin' me. I don't mind sayin' it right out, I ain't got no honin' to run up agin' him--I don't want none of his meat.”
”Course he's drownded, if he never landed,” cried Long Bill, and taking tremendous heart from the thought, he continued: ”I hain't afraid of him, nohow--never was. I hain't so d.a.m.n glad he drownded neither. If I'd of run onto him, I'd of be'n a hundred dollars richer. I'd of brung him in--me!”
”You'd of played h.e.l.l!” sneered Purdy, ”don't try to put yer brag over on me. I know what you'd do if you so much as seen the colour of his hide--an' so do you. Le's talk sense. If that there pilgrim offered a thousan' first off--he'll pay two thousan' to git his woman back--or five thousan'.”
Long Bill's eyes glittered with greed: ”Sure he will! Five thousan'--two thousan' five hundred apiece----”
Purdy fixed him with a chilling stare: ”They wasn't nothin' mentioned about no even split,” he reminded, ”who's got the woman, you or me?”
Long Bill glared angrily: ”You didn't know nothin' about the reward till I come along. An' who's got to do the d.i.c.kerin'? You don't dast to show up nowheres. You'd git nabbed. They's a reward out fer you.”
Purdy shrugged: ”When we git the five thousan', you git five hundred.
Take it or leave it. They's others can do the d.i.c.kerin'.”
Long Bill growled and whined, but in the end he agreed, and Purdy continued: ”You listen to me. We don't want no mistakes about this here.
I'll write a note to the pilgrim an' sign Tex's name to it, demandin'