“I’ll tell you what happened. We found the camp of that murderin’, thievin’ bastard Delshay,” Willis said. He laughed, then held up his finger to emphasise his statement. “And we rode through that camp like shit through a goose. We must have killed more than half of ’em. The rest skedaddled like scalded-ass rabbits, leavin’ the camp behind ’em. So we burned ever’ tent, ever’ grain storage, we even burned up their dried meat. Yes, sir, even if they do come back, they won’t be able to live there ’cause they have got no place to live no more. And what’s more, they have got no food to eat.”
“Did you kill Delshay?” one of the patrons of the saloon asked.
“No, no, we didn’t get him. He’s one of them that got away. Which says a lot about him, if you want my opinion. It tells me that the son of a bitch is a coward when it comes to fightin’ against real fightin’ men.”
“I don’t know,” one of the saloon patrons replied. “I’ve heard a lot about Delshay, but I’ve never heard anyone call him a coward.”
Willis glared at the patron. “Well, I’m calling him a coward,” Willis said. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“What? No, sir, no, sir, not at all, Mr. Willis,” the patron said quickly. With trembling hands he picked up his beer, drained the rest of it, then left quickly, chased by the laughter of the members of Willis’s posse.
“You ever’ see anyone move as fast as that feller just done?” Meechum asked derisively, and the posse laughed again.
“What about Mrs. Bixby?” Hendel asked, surprised by the fact that Bixby hadn’t ask about his wife first.
Willis shook his head. “Sorry, we didn’t see no white women.”
“Did you look?” Hendel asked.
“Did we look? You damn right we looked. In case you forgot, they’s a ten-thousand-dollar reward bein’ offered up for her. They ain’t no way we’re goin’ out there and do what we done without lookin’ for the woman that’s missin’. Only, she wasn’t there and the nearest I can figure is they must of took her out with them when they left. Either that, or she’s dead.”
“Do you think that it is more or less likely that she is dead?” Bixby asked.
“Well, I don’t rightly know how to answer that,” Willis said. “But now, let me ask you a question. What if we would happen to find her and it turns out she is already dead? Would you still pay the ten thousand dollars?”
“The bill reads that the reward is to be paid only if she is returned safely,” Bixby said. “So the answer to your question is no. Why should I pay the reward if she is dead?”
By now all the drinks had been poured, and Willis picked up a glass of whiskey, then tossed it down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he replied.
“I’m told by the folks who know them best that Indians don’t bury the whites they kill, and like I told you, we did not find a white woman’s body,” Willis said. “So, if you was to ask me, I would say that they have not killed her.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“No, I don’t know for sure.”
“I didn’t think so,” Bixby said. “It turns out that you are no different from all the other cretins who live out here. You are incompetent and irresponsible. The truth is, if you lived in New York, there is no doubt in my mind that you would all be incarcerated by now.”
Willis took another drink and studied Bixby over the rim of his glass for a long moment.
“Jay Peerless Bixby,” he said. “Only you are Jay Peerless Bixby Junior, aren’t you now? And it’s remembering, I am, that your old man, Jay Peerless Bixby Senior, is the bloke what was sent upriver for dippin’ some sticky fingers into Credit Mobilier. Whether you do your stealin’ on the docks or in some fancy office, it’s still stealing, now ain’t it, laddie?”
Gone was the flat Western twang Willis had acquired, to be replaced by the accent of Hell’s Kitchen in New York.
“What?” Bixby asked, his cheeks flaming in color. “How—how do you know about that? Who are you?”
“Let’s just say that I am someone you don’t want on your bad side, whether it’s in Hell’s Kitchen or Tombstone, Arizona,” Willis replied.
Willis’s words had not only surprised Bixby, but everyone else in the saloon as well.
“I never know’d that about you,” Meechum said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Willis said, still using his New York accent. Then, switching to a Western twang, he added, “But why are we standin’ around here jawbonin’? Seems to me like we got us some celebratin’ to do. We done what the entire U.S. Army ain’t been able to do, and that’s find and destroy the camp of that murderin’ bastard Delshay.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Every time Delshay and his followers broke camp, they took every precaution to erase all signs of having been there. They used tree branches to brush away any tracks, they covered the holes in the ground that were made by the tent stakes, and they even picked up the pony droppings. Such attention to detail was enough to throw off almost anyone who might be searching for them.
Almost anyone.
Matt wasn’t just anyone. Having initially learned his craft from his mentor, Smoke Jensen, Matt had a base upon which to build and, over the years, his own experience, intuition, and native intelligence had added to that skill so that he was the equal of or superior to any scout alive.
One thing the Indians could not do was alter where the ponies had grazed. Matt’s keen eye caught the uneven
