Kirby did not scowl, he did not even touch the little man. But as one drawling word was joined to the next, Simmy held his body tighter against the wall, as if to escape by pushing.
"I ain't done nothin'!" he cried.
"That's what I said, little man. You ain't done nothin'. But you're goin' to do somethin'—talk!"
Simmy's pale tongue swept across working lips. "What ... you want—wantta ... know?" he stuttered.
"You expectin' to meet some friends heah?"
"Th' rest o' the boys an' th' cap'n; they may be ketchin' up."
"How many 'boys'?"
Simmy's tongue tripped again. He swallowed. Drew thought he was trying to produce a crumb of defiance. Kirby reached out, selecting Hatch's bowie knife from the cache of captured weapons. He weighed it across the palm of his hand as if trying its balance and then, with deceptive ease, flipped it. The point thudded into the wall scant inches away from Simmy's right ear, and the little man's head bobbed down so that his nose hit one of his hunched-up knees.
"How many 'boys'?" Kirby repeated.
"Depends...."