“They’re sure likely to be some wolfish, ma’am,” he agreed. In hope that she would be deterred by exaggeration, he dwelt on the subject. “The gunmen and hoss thieves and tinhorn gamblers all come in on the rush. There’s a lot of them hobos and wobblies—reds and anarchists and such—floatin’ round the country, and they’re sure to be in on it, too. I reckon any of them would cut a throat or down a man for two bits in lead money. Then there’s the kind of women that follows a rush—the kind you wouldn’t want to be seen with even—and the men might allow you was the same kind if you come rackin’ in among ’em.” 279
Solange listened thoughtfully and even smiled bleakly.
“These men would kill, you say, for money?”
“For money, marbles or chalk,” said Sucatash. He was about to embellish this when she nodded with satisfaction.
“That is good,” she said. “And, if not for money, for a woman—one of that kind of woman—they would shoot a man?”
Sucatash blanched. “What are you drivin’ at, ma’am?”
“They will kill for me, for money—or if that is not enough—for a woman; such a woman as I am. Will they not, Monsieur Sucatash?”
“Kill who?”
He knew the answer, though, before she spoke: “Louisiana!”
Shocked, he ventured a feeble remonstrance.