"Going around with that… thing in your pocket. You could hurt some-"
"Now just wait one minute!"
"-body." She stamped a little foot. "You've got no right to carry a thing like that in a pocket where you ought to be carrying your wallet. And furthermore…"
"And furthermore," he said, leaning close over her to drown her out, "I'm thinking I ought to turn you in to the captain for picking pockets."
The girl opened her mouth, but this time didn't manage to say anything. Gabe glanced toward the cabin corner to see if any of the gold guards planned to mosey on down this way. None were in sight, but at that moment a wide man with a rolling gait and an official-looking cap came swinging around the corner instead. He came bearing down on them like an express wagon. "I heard a shot."
Gabe glanced at the girl. Her eyes were very round and large.
Gabe shrugged. "We didn't hear anything." He tipped his head toward the girl. "You hear anything?"
"No. Not a thing."
"I didn't either," Gabe said. "A shot, you say?"
"Sounded like a pistol to me," the wide man said suspiciously. His nostrils were wrinkling. "I could swear I smell powdersmoke."
"I don't smell a thing," the girl said.
The wide man stood with his shoes planted three feet apart and scratched his head in bafflement. The girl moved closer to him, looked up into his downcast face, and then reached up and thumbed one of his eyelids back. "You sure you're feeling all right?"
The wide man jerked his head back. "I feel fine. What are you talking about?"
"Maybe a touch too much sun," the girl said, mostly to herself. "I'd stay under cover for a while if I were you. Do you hear things very often? Smell things?"
"I… uh…"
"I'm a nurse, you see. I've seen cases before."
"Cases? Cases of what?"
She had the wide guy worried now. But she only smiled sweetly. "It's nothing to worry about, I promise you. A little too much sun can do it, you know. Take my advice, Captain, stay out of the…"
"I ain't the Captain. I'm the Mate."
"All right, Mate. Stay out of the sun for a day or two. That's my advice." The girl turned smartly, hooked her arm in the bend of Gabe's elbow, and promenaded off with him along the deck.
Near the stern Gabe stopped and shook her arm off. Up forward the Mate was still scratching his head, but presently he put his cap back on and his wide shape rolled into the corridor doorway and disappeared.
"Nurse," Gabe snorted.
"Thanks for not turning me in." She was doing her demure-little-girl act again. So sweet, so pretty. Sweet as laudanum poison, he thought.
But she was pretty all right.
Frowning, which didn't spoil her prettiness at all, she said, "What was that horrible thing anyway?"
"What thing? Oh you mean my knuckle-duster." He looked around-they had no witnesses. So he took it out of his pocket and slipped the brass rings over his fingers and showed her. "Like that. See, you can hit him with it. Or you can cut him with it. Or if you're really mad you can shoot him."
Wide-eyed, she looked at him in wonder mixed with doubt. "What sort of a person," she said, "would carry a thing like that?"
Feeling pretty expansive, Gabe stowed the knuckle-duster away in its pocket again and said, "Well, I'm from New York, see. Back there, you know, men are men, and you got to be prepared to defend yourself. Not like these joskins out here."
She glared. "Out where?"
"Out here in the hicks."
She took a deep breath and her lips pinched into a thin line. "I guess," she said coldly, "you mustn't ever have been to San Francisco."
"Sweetheart, I haven't seen anything you could call a city since I stepped on the train in Manhattan, and I don't have very high hopes for San Francisco."
"San Francisco," she said, standing up very straight, "is the Paris of the West."
"Well, that's real nice," Gabe said. "New York isn't the Paris of anyplace. It's the New York of the world, the only one, and all I want from my life is to get back to it."
The angrier she got, the taller she wanted to be. She was now up on the balls of her feet, teetering there like a beer bottle when you thump your fist on the table. "If New York is so wonderful," she demanded, "why'd you leave it?"
It's not as if I had a choice, he thought. But what he said was, "Well… a man's got to see the world. How'd I have known New York was the only place in the world worth being in if I never went anywhere else?"
"That's not true."
"What do you mean it's not true? I haven't seen a single-"
"That's not what I mean. You're not telling me the whole story."
"What whole story?"
"Hah," she said in disgust. "Here you are three thousand miles from home with that-knuckle-duster thing in your pocket, and no money, and a tough line of…"
"What do you mean no money?"
"Brother, I went through your pockets like a squirrel through a bag of peanuts. I can tell you what color lint you're carrying around. And you haven't got a cent in your kick. Well, to be exact, you haven't got a cent in your kick now."
He jammed his hand into his trouser pocket where he'd put the change after he'd bought the boat ticket.
Nothing.
"You used to have fifty-five cents," she told him sweetly.
Gabe peeled his lips back from his teeth. "Give… it… back."
"Fifty-five cents." She made a face, produced the six coins from the enormous bag she had slung over her shoulder, and dropped the money coin by coin into his open palm. "There you are my good man."
"Of all the…"
"Now you've got fifty-five cents. But I'd still call that no money."
"Maybe my money's waiting for me in San Francisco."
She grinned. "So's mine," she said. "In somebody else's pocket. Exactly the same as you."
"A pickpocket calling me a crook. I've heard a lot of…"
"Oh come on. You didn't turn me in."
"I should have. I still should." But he felt he was losing control of the conversation, and it irritated him.
"But you didn't and you won't. Because you don't want to talk to the police any more than I do."
He said truculently, "I'm not wanted anywhere."
"I can well believe that."
"The only reason I didn't turn you in was because " He stopped abruptly. It wasn't true anyway. There were two reasons. One, he'd never turned anybody in to the law; it was against his philosophy. And two, she was too pretty to turn in. But he was damned if he was going to tell her that out loud.
Besides, his stomach suddenly reminded him he was on a boat.
"Because what?" she challenged.
"Never mind."
"You're turning a little green. Don't tell me you're going to be sick again."
"Shut up."
"You've already thrown up everything you've had to eat for the past six months. How can you have anything left to throw up?"
"Urp…"
He knew the riverboat was slowing again because he could feel the alteration of its motion in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed painfully and lifted his head to look toward shore. "What the hell is that?"