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Tilly was never, ever, going out of camp gallivanting with those boys again. She meant it this time. No amount of Dutch’s sweet talk was going to work anymore. She was not going to kill herself for the benefit of hardheaded men who didn’t care for nothing besides the bottle and themselves. She would pickpocket and listen in to leads as much as they wanted her to, but she was not going on any more damn suicide missions. Not since Bill had scared himself shitless and up and left her in the swamp alone at 3am. Had seen a transparent lady, he said. Bullshit. There were no such thing in the swamp, but there were enough shifty eyed middle aged men passing through for her to know she wasn’t safe. No good man had business in the middle of the swamp at 3 am, including Bill. He had said he had a lead, but wouldn’t say what, only that he needed her there. Strange business. She didn’t have much time to think about it after Bill left, though. Between hiding behind trees whenever anybody passed and trying to find any sign of a town nearby, she was largely preoccupied. Eventually, she found a small town by the name of Lagras, and had found a family willing to let her take shelter that night. The father had also been generous enough to take her back to Valentine the next morning. She told him the story of what happened, carefully making sure not to implicate the gang on anything. The man advised her to stay away from Bill and anything leading her into harm's way and she heard him loud and clear.
Bill apologized to her that afternoon, but she didn’t care. Tilly didn’t even look up from her sewing when she told Bill to leave her alone. Grimshaw told her off for a good two or three minutes, talking about how he was her means to survival and she should be grateful, yada yada yada. So much for means to survival, he had left her for dead! As long as she did her part by doing chores and stealing where she could, she didn’t have to play nice to anyone.
Tilly had told Dutch she was no longer interested in going out for any stake outs or leads. He had pretended to respect her choice, yet two weeks later he was back at it again, asking her to go on yet another con trip. And in Lemoyne again, no less.
“Come here Tilly, I need to speak with you.” Dutch called from his tent.
“I’m sorry about your union suit, Dutch. I meant to sew it up right but we just didn’t have enough thread in the right color. I don’t know how you tore that big of a hole back there.” Tilly told him, feeling like a kid who had just been caught doing something very wrong.
Dutch waved his hand dismissively at her.
“Oh that? I don’t care about that. I bought a new one, much nicer fabric. Hopefully less easy to tear.”
“Oh-” Tilly shifted her feet nervously. Dutch didn’t call her into his tent very often and she couldn’t think of any other reason beside the Union Suit that he would want to speak with her. “What do you want then?”. It came out ruder than she had meant it.
“We’ve been looking into a big score right outside Saint Denis. A resort of sorts. I have reason to believe that the owner’s son will be there and if we catch him unawares, he might slip and tell you where some of all that sweet resort money is. Resorts make a lot of money, Tilly.”
“I’m sure they do. What does that have to do with me, though?”
“Resort strictly does not allow integrated couples and the population out there is largely black. So I’ve talked with Lenny and-”
“Surely there are white folks in Saint Denis, I’m not no fool. Get Karen or Mary Beth to do it. I told you, I’m not messing with any of that anymore.”
Dutch was visibly agitated by her cutting him off and even more agitated she was questioning him.
“Tilly, we are on a strict schedule. You know Mary Beth is out robbing a string of stagecoaches with Arthur for the next few days. Now, I did try to ask Karen but she won’t go with Sean and Sean won’t let her go with someone else. I’m not trying to stir up another one of their arguments in camps. And all the other women have business to attend to. That means I need your help.”
“Molly doesn’t have any business to attend to.”
Molly had been sitting in the tent, listening to the entire exchange. The glare she shot at Tilly in that moment could kill.
“Leave Molly out of this” Dutch warned. “Please, we need you. I promise you’ll be alright. If only you had a little faith. Lenny is a good man.”
“I’m not doubting that.”
“Good, then you’ll go. Lenny has already agreed, you wouldn’t want to let the poor man down. He hasn’t been the same since Jenny passed, it would be a shame to make him feel any worse about himself. Go over there and speak with him, it would be ideal if you two left today.”
Tilly grumbled in defeat as she walked towards Lenny, sure that this whole situation would end in disaster.