I didn't want to go--my
head was plumb full of the silver-mine business, an' I jest wanted to
git down to you quick as I could. The minute I said 'Johnnie,' Rudd
'lowed he wanted to warn me about you down in the Cottonville mills. He
went over all that stuff concerning Lura, an' how she'd been killed off
in the mill folk's hospital and her body shipped to Cincinnati and sold.
I put in my word that you was a-doin' well in the mills; an' I axed him
what proof he had that the mill folks sold dead bodies. I 'lowed that
you found the people at Cottonville mighty kind, and the work good. He
came right back at me sayin' that Lura had talked the same way, and that
many another had. Well, I finally went with him to his place--the old
Gid Himes house--an' him an' me an' Sam an' Groner had considerable
talk. They told me how they'd all been down an' saw Mr. Hardwick, and
how quare he spoke to 'em. 'Them mill fellers never offered me a dollar,
not a dollar,' says Rudd. An' I says to him, 'Good Lord, Dawson! Never
offered you money? For God's sake! Did you want to be paid for Lura's
body?' And he says, 'You know damn' well I didn't want to be paid for
Lura's body, Pros Passmore,' he says. 'But do you reckon I'm a-goin' to
let them mill men strut around with money they got that-a-way in their
pockets? No, I'll not. I'll see 'em cold in hell fust,' he says--them
Dawsons is a hard nation o' folks, Johnnie.
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