who made him. What's the term King George used? Sired, I think. I reckon Glava's sire was a nasty bit of work himself. Maybe he's still off somewhere killing folk, maybe not. Ain't my concern. What is my concern is that I know I killed that Glava dead."
"So you think I'm lying to you again."
"Well, I'd be lying my own self if I said that thought ain't crossed my mind," Cora said. "More I thought it over, though, the more I figured that there ain't no way you could have known to say that name to me. We ain't never met before, you clearly ain't been out west before, and you ain't in the business your own self. Then I thought, well, maybe old King George or Father Baez gave you the tip-off." Victoria was about to deny it, but Cora held up her hand. "No need to say a word. Sure, both of them was there four years ago and saw enough to tell, but ain't neither one going to just up and spout out secrets like that. Father Baez ain't the sort, and I wouldn't bet a nickel on George being able to pull a single name out of that pudding bowl he calls a head."
Victoria smiled at that. "Yes, he is a singularly scattered man, isn't he?"
"Back in Leadville, I figured we'd ride up to that big house of his one day and find him outside in his bloomers and nothing else."
"We?" Victoria asked.
"I meant me."
The sudden edge in Cora's voice took Victoria by surprise. "I'm sorry," she said, although she wasn't sure why she was apologizing.
Cora waved her hand dismissively. "It ain't important. What been eating at me is how this feller of yours knew that name. Even more, I want to know why he knew to tell you to tell me." She looked at Victoria for a long moment. The younger woman shifted her weight. She laced her fingers together and rested her hands on the bar. She tried meeting Cora's gaze but soon began studying the bottles lining the wall. There was something about the old hunter's eyes that unsettled her. They sparked with intelligence, but there was something else lurking in them. Something darker, hidden in the shadow cast by that intelligence.
"Well, I guess it don't matter none, anyhow," Cora finally said. "Only a few people in the world as would know that name, and I just named all of them. Puts me in a right fine puzzlement, and I ain't going to sleep proper till I get an answer."
"What will you do, then?" Victoria asked.
"Hunt that bastard down and make him sing for me," Cora replied. "Can't be Glava himself, but whoever he is, he knows about him. Worse, he's making himself out to be him. Anyone who'd take that monster's name is looking to be one in his own right, and I won't stand for it."
Victoria nodded. She wasn't sure why Cora was telling her all of this. Disappointment and fear still churned inside her, and hearing Cora talk only intensified the vortex. Instead of boarding an east-bound train with her, the old hunter wanted to ride off into the desert after the blueeyed man. Even if Cora somehow managed to find the man calling himself Fodor Glava, she probably wouldn't do it in time to save Victoria from the red-eyed woman's wrath. The young woman tried to swallow her fear, eyes downcast as she wracked her brain for some way out of the trap she'd stumbled into.
"Seems right two-faced of me, I know," Cora said. "Here I am telling you I'm setting out to hunt me down a monster in the self-same morning I said I ain't helping you with yours."
Victoria looked at the old hunter in surprise. She hadn't expected her to just come out and say what Victoria herself had already considered. Holding her tongue, she hoped Cora would next admit that such hypocrisy didn't sit well with her or something of that nature.
"Fact is, I ain't any more inclined to trot on out to England to do your job than I was yesterday. I still prefer poker and whiskey to travel, even in a fancy train car, and I ain't got no interest at all in prancing about with the likes of you and George all day. If the good Lord wanted me to be fancy, he'd have made me out of silk and pearls or some such."