“Ms. Wigfall, with all due respect I have no desire for a stiff drink, but I do have a desire to go out and help the Calvary rescue my sister.” He spoke with urgency as he continued. “Please, don’t waste a moment with any other information you may have on her situation."
Jemima nodded and, in her flat nasal voice, told what she knew as succinctly and as swiftly as possible.
"Well, all right. Seems the stage got hit sometime late this morning on the road to Helena. Friend of my brother called Jake Lutz found it, Addy's shotgun feller and two passengers killed and mutilated, Addy and Miss Mundee from the saloon missing..." she frowned at the thought of the beautiful and glamourous singer, who was everything that she was not "... she ain't a fit person for you to know!" she couldn't help informing the handsome Mr. Chappel "Anyway, a party went out from the Fort this afternoon under Captain Barlow: if anyone can find them, he can, he's an experienced man and he's got Indian scouts and everything."
She then pointedly added another fact.
"Jake wanted to go with them but they wouldn't allow it: in fact they threatened to throw him in the stockade if he tried to follow the Troop, they said civilians just got in the way of Army operations." This was clearly aimed at Isiah's insistence on going along and helping. However she narrowed her piggy little back eyes at the restless and rugged looking widower.
"But, Mr Chappel, I don't think something like that would stop a man like you from trying to find his sister. I think I know the place where the attack must've happened from what Hector said, it'd take hours for you to find it in the dark." for indeed, the Sun was now setting in the Western sky "Sir, I've lived here all my life: I know a short cut through the pass, I can ride and I know how to use a gun: I can guide you there." she said simply.