The Bank Robber Page 10

  “Well, that’s all done now,” I said. A little cold chill had gone through me and I suddenly didn’t want to talk about it any more. We’d been sitting there, resting, and having a nice talk about bygone days and I’d been feeling good and then the sudden thought had come into my mind that we were fixing to go in and rob a bank the next day but one. Generally, I don’t get too fidgety about a job until I’m actually going in, but then the little thought had come flitting in and kind of grabbed me in the guts. It made me want to quit talking.

  “I reckon I’ll turn in,” I said. “It’s getting late.”

  “Yeah,” Les said.

  I got up and moved my blankets away from the fire and he did the same. It ain’t much of a precaution, but it might buy you a second or two if somebody was to suddenly bushwhack the camp. I went over and laid my saddle against the canyon wall and spread my blankets out. I’d taken off my boots, but that was all, and then pounded me out a hip hole and laid down. The smell of the leather from my saddle come up strong and I laid there thinking about how many times I’d gone to sleep with that smell in my head. Well, I told myself, won’t be many more times. After this job we’re all through and after that we’ll arrange to sleep in a bed once in a while. No more of this hoot-owl trail business.

  Then the thought of the job stabbed me in the mind again and it kind of bothered me. I got to halfway wishing we wouldn’t do it. But hell, that was silly. I was dead broke. If I didn’t pull that job off I’d be in real trouble. There’d be no way I could go into Mexico and make a living on the straight without a little stake of some kind.

  That made me kind of smile. Funny, before I’d been saying Canada or Mexico, but somewhere down the trail Canada had kind of lost out.

  Then I thought, the hell with all this. I got to get some sleep. I sunk down deeper in my blankets and tried to put everything out of my mind. Sleep was what I needed. Finally I dozed off.

  Sometime in the night I heard a little movement. I kind of half raised up, but I couldn’t make out who it was, the moon being down. I figured it was Howland Thomas and Chico just getting back and I seen whoever it was settle down in their blankets, so I didn’t think no more about it, just went on back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Waterfall

  Everybody else was already up the next morning before I finally threw off my blankets. They was all hunkered around the fire drinking coffee. Howland Thomas and Chico was off on one side, talking, while Les and Tod was on the other not saying a word. I went up to the fire and set down and took hold of the coffee can and burned my hand.

  “Hot,” Howland said.

  “Damned if it ain’t,” I answered.

  I got my hat off and used the brim of it for a guard and picked the can up and poured myself a cup. It was hot to the mouth; apparently they’d just made it.

  “Well, ya’ll didn’t beat me up much,” I said. “Judging from this coffee.”

  “Second pot,” Howland said.

  “Why didn’t ya’ll call me?”

  He grinned at me. “Hell, you looked so peaceful laying there dreaming about them Mexican señoritas that I just didn’t have the heart.”

  I give him a glance. “Yeah? What kept ya’ll last night? I thought you was going to bring us back a bottle.”

  When I said it I was looking right at Howland and as soon as he heard the words he give a little glance over at Tod and Les and then kind of dropped his eyes.

  “Well?” I asked. “What about it? Not that I’m too much surprised.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “What’s the matter with you, Howland?” He had me perplexed. I couldn’t believe he was feeling bad about not bringing us back a little something to drink. “Cat got your tongue?”

  He didn’t say anything, just glanced over at Les and Tod again.

  I looked around at them. Something was in the air, something I couldn’t decipher.

  “What the hell’s going on?” I asked.

  They just stared back at me.

  “Les? Tod? Chico?”

  Nobody said anything. I commenced to get angry. “Listen, what the hell is this? What the hell’s going on?”

  I looked from face to face, and finally Les turned to Tod. “You gonna tell him, Tod?”

  Tod didn’t say anything.

  “Tell me what?” I prompted. “Somebody better tell me something and damn quick.”

  Howland laughed, suddenly, loudly, and I slewed around at him. “What the hell’s going on, Howland? What the hell is all this?”

  He looked over at Tod. “I ain’t saying. Ain’t none of my affairs.”

  “By God!” I said.

  Les looked at Tod. “Well?”

  “Aw . . .” Tod said. “It don’t amount to that much. If it was anybody else than Mister Wilson Young.”

  “All right,” Les said. He looked over at me. “Tod went into town last night.”

  “Tod done what?”

  “Went into town. After we got asleep he slipped out and rode into town. Chico and Howland met up with him and made him come back.”

  “Well I’m a sonofabitch!” I said, marveling that the man could have been such an idiot. “Slipped into town?”

  “And he was having himself quite a time when we come up on him,” Howland said with a grin. “He had him a bottle in one hand and a dance-hall girl in the other and was helping out the piano player in his spare time. Now if that ain’t a good start I don’t know what is.”

  “Well, I’m a sonofabitch!” I said again.

  “The hell with all of ya’ll!” Tod said. “I wasn’t gonna sit out on this prairie and—”

  But he got no further, for I suddenly came off my haunches and leapt across the fire and slapped him backhand and forehand across the face. “You goddam fool!” I said and slapped him again. “You goddam blithering idiot!” I slapped him again. The first two had knocked him backward and he was supporting himself with his back-flung arms trying to get up while I was hitting him. “Don’t you know you’ve ruined this job! Don’t you know you’ve caused us to ride eighty miles for nothing!” And I kept hitting him. The slapping wasn’t doing him much harm other than to humiliate him a little, but it sure as hell was hurting my hand. Finally I left off and stood over him, my chest heaving. He was down on one hip, up on one arm, with his other hand to his mouth, which was bleeding. Les hadn’t said a word. Neither had Chico nor Howland. I stood over him, not quite knowing what to say.

  “Slapping’s the ticket,” Howland said. “He ain’t man enough to hit.”

  I stepped back from Tod and looked at him a second longer. Finally, I went back over to my side of the fire and picked up my cup. I’d set it down so violently when I’d jumped up that most of the coffee had spilled out. I poured myself a little more, my breath still short from either anger or the exertion.

  A pause passed and then Howland said: “Yeah, me and Chico come up on him and knowed he oughtn’t to be there. We brought him right on back in. On top of it, he didn’t want to come.” He laughed. I looked over at him, not saying anything until the laugh died.

  Tod suddenly got up and walked back toward the box end of the canyon where the horses were. He never said a word, just got up and walked off. I guess he was bad ashamed about what had just happened to him and didn’t want to face us no more.

  Finally Les said: “Well, what do we do now?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s it, ain’t it?”

  “Now hold on,” Howland said. He got up and walked around the fire and squatted down by me. “What do you mean, ‘whata we do?’ We go rob us a bank, don’t we?” He looked from me to Les and back to me again. “Don’t we?”

  “I don’t know, Howland,” I said.

  “Listen, didn’t nobody recognize that boy. This don’t change nothing.”

  “How you know they didn’t? If they seen him they gonna know the rest of us around here somewhere and they gonna put two and two together.”

  “Oh goddam, Wil
l!” Howland argued. “Ya’ll ain’t all that famous. You’re seeing buggers under the bedstid, I tell you. Didn’t nobody recognize Tod. Hell, he wasn’t in there a good hour.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He said so.”

  “Sure. That’s proof. Anyway, an hour’s long enough.”

  We kept arguing. Howland doing most of the talking and me and Les not saying much. Chico didn’t say anything either, but that was his natural way. Tod wandered back up and squatted down and listened to us carving up his carcass like he wasn’t even there.

  “Listen,” Howland said, “we’ve rode a hell of a long ways and done a power of planning for this thing. I ain’t to be done out of it, you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said. “Are you saying you’ll go ahead without us? Just you and Chico?”

  “Hell, you know that ain’t no two-man job, Will. Are you saying it’s all off?”

  “I ain’t said that yet,” I admitted. “I’m thinking about it.”

  And indeed I was, though thinking wasn’t the best handle for it. It was more like I was caught in two loops and being pulled first this way and then that. I tell you, my first reaction had been one of relief. I’d thought: well, we can’t do it now. It’s all off and I ain’t got to go in there now and take that risk which I’ve been having a bad feeling about.

  But then, the other way, I was thinking that now I’d miss out on that stake and wouldn’t be able to set up in Mexico and hunt down that girl (which, until that moment, I hadn’t even let myself really believe I was considering) and that we’d have to ride out as broke as we come in. Maybe if I didn’t get this job pulled and get a good stake I’d just never quit, but would just go on the way I’d been headed, getting more and more trashy and stooping to all kinds of low things.

  “Well?” Howland asked me. “Are you thinking?”

  “Not too well,” I said, “with you jabbering in my ear.”

  “Leave off a minute, Howland,” Les said, “and let Will put his mind to it.”

  “Well, balls!” Howland said in disgust and got up and walked away a few feet. “What is there to think about? I done told you they ain’t nothing to this town. Anyway, didn’t nobody recognize that boy. Hell!”

  “Listen,” I said, “this place ain’t a hundred miles from Carrizo Springs, and wasn’t it you that told us we was wanted for a killing and that there was a price on our heads and that they had the rangers after us? Wasn’t you the very one that told us that?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have told you if I’d thought it would spook you so bad.” He walked away a few feet further and stood staring up at the canyon walls.

  Les looked over at me. “What do you think, Will?”

  But before I could answer, we heard a halloo from the top of the canyon. Looking up, we could see a rider sitting his horse and staring down at us.

  “Hello, the fire, ” he yelled.

  We all stood up, slowly, staring at him. Howland came backing toward us, his eyes riveted on the rider.

  “Goddam,” he said lowly to me, “that fool kid’s brought a hornet’s nest down on our ears.”

  “Everybody just take it easy,” I said. “Just take it easy. Maybe it ain’t nothing.” I put my hands to my mouth and called to the rider. “Come on down. We got coffee.” He seemed to hesitate for just a second, but then turned his pony and began to urge him down the steep decline to our camp.

  “Just take it real easy,” I said to everybody. “Don’t nobody do nothing rash.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Kid White

  The rider came slowly down the canyon slide, guiding his horse expertly, until he’d reached the floor. I pointed toward the box. “Put your horse back there and come up to the fire for some coffee.”

  “Much obliged,” he said as he rode by us, us watching him like hawks.

  “Keep an eye skinned up top,” I said, “in case he’s got friends right behind him.”

  I watched the rider go down to our little corral, ride his horse inside and dismount. He loosened the cinch strap, but didn’t remove the saddle. While I watched he stood there, one hand patting his own horse, and looked ours over. It seemed that he paid particular attention to the black that Tod had stole. The animal was standing in such a way that his hip brand wasn’t evident. And the rider, instead of coming straight to the gate, walked out a little, so it seemed, as to bring the other side of Tod’s animal into his view. He didn’t linger after that, but came out of the corral and toward the fire.

  “Take some coffee,” I told him as he came up. “There’s a cup there.”

  “Much obliged,” he said. He squatted down and poured himself up a cup of the brew. “I seen your smoke about a mile away. Thought I’d ride over.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “You got good eyes.” The fire wasn’t smoking.

  He looked up at me and grinned, exposing a row of blackened and broken teeth. “Yeah, got good eyes.”

  He was a short, stumpy little man with jet-black eyes and, from what I could see of it that stuck out from under his hat, jet-black hair as well. From the looks of his nose, which was broken and crooked, he’d either run into a lot of barn doors or done a lot of fighting. But what particularly took my eye was the gun rigging he had strapped to his right side. It wasn’t the casual rigging of the cowboy that carries a gun for rattlesnakes and pot shooting, but the set-up of a man that figured to have to put it to use in a hurry. I took his gun to be a 34.40 on a .44 frame, which is a very popular model with many gunmen, it being heavy enough to give good balance in the hand, yet of a small enough caliber to give good accuracy while furnishing guaranteed stopping power. The holster and belt were both old, but well cared for and oiled. I judged the man to be in his middle forties, maybe less, maybe more. It was hard to tell, for his face was like old leather, browned and rough and lined.

  We were all still standing there, staring down at him, and he finally looked up at us, grinned a crooked grin, and asked if we wouldn’t have a chair.

  “Much obliged,” I said, mimicking him.

  I squatted and helped myself to coffee. Les sat down too, but Howland and Chico walked off a few steps, Howland still watching the stranger narrowly. Tod had already sat, a little behind and to the right of the stranger. This seemed to bother him, for, after giving several quick glances back toward the redhead, he kind of sidled around until he’d come even with him. He apparently didn’t want nobody behind him.

  “Been coming far?” I asked, which is polite enough question since a man can answer it as vaguely as he wants to. He can say, “Not too,” or “some,” or “just a little piece,” and that don’t really give away none of his business.

  But our guest give me the grin again, over the top of his coffee cup, and said: “Just from town.”

  “What town?” Les asked him.

  “Uvalde. Didn’t know they was any others around here.”

  “Wouldn’t know,” I said. “We’re strangers. Just riding through.”

  He grinned at me again and didn’t say anything. I looked at him, gauging him, trying to figure him out. A gunfighter does not squat to a fire like a cowboy. A cowboy squats on two legs, but a pistolero, depending if he’s right-handed, only squats on his left leg. He keeps the other straight, bringing his knee straight down in the dust, so as to give him quick access to his weapon. Also, a pistolero does not use his right hand for much other than the business of guns. Our stranger was squatting one-legged and holding the coffee can with his left hand.

  “Pretty good slug of ashes,” he said, “for just one campfire. You did say you was just riding through, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Maybe somebody else camped here just before.”

  We was both watching each other like a roadrunner and a rattlesnake. I’m sure he’d taken note of my rigging set-up and come to some conclusions of his own.

  “Thoughtful of ’em, wasn’t it, to haul up all these good cooking rocks?”

  “Yeah,�
�� I said.

  Howland took a step toward the fire, but I glanced over at him and give him a hard look. His bluster and temper might get us in a spot I wasn’t ready for.

  We were quiet for a moment and then the stranger said: “Whose horse is that out back? The black with the white stocking.”

  Well, he was pressing, but I didn’t know for what. “Why, you want to buy him?”

  He was still wearing that crooked, insulting grin. I felt like slapping it off his face. He said: “Well, no, but I bet a man could get a good price on him.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  He looked at me for a second and then let his grin go bigger and ducked his head in his coffee cup.

  “Why’s that?” I asked him again. I knew what he was getting at.

  “Oh, nothing,” he said. “’Cept that horse is carrying the same brand as mine. B bar B.”

  “Now looka here,” Tod began, but I cut him off.

  “Shut up, Tod!”

  I looked back at the stranger. “Mister, what are you after? What’s your game?”

  Suddenly Howland stepped forward. “Yeah! Who the hell you think you are come riding in here asking questions like you was a schoolteacher? Listen, I’ll tell you that—”

  “Shut up!” I said to Howland. “Let this here man talk.”

  But he didn’t, not right away, just sat there sipping at his coffee and watching us over the rim of his cup. Finally he took a long sip and set the cup down. “Mighty good coffee.”

  “Glad you like it,” I said. “Now what about this horse? You work for B bar B?”

  “Did,” he said.

  “When?”

  “Spell back.”

  “What are you doing with one of their horses?”

  “Took him for a month’s wages, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I stole him.”

  I stood up, slowly, watching my man carefully. “Tod,” I said, “go out there and take a look at this man’s horse. See if the brands match.”

  “Oh, they do right enough,” he said cheerfully.

  Tod was looking at me questioningly. “Go ahead,” I said. I turned back to the stranger. “Now you better get your mouth to moving and I better like what you say. What business is it of yours about that black out there?”