The Bank Robber Read online

  Les didn’t say anything for a minute. “Well,” he finally ventured, “I ain’t trying to excuse him, you understand, but we had been out a considerable spell.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, goddam, Will, he was hurting for a little good times. He said if he didn’t get himself a woman he’d just about bust.”

  I reared up in bed and looked at him. “Goddam you!” I swore. “Goddam you and that baby cousin of yours to hell! Goddam you both to hell and perdition! What makes you sonofabitches think you was the only ones wanting a little good times! What makes you think that! Huh! Answer me, goddammit!”

  He didn’t answer me because there wasn’t nothing he could say. “Goddam him!” I said. “Who said that grey was his to sell? I’m the one laid out the money for that horse. I was wanting a little stuff as bad as all of you, but I wasn’t about to sell that horse!”

  I was so mad I couldn’t even see. I got my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. “Where’s he at?” I asked.

  “Now, Will . . . Now, Will, let it go now.” Les was up on his knees, holding his hands out at me like a man trying to stop a runaway team.

  “Where is he?”

  “I ain’t gonna tell you. You’d kill him tonight. Let it go until morning and just whip his ass. You’d kill him tonight.”

  I looked at him. “You gonna tell me?”

  He shook his head. “Let it go until morning.”

  I suddenly rolled back into bed and pulled the covers up. “All right,” I said. “But if you get in my way then I’ll cut you down as well.”

  “I know it,” he said.

  If I didn’t kill Tod the next morning I was gonna come mighty close to it. I was damn sick and tired of his harebrained pranks. The idea of him out laying up with a woman using money I could have used myself if I’d wanted was near more than I could bear. I was past anger, I was in a killing rage. I set my mind to come awake at the slightest sound. My pistol was under the old corn-shuck pillow I had and I was ready for the lightest step. I wasn’t going to shoot him unless I had to—that would have been a waste of good lead and powder—but I meant to pistol whip him within an inch of his life. Maybe more.

  It was a little after first light that I heard the door open softly and I slipped my hand under the pillow and set myself. The floorboards creaked once and then twice and I came up and threw down on the figure I could see in the half gloom.

  “Right there!” I said. “Just hold it right there!”

  There was a laugh. “Aw hell, Wilson,” a voice said, “can’t a man slip up on you no how?”

  It was Howland Thomas. Right behind him was the grinning face of Chico, peering over his shoulder. Les stirred and I sat up on the bed, feeling a little foolish, and nudged him with my foot.

  “Look here,” I said. “Look here, Les. Come awake and see who’s here.”

  Howland had a bottle of rum in either hand and Chico was carrying an armload of cantaloupes. They come on in, laughing, and Howland uncorked a bottle of the rum and poured a little in Les’s face to wake him up.

  “Here, boy,” he said, “git up there. It’s damn near noon!”

  Howland was a medium heavyset man in his middle thirties. Neither he nor Chico was shaven, but it didn’t show up so much on the Mexican. They looked tolerable clean, not as if they’d just come in off the trail. I was mighty glad to see them and, from the looks of the rum, they might have a little money.

  “Hell,” I said, reaching out for the rum bottle. “Give me that. Don’t waste it on no lie-a-beds.”

  “Who the hell was you fixing to shoot?” Howland asked me and I realized I was still holding my pistol. I dropped it on the bed and shrugged and took the bottle he was holding out. “Anybody,” I said. “Hell, I ain’t particular.” I could see that Tod still hadn’t come in.

  Howland and Chico got chairs and we sat around passing the rum bottle. It was a little raw, first thing in the morning, but Chico outed with his frog sticker and sliced up the cantaloupes and we sat around eating and drinking. It made a fine breakfast, one that would wake a man up and settle his stomach at the same time.

  “Where the hell ya’ll been?” Howland asked me.

  “Us?” I said. I had my face buried down in a half a cantaloupe and I raised it and looked at him. “Hell, we been here since yesterday.”

  “Is that a fact! Well, we’d have never knowed it if we hadn’t seen Tod out on the street just a bit ago.” He laughed. “Drunk as hell and had lost his shirt. Hadn’t he, Chico?”

  “Si, ” Chico agreed. “No shirt.”

  “Bare as a jaybird above the waist. And drunk as hell. He said ya’ll was up here, but said he believed he’d go on down and fall in a horse trough somewhere. Said you was gonna be mad. What’d he mean by that?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “But where ya’ll been? We looked all over this hotel for you.”

  “Hell,” Howland said. “Name of this joint plumb slipped my mind. Me and Chico bunked at a place just up the street. Figured we’d find you anyway.”

  Well, I was that glad to see them. At least now we could get down to business and get out of the bind we were in. And maybe, just maybe, they’d have enough dough to pull a good time on.

  We sat around having a few more drinks and then the door cracked and Tod stuck his head in. He had a sheepish grin on his face and roved his eyes all around the room without ever coming to rest on mine.

  “Howdy,” he said.

  Chico and Howland shifted their chairs around. “Well come on in, boy!” Howland said. “You’ll catch cold out in that hall as wet as you are!” And then he gave a great gurraff, for Tod was wet as well as being shirtless.

  “Aw,” he said, edging in and taking little glances at me. “Ya’ll don’t hooraw me.”

  I watched him, not saying anything. He’d got in the door by then and he kind of slid along the wall, all the time watching my face. I still hadn’t said nothing.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Howland asked me. I didn’t say anything, just watched Tod. Howland turned to Les: “We ain’t about to have a killin’, are we? If so, me and Chico wants time to get under the bed.”

  “No,” Les said. “I don’t think so.”

  I was still watching Tod, just sitting on the side of the bed and watching him. Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Well, just go to hell!” he said defiantly. “I done what I did and I don’t care.”

  “Come here,” I said. “Right now.”

  “No,” he said.

  I picked up my pistol and laid a shot just to the right of his shoulder. “I said come here.”

  The gun crashed, sounding like a cannon in the small room, and everybody jumped. Tod’s eyes walled out like a frightened steer. Instead of moving toward me he flattened himself against the wall.

  “Listen,” I said, “I ain’t gonna kill you. Ain’t even gonna hit you. But you pull something else like this again and you’re through with this outfit. You got that? You’re through!”

  “All right,” he said.

  Howland was looking back and forth at me and Tod. “What the hell!” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Forget it. You got any money?”

  The very first time I’d ever seen Howland Thomas had been in Crystal Springs, Texas, some three years back. I’d been sitting out on the sidewalk just taking the sunshine and watching a bunch of cowboys sporting up and down the street on a Saturday afternoon. Finally, they’d got a little rambunctious and commenced riding up on the sidewalk. One of them had come along, shouldering me out of the way with his horse and I’d taken offense at it. The cowboy had got off his horse and come swaggering back up to me. He was drunk and mouthing around and I calculated to let him get so much off his chest and no more. A man had come out of the saloon and was standing up against the wall watching us. I’d worked around until I was facing into the building with the cowboy in front of me. He was a young kid and about three quarter
s drunk, but he was really letting his mouth off. The man who’d come out just lounged there, grinning and seeming to enjoy the exhibition. Finally, he’d turned to the cowboy and asked him if he knew who it was he was fixing to get kilt by.

  “What?” he asked.

  Howland had indicated me. “I was just wondering if you was acquainted with the gent that’s fixing to put a bullet through you.”

  The cowboy had blustered. “Damn if he is!” he said. “Ain’t no man—”

  “Ain’t?” Howland had said (for it was he) and laughed. “Reckon you don’t know this gent. This here is Mister Wilson Young.”

  “Who?” the cowboy had asked, but it had given him pause. A little of his drunken bravado had left him.

  “Mister Wilson Young,” Howland said. “I know he’s got six and them is just the ones been actual counted. You’ll make number seven.”

  The cowpoke had blustered a little bit more, but then one of his pards had come up and talked low to him. I reckoned he was glad to be out of a bad scrape, so I let his friend lead him off. After they were gone Howland came over and stuck out his hand and offered to buy me a drink.

  “Been wanting to meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard about you all the way from the Arkansas River.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. But I went along to the saloon with him and had a drink or two. We didn’t talk no business then, just had a visit. I don’t generally like to preen and I ain’t too proud of what I’ve done, but Howland can be damn friendly when he wants to be. Of course he ain’t ever gonna be any way but that way with me, for at heart he is a coward and we both know it.

  We seen each other off and on after that, but it was a year later before we got around to doing any business. I’d joined up with Les and Tod by then and Howland came along and helped us with a bank in New Mexico. We hadn’t taken out much cash, but he’d impressed me as being a fairly cool hand and a pretty steady man to have around. After that we’d tried to set up one other job together but it hadn’t come off and then we’d got together and set up this meet in Piedras Negras. Like I say, Howland knew who I was and I knew who he was.

  “Money!” Howland said. “Hell, we got a sight of money! Near three hundred dollars. Why? Ya’ll broke?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “Anyway, we need money for a horse for Tod. He’s afoot right now.” I give Tod a look and he hung his head. I went on, “I mean if we’re gonna pull that job . . .”

  “Pull that job? Hell, we can’t afford to pass that up. Can we, Chico?”

  “No,” Chico said.

  “It’s a cracker box, ain’t it, Chico?”

  “Seguro!” Chico said.

  I leaned over the bed and located my boots and commenced to pull them on. I hated to ask any man for anything. “In that case, Howland, I wonder if you might be willing to bankroll us to a little good times. You know I’ll pay you back and I’ll be willing to put up my silver—”

  “Why, pard,” he said, “hell yes I will! Hell, I didn’t know you was busted. Been that way myself. Yeah, we’ll have ourselves a blowout and then go rob us a bank.”

  I done a little figuring in my mind. “Can you let me take about seventy?” I asked him.

  “Why not?” Howland said. He dug down and came out with a pile of coin, both Mexican and American, and began counting me out my sum. “You care for pesos or dollars?”

  “Don’t make a damn,” I said. “Either one.”

  He counted the money out for me and laid it on the foot of my bed and I took twenty-five for myself and pitched Les twenty-five and then took the balance and handed it to Tod.

  “What’s this?” he said. “Ya’ll are taking twenty-five apiece.”

  “Not only that,” I said, “but you are going to get that grey back out of that money. Anything left and you can spend it on yourself, but you better have a horse when we get ready to ride out or you ain’t going.”

  He seen I meant it. “Listen,” he said, a little worried. “I ain’t sure I can get that grey back. I mean, twenty ain’t much of a price.”

  “You let him go for fifteen, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah ...” he said. “But that was kind of different.”

  “Yeah, different,” I said. “Different because you gave him away. Well, you just figure to have a horse that can keep up when we get ready to leave or you just figure to stay here. Knowing you, you’ll lay here and rot.”

  “That’s harsh, Will,” he said. “That’s mighty harsh.” I was shaming him in front of Chico and Howland and he didn’t like it. I couldn’t say I blamed him, but then he’d brought it on himself.

  “Just mind what I say,” I said, not backing off an inch. Hell, I wasn’t going to save any of his face. He was the biggest part of the reason we was in the mess we was in. I don’t like to go to another man for money and he’d been the one that caused it. Hell with his face, I had my own to think about.

  We started out slow. For the balance of the morning we sat up in the room eating cantaloupe and drinking up the rest of Howland’s rum. Then, about noon, we wandered downstairs and took dinner in a little café a piece up the street. They had tamales and some enchiladas and I had some of both as well as a little stewed chicken. Them Mexicans do know how to stew a fowl. They get him in there with all kinds of herbs and spices and hot stuff and then fire him over a grill and bring him out with a kind of cheese sauce all over the meat which is just falling loose from the bones. It was mighty good. After that we located a cantina and knocked off a few drinks. The place had a little Kentucky bourbon, which I was mighty glad to see, not having had any for a time, and I got in my share of that. After that me and Les went back up to the hotel for a short siesta and the rest of the bunch went wandering off looking for a card game.

  Me and Les slept longer than we’d meant to, what with the good feed and the bourbon and all, and it was good dark by the time we got downstairs. We checked by the livery stable just to be sure the horses was okay and then set out to hunt down the rest of the bunch. We found them in the Texas Bar, it being pretty close to the International Bridge and catering to an American trade. Chico and Tod was at the bar, the latter being drunk and showing it. They were watching Howland playing poker with several cowpokes at a table just a few feet away.

  “He’s whipping ‘em bad!” Tod said to me when we came up to the bar. The sweat was shining on his face and soaking his shirt. He was really drunk. “He’s taking the hide off ’em!”

  “All right,” I said. Me and Les got a drink and then turned to watch the play. “Who’s he playing with?” I asked Chico. They didn’t any of ’em look like house men.

  “Cowboys,” Chico said with that accent of his. “From Eagle Pass.”

  Eagle Pass was just over the bridge and they were probably cowboys from a local ranch come over to try their luck on a Saturday night. I could see they was drunk and Howland was having a pretty easy time with them. While we watched he caught one of them in a hand of five-card stud and sucked him in with two pair. The cowboy had had kings with one showing, but Howland had fours and jacks with a four in the hole. He was looking down the poke’s throat all the way and leading him on. With his final bet he drawed the cowboy all the way in and then cleaned him out on the show of the cards.

  “Jacks and fours!” he said, laughing that loud laugh of his and raking in the money.

  They didn’t like the easy way he was having with them and after a few more hands, when he up and quit, they made a loud noise about it. The saloon was smoky and hot and we was all sweating a little. Howland picked up his money and came to stand with us at the bar. We could see the cowboys watching him and considering what they ought to do.

  Howland was counting his money. “Won fifty-six,” he said. “Which is near about what I let you have.”

  I knew what I’d borrowed off him and I didn’t think I needed reminding. I thought it was poor milk on his part but didn’t say anything.

  “Let’s have a drink,” he said. “I’m dry.
” He signaled for the bartender to pour and then held his glass up in my face. “Here’s luck,” he said.

  “All right,” I agreed. I had to drink to that. It would have been bad luck not to. I downed mine and set it back on the bar just as one of the cowboys came up. He was drunk and looked to be spoiling for a fight.

  “Say,” he said to Howland, “I think you cheated. What do you say to that?”

  Howland just laughed. “What do you want me to say to a drunk fool?”

  “That’ll get you killed,” the cowboy said. He was so drunk he was reeling back and forth. No wonder Howland had had such an easy time with them.

  “Yeah?” Howland said. “And how you gonna do that? You’re so drunk you couldn’t hit a barn door with a handful of buckshot.”

  “Never you mind,” the cowboy said. “They’s three of us. What do you say to that?”

  Howland jerked his thumb at me. “I say this here is Wilson Young and he can put a bullet through your brisket before you draw another breath.”

  The cowboy looked uncertain. “Wilson Young? Wilson Young?”

  “The same,” Howland said. “The very same. Now, what do you say to that?”

  “I say to hell with it,” I said. I wasn’t fighting no man’s fight for him. There was a little whiskey still in my glass and I drained it and turned away.

  “Listen, wait!” the cowboy said. “Hey wait, I said.”

  When I wouldn’t he run a few steps and grabbed my arm and whirled me around.

  “That’s a good way to get killed,” I told him.

  “Listen here,” he said, “are you really Wilson Young?”

  The bar had suddenly got quiet. I looked at him. “What’s it to you?”

  “Well . . .” he said. “Well, just this.” He was breathing hard and trying to think what to say. Finally one of his friends at the table called to him to say I wasn’t. “Yeah,” he said. “You ain’t. You ain’t no Wilson Young. I knowed him. Knowed him over at Arkansas Pass and you ain’t him.”