The Bank Robber Page 8

  “What do you say to that?” Howland asked me again.

  I turned my look on him. He’d been holding this, waiting to spring it on us. “I say we’re going and rob a bank. Are you going? We’re pretty well wanted right now. Maybe you won’t want to be seen with us.”

  “Oh, don’t make me a damn. Me or Chico. Does it, Chico?”

  “I like to rob one Mexican bank,” Chico said. “They have much gold and I don’t like the people that are in the bank.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re going to Uvalde. Are you coming?”

  “Sure,” Howland said. “Ain’t that what this is all about?”

  “What about Tod?” Les asked.

  I stood up. “If he don’t show up before we pull out he’s gonna get left. I ain’t waiting.”

  Howland yelled for the bartender. “Cuenta,” he said.

  “No,” I told him. “I’ll get the bill. And, by the by, here’s your seventy greenbacks.” I reached down in my pocket and got a handful of currency and counted out the money I owed him. “Wouldn’t want to be beholden to you.”

  He looked at me. “Well, well, well. Flush again, huh?”

  “That’d be my business,” I said. “Let’s move.” I turned around and went out the door without bothering to see if they were coming.

  Tod was not there when we got ready to ride out. We sat, mounted, in front of the hotel and looked around for him. It was near two o’clock and I wasn’t going to wait any more. I looked at Les.

  “I told him,” I said.

  He answered, “I know it.”

  “We’re going to ride out and leave him. I warned him.”

  “I know it,” he said.

  I reined my horse back in the street a little and looked at him. “Well?”

  He seemed to study a moment. Finally he kind of shrugged and turned his mount out beside mine. “I reckon it’s right,” he said.

  “Let’s go,” I said. I turned my horse into the street and kicked him into a lope toward the International Bridge. Howland and Chico strung out behind us. Howland and Chico would cross the bridge, but Les and I would cut north for a mile or so, make a fording, and then rejoin the others on the Uvalde road. I’d done checked the river and had been glad to see it had gone back to being a shallow, muddy little stream. Apparently we’d just had the bad luck to catch the crest of the rise that afternoon downriver. Nearing the bridge, Les and I cut off to the left and Chico and Howland went on ahead. Wasn’t much stirring at the lower end of the town, it being siesta, but me and Les made no sign to the others, just cut off and left them. Probably we could have crossed the bridge ourselves, customs along the border being what they were, but there wasn’t any point in taking the chance. So Les and I rode along, feeling the heat from that Mexican sun on our backs. My little mare was feeling pretty frisky from the several days of stable life with the good grain and hay and all and I had to hold her back she wanted to go so bad. I patted her on the neck while she kind of danced sideways against the check rein and told her she’d get plenty of chances to run soon enough. Les looked over at me. He was riding out a few yards to the right on his big, noble-looking gelding. His old pony carried his head high with his ears peaked up and just kind of cantered along very stylishly. They made quite a sight, Les in his chaps and big hat and being what I reckoned the ladies would take for a handsome man.

  “How you doing, pard?” I asked him.

  “I’m all right,” he said. “Didn’t drink enough last night to feel real bad. How about you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  We rode along a little further, both with his own thoughts, and then Les asked me, a little slowly, if I was back to being myself. I asked him what he meant by that and he said I knew. “You ain’t been yourself, Wilson. You just ain’t. You haven’t been satisfied with nothing and you’ve been ornery and mad and, well, I guess just down on everything, yourself included.”

  “When did you take up the ministry?” I asked him.

  “All right. Never mind then. But don’t tell me I’m wrong. I been knowing you a powerful long time.”

  “Yes, you have. Long enough to know I don’t like nobody butting into my business.”

  He looked back at me, but didn’t say anything, just pulled his hat down a little lower over his eyes and hunched up in his saddle. The road we were following had slung us over next to the river and we rode along by it watching how the brown waters just kind of slugged along down toward the gulf. A man could go to the coast in that water if he could find a boat with a shallow enough draft to float in it. After a little I pulled my horse up and Les followed suit.

  “This looks pretty good,” I said. The river had narrowed to about a hundred yards and had got real shallow. I put my little mare forward and made the crossing. Les came right behind me and I pulled up on the other side and got down and took my chaps out of my saddlebags. As I did I pulled one of my silver spurs out of them and it fell to the ground. I picked it up and put it back in the saddlebag and tied the flap down. Les watched me while I put on my chaps. We’d be cutting overland as soon as we caught up with the others and you’ve got to wear chaps in that country else you’ll get your legs tore up by the cactus. There’s one cactus they make a pretty good drink out of, but most of ’em ain’t good for nothing except ripping up horses and cattle and men. I got remounted and rigged out and we rode on. After we’d gone on a little piece Les said he was surprised to see the spurs.

  “How’s that?”

  “I figured you must have sold ’em last night. You had money to pay Howland back.”

  “So?”

  “So where else would you get money?”

  “How you know some whore didn’t pay me? How come you figure I sold the spurs?” I was starting to get angry. I was starting to get very angry. I knew the reason why, too.

  “Well, hell, Will, you don’t have to take that tone. It’s none of my business. I was just asking.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. I played a little game for that money. You keep sticking your nose in my business and I’m going to play that same little game with you.” As I said the last I looked straight at him. I guess it was the first time I’d ever really offered him what you might call a challenge. Les ain’t Tod and he ain’t Howland. He’s a good man. The minute I said what I did I began to feel bad. What had happened and what was making me mad was none of Les’s doing. Hell, I wasn’t even mad at him; I was mad at myself.

  He took the words and the look with never a quiver. Finally I turned away and went back to riding for the Uvalde road. Les hadn’t said anything but after a few hundred yards I heard his horse’s gait quick and he went on by me in a slow lope. I wondered where he was going, but then he wheeled around and pulled up facing me.

  “Will,” he said, “you’ve read me out twice in the space of an hour. Maybe I was butting my nose into something that was none of my business, but we been together so long that it gets hard sometimes to tell where one or the other’s business leaves off.”

  He was right and no doubt about it. It just made me feel worse.

  He went on: “But you read me off. I just wanted to let you know that would be the last time I’d take it.” He looked at me narrowly. “I can’t draw with you, Will. Can’t anybody else I know.” He paused. “But you come this again on me and I will. I sure as hell will.”

  I put up my hand. “Now just take it easy,” I said. “Just hold up there.”

  But he wouldn’t. He said: “I just wanted you to know.” Then he wheeled his horse and loped on off ahead. I followed, not trying to say anything or catch up to him. For the moment I was content to just let him cool out.

  Howland and Chico were waiting for us under a shade tree about three miles the Texas side of the bridge. To my great surprise Tod was with them. He was sitting under the tree holding the reins of a pretty good-looking black gelding. We come clattering up and they asked if we’d had any trouble on the crossing.

  “No,” I said, my eyes on Tod and his horse. �
��Did ya’ll?”

  “Not a bit,” Howland said. He got up and stretched and walked around to his saddlebags and got out a bottle of rum and offered it up to me. I uncorked it and took a swallow of the fiery stuff and passed it along to Les.

  I nodded over at Tod. “Where’d you get him?”

  Howland laughed. “He was waiting for us. Setting right here taking it easy.” He jerked his thumb toward Tod’s horse. “Looks like the boy would make a horse trader. See that black he got for twenty dollars?”

  “Yes,” I said. I dismounted and walked over to the horse. Tod never stirred other than to cut his eyes up at me for a second and then go to ground again. I walked around the horse and found he was well set up and clean-limbed. I raised one of his hoofs and saw that it was trimmed and well shod. There was a brand on his hip and I patted it and then looked over at Tod.

  “Mighty good horse for twenty dollars,” I said.

  He never said a word, just stared at the ground.

  The horse was easy worth a hundred dollars and I knew Tod hadn’t had no hundred dollars. Everybody stood around watching me and Tod, waiting to see what I was going to say or do. I’d told Tod I didn’t want no trouble on the Mexican side, but anybody with one eye could see he’d stole the pony.

  I just looked at Tod. Finally he said: “I bought him. I couldn’t find the guy with the grey, so I bought this one.”

  “Who from?”

  “A cowboy,” he said vaguely. He had a little sullen, defiant thread in his voice. “A Texas cowboy off a ranch.”

  That stopped me. After what had happened at the whorehouse with the foreman off the Texas ranch there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could say to Tod.

  Howland seen me pause. I think he wanted to egg a fight on. “What’d you buy him with, Tod, twenty dollars and a six-gun?”

  “I bought him,” Tod said back to him.

  “Yeah,” Howland said, “but did the old boy want to sell?”

  “I’ll handle this, Howland,” I said.

  Howland laughed that irritating laugh of his. “I see you are. Hell, it ain’t no skin off my nose. I don’t care if the boy steals the whole damn country.”

  Tod got up and came to stand in front of me. I think he sensed I wasn’t going to do anything. “Listen, Will, it wasn’t like I done nothing to no Mexicans. It was a Texas cowboy, I swear it. Them Mexicans don’t care if we steal off one another.” He was talking very earnestly. I looked at him for a second and then turned away and told everybody to get mounted up. “Let’s ride out. We’ve got tracks to make.”

  No, I guess the Mexicans wouldn’t care if we stole from one another. I guess nobody would care except the man that was robbed and the man that had done the back-alley bushwhacking. Back-alley bushwhackers are a sorry lot. When a man comes down to that he’s gotten mighty sorry. He’s got way off his trail—a hell of a long way off his trail.

  We rode until good dark, then turned into a little dry stream bed and made camp. On the off chance that somebody might have scouted out our trail I told off watches, giving myself the first and Les the second. We were now in territory where we were wanted and somebody might have picked us up when we made the crossing. It wasn’t going to hurt to be careful.

  We made a supper out of beans and a little dried goat, had a drink all around and then everybody else turned in while I took my Henry and climbed up a little knoll to take the watch. It was a good vantage point, giving a view for several miles of the surrounding country. The moon was up good and it sure made a pretty sight the way the land stretched out with the moon shining on it and the big old barrel cactus throwing down shadows and the white rocks gleaming here and there. Off to the right I could see the horses wandering around and grazing off the sparse grass. We’d brought along feed and they’d been grained before we turned them out. They wouldn’t wander far.

  It was a quiet night with only the occasional call of a coyote to break the stillness and I kind of dozed off and on. I guess I plumb forgot the time, forgot to call Les, for I heard a step behind me and it was he coming up toward my station.

  “Oh, Les,” I said. He came up beside me and laid his rifle on the ledge I had mine propped over.

  “Was you gonna keep it all night?”

  “Not hardly. I just didn’t take no notice of the time.”

  “Anything?”

  “Coyotes and owls. Nothing else.”

  “Think I’ll smoke,” he said. He got out one of the little Mexican cigars that he prefers and lit up. “You want one?”

  “Might as well,” I said. “Before I turn in.”

  He give me one and we got lit up and sat there smoking a minute, hiding the glow in the palms of our hands. I could see from the moon that a good little spell had passed since I’d come up.

  “Well, Les,” I said. I’d figured our watches the way I had so I’d have a chance to talk to him. I felt bad about the thing that had passed between us. “Well, I was wrong this afternoon. Dead wrong.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute, just went on smoking and looking out over the country. Finally he said: “Yes you were. You sure as hell were wrong.”

  That made me laugh. I couldn’t help myself. I clapped him on the shoulder. “You bastard, you sure make it easy on a man, don’t you?”

  He looked over at me and grinned. He was as relieved as I to have the bad occasion between us out and done with. “You don’t make it none too easy on a man yourself.”

  It made me feel good, the best I’d felt in several days. A man only has so many real friends and I counted Les as just about my only one. The owl-hoot trail is lonesome and you don’t get to stand in with a lot of folks.

  We stood there, both watching the moon and listening to the coyotes for a while. Finally I said: “Les, I’ve got to tell you about something. Kind of explain, I guess.”

  “You ain’t got to explain nothing to me, Will. I’ve been for you right along.”

  “I know that. And that’s why I want to tell you this.”

  He looked over at me, puffing on his cigar. “Well, I figured something’s been on your mind. Ever since that rancho, or that girl. Is that it? Have you fallen for that girl Linda?”

  “Oh, goddam!” I said. “Don’t play the calf. How in hell could I have fallen for that girl? I only saw her a minute or two.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I studied a minute trying to think of the best way to put it. Finally I just said: “Les, I’m going to quit this game.”

  He took his cigar out of his mouth and stared at me. “What game? Bank robbing?”

  “All of it. Every damn bit of it.”

  He was still staring at me. “Well, I’m damned. Do you mean it?”

  “I mean it,” I said.

  “Hmmmph!” Les said.

  “I mean this to be my last job. If Howland is right about that bank, that we can take thirty or forty thousand out of it, I mean to take my share and quit. But either way I’m going to quit.”

  “What’ll you do, pard? You know, you’ve got a little too much reputation to get a job in the post office. What will there be for you to do?”

  “I’ve thought about that,” I said. “I’ll either go to Canada or Mexico and set up. If we get that money I figure to buy myself a little place and raise my own beef. If we don’t get it, then I’ll work for the other man.”

  “You have studied over it, haven’t you,” Les said. “How long you been thinking on it?”

  “Long enough to be sure,” I said.

  “Since that Rancho Fernando, I’d bet on it.”

  “Oh, don’t come that on me again, Les. What makes you say a thing like that?”

  “Because you ain’t been yourself since then. I think it embarrassed you the way we looked upside that don and his niece. You tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  I didn’t know. Hell, goddamit! I didn’t know if he was right or wrong or what. I only knew I
wasn’t able to stand up and be myself around those folks. I only knew that girl had looked at me in a longing kind of way (and that was the truth because I’d seen it even if I had denied it to myself) but if she’d known who I really was and what I was she’d have looked at me with disgust instead. I knew that; I knew that for sure.

  But then there was that other thing. There was that thing I’d done that had been the lowest I’d ever come to. “Les,” I said, “you’re the best friend I got.” “Aw, hell,” he said, but I held up my hand and cut him off. “I want to tell you about something. Will you listen and not say a word until I’m through?”

  He said he would and I commenced telling him about going to that whorehouse; about running off that young cowboy (out of just plain meanness) and then taking the girl upstairs, intending on staying all night, but not being able to do it on account of feeling bad about myself and not being able to find what I was looking for in the girl.

  “Then,” I said, “I come back downstairs and got in a little low-stakes poker game. There was another game going on, but I didn’t have but three or four dollars, which wasn’t enough to sit in.”

  I told him how they’d cleaned me out pretty quick and how I’d gone over to the bar and had a couple of drinks on my last four bits.

  “Got to talking to a foreman from a ranch. A Texan. He had a pretty good roll of bills and was sporting them around, so I up and propositioned him about buying my spurs. I figured I could take the money and get in that big poker game and maybe win a little stake. So we went on outside and got my spurs and I asked him a hundred and he offered me eighty and we settled on eighty-five.”

  “I thought you said you never sold them spurs.”

  “Goddamit, Les!”

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  “Well, I got that money and got in that game, but I couldn’t do no good. Finally, I did get a little ahead, maybe had a hundred, and I got to thinking about them spurs.” I drew on my cigar and felt it burn my finger, it was getting so short, and dropped it to the ground and scrubbed it out with my boot. “Les, I think a right smart about them spurs.”