The Bank Robber Page 9

  “I know you do.”

  “I wanted them back. I just kept sitting there and thinking about them spurs and I figured I had to have them back. Finally, I got up and went over to that foreman. He had them spurs looped around his neck and it just got right through me seeing him with my spurs. People was standing around admiring them and he was making a to-do about it and I walked over and offered him ninety to let me take them back. He just laughed. Said he wouldn’t sell. Said he knew a bargain when he’d got one.”

  “I offered him ninety-five and, when he wouldn’t sell at that price, went to a hundred. Finally I got out every penny I had—about a hundred and four dollars—and laid it out on the bar. Said that was all I had and would he take it.”

  “That was fair,” Les said.

  “Yes, it was, and I thought it was, but that foreman said he didn’t need no hunnert and four dollars, but that he did need them spurs. Said he wouldn’t take a hundred and fifty for them.”

  I guess Les could see where I was heading, for he got real quiet. I hated to tell him, but I felt like I had to. I wanted him to understand. “Well,” I finally went on, “I went over and sat back down at a table. After a good while that foreman finished drinking and went on out. He went out alone.” I looked over at Les. “Les, I went out and took them spurs back. I went out and caught him in the dark and took them spurs off him. I done it. I bushwhacked him.”

  Les didn’t say anything, just kind of shook his head from side to side.

  “So there’s your Mister Wilson Young. He’s come to a common back-alley bushwhacker. I’ve come pretty low, Les.”

  “Yes, you have,” Les said. He didn’t have to lie to me or try to jolly what I’d done. We both knew.

  “So I’ve got to quit. A man that can sink that low, there’s no telling where he’ll stop.”

  “Is that why you didn’t say anything to Tod about that horse he stole?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I wondered,” Les said.

  “Well, that’s the reason. And that’s the reason I’ve got to quit. I’ve got to get out of this else I won’t be able to shave no more.”

  “You want another cigar?”

  “No. Reckon I’ll turn in.” I was feeling pretty low in mind and spirit. I started to turn away but Les put out his hand and stopped me.

  “Will, I wouldn’t feel too bad about that if I was you. I know that ain’t your style. You was drunk and not thinking.”

  “No, it ain’t my style. But a man ain’t supposed to have to think about that, is he? It’s supposed to come natural, ain’t it?”

  Les didn’t have no answer for that, so I started away again. But I turned back after a step or two. “Do you think the less of me over this?”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t. I know that ain’t you. I just think you ain’t been yourself here lately.”

  “Les, how about throwing in with me? How about me and you taking off for Canada or Mexico after this job? We’ll pool our money and get us a place and set up as patrons on our own. Run cattle or maybe good horses.”

  “It won’t work, Will.”

  “It’s got to work,” I said.

  He’d got out another cigar and lit it and he drew on it a second before he answered. “I made me many a mistake a good ways back and went wrong. But now that I’ve done it they ain’t no way to change. No, Will, I’m what I am. Ain’t no use me joshing myself. I just figure to live with it and do the best I can.”

  I shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you’re wrong.”

  “Maybe so,” he said.

  “No maybe about it. I’m going to sack out. Call Howland next.”

  “All right,” he said, and I turned around and walked on down the little rise and got in my blankets. It’d turned off a little cool.

  CHAPTER 7

  Uvalde

  We made it to Uvalde midways of the third day. The land had turned hilly and rolling and we come up a rise and there the town was. It wasn’t much to see, one main street with a collection of buildings in the middle and dwelling houses scattered along at either end. One or two streets led off the main thoroughfare, but the rest was just alleys. We were still a good mile, mile and a half from the town, but Howland raised up in his stirrups and pointed.

  “See that building looks newly whitewashed? That there’s the bank.”

  “The one about midways on that corner there?”

  “That’s the one. Cattleman’s National.”

  I looked a minute longer and then reined my horse around. “Let’s go.”

  The others turned to follow me, but Tod just sat there. “What! Ain’t we going in?”

  I shook my head, “No, we ain’t going in. C’mon.”

  “Aw, Will!” he said. “Hell, we been out three days now. Let’s at least go in and get us a drink. Just one drink.”

  “Don’t be a donkey,” Les said. “We can’t go in that town, not this close to Carrizo Springs. Somebody would recognize us sure.”

  We’d rode off a few yards and pulled up. He was still sitting there watching us.

  “We could get just one drink. That wouldn’t hurt nothing.”

  “Goddamit, Tod, I believe you get to be a bigger baby every day,” I said. “You and that red hair, you reckon they wouldn’t recognize you? Howland and Chico will go in this evening. They’ll bring a couple of bottles back.”

  “Ah hell!” he said. “That ain’t the same.” But he grudgingly put his mount into a trot and came up to us.

  Howland knew the country pretty good, having spent considerable time in the area, and on the way I’d talked to him about a good place to hole up until we were ready to make the strike. He knew of a canyon a few miles out of town that had a little stream in it and we made for there.

  The canyon was good. There was a little natural box at the end full of mesquite and prairie grass and we run the horses in there and strung a couple of ropes across to hold them. Where we was we wanted them close at hand in case we had to make sudden tracks. Tod and Chico unloaded the gear and slung it up under an outcropping off the canyon wall and Howland and I made a little fire out of mesquite, which doesn’t smoke much, and boiled some coffee. It would be a good place to wait out the two days until Saturday.

  We’d settled on Saturday morning because that would be the time the bank would have money out of the vault for the ranch owners who would be coming in to pick up the wages for their hands they’d be paying off that night. Also, Howland said there was a big MKT track-laying crew in the area and the paymaster might have his money in the bank. If that was so we might really make a haul.

  “How much you figure, Howland?” Tod asked. “Tell me again.”

  We’d put the fire near out and were all sitting around it drinking coffee. There’d been a little rum left and we’d had a drop or two left for each cup. It was relaxing after the long ride we’d made.

  “Forty thousand at least,” Howland said. “Maybe more. Maybe sixty or seventy.”

  “Hot damn!” Tod said.

  “I mean it’s going to be a real gold mine, ain’t it, Chico?”

  “Sure,” the little Mexican said. “Clearly.”

  “How you know?” Les asked him.

  “Hell, common sense and then some talk I’ve heard. This is the only bank for fifty miles and this is mighty rich country. I was here myself when J. B. Calhoun—that’s one of the bigger ranchers around here—deposited twenty thousand in species just himself.”

  “That’s a power of money,” Tod said reverently.

  I spit on the ground. “We got to get it first.”

  “Easy,” Howland said. “Easiest thing in the world. They’s just that old sheriff. He’s so old he can’t hardly sit a horse anymore and he ain’t got but two deputies and one of them is his nephew that he appointed ’cause his sister made him. It’s a cracker box, ain’t it, Chico?”

  “How about the Cattleman’s Protective Association?” I asked. “If this is such big cattle country they’ll hav
e a pretty strong association.”

  “They’ve got a few agents,” Howland admitted, “but they don’t generally stay to town. Hell, Will, this town ain’t never been hit before. Other than a little rustling here and there ain’t nothing ever happened around here. Hell, they’ve got so used to it they’re asleep.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “I hope you’re right.”

  A little after dark Howland and Chico rode into town. They’d go in separately and have a look around and kind of get the town layout straight in their minds. Friday, I intended to send Howland in and let him go in the bank and get a good picture of that. For the time being, however, they was just gonna get the straight of the streets and see who all was around and like that. Tod made a little commotion about going in with them, but I came down firmly on him and he shut up. It looked like he’d have sense enough on his own to understand the situation but, with Tod, you could never be sure. He didn’t think with his brain, he thought with his mouth and his gut and his balls. All he was looking for was to satisfy any of those three. But I guess the money we were playing for had finally got through to him, for he didn’t take on overmuch.

  After Howland and Chico rode out we sat around the remains of our supper fire not saying anything but just enjoying the rest. Tod was fidgeting around, but me and Les had pulled our saddles up next to the fire and was just laying back agin them like we was country squires. Howland had promised they’d bring us a bottle back, but I didn’t look to see them. They’d get into town and get drinking and forget all about us. I figured they wouldn’t be back until the saloons all closed up. We’d brewed up another pot of coffee and had it sitting on the coals staying warm and every once in a while we’d reach over and help our cup out a little. It was mighty pleasant. Looking up, the canyon walls had carved out a nice private piece of sky for me and I laid back and looked up at that, not really thinking about much, but just kind of taking it in.

  Well, it’s funny how the mind works, the way it’ll lead you up one street and then down another and then around this corner and so on until you’re at a place in your thoughts you hadn’t meant to get to when you started out. I was laying there looking at that sky, noting how blue it was, kind of like a real pretty blue velvet dress a girl might wear, and then I got to wondering just how big a piece of land that chunk of sky covered that I was looking at. Next I got to wondering if people in, say, Piedras Negras was looking at the same sky I was, and then I kind of wandered back the way we’d come from Villa Guerro and took that in and then moved on out to the Fernando ranch. Next thing I knew I was thinking about that girl Linda, which was a thing I hadn’t meant to do and in fact had been careful not to.

  But there I was, thinking about her.

  Yet what in the name of Dick’s cat did I have to think about a girl I’d only seen for a moment or two and exchanged scarce more than a look and a word? I knew her name, had a fair guess on her age, knew where she was from, knew her uncle and that was all. All, except for the look of her; the way she’d looked in them clothes she was wearing, the way that white mantilla kind of hung down in the back and framed her Spanish face, the way her dress kind of rustled when she’d come rushing into the room, the startled look she’d got on her face when she’d realized her uncle had company. That and the look she’d give me, that and her face that I couldn’t get out of my mind. I seen it, laying there, clear as the sky above me. The way it had little tones in it and highlights, the way it kind of heated up and blushed when she looked at me and our eyes kind of locked up for a moment, kind of locked up a little longer than was necessary. For a second I seen the way her breasts was trying to bust out of the cloth that had them and the way her hips just exploded out of that narrow waist of hers.

  I tell you I didn’t have any right seeing all that, nor business either, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t get her out of my mind and it seemed it had been that way forever.

  Across the fire, Les raised up and poured himself a cup of coffee. The movement brought me back to myself. I thought he’d said something, but I wasn’t sure.

  “You say something, Les?”

  “Yeah. I asked you if you figured them boys would make it in before daylight.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “They’ll get in there and get liquored up and forget all about bringing us back a bottle.”

  “What’s that?” It was Tod’s voice from back in the shadows. Whilst I’d been dreaming he’d slipped off from the fire and got in his blankets. “What’s that you say, Will?”

  “Aw, nothing,” I said. “I was just speculating.”

  “You don’t think Howland and Chico will be back in soon with something to drink and a little news?”

  “I wouldn’t wait up for ’em,” I said.

  “But you said they would.”

  “Oh, hush, Tod,” Les said. “Will can’t be sure of everything.”

  “Well, hell! Goddam, I’m getting mighty tired of laying out here on this prairie. I’d like to have gone in myself. Or at least had a drink.”

  “Will you stop playing the baby? What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s the matter with me—I’m getting tired of everything got to go your way, Mister Wilson Young. I’m getting tired of you reading me out every little move I make. Hell, I’m a grown man!”

  “Then act like one,” I said.

  Les’s voice was gentler than mine. “It’s plain sense, Tod, that you or I or Will can’t go into town. If they spotted us it’d stir up a hornet’s nest.”

  “Balls!” Tod said. “We’ve always moved around this country pretty freely.”

  “We’ve never had the rangers on us before, either,” I said. “Nor a price on our heads.”

  “That’s just Howland’s talk. Besides, I ain’t scairt of no rangers.”

  “Not even a whole company, huh?”

  “Oh, balls!” Tod said, and I could hear him shifting around as he turned over in his blankets. After our talk stopped it suddenly made it seem so quiet you could hear your heart beating. Les reached over and poured the dregs out of his cup onto the fire. It made a hiss and a little cloud of blue smoke wafted up.

  “You want more coffee?” Les asked me.

  “I reckon not,” I said.

  “Ain’t much left, reckon I’ll just pour it out. I know Tod don’t want no more. I can hear him snoring already.”

  “I would take one of them little cigars of yours if you can spare it.”

  “I got plenty.”

  He handed me one and we lit up and drew on ’em and spit in the fire.

  “Let’s see,” Les said, “when’d we first get to knowing each other? Do you recollect?”

  “School or church, I guess. I’m not real sure.”

  “Naw, I’ll tell you when it was, it was in Tod’s daddy’s store. You and your paw had come in there and I was staying in town that week with Tod’s folks and I was in there. You and him come in and Uncle Lester sent you out back to play with us while your daddy got his list up. I know real well ’cause me and Tod was back in the storeroom watching through the door. I remember we run and hid as soon as we seen you coming. You remember that?”

  “By God, I do! Lord, that seems ever so long ago. I went out there in the back and didn’t see nobody and ya’ll was up in that chinaberry tree.”

  “Yeah, Tod commenced to chunking chinaberries at you when you started back in.”

  “Damn if it ain’t so! I’d forgotten all about that!”

  We had a laugh about that and then quieted down after a minute and went back to staring at the fire. It did seem ever so long ago. It didn’t even seem like it was me it happened to.

  “That’s a lot of water under the bridge, ain’t it?” I said.

  “Yes, yes, it shorely is.”

  “That Tod, me and him had some scrapes back then.”

  “Oh Lord, I reckon!”

  We got quiet again. I got to thinking about all the times we’d had together. It was funny that we’d
ended up in such a rough business together, more funny because it seemed we hadn’t really changed that much. Me and Tod had always been at each other’s throats when we was kids and now it was still the same. The only difference was that, now, we were grown men and we didn’t do our fighting with chinaberries, but with guns. Still, Tod had them early days to thank for his life several times. I’ll put up with a hell of a lot more off him and Les than I would from anybody else. He’s done things, lots of things, that I’d have killed another man for. Well, I’ve thrown down on him before, just like at the river, but throwing down is one thing, pulling the trigger is another. I ain’t too sure I could do the last.

  “Funny,” Les said, “Tod used to whip you regular up until we got eleven or twelve or so and then one day you whipped him.” He stopped and thought about it. “You whipped him good.” He paused and then laughed a little. “Seems like it’s been that way ever since.”

  “Well, Tod . . .” I said.

  “I know,” Les said. Across the fire I could see him look over in Tod’s direction. “You reckon he’s asleep?”

  “Aw yeah,” I said, “else he’d still be complaining about not getting to go into town.”

  “Yeah,” Les said. “Well, Tod—well, he was always a little bit of the bully, I guess.”

  “He growed faster than you or I,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I’ll tell you what, Will. I’ll tell you something maybe you didn’t know about old Tod.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, I kind of think Tod felt bad about being a town boy. Me and you was from the ranch and I think that kind of bothered him. I think it made him feel he was some kind of a sissy, being a town boy.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Maybe that’d be why he kind of had to play the bully and was always showing out and everything.”

  “Well, he managed to spoil himself pretty good in the process.”

  “I don’t deny that. His daddy always let him have just about anything he wanted. Him and his mother, both.”