“All right. I’m glad to hear that.”
“Glad to hear what?” a voice asked behind them. Luke looked over his shoulder and saw Jack McKinney standing there. The boss outlaw was light on his feet.
“Luke was talkin’ about my mule,” Aaron answered without any hesitation. “I was afraid he was going lame, but now I don’t reckon he is. I think he just had a little pebble in his shoe, and it must’ve got shook out while we were riding.”
McKinney nodded. “When we make camp tonight, you’d better check it closer. A man can’t afford to take any chances with his mount. Isn’t that right, Luke?”
“It sure is,” Luke agreed. He clapped a hand on Aaron’s shoulder and added, “Keep an eye on that jughead, kid.” Turning to McKinney, he went on. “When do you think you’ll tell us where we’re headed?”
“When the right time comes,” McKinney responded with a faint edge to his voice. “You’ll know.”
“Good enough.” Luke nodded and strolled back to his horse, aware that Creager was watching him from about ten yards away. The big man’s lumpy face was impassive, as emotionless as the chunk of rock it resembled, but that didn’t fool Luke. He knew that he still needed to be wary. That would never change until there was another showdown between them.
A short time later, the men mounted up and rode on. When Luke tried to fall in farther back and behind Creager, the outlaw reined his horse to a halt and let several of the other men ride past him. Luke had no choice but to heel his horse into motion.
Creager fell in alongside him, riding about ten feet away. “If you think I’m going to let you behind me again, you’re loco,” the big outlaw rumbled. “I felt all mornin’ like I had a target painted on my back, and now I know why. You were thinking about how you’re going to kill me, weren’t you?”
“The thought never crossed my mind,” Luke said.
Creager snorted in obvious disbelief.
“It’s true. We settled things between us. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
“The hell it is. I’m starting to think clearer now. You must have pulled some sort of trick I haven’t figured out yet. That’s the only way you’d ever beat me.” Creager hawked and spit in Luke’s direction. The gob of spittle landed on the ground between their horses. “You should’ve killed me while you had the chance. You won’t ever get another one.”
“I’m not looking for one,” Luke said, but he knew Creager would never accept that. “But I won’t get careless and let anybody bushwhack me, either.”
Creager laughed, coldly, humorlessly. “When I kill you, you’ll know it’s me doing it. Never you worry about that.”
Neither man said anything else. The tense silence hung between them as they rode.
The outlaws halted from time to time to rest the horses but didn’t stop at midday for a meal. They made do with jerky and biscuits brought from the Black Castle, eaten in the saddle as they rode and washed down with water from their canteens. Although some, Creager included, also took nips from flasks they brought out from their saddlebags. Luke was a little surprised that McKinney allowed them to drink whiskey while they were on the trail, heading for a new job, but he supposed McKinney knew his men and had a pretty good idea how strict he could be with them.
In the afternoon, McKinney turned south before they reached the mountains and led the gang in that direction. Off to the right several miles, Luke saw a dark line meandering across the landscape from north to south and knew it marked the thicker vegetation along the course of the Colorado River. Settlements were scattered along the river, founded to serve the needs of the mines in the mountains beyond. Evidently, one of those settlements was the gang’s destination.
That theory made sense to him. Some of those towns had banks. Others had express offices with safes where gold shipments from the mines were locked up until they could be shipped downstream to reach the railroad in Yuma. Any of those could provide a lucrative target for a bunch of desperadoes.
They made camp that night at the edge of an arroyo. A couple of men went down into the arroyo to build a fire, cook some supper, and boil a pot of coffee. The sky was clear and it was safe enough to venture down there. They could have hot food and coffee without risking the flames of a campfire being spotted by Apaches or anybody else who might be hostile toward them. But . . . nobody with any sense actually made camp in an arroyo, even when it wasn’t during Arizona’s brief rainy season. The danger of flash floods was too great.
After everyone had eaten, Jack McKinney stood up and said, “I reckon it’s time we talked about what we’re going to do. About fifteen miles south of here, right on the river, is a town called Stanton. It doesn’t amount to much, but it has a bank. A trail right on the other side of the river leads up to several mines. A riverboat’s due to dock there day after tomorrow and take on gold shipments from those mines. So the vault will be full of ingots tomorrow night . . . ingots that we’re going to relieve it of.”
“You know all this for a fact?” Creager asked.
“I do,” McKinney snapped, as if he didn’t like having his information questioned. “I got word about the boat’s schedule a while back from a fella who works in the bank and promised to tip me off in exchange for a part-share. I’ll get to him later, so nobody will suspect him of being part of the holdup. I knew we had to wait a while before pulling the job, so I figured that was a good time for us to pay a visit to Stockbridge’s place. We’ve been on the move so much the past couple of years, it was good to stop and rest and relax for a spell, wasn’t it?”
Several men called out agreement to that.
McKinney slipped his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans and went on. “Here’s how we’re going to do it. I said there wasn’t much to Stanton, but there is a saloon, and some of you will be in there starting a ruckus as a distraction at the same time as the rest of us are breaking into the bank. We’ll dynamite the vault door, load as much gold as we can onto a wagon, and light a shuck out of there. The rest of you take off, too. We’ll rendezvous in the hills, split up the ingots among the pack mules and our horses, and head back deeper into the badlands for a while. Any questions?”
“Where do we get the wagon?” an outlaw asked.
“There’s a freight outfit in town, too. We’ll take one of theirs.”
Creager said, “What if there aren’t any there right when we need one? Seems like that’s an awful lot riding on what’s really nothing more than a matter of luck.”
Thad got to his feet and snapped at Creager, “If my pa says there’ll be a wagon there, there’ll be a wagon there.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, boy,” Creager rumbled.
McKinney held up a hand. “The fella who tipped me off swore he’d never seen the wagonyard when it didn’t have at least one wagon in it. Maybe it is luck to count on that, but it’s a calculated risk.”
“Something else,” Creager said. “Gold’s heavy. We can’t put a whole vault full of it in one wagon and hope to make any time with it. Chances are that’d kill the mules within a mile. We need more than one wagon.”
McKinney shook his head. “That won’t work. Once we split the ingots up among us, we can carry only so many of them anyway. So we take only what we can get away with.”
“You mean to leave gold in the vault?” Creager sounded like he couldn’t comprehend that.
“We won’t have any choice. If we got enough wagons to empty it, we’d have to keep using them to haul all that gold instead of divvying it up. And I don’t know about you, Creager, but I don’t particularly want to get away from a posse while traveling with three or four heavily loaded wagons. Especially not through rough country like we’ll be in.”
The moon and stars provided enough silvery illumination for Luke to see the angry glare on Creager’s face as the big outlaw growled before finally accepting McKinney’s answers. “All right, damn it. You don’t have to talk to me like I’m some wet-behind-the-ears kid.” He gestured curtly toward Th
ad and Aaron and added, “We’ve got two of them along already.”
“I can carry my weight, mister. Don’t you worry about that,” Thad responded hotly.
“And so can I,” Aaron added as he jumped to his feet.
Creager laughed harshly. “Yeah, but you’re both little pissants, so your weight don’t amount to much, does it?”
“That’s enough,” McKinney said. He looked at his sons. “I mean all of you. Sit down.”
Grumbling, Thad and Aaron sank back down to the ground where they had been sitting.
“Anybody else want to argue with my plan?” McKinney asked, his tone making it clear that he wouldn’t take kindly to it if anyone answered in the affirmative. After a moment, he went on. “All right, then. We’ll post some guards, and everybody else can get some sleep. Probably won’t be any sleeping tomorrow night, so take advantage of the chance while you’ve got it.”
McKinney didn’t pick Luke to take one of the guard shifts, which wasn’t surprising because he was a new man. The outlaws would have to trust him before they would willingly place their lives in his hands.
That wasn’t likely to happen, Luke thought as he rolled up in his blankets against the chill that descended quickly in the dry air. He wouldn’t gain the gang’s trust because he wasn’t going to be with them long enough for that. He needed to think of a way to ruin the plan for robbing the bank in Stanton, and at the same time cut Three-fingered Jack out of the herd and get him away from the other outlaws so he could be captured.
Oh, and somehow stay alive while he was doing those things, Luke reminded himself.
That was all.
CHAPTER 27
Since they had only fifteen miles to cover the next day, and they wouldn’t be hitting the bank until after dark, the outlaws didn’t worry about getting an early start the next morning. They lingered over bacon, flapjacks, and coffee.
The cookfire was built in the arroyo again, close against the bank so the slight overhang broke up the thin tendril of smoke that rose from the crackling flames and kept it from being noticeable. They took this precaution even though it was possible there were no hostile Apaches on the territory side of the mountains that were across the border in Mexico.
It was also possible some of the red devils were lurking within a hundred yards, watching and waiting like a pack of wolves for a chance to cut out any stragglers. The chances of any war party big enough to jump twenty heavily armed hardcases were pretty slim, but let a man or two be caught alone and that carelessness could be worth their lives.
Creager seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood.
Maybe the thought of those gold ingots had cheered him up, Luke mused over a cup of coffee as he watched the big outlaw stuffing flapjacks in his mouth.
Creager winced a little as he ate. His lips were still swollen and tender. That didn’t slow him down much, though.
Three-fingered Jack McKinney ambled over to Luke and sat down beside him on the same slab of rock. “Tonight you’ll ride into Stanton with half a dozen of the other boys. You’ll go to the saloon, and after you’ve been there half an hour, you’ll start a fight. I don’t care who starts the ball or how, as long as it’s enough of a fracas to cause a lot of racket and attract plenty of attention.”
“Star packer attention, I reckon you mean,” Luke said. “You seem to know a lot about this settlement, Jack. Just what is the law dog situation there?”
“There’s a town marshal and one deputy, that’s all. And they don’t actually work for the town. The mine owners pay them. Their main job is to protect any gold that happens to be in Stanton. They protect the citizens and look after the rest of the town, too, but that comes after taking care of the gold.”
“Then what makes you think they’ll both rush down to the saloon just because a fight breaks out?”
“They won’t,” McKinney said with a shrug. “But chances are, one of them will, and that cuts the odds against us in half and keeps everybody else in town occupied, too. If you work it right, during that tussle you and the other boys can knock out quite a few of the townsmen. If they have to regain consciousness before they can join a posse and come after us, so much the better.”
Luke nodded slowly as he considered what McKinney had said. It actually wasn’t a bad plan. He wondered about something else and asked, “What about the marshal? If he stays close to the bank and sends his deputy down to the saloon, you’ll still have to deal with him.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” McKinney said in a flat voice. “Deal with him.”
Luke knew what that meant. They would kill the local lawman if he got in their way, which he was likely to do since he worked for the mine owners. “It’s not really my place to say this . . . but I hope you’ll keep Aaron well away from that. He’s just a kid.”
“You’re right,” McKinney said without an ounce of friendliness in his voice. “It’s not your place.”
“The boy and I rode the river together. Well, that creek leading to the Black Castle, anyway. I like him. Don’t want to see too much happening to him, too fast.”
McKinney gazed narrow-eyed at him for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll give you that. I reckon you’re just looking out for the boy’s best interests. And I appreciate you doing that before. But it’s my job now.”
McKinney had a funny way of showing that, Luke thought. Letting a twelve-year-old youngster ride with a bunch of hardcase killers and thieves didn’t seem like it was in his best interests. But maybe that wouldn’t last much longer.
Luke drank the rest of his coffee and dashed the grounds into the dirt. He stood up and said, “I’d better get my horse saddled.”
“Yeah. We’ll be riding in a little while.”
Intentional on Luke’s part, his horse was picketed next to Aaron’s mule. As he draped the saddle blanket over his mount’s back and smoothed it, he sensed movement beside him and glanced over to see Aaron reaching for the mule’s saddle blanket.
As the boy got the blanket in place, he said without looking at Luke, “I didn’t know we’d be robbing a bank so soon after we left.”
“No, there was no way to predict that,” Luke said, just as quietly, “but those are the cards we’ve been dealt.”
“We can’t let them get away with it. They’re liable to . . . to kill somebody.”
Luke thought of what McKinney had said about Stanton’s marshal. “Yes, that’s certainly a possibility.”
“Maybe you can get word to the law somehow. Set a trap for them.”
“Someone could be killed if we did that, too.” Luke paused. “Thad could be, or your father.”
“When it comes to Pa, I . . . I don’t care.”
Luke thought Aaron’s declaration didn’t sound completely convincing. It was one thing to nurse a hate for someone you hadn’t seen for five years. Spending time with him, though, especially when he was your own flesh and blood, might make things different.
“He deserves whatever happens.” Aaron had the blanket on the mule and paused to lift the saddle and with a grunt of effort, put it in place. “Thad, though . . . I don’t understand why he had to run off, too, but I don’t want to see him hurt.”
“Neither do I.” Luke had his saddle on the horse and began tightening the cinches. “I’ll do what I can to stop them and to keep Thad safe. But you need to steer well clear of any trouble, so I don’t have to worry about you, too.”
“All right, Mr. J . . . Jones. I’ll try.”
Luke turned away. To anyone watching them, it wouldn’t have appeared that he and Aaron said anything to each other except a few idle comments. No one was close enough to have heard the conversation, he judged. He pulled the picket pin, untied the reins from it, and led the horse over to the area where the gang was assembling.
Within a few more minutes, everyone was ready to ride. They set out with McKinney and his sons leading the way again.
Luke wasn’t sure what made him turn his head to the left at just the right moment,
but as he looked in that direction, he caught a glimpse of movement atop a ridge about half a mile away. There and then gone, vanishing much too quickly for him to pick up any sort of detail.
It might have been the flick of a deer’s tail, he told himself. Maybe a mountain lion on the prowl; there were a few of the big cats around there. It might have even been a bird.
But there were other explanations, too. Some that were not so innocent.
He and Badger and Aaron had never been absolutely sure whether or not they had accounted for every single member of that Apache war party, Luke reminded himself.
* * *
A line of small, rocky, mostly barren hills that ran north and south rose about a mile from the Colorado River, and between those hills and the stream lay the settlement of Stanton. The gang used the hills as cover as they approached, laying up behind them about midafternoon to wait until night had fallen before riding into town.
After they had all dismounted, McKinney caught Luke’s eye and inclined his head toward the nearest hill. “Come up there with me and help me keep an eye on the settlement.”
That struck Luke as odd, McKinney asking the newest member of the bunch to accompany him, but then he thought of a possible explanation. Could be that McKinney was trying to keep him and Creager apart as much as possible because he didn’t trust the brutish outlaw not to lose control.
Luke didn’t want another battle with Creager complicating things, so he nodded his agreement. “Sure.” He picketed his mount, then followed McKinney up the hill. McKinney was carrying a pair of field glasses.
Luke caught up to him and commented, “I’m surprised your boys didn’t want to come along.”
“They did,” McKinney said. “I told them to stay down there with the others.”
“You have a reason for that?”
“None that I feel obliged to share with you,” McKinney snapped. “The sun’s in the west, though, and I don’t want it reflecting off anything and maybe warning folks in town that somebody is up here in the hills. They might take it for an Apache war party and start getting ready for a fight.”
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