“Perhaps not a baron in the sense that Kohrs and some of the others are,” Mitchum agreed. “But from what I know of you, you are certainly stout enough to have a seat at their table. Now, how much money do you want to . . . ?”
At that moment, six masked men suddenly came rushing into the bank. All six had their guns drawn.
“What’s going on here?” Frazier asked.
“Well, now, what does it look like?” one of the masked men said. “We have come to do a little business with you.”
“What kind of business do you expect to do wearing masks like that?”
“Banking business,” the man who seemed to be in charge said. “We are going to be making a withdrawal this morning.” He laughed at his own joke.
Falcon had the feeling that he had met the laughing bank robber somewhere before, because there was something familiar about his voice. He knew that he had met one of the other bank robbers before, because he was considerably bigger than all the others. This was the man Falcon had had the fight with in the saloon.
“Hello, Carney,” Falcon said.
“Johnny, he knows who I am!” Carney said.
Hearing the other man referred to as Johnny, Falcon knew who he was too, because now he knew where he had heard the voice.
“Johnny Purvis. I thought you were in jail up in Miles City,” Falcon said in an open, friendly tone. “Gone into the bank-robbing business, have you?”
“You know what, MacCallister? You talk too much,” Johnny said. He made a motion with his hand. “Take your pistol out of your holster.”
Falcon reached for his gun.
“No, wait,” Johnny said. “Girly, you do it. Do it slow and easy like,” Johnny said. “Just use your thumb and one finger, and drop it into that spittoon over there.”
Kathleen just stood there. “Don’t make me do this,” she said.
“Just do it, Girly.”
Reluctantly, Kathleen did as she was told.
Carney pulled his mask off.
“What’d you do that for?” Johnny asked.
“Hell, Johnny, he knows who we are. And this mask itches.”
“You’re right,” Johnny said. He took his mask off as well; then, as he fingered his scar, he smiled and looked at Falcon.
“You know who this is, don’t you, boys?” Johnny said to the others. “This here is the great Falcon MacCallister. Some say he is the best gunfighter there ever was. But look at where his gun is now.”
Looking at the spittoon, the masked outlaws all laughed.
“The fire down the street, the one that is causing all the commotion,” Falcon said. “You started it, didn’t you?” Falcon said.
Johnny chuckled. “Well, now, maybe you ain’t quite as dumb as you look. Yeah, I set the fire. I figured it would draw the whole town down there, and it did. And I’ve got men posted all up and down the street, so if anyone gets curious about what’s goin’ on here at the bank, and comes down to have a look-see, they’ll be shot.”
“Yeah,” Carney said. “They’ll be shot.”
“You,” Johnny said, handing a large canvas bag to Mitchum. “Start fillin’ up this sack with money.”
Nervously, Mitchum began scooping money out of the drawers. He dropped the money into the sack, then handed it back to Johnny.
Johnny looked down into the bag. “What the hell?” he said, sputtering. “What are you trying to pull here? This can’t be much more’n a few thousand dollars.”
“There are six thousand, two hundred, and forty-seven dollars in the bag,” Mitchum said.
“Get the rest of it.”
“That’s all of it,” Frazier said.
“Who are you?” Johnny demanded.
“My name is Gene Frazier. I own the bank.”
“Well, Mr. Gene Frazier, I don’t believe that’s all of it,” Johnny said. “You’ve got lots of rich men in this town now, to buy cattle. Are you tellin’ me they haven’t opened accounts here?”
“Yes, they have,” Frazier replied.
“Then give me their money,” Johnny demanded.
“You don’t understand. They are all wire accounts. The money isn’t here yet.”
“They are what?”
“They are wire accounts,” Frazier repeated.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that their actual money is back in their hometowns, in their own banks. There won’t be any money put in this bank until their home bank is notified by telegram; then the money will be transferred here in time for the auction.”
“What kind of fools do you take us for?” Johnny asked. “I don’t know much about telegrams and the like, but I know for a fact that you can’t send no money over a telegraph wire.”
“It is an accounting transfer only,” Frazier explained. “That will allow the cattlemen to write drafts against an account which will be paid when the money has been physically moved to this bank.”
“What’s this about, Johnny?” one of the other bank robbers asked angrily. “You told us the bank would be filled with money.”
“Take it easy, Poke,” Johnny said. “How the hell was I supposed to know about something called a wire transfer?” Johnny replied.
While the robbers were arguing among themselves, Gene Frazier suddenly grabbed a gun from a counter behind the teller window. He raised it to shoot, but was awkward with it, and the robbers, almost as one, turned their guns toward him and fired. Frazier went down, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds.
“Damn!” Johnny said. “What did the son of a bitch do that for?”
“Come on, Johnny,” Carney shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
From outside could be heard more gunshots, and Snyder stuck his head in the through the front door.
“We’ve got to get out of here, boys!” he called. “They heard the shots and some folks are coming this way! We’re keepin’ ’em back, but there’s only four of us.”
“Let’s go,” Johnny said, and he and the other five men backed out of the bank with their guns pointed toward Falcon and Mitchum.
As soon as the bank robbers left, Falcon reached down into the spittoon and, disregarding the odorous brown ooze that was clinging to his gun, and now to his hand, rushed out the back door of the bank, then ran up the side of the bank building until he reached the street.
Falcon began shooting at the fleeing robbers. He killed one, and wounded another, knocking him from his horse, but the remaining eight managed to get away.
Sheriff Gibson and several other townspeople who were down by the fire had been alerted by the sound of gunshots coming from the bank. When they had started up the street toward the bank, however, they were fired upon by the four men Johnny had left out in the street. Now, with all the robbers in retreat, they came running up to the bank.
“The bank?” Sheriff Gibson asked as he came over to Falcon.
“Yes,” Falcon answered.
Gibson nodded. “Yeah, I thought so. How many were there?”
“Ten, I think.”
“Ten? Damn, that’s a small army.”
“There’s two less now,” one of the townspeople said. “There are two of them down.”
“Sheriff, this one is still alive!” one of the townspeople yelled.
“Get him down to the jail.”
“He needs a doctor.”
“Get him to the jail first, then get him a doctor,” Sheriff Gibson said. Then to Falcon: “Was there anyone hurt in the bank?”
“They shot Frazier,” Falcon said.
“How bad?”
“I think he’s dead.”
Seventeen
Several of the townspeople got the wounded man to his feet, not too gently, and they brought him to the sheriff. He was holding his hand over a wound in his shoulder.
“Does anybody know this man?” Gibson asked.
“His name is Carney,” someone said.
“Yeah, Carney,” one of the others said. “You know him, don’t you, MacCa
llister? You beat the hell out of him the other day.”
“Yeah, I know him.”
Gibson chuckled. “I heard about that fight. This is the one, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Carney,” Gibson said. “Is that your last name, or your first name?”
“It’s my name,” Carney said.
Sheriff Gibson shrugged. “All right, that’s good enough for me. After we hang you, we’ll just put Carney on your grave marker.”
Carney shook his head and smiled. “My brother ain’t goin’ to let you hang me,” he said.
“We’ll just see about that,” Gibson said. “Get him out of here,” he said, and as the townspeople took Carney down the street to the jail, Gibson and Falcon started back into the bank. Falcon stopped at a watering trough in front of the leather goods store next to the bank, and dunked his hand and gun down into the water. Then, his gun and hand clean, he followed the sheriff inside.
Mitchum was sitting on the floor with Frazier. Kathleen was standing over by one of the tables, looking away from the body.
“Is he dead?” Gibson asked.
Mitchum nodded, then replied in a choked voice, “Yes.”
“I don’t suppose you recognized any of them, did you?”
“I didn’t actually recognize any of them,” Mitchum said, “but they called one of them Johnny. Johnny Purvis.”
“It was Johnny all right,” Falcon said.
“You know Johnny?”
“I know him,” said Falcon. “So does Miss Coyle.”
“You know him, Miss Coyle?”
“No,” Kathleen said quickly. “I don’t know him.”
“I didn’t mean to say that you actually know him,” Falcon said. “I just meant that you met him, we both met him, up in Miles City.”
“Oh,” Kathleen said. “Oh, well, that may be. Though, I’m not sure that was the same person.”
“You do remember him, don’t you? He broke into your room. How could you forget him?”
“I just wanted to put that incident out of my mind. I was pretty upset the night that man broke into my room,” Kathleen said. She nodded. “But now that you remind me of it, yes. Yes, I’m pretty sure that this was the same one.”
“And his name is Johnny Purvis?” Gibson asked.
Kathleen nodded again. “Yes, that’s what he said his name was.”
“All right,” Gibson said. “At least we have one name to go on.”
* * *
When they reached a stream of water, the bank robbers stopped to water their horses.
“Six thousand dollars, huh?” one of the riders said. “That’s a hell of a long way from half a million dollars.”
“Yeah? Well, how much money did you have when you woke up this morning?” Johnny asked.
“About ten dollars.”
“Well, now you have over four hundred dollars,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, but we lost two men. One kilt and one wounded,” Poke said.
“How do you know one was just wounded?” Gabe asked.
“ ’Cause I seen him sittin’ up as we was riding out,” Poke replied.
“Yeah, I saw it too,” Eddie said. Eddie was kneeling by the stream, filling his canteen. He stood up, corked it, then hooked it back onto his saddle pommel. “It was Carney, Johnny. He was the one that was wounded.”
“Think he’ll tell ’em where Last Chance is?” Pete asked.
“He won’t tell them anything,” Johnny said.
“How do you know?”
“Carney’s not smart, but he’s loyal,” Johnny said. “He won’t tell them anything.”
“You know what I think?” Gabe said. “I think we ought to hit ’em again.”
“What?” Eddie asked.
“I said let’s hit them again.”
“Why?” Pete asked. “We done took all the money they had.”
“We took all they have now,” Gabe said. “But we didn’t take all they’re goin’ to have. You heard that banker fella say that they would have the money in the bank in time for the auction, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but it ain’t there now,” Pete said.
“We won’t hit them now. We’ll hit them when the money is there.”
“Are you crazy?” Poke asked. “You want to go back and rob the same bank a second time? Nobody would be dumb enough to do that.”
Johnny smiled. “That’s right,” he said. “Nobody would be dumb enough to do it, which is just why nobody will be expecting us to come back.”
“Wait a minute,” Eddie Jordan said. “Are you saying that we are going to go back?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Johnny said. “We are going back, first, to get my brother; then, we’re going back again when the money is transferred.”
“Whoa, hold on there. Nobody said nothin’ about goin’ back to get your brother,” Poke said. “I can see maybe goin’ back again to get the money. But not to get Carney.”
Johnny lifted the money bag. “We agreed that I would get half the money, right?”
“Yeah,” Poke said.
Johnny stuck his hand down inside. “I won’t take half. I’ll take one eighth of it, just like all of you. That means that instead of getting four hundred dollars, you’ll all get over seven hundred dollars apiece. That’s almost double.”
“What about when we get the big money?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah, what about that?”
Johnny nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “Whatever we take from the bank when the cattlemen’s money comes in, we’ll share equally.” He pointed his finger. “But that is only if you help me get my brother back.”
Gabe nodded. “I’ll go along with that,” he said.
“Wait,” Pete said. “Gabe, are you sure you want to do this?”
“If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it,” Gabe said. “It’ll just be a bigger share for the rest of us.”
“No,” Pete said quickly. “I didn’t say I wasn’t goin’ to do it.”
* * *
Gene Nunlee got two men to help him carry the coffin outside and stand it up in front of the mortuary. The reason it took two men was because the body of the bank robber that Falcon shot was in it. Nunlee hung a sign around his neck.
DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
Several of the townspeople came by to view the corpse, most out of a sense of morbid curiosity, though some to see if they could identify him.
“His name is Snyder,” Sylvester said. “I don’t know what his first name is, but I’ve seen him in the Gold Strike a few times.”
The sheriff picked up a tablet from his desk and looked at it, then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve had two others who have made the same identification. One of them even supplied a first name. He said his name was Jerry Snyder.”
“Could be,” Sylvester agreed. “Like I say, I can’t speak as to his first name, but I know his last name is Snyder.”
“That’s all I need to know,” Gibson said. “We’ll get the son of a bitch buried this afternoon.”
* * *
“You’re going to the funeral?” Frances asked.
Falcon shook his head. “He won’t be having a funeral,” he said. “Just a burying. And I plan to go to that, just as I did for Cardis.”
“Would you explain why you would want to attend the burial of someone you have killed?”
Falcon thought about it for a moment. Sighing, he stroked his jaw before he replied.
“I don’t know if I can explain it,” he said. “But it seems to me like the most important moment in any man’s life is the moment that he dies. Synder and I were on opposite sides of that moment, connected by a single thread, so to speak. It could have been me, instead of him, and one day, it may well be.”
Frances was quiet for a moment, then she nodded. “I’m glad,” she said.
“Glad?”
“Yes. I’m glad you are not going to the burial as some sort of bizarre victory ritual. If you don’t mind, Gordon and
I will go with you.”
* * *
Nunlee didn’t use the hearse for Snyder. He kept the hearse protected with a felt-lined tarpaulin cover, and each time he used it, he would have to clean it before covering it up again. He didn’t mind doing that for the funerals he had for the respectable people of town. But he had no intention of doing it for an outlaw like Jerry Snyder.
Nailing the cover down on the unpainted wood coffin, Nunlee and his grave digger loaded the coffin onto the back of a wagon, then started through town to the cemetery. Several of the men, seeing the wagon pass, stopped and removed their hats, while the women bowed their heads, more from a sense of the fact that death comes to all than for respect for the body that lay in the plain coffin.
When Nunlee reached the cemetery, he saw Falcon MacCallister, and Frances and Gordon Martin, standing by the grave that his grave digger had already opened. He wasn’t that surprised to see MacCallister, for MacCallister had also been there when he buried Cardis. But he was a little surprised to see the widow Frances Martin and her son, Gordon, there.
Falcon stood by with his hat off as the coffin was lowered into the grave.
“I forgot to ask you when we buried the other gentleman you killed,” Nunlee said. “But would you like to say a few words over the grave?”
“No.”
“Very well. Jesse, close the grave.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Nunlee,” the grave digger said.
* * *
As Falcon, Frances, and Gordon were walking back to town, Sheriff Gibson came out to meet them. He was carrying a piece of paper, which he showed to Falcon.
“Someone found this note this morning,” Gibson said, handing the paper to Falcon.
To the People of Laramie
I killed this man to get your attention. If you do not release my brother by sundown today, I will kill another of your citizens. And I will kill one citizen every day until my brother is free.
Johnny Purvis
“What does he mean he killed a man to get our attention?” Frances asked.
“It was Tooey Keith, Mrs. Martin. The note was found lying on his chest. His throat had been cut.”
“Oh,” Frances said. “Oh, no. Who would do such a thing? Tooey never hurt a soul.”
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