“Lemme ask you this, Frank,” I said. “You got any way of knowing whose money you’re taking when you rob a bank?”
He busted out laughing all over again. So hard I thought he was gonna break another gut. “Jesus! Where’d you come from, Skinny?”
“What’s that mean?”
He got up and picked up his little pot.
“Banks are insured,” he said, coming over and pouring me some fresh coffee. “Nobody who’s got money in ’em loses a penny. No sir. It’s the insurance companies who have to pay off. And don’t you know that it’s the insurance companies, right along with the bankers, that have sopped up most of the money in this country. Just like you sop up gravy in a frying pan. They’re shameless thieves. When Hogg was governor, you know he kicked forty insurance companies out of the state for skinning farmers? Forty of ’em! We’d just be little thieves stealing from big ones.”
I set there, turning that cup around in my hands the same way I was turning over what he’d just said in my head.
Only banks I ever used in my life was old tin cans and Mason jars. But I did know something about them insurance companies. Insurance salesmen was swarming all over West Texas when I was a kid, taking money from all them poor farmers and promising ’em they was protected from ever’thing but Eternal Damnation itself. Then if you had a claim—yoooweee!—that’s when they stung you. Missus Watson, she was one of our neighbors, she paid on a insurance policy for twelve years and then she got bad sick with that lung croup. But when she went to a hospital in Dallas, they said she wasn’t covered. Only if she had heart trouble.
I took a swig of that coffee and clanged the cup down.
“I’m in.”
“Well, you’ve come at just the right time! Last week I couldn’t have done business with you, I already had a partner. But you know what he did? Got into a fight with a pimp. Stabbed right through the heart. Can you imagine that? Killed by a little, lousy pimp!… Oh, I’ve got one more question for you, Skinny. How well can you ride a horse?”
TWELVE
We was in the southeast part of Oklahoma, out in the country. There was a dried prune stuffed in my cheek, and a new Colt .45 with six lead bullets in it pressing hard into my hip. And I was about to get on a gray mare.
Soon as I throwed my leg over the saddle, I spit the pit outa that prune and I pulled my watch outa my pocket. It said 10:03. I wanted to know the time, exact, because that moment was, for me, what some folks call a “tether” moment. Ever’body’s got them “tether” moments. That’s a time that all the rest of your life is kinda tied to.
For me, 10:03 was the time I set the course to become a full-time outlaw.
I’ll tell you right here, there was two things going through my head right then, when I swung my leg over that saddle. Once I put my mind to something, I did it and I didn’t look back. If I was gonna be a outlaw, I was gonna be a outlaw. And I was gonna be a damn good one. Only I wasn’t gonna be a criminal, too. It never did set right with me, the way Jesse James and some of the others would go into a bank and start shooting, killing people for no good reason. If somebody was shooting at me, and I had to shoot back, to defend myself, I’d do it. But the way I seen it, there was a big diff’rence between shooting somebody to defend yourself, and shooting somebody for no reason a’tall.
’Course, if you shot and killed somebody in a robbery, even if it was to just defend yourself, you was likely to get hanged. Old-time outlaws called that “dying with throat trouble.” But I spit that last thought right outa my head, just like I’d spit out that prune pit.
We’d spent the night at the cabin of a friend of Frank’s, a old cowboy that still did odd jobs on ranches. “We” was me and Frank and a fella named Charlie. Charlie was our third man, Frank’d picked him, he was from Tulsa. I never got to know Charlie’s last name. In them days, you never asked a ex-con his last name.
Next morning, that old cowboy’d saddled up three horses.
My horse was jumpy as soon as I put my boot into the stirrup. Horses know right off, I guess, when their riders don’t like ’em. Well, I hated horses, that’s all. Like I told you, my old man loved ever’thing there was about a horse: the creak of the saddle, the swell of their flanks, even the buzz of them black, ugly horse flies. He thought horse sweat smelled sweeter’n a lady’s perfume. I thought it smelled like sweat. And I didn’t like the way that gray’s ears was twitching. I didn’t know what it meant, but I didn’t like it.
Even if my horse was jumpy at first, pretty soon her gait evened out and she settled down into a steady clippity-clop, clippity-clop. The sky was a clear, clear blue; ever’ so often the brush’d open up into a pretty, green valley with rolling hills and maybe a little pond and a red farm barn and a field of corn. If I hadn’t a-hated horses, I mighta even enjoyed the ride.
We rode until we was about a mile shy of a little town called Boswell, and then we guided our horses off into a field and let ’em graze while we flopped down under a tree and went over our plans one last time, so there’d be no hitch. Frank was acting so sure of hisself you’d a-thought we was going into town for a shot of whiskey.
“Remember what I told you, boys. A sharp tongue doesn’t draw blood. It saves it. And after we do it, you just trot. Less attention we draw, the better. But when you get to the brush, that’s when you hit it! Oh, and don’t worry if there’s a little shooting. It’ll just be for show. Things are all sewed up.”
What he meant by things being “sewed up” was this: Boswell had a crooked town marshal. And the marshal’d told Frank that, for a share of our loot, he was gonna “lose” our trail after the getaway. I hoped to hell that marshal was being straight with us. I’d heard enough outlaw stories to know that some laws was tricksters their-selves. Or they was just plain dirty. Like that old Texas Ranger, Captain Bill McDonald. Pa knowed him well. Said Captain Bill always prided hisself on being a square-shooter. Yeah, Pa said, if Captain Bill come up on somebody he wanted, he’d shoot ’em square between the shoulders, and then he’d say, “Hands up!”
At eleven o’clock, exact, we begun to ride into Boswell.
It was such a sleepy little town, nobody give us a second look. We was dressed up like cowboys, so we wouldn’t stick out, and so we wouldn’t get torn to shreds if we had to gallop through the brush on our escape. We had on high-heel boots with spurs and rowels the size of quarters; we had on bullhide leggings; we had on thick brush jackets, bandanas around our throats, and wide-brim Stetsons.
The main street was a wide road that was just dirt and ruts. There was only a few wagons and buggies on it, and one black Model T. The Model T was parked, of all places, in front of the bank. There was a half-dozen people or so wandering down the street on foot, up and down the board sidewalks. And there was one or two horsemen riding around. But ever’body looked like they had their minds on other things, and about the last thing in the world they woulda suspicioned was that the three men walking their horses slow down Main Street was about to hold up the First State Bank.
The bank was the last building on the street. A little one-story square building made of red brick.
When we was about twenty-five feet away, me and Frank got off our horses. We handed the reins to Charlie, he stayed on his horse.
“Now!” said Frank.
Quick as a flash, we pulled up our bandanas across our faces. Guns come out of our shirts and we walked fast into the bank.
There was one teller inside and four customers. One of ’em had dark brown skin, he looked like one of them Choctaw Injins that lived around them parts. The rest of ’em was white men. But ever’body was so busy doing what he was doing, it took a while before somebody even seen us. Then the teller looked up. He was a round-faced old boy with a oiled little mustache and pink cheeks. When he seen our guns, all the blood drained outa his face, his mouth flied open, and his eyes bugged out.
“All right, ever’body, hands in the air!” Frank barked it.
Heads turned.
&nb
sp; We didn’t have to say nothing more.
I swung my pistol from one side of the bank to the other. Ever’body looked too boogered to do nothing but shake. Funny thing, soon as I seen ’em shaking like that, a calm come over me. Hell, me and Frank was the ones in charge! I’d never felt nothing like that before in my life, even when me and Red was robbing that train. On the train, we was going berth to berth; this bank, it was ever’body, all at one time. ’Course, I was still keeping my eyes a-moving and a-shifting—here and there, here and there. I didn’t wanta leave no gap in my sight for somebody to throw down on me.
Meantime, Frank’d pulled a pillowcase outa his belt and went through a swinging door to where the teller was. He scooped money outa drawers and stuffed it into the pillowcase. Then he went over to the bank’s safe, a little square one in a corner, with the door wide open. He scooped up ever’thing in it. Then he stuck his head in the bank’s little vault, but there wasn’t nothing to take. Only locked safe deposit boxes.
No sooner Frank hit for the front door, I ordered ever’body into that vault. One old farmer was slow to move. I give him a hard prod in the back with my gun.
“Git in there, mister,” I said, “or I’ll blow your brains out!”
The fella stepped right along. Him and the others marched, hands up, right in. Like they was schoolkids minding their teacher.
That vault was hardly big enough for the five of ’em, so they was squeezed tight. But they fit.
“You stay in there ten minutes!” I hollered. “Ten full minutes. Anybody comes out before that time, you’re gonna get blowed to hell!”
I turned, jerked off my mask, and run outside. Frank was already on his horse.
“Just trot,” he said.
But even while he was saying this, the teller come racing out and pointing at us and hollering: “Robbers! Jus’ robbed the bank! Robbers! Somebody stop ’em!”
Frank fired a shot at the man’s feet. The teller hopped up and sideways like he was doing a jig, and turned and run back in.
“Didn’t you lock the vault door?” Frank said to me.
“Hell, no. They’d a-suffocated if I—”
“Oh shit! Hightail it!”
We done it, at a gallop. But folks on the street’d heard that teller a-hollering, and when I give a quick look behind us, I seen three or four men jumping on horses, and a couple more hitting over to that Model T.
My calm was gone.
Me and Frank and Charlie tore out at a gallop. We rode and we rode, ’til long after that main street’d turned into a country road lined with brush. Then Frank, he was in the lead, pulled his horse up short and raised his hand to signal me and Charlie to come close.
Frank was breathing hard.
“Better … split up … here!” he panted out. “Tonight … the trestle. That doesn’t work … my place … Fort Worth!”
The trick of splitting up was one the Comanches used to pull on the Texas Rangers. Least, that’s what Pa always told us kids. But it wasn’t Comanches that was on my mind right then. That posse was hot on our trail. We was really gonna have to run for it!
I clucked my tongue and dug my spurs in. And me and that mare lit off down that dirt road at a hard gallop.
By now, we could hear the horsemen a piece behind us—cloppity-clop! cloppity-clop! And the Model T was right behind ’em, bouncing over the ruts just like Mister H.L. Pike’s automobile.
When we come to a opening in the brush, Frank tore off to the left. Charlie was trailing behind me, maybe his horse had a sore foot or something. But the posse and automobile was gaining and all of a sudden—Pow-ww! Pow-ww!
I looked around, just in time to see Charlie fall off his horse.
Goddammit! They was shooting real bullets!
I was gonna be a goner too, if I didn’t keep riding. And riding hard.
I never looked back.
I gotta give that old horse credit, when the chips was down, she sure could blow! Right then, she was my partner—not Frank or Charlie. And she was one helluva partner. She was throwing her legs out and back in a gallop that was sure and steady as a steam engine. Her front legs was coming up so high they was near to clipping her chin. Foam was coming outa her mouth. And all I had to do was rock forward with her body like I was part of her.
Before too long, I couldn’t hear no hoof-beats behind me, or the rattle of that Model T.
When I come to a opening in the brush to the right, I cut into it. It led to a clearing and I loped across it and begun making a wide circle that would lead me to the train trestle where we was supposed to meet if we got split up. I seen a couple of farm and ranch houses on the way, but I skirted around ’em, and lucky for me, I didn’t meet no other human.
The trestle was on the Frisco line. It was a big long bridge over a big deep gorge.
I come on it slow and cautious-like. Maybe the posse figured they had all they needed when they got Charlie. And Charlie coulda been only hurt, and not killed. To save his own skin he coulda tipped off the laws to our plans. They mighta told him they’d let him off light if he ratted on us.
But I didn’t see nobody around.
Where the devil was Frank?
There was a thicket near the bridge. I got off the gray, tied her to a tree and lay down where I could see the trestle, but nobody could see me.
One, two, three hours went by.
I shoulda been wore out, but I wasn’t. My stomach was churning outa hunger, but ever’ other part of my body was twitching. And my mind was going helty-skelty: What’d happened to Charlie? And Frank! God knows. He’d got the money.
And what the hell happened with that marshal?
Damn dirty marshal’d double-crossed us! Either that, or he’d forgot to square things with the rest of the town.
One, two more hours went by.
The trees was dropping long shadows. Frank wasn’t gonna show. I could feel it in my bones.
I untied the horse and pulled off her saddle and give her a whack across the rump. Strange to say it, I was almost sorry to see her go. She’d done a good job.
I crawled over to the trestle—I didn’t wanta stand up, I didn’t wanta be skylighted if somebody come up—and I looked down. The gorge was bone-dry, eighty or ninety feet deep. And on the bottom was huge boulders, the size of elephants. If I fell, I’d be a red splat.
But what was I gonna do, walk outa Oklahoma?
I decided to hop the first train that come by. Them days, trains—particularly freights—slowed before going over a trestle.
I lay down on the ground, on my stomach, and waited. Dark come pretty quick. Before long, it was so dark you couldn’t see your hands in front of your face. And then, about a hour into that pitch-black, I heard the rails hum. And I seen a headlight throw down a kind of gold glow.
I clawed up to the edge of the roadbed.
The engine passed me and rumbled on. I was lucky: It was a freight with boxcars.
Little white splinters of light was cutting into the dark. Sparks throwed off by the wheels.
I waited my time.
The train was crawling now, but one wrong step and I’d be mashed under grinding wheels.
I jumped. I throwed my fingers around the grab-iron at the end of a boxcar. I tried to pull my boots onto a stirrup step.
All around me was black. All below me was black.
The car was bouncing and jerking, bouncing and jerking, side to side. My hands was gripping that grab-iron tight as they could. My boots kept slipping. Them stirrup steps was slick steel, slick as ice. Half the time, I was hanging on by just my fingers.
Clackety-clack, clackety-clack.
I could tell by the sound of the wheels we’d started crossing the trestle. I couldn’t see the gorge, but I knowed it was down below—deep, wide, dark, mean—like the mouth of some huge animal, a-waiting.
Somehow I managed to stay on.
THIRTEEN
Nobody come when I knocked at Frank’s door in Fort Worth. The landlady, the one
with the squeaky-mouse voice, said she hadn’t seen him in awhile. I tried again the next day, walking up all them stairs like I had a hog stuck between my thighs. My legs was stiff and sore and bowed from all that horse galloping. Still, no answer.
Finally, on the third day, the door creaked open a inch. I seen one eye.
“That you, Skinny?”
The eye seen it was me.
“Get in.”
The door come open a few more inches. I slid in. Sure enough, it was Frank standing there. His hair was combed and his face was fresh-shaved and he was smiling like a idiot. It burned me up, Frank slicked up like he was, smiling like that, after the way things had went down in Boswell. Only I wasn’t gonna say nothing right off. Beside, he coulda throwed it back at me, that I didn’t lock the vault door. Well, hell, he was the teacher.
“You got it?” That’s all I said.
“Yessir, I have it all. I have it all.” He rubbed his hands together. “All but five hundred. Five hundred went to my friend. He gave us three horses, you know, and he only got one back. And that one was pretty well used up. So I covered his loss. But don’t you worry, Skinny, we’re rich as you are filthy.”
It was true, I looked godawful. My face was prickly as scrub brush, my hair was in a greasy mat, and my clothes was sweaty and tore up. But I’d been living on my wits, and not much else, since I’d got back to Fort Worth. Frank was the one that’d slung all them money bags over his saddle. As for the loot, I couldn’t help but wonder if Frank really did give his friend $500 for them two horses, or had he pocketed some of it hisself? But it wasn’t time to ask that.
“Where’s the money?” I asked.
“Look at this first,” he said.
All Honest Men Page 13