by Ralph Cotton
“Rob us, Davey?” Sage said for him. “Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”
“Oh, my!” Looking closer at the line of men, Lockhart tried to be optimistic. “But none of them are even wearing masks, Mr. Sage.”
“Yes, I see that, Davey,” Sage said, looking at him with a somber expression. “But perhaps they don’t feel it to be necessary. Maybe they don’t plan on anybody being able to identify them.”
“Oh my,” Lockhart repeated. But then the full gravity of Sage’s words registered. The accounting clerk’s eyes widened in terror. “Oh my!” he repeated in a more alarmed voice. “What are we to do? Most of the men are off to town for the weekend! Any left in the barracks are knocked out drunk by now.”
“Right,” said Sage, “and I expect Sabott and these fellows knew that somehow.”
“Of all the times to have something like this happen!” said Lockhart. “We have the largest cash transfer on hand that we’ve ever had here!”
“Right,” said Sage. He looked all around hurriedly. “We’ve got to get all the cash out of the safe and down under the floor of the tool building!” He hurried toward the large safe sitting against the wall. “Hurry, Davey! Go fetch us some empty grain sacks to fill, while I run the combination. We won’t take this robbery sitting down, no siree.”
The young accounting clerk hurried out the back door and across a pathway to a small tool building. Returning with empty white grain sacks over his arm, Lockhart opened one in time to begin catching stacks of paper money in it as Sage scooped the stacks off a shelf inside the large safe.
“We should never have had so much payroll sent up at one time! I knew this was a mistake,” Sage said as he worked feverishly. “But Mr. Elmer Dean Havelin and his corporate board think they know so damned much more than I do.” Stuffing money, he growled, “Those smug sonsabitches! I should just let them get robbed. Maybe those guards had the right idea.”
“Hurry, please, Mr. Sage! I hear them coming, fast,” Lockhart said, cutting a nervous glance toward the front window. The thunder of hooves moved down across the land like an approaching storm.
As the hooves drew nearer, Sage swiftly filled three of the bags. Looking at the small amount of cash still lying on the safe’s shelf, he said, “That’s all we’re going to have time for. You’d better get out and stay out, Davey, until they’re gone.”
“What about you, sir?” Lockhart asked. “I can’t just leave you here, alone!”
“That’s an order, Davey,” Sage said, knowing there was no time to discuss the matter. “Stay hidden in the tool building.” As he spoke he piled a lumpy grain sack onto Lockhart’s shoulder. Then he helped the young man stuff another sack up under his arm and carry the third by its twisted top.
No sooner had Lockhart hurried out the back door with his heavy sacks of money than Sage shoved the safe’s heavy door shut and turned the big steel handle. He collapsed against the safe for a moment, taking a deep breath as he heard the horses skidding to a stop in the dirt street. “All right, here goes,” he murmured. He turned and hurried to his desk, having no time to put the telescope away before he heard boots pound across the boardwalk.
When the door flew open and Angelo Sabott walked in boldly, his Colt up and pointed, Sage stood up quickly, his hands going into the air above his head. Behind Sabott, the rest of the men spilled inside and spread out, each with a pistol or rifle aimed and cocked. “Oh my goodness, gentlemen!” said Sage, forcing himself to look surprised, but not having to force himself to look afraid. “What on earth is this—?”
“Don’t act stupid. It’s a robbery, fool,” said Sabott in a harsh, booming voice. Without slowing down for a second, he crossed the floor, circled Sage’s desk, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and flung him toward the big safe. “Now, get yourself over there and open that damned safe, before I part your skull with this gun barrel.”
Sage stopped halfway to the safe, his hands still raised, but with a defiant look on his face. “I’m afraid I cannot open it for you, Mr. Sabott.”
“Hey, you know my name?” Sabott gave a friendly, surprised grin.
“Yes,” said Sage, “every businessman, mine owner or manager in the territory recognizes you.”
“All right!” Sabott looked pleased. But then his countenance changed suddenly, like a black cloud moving across the face of the sun. “Then you must know I mean it when I say, if you don’t open that safe before I count to three, Crazy Lou here is going to blow your fool head off.” He jerked his head toward Lou Ozlow, who stood with his Colt out at arm’s length, cocked and aimed.
Sage took a firm stand, wanting it to look believable when he gave in and opened the big door and let them take what little money still lay inside. “I refuse to be bullied by you, sir,” Sage said with firm resolve.
“As you say, then,” said Sabott. He glared at Sage and said, “One . . .”
Sage didn’t flinch.
“Two . . . ,” said Sabott.
From Sage, nothing.
Sabott said, “Three.”
Giving in, Sage sighed and said, “All right—”
But before his submission cleared Sage’s lips, Lou Ozlow’s Colt bucked in his hand. A blast of orange-blue fire exploded from the barrel and sent a bullet slamming through Sage’s forehead.
Angelo Sabott and the others turned to Lou Ozlow with a stunned look. Sabott clasped a cupped hand to his ringing, throbbing ear. “Damn it! You shot him!” Sabott said in disbelief.
“Yep, just like you said,” Crazy Lou replied, a thick curl of smoke rising from his gun barrel.
“Damn it to hell, Lou!” said Sabott, still wearing a stunned, bewildered expression. “I didn’t mean right then. They always resist a little, just to save face!”
Lou stared at the body lying on the floor in front of the safe, blood and brain matter splattered on the large steel door. “You said, before you counted to three,” said Ozlow. “So, I did just what you told me to.”
“Jesus,” said Heakland, turning and slumping his rump down atop the edge of the big desk. He shook his head and took off his hat, then wiped his forehead. “Anybody thinks this life is easy, they’re out of their mind.”
With his shoulders shrugged and his arms spread in defeat, Sabott turned to the men. “He killed the only man who knows the combination!”
Ozlow nodded in agreement, wearing a thin smile of satisfaction, his smoking gun still in hand. He didn’t understand.
“What do we do now, boss?” Heakland asked, standing up from against the desk edge. He walked wide of Crazy Lou Ozlow, not wanting to have to look at him.
“Well, I suppose we’ll be using the dynamite I wanted to save for another job,” said Sabott. “There’s too much money in here for us to ride off and leave it sitting.”
A gunman named Bratcher Campbell cut in, asking Sabott, “Want me to go get the dynamite—get this job going our way?”
Sabott thought about it, but only for a moment before saying, “Hell yes, go get it. If we need more, we’ll just have to find a way to get our hands on some.” As he spoke, he walked past Crazy Lou Ozlow and the others and looked out the wavy windowpane in the direction of the trail back toward Hole-in-the-wall. “How come Memphis Beck is the only damned outlaw in these parts who has somebody making his explosives for him?”
Chapter 15
Ten minutes had passed as Sabott and the men waited, crouched along the clapboard wall of a building across the street from the mining office. “Here he comes,” Sabott said over his shoulder to the others as Heakland ran toward them from the office, a lit cigar between his fingers. “How’d it go, Al?” Sabott asked as Heakland crouched down beside him.
“Just dandy,” Heakland said in a rushed voice, bracing himself.
The men waited, tensed, expectant, some with their hands over their ears. But after a moment when nothing had happened, they eased their rigid stances and looked to Sabott, who stood up and said in exasperation, “Well, hell, what now?”
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His question was met by a blast from the office building that slammed him face-first against the clapboard siding. Some of the men slammed into him. Others fell to the ground. The deafening roar of the explosion rolled off across the rocky hillsides like a terrible storm. Sabott batted his eyes and rounded a finger back and forth in his ringing ears.
“My God!” a Texas gunman named Shelby Boyd said to Heakland. “How damned much dynamite did you use?”
“None of your damned business how much,” Heakland snapped at him.
“I’m just asking,” said Boyd.
“Yeah? Well, next time you’ll know, because it’ll be you setting it up and lighting the fuse.”
Stepping out from the cover of the clapboard building, Sabott looked at where the large safe had landed on its side, intact, in the middle of the debris that littered the street. The entire front of the office building and part of its roof had been blown away. Bits of business paper and ledger book pages swirled in the air. Strips of wood and roof tin still fell to the ground like rain.
“What the hell is this?” Sabott asked, spreading his hands at his sides, seeing the big, undamaged safe. Then he jumped back instinctively as a broken wooden sign reading HAVELIN MINING AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION hit the ground solidly less than ten feet from him. “Boyd is right, Al,” he said. “How much did you use?”
“I used four sticks,” Heakland said.
“There you are,” Shelby Boyd said. “All the times I rode with Beck and his gang, I never seen anybody use more than a stick of dynamite to open a safe.”
“This is a bigger safe than a shit-heel cracker like you ever saw in your life, Boyd,” said Heakland. “If you can open a safe any better, I’d like to see you do it.”
“I’ll damned sure give her a try, before I let you blow all our heads off,” said Boyd.
“Both of you shut up,” said Sabott. He led the gathered men warily to the safe as splinters and bits of debris still rained down around them. Eyeing the big door, which had not given even a fraction of an inch, he cursed under his breath. “There’s not a damned scratch on it!”
Stepping forward ahead of the others, Shelby Boyd eyed the safe closely. “It is one big sonsabitch,” he said.
“What’s wrong, Boyd, having doubts now?” said Heakland. “Did you let your mouth open wider than your brain is long?” He laughed harshly.
Eyeing the steel handle, Boyd ignored Heakland and said to Sabott, “I’ve got a hunch I can open her, Angelo.”
“Are you sure?” said Sabott. “We’re running low on dynamite.”
Reaching out and touching the big dial on the safe, Boyd said, “I won’t need any.”
“Hear that, men,” Heakland said to the others. “Shelby Boyd here won’t need any dynamite. I expect riding with Beck’s Hole-in-the-wallers has put him a cut above the rest of us.” He laughed more harshly.
“A dollar says I can open her up,” Boyd said confidently, resting his hand on the safe’s big combination dial.
“A dollar, he says!” Heakland chuckled. “If a dollar was all the faith you have in it, you’d do well to keep your mouth shut.” He stepped forward. “See, I’ll bet my whole share you can’t open it.” He looked at Boyd with a sharp, cruel grin. “Now, where’s your nerve, you two-bit peckerwood?”
“All right,” said Boyd, “it’s a bet, my share against yours.” He turned to the big safe. Sabott stood watching, his hand on his gun butt, his temper smoldering just below skin level.
Heakland turned to the men. “I hope all of yas heard what he said. Too bad we don’t have some whiskey to pass around. It’s going to be a long wait—”
Behind Heakland, Boyd turned the door handle on the sideways-lying safe with both hands, then stepped back quickly. A heavy thud resounded as the safe swung down onto the ground. “She’s open,” Boyd said in a cool tone. “Pay up.”
“It wasn’t locked?” Sabott felt a surge of humiliation and rage ready to spill out of his chest. His hands streaked up with his Colt cocked and ready to fire. But he wasn’t sure whom to kill. He pointed it at Boyd.
Boyd’s eyes bulged. “I just had me a hunch, is all, I swear it!” he said.
Sabott swung his gun around toward Heakland. The stunned gunman stared wild-eyed, speechless at the big door lying open on the ground, like the tongue of some slain monster. But before firing, Sabott saw three stacks of bills tumble off the safe’s shelf and land on the open door. “Whoa, now,” he said, his attitude changing fast at the sight of money.
“Dang, boss,” said one of the men, a former Montana dentist named Donald Keyes. “That’s an awfully big safe for such a small amount of booty.”
“Hunh?” Sabott and the men all stared at the empty shelf as one. Aside from the three bundles that had fallen out, only a few other bundles remained, lying strewn about inside the overturned safe.
On one side of Sabott, Shelby Boyd said to Al Heakland, “It looks like you won’t have to pay me as much as I thought you would.”
“As much? Hell, I ain’t paying you at all,” said Heakland, standing on the other side of Sabott. “You jackpotted me, Boyd. I don’t know how, but you did. And I’ll be damned if—”
Sabott cut him off with a cold, menacing stare. Waving his gun back and forth between the two men, he said, “I’m itching to kill me a sonsabitch right now. You two bendershanks better stop making it so easy for me.”
“Uh-oh, boss, look who’s coming here,” said a gunman named Earl Barnes. “We’ve got company coming!”
From a long clapboard barracks fifty yards away, three men came running, awakened by the blast. One carried a long-handled shovel and the other two carried small stools, waving them over their heads. They ran in a staggering drunkard’s gait.
“Kill these fools, and any others you find. Then search this whole place top to bottom,” Sabott shouted. “I don’t want to leave here thinking we left anything behind!”
A dozen shots rang out. The two running men fell to the ground, dead. From a crack in the stones lining the foundation of the tool building, David Lockhart watched fearfully, the three grain sacks of money lying by his side. Not seeing Sage anywhere made him fear the worst had happened to him. He lay cringing in the dirt. Somewhere under the building a rattlesnake had protested his arrival when David had first slipped down through the trapdoor and into the crawl space beneath the rough plank floor.
But the rattler was the least of his worries now, he thought. He had heard its menacing warning die down in the blackness behind him as he’d crawled farther and farther away, dragging the grain sacks along beside him as a buffer against its deadly strike. Now his greater danger was men, he told himself.
He watched Sabott’s men run wildly from building to building, ransacking and shouting. He prayed silently, more fervently than he’d ever prayed in his life. Above him he heard the sound of boots stomp into the tool building. He prayed more intently, his eyes squeezed shut, his hand clasped together beneath his chin.
“Well, well, well, Harvey, what have we here?” he heard a voice say above the trapdoor on the other side of the crawl space.
“It looks like we’ve hit upon a little private hideaway,” a gunman named Harvey Bottoms replied, reaching down and opening the trapdoor. But before the door was completely open, the rattle of the snake rose like the loud hiss of a sizzling fuse. “Uh-uh,” said Bottoms, dropping the trapdoor and jumping back from the sound. “Anybody fool enough to hide down there is welcome to stay.” He gave a knowing look to the other gunman, a Tennessean named Ben Lane, and added, “You saw me check down there, didn’t you?”
“I did for a fact,” said Lane. “Let’s get out of here. Rattlers give me the willies.”
“I’m right with you, pard,” said Bottoms. “I once lost an uncle to a rattlesnake bite—it nailed him whilst he stood relieving himself. You never seen such suffering and swelling. They nearly buried him in a pair of three-legged pants.”
The other gunman winced and said as h
e stomped back out the door of the building, “I don’t even want to hear about it.”
Beneath the floor, the protective sacks of money squeezed up against him, David Lockhart lay in petrified silence, thanking God for divine intervention and praying fast and repeatedly for more of the same. Only after a long, quiet stretch of time did he begin to realize that the mining complex was deserted.
Listening closely, all David heard on the dirt street was the rustling of paper on a cool breeze. Yet he lay in deathlike quiet for another full ten minutes before turning in the short crawl space and starting warily back toward the trapdoor.
Now, the snake, he cautioned himself, still praying silently in his mind and heart. He sensed coiled muscle and fang watching, tensed and awaiting him at every inch of his progress.
But when he finally looked up at a thin strip of daylight shining down through the crack outline of the trapdoor, he took a deep breath, realizing he’d made it without incident. Thank you, Lord, thank you God, thank you Jesus! he chanted repeatedly to himself. Tears welling in his eyes, he reached up and shoved the trapdoor open, the sacks still clutched to his sides for insulation. “I’m alive!” he said in the empty building as cool air and sunlight surrounded him.
Outside, he struggled along the street with the sacks of money until he stopped in front of the blown-out office building. “Mr. Sage?” he called out, trying to keep his voice down, hoping against fate to hear Sage reply. “It’s Davey. . . . I’ve got all the money, got it right here.”
But he heard no reply, and no sign of his superior until he smelled burned flesh. He looked down and saw one of Sage’s mangled, smoldering shoes with part of Sage’s foot in it. “Oh no, Mr. Sage,” he said quietly. He looked around until he saw part of a bloody jawbone with a few wet teeth still attached, a bit of Sage’s gold watch chain and a hank of gray curly hair stuck to a piece of splinted oak-wall planking. “There’s not enough of you left to bury properly.”
He looked all around, at the two dead miners in the dirt street, at the pieces of Wilbur Sage, and at the otherwise deserted complex. “We should never have tried to hide this money,” he said, kicking one of the sacks lightly as he spoke. He felt like walking away and leaving the sacks where they lay. But then he considered the fact that Sage had died to keep the thieves from getting the money.