Memories of Gold

by Ali Olson

  The lying was more difficult to overcome. He thought about the time they had been together over the past days, hundreds of moments in which she could have told him the truth, and yet he had found out from a stranger.

  He understood why she kept it a secret at first. After all, he hadn’t been thrilled to hear the news and could imagine how difficult it would be to share it. In fact, he could now see she might have come over that morning for that express purpose. Perhaps, he let himself think, she had realized how deep his feelings ran and wanted to set things right. Or, and this was a thought that sent electricity through his spine, perhaps it was because of her feelings for him.

  After thinking for a few more minutes, he realized that he needed to find her and apologize. He was unsure if their relationship would be the same—or even if he wanted it to be. This changed far more than he cared to admit to himself; after all, what would this do to his position at the bank?

  But he needed to tell her, at the very least, that he understood. He could do that much.

  He stood up, prepared to at least speak to her calmly about the situation, even though he wasn’t exactly sure what he should do. He only knew that he needed to talk to her. He began striding back into town, aiming himself towards Daisy’s saloon; though he’d never been there, avoiding it to help keep his reputation in the town as spotless as possible—an irony that wasn’t lost on him—he knew where it was. It was time to step foot inside, find Maria, and try to convince her to let him be part of her life.

  As he walked past the bank, however, there seemed to be a problem, so he turned toward it. He could see through the windows that a small number of people were standing awkwardly around in a group while others were moving quickly from one area to another. The bank should have hardly opened, and it seemed strange to have that kind of activity happening so early, even with an earthquake.

  He had no desire to stop, but he was the manager for the time being, and that made it impossible to walk blindly past the building. His mind still on the situation with Maria and what he would say to her, he walked through the large door of the Shasta bank.

  It took him several moments to realize that the place was being robbed.

  How could he have been so stupid? He silently berated himself as the employees stared at him. The gunmen, faces covered with ragged pieces of cloth, trained multiple six-shooters on his chest.

  If he had been paying attention as he walked by, he would have realized the situation immediately and recognized that it was a robbery. He would have been free to get help. Now, however, he was inside and had lost his chance to stop the events that were transpiring.

  The situation with Maria was shoved to the back of his mind as one of the men walked closer to him, a gun aimed directly at Jimmy’s heart. Jimmy sighed and put up his hands, nodding as he did so. He was very aware of what he had gotten himself into.

  Everyone in the banking business had a plan regarding these types of situations; Tallent and Wilde trained every employee on bank robberies, even though they were rather rare, and Jimmy could see that the employees had followed the directions well so far. They were staying quiet, following the orders of the gunman. But he could see into the large vault which took up most of one side of the building, and he noticed with some relief that the people who had been working closed the safe before the outlaws had gotten in there.

  Three of the robbers stood around the safe, clearly unsure of what to do. It was an older model, a ball-on-a-box design, and the men clearly hadn’t planned out how to separate the heavy metal box of the bottom—which contained letters and paperwork, important to the customers and bank, but useless to these men—from the large iron ball on the top that contained the paper money, gold, and silver they were after.

  All the men seemed confused, and nobody stepped forward as the leader. This hadn’t been a planned robbery, that much was obvious. They also didn’t seem in the mood to do any killing, which helped calm Jimmy a little. He needed to find out more about exactly what was going on and what made this group suddenly decide to rob a bank.

  As the man who had closed in on him ushered him towards a small group of employees standing together with their arms raised, he began speaking as casually as he could. “Looks like I walked in at a bad time, huh?”

  The man, a grizzled big fellow who looked like rough times had been his constant companion, chuckled a little. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

  “You fellows must be pretty clever, because I have no idea how you even got in here. There aren’t any horses out front, and you seem to have taken control of the entire place quite completely.”

  His flattery and casual manner were incredibly affected and seemed false even to his own ears, but it was enough to get the man talking. Jimmy figured the man wasn’t all that intelligent and was quite proud of his group’s accomplishment.

  “We were camping outside of town, low on funds, you know. Planned on taking a stagecoach or something when we could get the chance. Then this big earthquake happened and we figured it might do to take a look aroun’ and see if it opened up any opportunities for us.”

  He paused and laughed as if he’d made some kind of joke, and Jimmy waited, silent, for him to continue. “Walking through the alleys between the buildings, we found some that seemed promising, and we might go back to those later, but then we saw the bricks in the back of this here bank had fallen loose, so we gave it a shot and started pulling them out. What do you know but we ended up being able to climb right on through.”

  The man pointed to the back corner of the building, and Jimmy saw a hole near the bottom, large enough for even a heavyset man to climb through. Jimmy shook his head in astonishment, unable to believe the bad luck he’d had that day, and returned his attention to the rest of the men as they studied the safe. He was still trying to think of what to do with the information he had and how to turn it to his advantage, but he could invent no way to stop the men without endangering lives. He ran through a mental list of possibilities.

  Because of the mayhem caused by the earthquake, most people in the town were either trying to get their houses in order or were gawking at others while they did so. The sheriff and his men were all scattered through town trying to keep things civil during the aftermath, most likely. There was nobody to count on for a chance interruption.

  Except me, he thought, and I ruined that chance pretty badly.

  As he was reliving his idiocy, he watched each of the masked men try to pull off the iron ball of the safe, drag the entire thing, and a myriad of other efforts, each as pointless as the one before it. They’d clearly never done this before and knew nothing about the safe.

  At this point, all he could do was pay attention and see if he could gain any valuable information that would help in capturing these outlaws. He sized each one up, noting all the information he could. Despite their lack of experience with bank robberies, apparently the men weren’t all as stupid as the one whose gun was trained on him. “Come on,” one of them stated firmly, “We’re never going to get this thing off, and the longer we try the more likely we are to get caught. We got the money from the drawers, and that’s the best we’re gonna do here. It’s time to head out.”

  The rest obeyed immediately, realizing the wisdom in the words. They gathered their small leather bags, at least a little bit heavier from their day’s work, and headed back out through the crack, never looking away from the employees and Jimmy or lowering their guns until they were hidden by bricks.

  Jimmy immediately began to move, giving orders to the other men in the bank. “We need one person to stay here with me that can tell me exactly what they took, two of you go search the central area of town for the sheriff, and the rest start combing the outskirts for him. We need to move quickly if we want to catch them. Where is the accountant?”

  Because he had been there so short a time, he hardly recognized the small man with pitch black hair that raised his hand in answer to the question, and could not remember his name. “Will you be
able to figure out how much we lost?”

  At the man’s nod, Jimmy told the others to spread out around town and return within a half hour with any lawmen they might find. Most were only too happy to get out of the building, still shaken by the situation. The accountant walked quickly over to Jimmy’s side as Jimmy started towards the room that held the ledgers.

  “What’s your name again?” Jimmy asked the accountant, in too much of a rush to mince words.

  “Will, sir.”

  “Will. Name’s Jimmy, not sir. How long will it take you to figure out exactly how much money we had in those tills?”

  “Well, I’ll need to add up the information against how much we had out at the beginning of the day, see if anything got moved to the safe, and see if there was any coin left behind. Should take no more than fifteen minutes, and I’m guessing it’ll be around a hundred dollars, all told, unless someone made a big deposit. We had just opened when the earthquake hit, so that’s unlikely.”

  Will grabbed the ledger as they entered the side room and moved quickly back out to the teller stations so he could start adding up the various accounts to get an exact number. Jimmy was relieved it happened so early in the day and prayed none of the opening clerks had taken any large sums out of the safe before it was locked down. He looked again at the crack in the wall, still astonished at what happened.

  The opening was low enough and far enough from the main area of the room that the bandits would neither have been heard nor noticed, even if they took some time extricating the loose bricks. There was even a tall decorative vase near the corner that partially blocked the hole from view.

  Jimmy left the accountant to his numbers and went outside, walking around the building slowly as he looked for other cracks in the exterior. There weren’t many, but enough that the bank would need to close for a few days to get them patched. When he came around to the hole, he saw a large fissure moving up the wall from the opening to nearly the roof. He walked around the pile of bricks, looked for a few seconds at the footprints scuffed into the dirt, and continued on his journey around the bank.

  He came up with little else on the rest of his circuit, but he kept an eye out for the footprints and noted that the men had walked away, not ridden. There were no hoofprints, and it made more sense to slink around on foot if they were trying to blend in after the earthquake. Still, he could assume they had horses stashed somewhere nearby, or they would steal some to help them on their way, if they could find any.

  When he got back to the front door, one of the employees was back with a deputy. Since the officer was taking information from the employees around him, it appeared that recent events had been explained to him. Jimmy sighed in relief. Taking charge of the situation was exhausting and now he could get back to his original reason for walking past the bank—Maria.

  He went up to the lawman, hoping he could give his account of what happened and quickly move on to his own affairs. Once he was there, however, he realized that it would be quite a long while before he would be allowed to leave. He was labeled by the employees as “the man in charge”—after all, he was the acting manager—and the officer looked to him for confirmation of everything. It turned out to be for the better, since he had paid close attention to the details that many of the other employees missed. He was able to describe the men in much greater detail than anyone else.

  Everyone present explained what happened, and with Jimmy’s help the officer was able to get a clear account of the events and complete descriptions of the men. After it was written down, the man inspected the hole in the wall, and Jimmy pointed out the lack of hoofprints. By that time, a few more officers had been brought by other bank employees, and the circumstances of the robbery needed to be explained yet again. Jimmy was anxious to go, but it was necessary for him to fulfill his responsibilities, so he waited, impatient.

  When he was yet again anticipating he would be allowed to leave, horses were brought and the group of officers clambered into the saddles, preparing to follow in the direction of the tracks and hopefully find some more information about where the men who had robbed the bank had gone, or possibly find the men themselves. Jimmy watched them with relief, glad his part was over.

  The sheriff, an older man who nonetheless exuded an air of confidence and ability, turned to the crowd around the bank. “Any of you fellas willing to come with us? We could use someone to identify the men if we run across them.”

  Everyone, including the lawmen, looked at Jimmy expectantly. His mood plummeted. Of course it would need to be him. Sighing, he pushed Maria yet again into the back of his mind, and swung himself onto the only horse without a rider, a large dappled mare that seemed a mite skittish, but Jimmy was fairly certain she was just sensing his disposition.

  He would disappear the moment he was no longer needed, and he was sure the horse could feel his eagerness to get away from her and the entire situation. Since he had the clearest picture of what the men looked like, there was nothing he could do but ride along. Normally, he would’ve been happy to track down the robbers and be a part of the action, but this was less than perfect timing.

  At least it would give him an interesting story to tell Maria when he was finally able to see her, he thought as they rode off. He hung back in the pack of men and horses, allowing his mind to wander back to her and what happened between them that morning. He still felt uncomfortable about her job, but the initial shock had worn off and he had at least come to accept it. After all, Maria was a smart girl. He didn’t know exactly what happened after her father died, but he knew that she would always do what was needed to survive.

  As he meandered along paths in his mind, the officers turned their horses out of town and toward the river. There were places for the drifters to hide near the river, and it was a known camp spot for those spending the night in the open air. Even if the vagrants evaded them, they might be able to gain some information about where the group had gone.

  As they approached the water the company of lawmen slowed, eyeing the area carefully. Jimmy watched, detached from the situation. He was not worried or anxious about their location; it was unlikely the men would be nearby. After all, they had gotten their money and probably obtained horses somewhere, so there would be no reason to remain in the area.

  Their group eventually came to a few trees surrounded by brush, a guarded area where travelers often spent the night. Jimmy hung back, allowing the sheriff and his troop to check it for any clues about the thieves, attempting to find something that could explain where they came from or where they were headed.

  Just as Jimmy was calculating how far the men could have gone on horseback since the robbery, he heard a man’s shout and an explosion as a gun fired.

  Startled, he looked in the direction of the sound to see the thieves raising their guns just as the lawmen leveled theirs. He didn’t even have a gun to wield, and sat completely defenseless. Before he could fully absorb the absurd circumstance, several guns went off at once; the sound was deafening. Bullets flew everywhere. Jimmy had no time to find cover before a stray bullet buried itself a few inches below his left shoulder.

  Jimmy gasped in pain as the small piece of metal sliced into him, and the sudden shock as the blood began to flow blocked out the chaos and noise around him. He was separate from the fight, apart from it all; there was only the pain and the blood and the realization that he could die. He put his right hand over the hole, fairly sure the bullet had been just a little too high to hit his heart. Maria’s image flashed into his mind, and he wished he was with her.

  Suddenly the volume was turned up and he was back in the middle of the gunfire and smoke and shouting. His horse was skittering to the right and he knew he had to grab the reins before she bolted, but his left arm felt useless. Just a lifeless thing hanging at his side. His right one was pressed against the wound as he tried to staunch the flow of blood. Before he could decide what to do, the horse reared and he tumbled off. He felt a fresh burst of excruciating pain as
he hit the ground, then the bitter cold as he spilled into the river.

  His last thought was of their argument, regretting that he never had the chance to fix it. He didn’t want that to be the last time they would ever see each other.

  And then everything went black.

  Chapter 8

  After Maria stormed away, she went to make sure Emma was okay. Her emotions were roiling inside of her, and she instinctively went to remind herself why she had to make the decision to refuse Jimmy’s offer. She wanted to be a wife—no, that wasn’t entirely true—she wanted to be his wife and never need to go upstairs with anyone but Jimmy again, but she had burdens she had no right to thrust onto his shoulders.

  When she got to the wooden house, Mrs. Harper was standing outside hanging laundry while her boys ran around playing. Emma, who was sitting in a chair nearby, was clapping happily as she watched their antics.

  Mrs. Harper saw Mary approach and waved, smiling. “Well, good morning! Didn’t expect to see you today, but I guess you were just as surprised as the rest of us with the shaker this morning. We’re all staying outside for a few more hours, until Mr. Harper gets back and tells me that everything’s safe inside and it won’t tumble about our ears if one of these crazy boys runs into a wall.”

  Mary walked up and ran her fingers through Emma’s hair. Listening to the woman chatter was soothing for her soul. “Emma made it through without too much fuss?”

  “Oh, she was scared some, and she started wailing a bit at first, but today’s a good day and she got over it quick. She was running around a little just a few minutes ago, but I had her take a break. She was getting tired and started to stumble. I didn’t want her to fall and hurt herself.”

  Mary leaned over Emma and hugged her, needing to feel a connection with somebody, needing help but having nowhere to go. Emma patted her arm, and Mary felt that, perhaps Emma understood her need for affection. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Mrs. Harper watched her thoughtfully, and Mary thought about unloading her troubles on the kind woman.