Nazareth

by Tony Masero

  ‘Okay then, let’s ride.’

  The first thing that went wrong was that their arrival coincided with the lunch hour and Freddie had overlooked telling them that the sleepy town closed down completely from one to two o’clock until everybody had eaten.

  Glowering accusingly at Freddie, they took up residence on the closed bank’s porch under the overhang where a few benches were set up. The street was empty of any movement and their horses tied off at the rail at the bank steps. Minnie stayed sitting on horseback until Jethro asked her what she was doing.

  ‘Why you still up there, girl?’ he asked. ‘Get on down here and join us.’

  Minnie shook her head in disbelief and stared at the four armed men bunched together expectantly on the porch. She spread her hands indicating that they should break up and not make such an obvious and suspicious group. Then, dismounting, she walked off up the street.

  Jethro followed after her, ‘Hey! Hold on, Minnie. You’re right, of course,’ he apologized. ‘See, they’re all going off. I get it, this here looks more innocent.’

  Minnie looked over her shoulder to see the other three amble away from the bank, with about as much innocence as foxes in a chicken run.

  She eyed him sternly and shook her head.

  ‘What? You don’t think we can cut it?’ asked Jethro with an offended expression.

  Patiently, she tried to outline her thoughts on the shortcomings of the raid, showing by finger play that if they were going to risk their lives it would be far better for a more profitable outcome.

  Jethro shrugged, ‘This is all we got, Minnie. We don’t know no other way, maybe it is small time but you know, we ain’t real hardcase villains. We just want enough to get by on.’

  She nodded understanding and then to improve the appearance of innocence as they strolled the street, she took his arm.

  Jethro was pleasantly surprised by the overture and smiled slightly but Minnie gave him a warning look before he got the wrong impression.

  ‘I get it,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘Just like regular folks out for a post-comestible constitutional. Still, I got to say, I kinda like having you on my arm.’

  She snorted a dismissive laugh.

  ‘No, its true. You’re a fine looking woman, Minnie. Ain’t no point in lying, I’d be right proud to have you there.’

  He was a fool, she thought, but underneath her instant dismissal she had to secretly admit that he was a gentle man in his way and not bad looking too.

  ‘We’ll have to get you some decent clothes,’ he promised. ‘Once we pull this off and have some cash money we’ll get you something pretty to wear.’

  It was a nice thought, she reckoned, but sorely doubted that Jethro could come up with the right notion of what counted as quality. In her earlier life she had worn high-class fashion designs at James Burk’s expense and was used to the most expensive of handmade garments, now she was clothed in oversized men’s gear that she had lifted from the stolen saddlebags and grim as they were they echoed how she felt about herself. Damaged goods, brutalized by Burk and raped by his associates, there was nothing much left for her to feel pretty about.

  But as Jethro chattered away, Minnie felt that she was where she belonged owing to her lowly status. Living amongst poor thieves at the fringes of society was all she felt she was worth now, and at least with Jethro and the others she was not marginalized and mistreated.

  Jethro checked his pocket watch when they reached the far end of the street and stood alongside the freight office warehouse and stable yard.

  ‘They’ll be opening soon,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on back.’

  She nodded and cast a sidelong glance at him, her attitude already mellowing towards the man. He felt big and protective next to her, his face was strongly featured and his eyes keen. He smelt of outdoors, of gun oil, horse and tobacco in a rough but capable masculine way and despite her independent self the reliant and more feminine element pressed up closer to him as they strolled back down the road.

  Billy Lee crossed her mind then and she wondered how he had died, for she was sure that Burk would have seen to it he went out badly. She missed him; she had held a flame for Billy Lee for many months before they had finally come together on that passionate night on the cliff top. Instinctively, she had known they had been meant for each other and sensed that he had felt the same and so she had planned it all, hoping to find him up there alone that night. Teasing him with her shamelessness and wearing only enough to avoid a display of total depravity, even though that was all she had truly desired.

  She still found it hard to explain to herself, such a desire for another human being and with Billy Lee’s departure it left a hole in her heart that she feared she would never know again. It’s theft burned in her and even though she was comfortable walking next to Jethro her mindset was still in Nazareth and the revenge she hoped to bring against James Burk one day.

  Her earlier plan came to mind and she realized that if she could bring this band together in some kind of order they might be useful in achieving her objective and enable a return to Nazareth with able guns by her side, men capable enough to stand up against Jed Crone and Abernathy Boulder.

  They went in, boots clobbering on the wood floor.

  Minnie sitting astride her pony outside with the reins for the others in her hand could hear Freddie having a whale of a time.

  ‘Nobody move! This here is a robbery,’ she could hear him bellow. ‘One quiver and I’ll blow y’all to Kingdom Come!’

  There were a few timid whimpers from the female customers and a bark of shock from the teller.

  ‘Come on,’ called Freddie. ‘Shed some of that cash our way, in a bag, if you please. And you, open up that safe right now!’

  Minnie wished he would make a little less noise and she could hear the others mumbling warnings of restraint to him.

  ‘Good day to you, ma’am,’ said a friendly voice by her elbow.

  She looked down to see an elderly white-haired fellow with a paunch on him standing beside her. Minnie had not seen him arrive but she did notice the tin star hanging on his vest above his watch and chain.

  She nodded politely, praying silently that Freddie would keep his mouth shut.

  ‘You folks passing through?’ asked the sheriff, patting the rump of one of the horses.

  Minnie nodded energetically.

  The sheriff looked at her quizzically as she made no direct answer and Minnie explained with a cutting motion across her lips.

  ‘Ah,’ sighed the sheriff. ‘Dumb, huh? Well, that’s okay….’

  At that moment inside the bank, Freddie, who was strutting arrogantly up and down playing at Billy the Kid, managed to step on the hem of his long oilskin. It jerked the coat back, pulled his arm down sharply and set off the hair trigger on his pistol firing a bullet into the floor.

  The bang startled the sheriff and he stared at Minnie blankly for a moment.

  His mouth opened into a little ‘o’ shape as realization sunk in.

  ‘My God! It’s a bank….’

  Freddie started cussing loudly inside the bank and Minnie heard Jethro holler, ‘Leave it and go!’

  ‘I can’t,’ whined Freddie. ‘My spur’s caught in the damned coat.’

  The sheriff was going for his sidearm and it left Minnie with no alternative. She dragged out her revolver and slugged the sheriff hard on top of his neatly creased Stetson.

  ‘Ow!’ wailed the sheriff, clutching at his skull and staggering about in stunned circles.

  Freddie came out of the bank, hopping on one leg and spitting venom at his tangled spur that was locked in the hem of his coat. The others pushed out behind him, Les knocking into Freddie and sending him tumbling down the bank steps. As he fell, his gun exploded again and a bullet streamed past Minnie’s head.

  ‘Goddamn it!’ roared Jethro, stumbling down and trying to leap over the sprawling figure of Freddie.

  Bartholomew had spotted the weaving and dazed figure of
the sheriff and shouted out, ‘It’s the law!’

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ mewed Freddie from where he lay in the dust. Then Freddie grunted loudly as Bartholomew, his eyes still on the sheriff stepped in the middle of his back.

  ‘Get up, you damned fool!’ growled Bartholomew.

  Figures appeared at the bank door, a be-spectacled bank teller, his sleeves gartered and an eyeshade on his brow, stepped forward with an elderly shotgun.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ he squeaked nervously, his voice high pitched and losing volume in his terror.

  Minnie let go the collection of reins and pointed her revolver, her pony started to turn as she fired. The shot hit the doorjamb above the teller’s head and he shrieked in a very feminine way and dropped the shotgun in fright. The hammer fell and the shotgun went off.

  Freddie who was in the process of clambering up into a crouching position received the full blast of shot directly into his rear end.

  He screamed and bounced forward, his spur at last ripping free of the coattail.

  Jethro was already mounted and trying to hold the remaining ponies, he was shouting commands at the others but having little effect. Les struggled to help his wounded cousin mount up and Bartholomew was firing repeatedly at the sheriff in the mistaken belief the man posed a threat. The poor sheriff was too numb to know what was happening and as he weaved about Bartholomew’s bullets cracked over his head and spat dust at his feet.

  All was noise and uproar.

  Minnie watched it all through a veil of abstraction. She was neither frightened nor was she excited, she found her attention was calmly placed on escape routes and possible threats. Turning her pony, she reached over and tapped Jethro on the shoulder then pointed their direction. Jethro nodded and they set off, Freddie flopped across his pony and was being led away by Les. Lastly, Bartholomew climbed aboard and followed on, his parting shot breaking the window in a general store front as the dazed sheriff sat down heavily in the middle of the street and stared vacantly after them.

  They found a deserted hunter’s cabin some miles outside of town high in the hill forests and under the overhang of an imposing rock pile. Together they carried the complaining Freddie inside and Bartholomew saw to the horses, stabling them under the protective overhang out back.

  ‘Am I going to die?’ begged Freddie.

  ‘You damned well deserve to,’ growled his cousin Les.

  ‘Tell me, how bad is it?’

  ‘Aw, shut up Freddie,’ rumbled Jethro. ‘Did we make anything out of that sorry adventure?’

  Les gave him a wry look, ‘Freddie dropped the bag when he fell down the stairs, and we ain’t got a nickel.’

  ‘Goddamn!’ breathed Jethro, his eye catching Minnie’s critically arched eyebrow. ‘I know,’ he said quietly, the weight of their failure evident by his slumped shoulders.

  ‘What about me?’ whined Freddie.

  ‘Get him up on the table,’ said Jethro.

  Every corner of the cabin was full of cobwebs and the stink of damp and rot, the few remaining sticks of furniture were all handmade and well past their prime but the table seemed reasonably intact. There was no chimney and whoever had built the place had sufficed with an open fire on a stone base in the middle of the room.

  ‘We going to light that?’ asked Les, heaving Freddie up onto the table.

  Jethro rolled the moaning Freddie over onto his stomach, ‘We’ll need the heat later. You want to get some firewood, Minnie? Collect a few of them pine cones out there, we’ll start it with that.’

  ‘Tell me,’ cried Freddie. ‘Am I done for?’

  Jethro looked down at the man’s shredded trouser seat, ‘You’re real lucky, Freddie. That old boy had no more than bird shot in that gun, he had some heavy gauge and you’d be tasting your own testicles right now.’

  ‘There’s a chance for me then?’ pleaded Freddie.

  ‘Well, we got to pick out all these pellets out from your ass and that’s going to sting a mite. Then we got to waste some good liquor disinfecting it all and you ain’t going to be able to sit down for a while after that, I reckon.’

  ‘Aw, hell!’ growled Freddie. ‘Still we did okay, huh?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Les, drawing a long Bowie knife from his belt. ‘You blew it all, you damned fool. What the hell is the matter with you? I reckon your mammy, God rest her, she must have dropped you hard at some time in your infancy, ‘cos you sure enough never got much past the teething stage.’

  Freddie looked at him nervously over his shoulder, ‘What you doing with that blade, cousin?’

  ‘I’m going to dig deep and get all that shot out one by one,’ Les said with a tight and malicious smile. ‘I reckon it might just hurt a teensy bit,’

  Jethro nodded at Minnie, ‘Best go get that firewood, Minnie. We’re about to expose this sucker’s rear end to the elements and it won’t be no sight for a lady to see.’

  Bartholomew bustled in before Minnie could leave, ‘What?’ he said at the door. ‘You ain’t killed that idiot yet?’

  ‘Look here,’ moaned Freddie. ‘I’m a wounded man, you might at least show some compassion.’

  Bartholomew sighed, ‘What are we going to do now? Them ponies are going to need feeding and so are we. I can damned well feel my belly flapping against my backbone right now.’

  Minnie lifted her shirt and showed them her homemade money belt.

  ‘No, no,’ said Jethro. ‘That’s yours, we ain’t taking that. Man can’t fend for himself he ain’t up to much and I ain’t about to take a lady’s money, not on any account.’

  ‘Then just what do we do?’ asked Les.

  Jethro shook his head, ‘I’m sure I don’t know.’

  ‘They got a stage coach coming in,’ said Freddie suddenly. ‘I heard them tell it, maybe that’s worth a try?’

  They all looked at each other.

  ‘When?’ asked Jethro.

  ‘Tomorrow, comes into town once a month with a changeover at the stable yard. They got mail and passengers, might be there’s some cash money aboard.’

  Secretly pleased with Jethro’s protection of her funds even though they truly needed them, Minnie sidled out of the cabin leaving the men to their considerations and made her way into the forest. She had no intention of collecting firewood but needed some rest from their collective foolishness and wondered why on earth she had joined up with such a useless bunch of outlaws.

  She was sitting with her back up against a tree going over her options when Jethro came up quietly behind her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sliding down beside her.

  She looked across at him and her expression said it all.

  ‘I know,’ shrugged Jethro apologetically. ‘It didn’t quite go according to plan.’

  She spread her hands and stared at him – what plan?

  ‘Well, you know? We meant to go in there and bust them up, grab the cash and get out. What other kind of plan is there?’

  Minnie looked away into the depths of the forest for a minute, and then decisively, she climbed to her feet and dragged Jethro up. Minnie jerked her chin towards the stabled ponies and gave him a come-on look and he dutifully followed her.

  They could hear Freddie wailing and the other two laughing inside the cabin as they mounted up and with the noise he was making they were both sure that Freddie was paying tenfold for his stupidity in the bank.

  Minnie led Jethro away back down towards the town and the road leading in. She kept to a high trail that looped alongside the flat plain of the farmed riverbed and studied the land below as they rode.

  ‘Where we going, Minnie?’ Jethro asked, bemused by their trip.

  She pulled up on a spit of high ground and dismounted; kneeling down and clearing a patch of dust with her palm she began to draw with a stick. Laying out a rough plan of the town and surrounding countryside.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Jethro, getting down beside her. ‘That the town there below?’

  With gestu
res and doodles, Minnie explained how it should have gone in. How the pipe to the reservoir should have been broached to cause a panic and general distraction as water flooded down and how their escape routes into the high ground should have been marked in preparation before they hit the bank. How the sheriff should have been kept in his own jailhouse and how Freddie should have been left to hold the horses, as he was not much better for anything else.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ agreed Jethro grudgingly.

  Minnie swept a hand across the plan and began again, this time she drew the outer lying countryside showing the road in and all the cutoffs and valleys alongside.

  ‘This is for the stage?’ asked Jethro and Minnie nodded agreement.

  ‘So what do we do? You saying we don’t take it at the depot in town?’

  Minnie shook her head negatively and pointed to where the road took a narrowly sharp curve and where a gulley would offer a hiding place on the approach. She stabbed her stick down firmly and demonstrated that was where they should hold the stage up.

  Jethro smiled slowly, ‘You sure have a tactical turn of mind for this kind of setup, don’t you? Is that a natural thing, one of those hidden talents of yours or do you maybe come out of some kind of criminal background?’

  Minnie shrugged and gave him a self-effacing grimace.

  ‘Natural, huh?’ grinned Jethro.

  He leaned in close to her then and took her arms in both hands, and then without any preamble he kissed her. Minnie fell into the kiss without reserve and feeling Jethro’s lips on her she was not surprised that it should have come to this. There had been no question in the back of her mind as to her desire for him; it had only been a matter of time.

  They were surrounded by a grove of scraggy and wind beaten trees in the clearing that stood on the edge of a rock-bound cliff and as Jethro released her, he breathed a long sigh and leaned back against a boulder behind.

  ‘I didn’t expect that,’ he whispered, gratified by her keen response.

  She arched a playful eyebrow and caught his jacket collar to pull him in for a second kiss. It was long and warm and as a result Jethro’s hands began to stray. Minnie did not push him away, she had the need for some close company after all she had been through and Jethro had encouraged in her a rising sense of lust. He was a good looking man and his broad shoulders and muscled presence felt strong under her touch. It raised a tingle in her from deep inside and as her heart beat faster she knew full well where they were heading and felt no inclination to stop it.