by Bill Crider
Nevertheless, he felt that it was a good idea to stay off the road, so they were riding through a wooded area. The rain hissed and spattered through the leaves, and the wind whipped the branches.
Ben and Jink rode up beside him.
“Where we goin’?” Ben said.
“Crossland’s ranch,” O’Grady said.
“I thought we talked about that,” Ben said. “You said that we weren’t gonna be doin’ any sharin’ and that we wouldn’t be goin’ to that ranch. You said that Crossland could just sit there and wait for us to show up, but we never would.”
That had been O’Grady’s original plan. Just take off with the money, head for the border, and let Crossland wish for his share.
But the killings had changed things. O’Grady needed time to think, time to come up with a new plan. Bank robbery was one thing; murder was something else.
And there was one other thing, something that O’Grady wasn’t ready to discuss with his partners just yet.
“We still don’t have to share,” O’Grady said. “But we have to go somewhere they won’t find us. They’ll never look for us at that ranch.”
“You better be right about that,” Ben said.
O’Grady turned to face him through the rain. “Listen, you bastard, don’t tell me who better be right about something. Killing those two men was stupid and unforgivable. If anything happens to us, it will be because of you and your ignorant partner.”
Ben was genuinely surprised. He hadn’t even thought about the killings.
“What’re you gettin’ so riled for?” he said. “Hell, we had to kill those fellas. There wasn’t nothin’ else we could do.”
Oh, Lord, O’Grady thought. What have I gotten myself into?
Well, whatever it was, it was too late to back out of it now. He would have to make the best of it.
“How much you think we got back there?” Ben said, reaching over to pat the sack tied to O’Grady’s saddle, covered now by O’Grady’s slicker.
“I didn’t have the time to count it,” O’Grady said.
“But it’s a lot, ain’t it? You said it’d be a lot.”
“I’m not sure,” O’Grady said. “We can count it after we get to the ranch.”
“You reckon they got anything to eat at that ranch?”
“We’ll see,” O’Grady said.
SIX
The Reverend Abner Stone and his wife, Alma, were the ones who went to fetch Ellie Taine. Stone had been the Methodist minister in Blanco for seven years, and he and Alma had performed similar sad duties in the past, but that did not make what they had to do any easier.
“I only hope the poor woman has taken your sermons to heart,” Alma said. Her usually cheerful round face did not have a smile on it now. “Particularly the one last week in which you touched on the comforts of the Holy Spirit.”
“Or the one the week before that,” Abner said, “when I preached on the wise and the foolish virgins.”
“Yes,” Alma said. “ ‘For you do not know the day or the hour.’ ” She looked up at the clear evening sky as if there were some wisdom to be found there.
The rain had ended as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the earth churned into a sticky gumbo and the air dry and clear. The moon was rising full and yellow, and the stars were beginning to show themselves against the purple sky. The horses pulled the wagon slowly along the muddy road.
“No one is ever really prepared,” Abner said. “No matter how many times you warn them.”
“No,” Alma said, thinking about how she would feel if someone came to her door and told her that Abner had been killed. “I suppose you’re right. But Ellie is a strong woman.”
“She’ll have to be,” Abner said.
Gerald Crossland had hardly struggled out of the saddle when O’Grady stepped out of the shadows at the back of the barn.
“Welcome home,” he said.
Gerald was not surprised to see him. Gerald had given him directions to the ranch, and they had agreed to meet there and split the money. Gerald had suggested the barn as the best place for the meeting. He didn’t want O’Grady or anyone else involved with the robbery to come inside his house.
“Did you get it?” Gerald said.
He supposed that he should take the saddle off his horse, rub him down, and feed him, but he didn’t really want to. When he got his share of the money, he would hire some hands to take care of things like that again.
O’Grady was more considerate of animals, having had to depend on them much more often than Gerald Crossland ever had.
“Go ahead and take care of your horse,” he said. “Then we’ll be having us a little talk.”
Gerald gave in. It took him a few minutes, but he finally got the horse stabled. Then he lit a lantern and joined O’Grady at the rear of the barn, where Ben and Jink were sitting on bales of hay alongside him.
“I don’t suppose that introductions are necessary,” O’Grady said.
“No,” Gerald said.
He sneezed. He was sure he was going to be ill after his exposure to the wind and rain. His clothes were still wet, and they had rubbed him all the way home. His skin was going to be chafed raw.
He wiped his nose with a damp bandanna and looked at the three men seated across from him. The wavery light of the lantern cast shadows across their faces, and Gerald did not like the look of them at all.
Nevertheless, he spoke up firmly. “Now about the money,” he said.
“Yes,” O’Grady said. “About the money.” He shook his head sadly. “It wasn’t there, you see.”
After Burt left, Ellie sat at the table for quite some time, staring out the door. She hardly noticed the lightning or the thunder, but when the rain began to fall she got up and walked out on the porch.
She watched the heavy drops spatter on the ground, which was so hard that some of them bounced up and shattered into smaller droplets before soaking into the soil.
After the first scattered drops, when the rain began to gush from the sky, Ellie stepped off the porch and into the yard. She stood there rigidly for several minutes, and then she tore her garments from her, ripping her dress to shreds and stamping it into the mud under her feet.
She stood there nude, her eyes closed, her face to the sky, letting the water rush over her face, her bare arms, her naked breasts, her stomach and thighs.
After a while, she walked around to the back of the house, where there was a wash basin on a stand under a small overhang. Beside the basin was a bar of lye soap that Ellie had made herself.
She took the soap and scrubbed herself between the legs, scrubbing hard until she began to burn. She washed the soap away as best she could with the water from the basin and tossed the remaining water on the already drenched ground.
She walked in the rain back to the front of the house and sat on the edge of the porch while she cleaned the mud off her feet and ankles.
When she was completely clean, she went back into the house, water running off her naked body onto the wooden floor. Her hair was plastered to her face and neck, to her shoulders and breasts. Water steamed out of it and slid in rivulets down her back, stomach, and legs.
She twisted her hair and wrung the water out of it onto the floor. Then she got a towel and dried her hair vigorously. When she was satisfied with her hair, she dried all over. She threw the towel aside, got a dress, and put it on.
By then the rain had stopped and the sun was going down. Ellie lit a lamp and sat again at the table, staring out the door.
“Wasn’t there?” Gerald said. “What do you mean, it wasn’t there?”
“We mean it wasn’t there, you fat sack of shit,” Jink said. His finger was hurting like hell, and he didn’t feel like putting up with Gerald Crossland. He wanted his money, and he wanted to get out of there.
O’Grady had counted the money soon after arriving at the barn, and Ben and Jink had been furious when they discovered that there was a little under twenty thousand dollars in the ba
g. They had calmed down a little, but not much.
“Yeah,” Ben said to Gerald. “You said there’d be more than a hundred thousand in that there bank, easy. And look what we got.”
He turned and pointed to the piles of money that were stacked on a bale of hay behind the one where O’Grady had been sitting. Gerald could see that the stacks were not very large, not nearly as large as they should have been.
Gerald could feel his face getting hot and red. “You’re trying to cheat me,” he said. “You’re trying to cheat me out of my fair share of the money.”
O’Grady was the only one who seemed unruffled. “No one is trying to cheat you,” he said. “If anyone has been cheated, sure and it’s us. But maybe you have an explanation.”
“No,” Gerald said. “There’s no explanation. What you’re saying is impossible. The money was there. I know it was. It had to be there.”
“I can regretfully assure you that it wasn’t,” O’Grady said. “I looked most carefully. What you see there is all there was, believe me.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re lying, but you won’t get my money. I’ll—”
Gerald didn’t get to say what he might do. Jink got up from the hay bale, drawing his pistol as he did so. He stepped over to Gerald and rammed the barrel of the gun into Gerald’s large, soft belly.
“Uffff,” Gerald said, doubling over and taking two steps backward.
Jink was about to club him in the back of the head with the pistol butt when O’Grady said, “No.”
Jink looked back over his shoulder, the pistol butt still poised above Gerald’s head. Gerald remained bent over, sucking wind and afraid to move.
“Why the hell not?” Jink said.
“It won’t get us the money,” O’Grady said.
“I don’t think there ever was any money,” Ben said. “This lyin’ son of a bitch never intended for us to get it.”
“Yes I did,” Gerald said. He had gotten his breath back and straightened up, though he still kept a wary eye on Jink, who had not holstered the pistol. “You don’t think I asked you to rob the bank for some kind of stupid joke, do you?”
“We aren’t really in the way of knowing why you asked me,” O’Grady said. “Considering that the money you mentioned wasn’t there.”
Gerald clenched his fists and closed his eyes tightly as if he were in pain. “The old bastard,” he said. “The conniving old bastard.”
“Who you callin’ a bastard?” Ben said. Like Jink, he had drawn his pistol and was pointing it at Gerald.
“Not you,” Gerald said. “I’m talking about my father. My Goddamn father.”
Rawls Dawson was ready to give it up. The hastily assembled posse had been ready to go home for an hour, but Dawson had kept them pressing on.
He hated to admit that there was really no chance of catching the robbers, but the rain had wiped out any trail that they might have left, the men in the posse were tired and discouraged, and it was clear by now that they were really just wandering aimlessly, hoping by some remarkable stroke of luck simply to happen on the robbers, who were probably not anywhere within ten miles of where the posse was looking for them. If they were smart, they were well on the way to Mexico by now.
Dawson was fifty years old, a sinewy man with a lined, weathered face and a great deal of determination that he’d never really had to use in the pursuit of criminals before.
Although he had been the town marshal in Blanco for ten years, for most of that time the worst thing that had ever happened was that someone would get drunk and bust up the White Dog Saloon, along with a couple of the men drinking there. Dawson would quietly arrest them and put them in the town jail, letting them go in the next morning if they could pay their small fine. Sometimes, if they were really drunk, they would put up some resistance, but not enough so that Dawson would have to draw his gun. That was the way it usually went.
There had been only two killings in that whole time, and they weren’t the kind to surprise anybody.
Esther Thomas had chopped her husband up with an axe one hot Sunday night a few years back, but everybody in Blanco knew that Zed Thomas was the kind of a man who needed chopping up. He beat his wife, and he beat his animals. If Esther hadn’t killed him, one of his mules would probably have kicked him to death as soon as it got a chance when Zed wasn’t looking.
And the first year that Dawson had been on the job, Harve Addison had shot his brother, Jack, in an argument over who had the best corn crop that year. Harve and Jack stayed drunk a lot of the time, and they’d been drunk then. After he sobered up, Harve didn’t even remember what he’d done.
There’d never been any robberies in Blanco, either, not like the one at the bank. Just kids, pilfering candy at Rogers’ Mercantile, or maybe somebody getting drunk and trying to stick up the bartender at the White Dog, using an unloaded pistol, as likely as not.
Dawson could deal with things like that. That was what he understood his job to be about. But he had always liked to think he could deal with bigger things as well, if bigger things ever occurred. In fact, he had often thought that if the occasion arose he would prove to the town that he could handle a major crime as well as anyone.
But it looked as if he were about to be proved wrong. For the first time, Blanco had experienced two real murders and a real robbery in the same day. And the livery stable had burned down. Dawson was pretty sure that the fire was connected to the other things, but he didn’t have any proof.
He didn’t have any proof of anything, and the killers had eluded him completely.
His horse topped a slight rise, and Dawson reined the gelding to a halt. The moonlight was almost as bright as day, and the few trees cast sharp shadows on the wet ground. There was no sign of a trail, no sign of anyone fleeing guiltily with ill-gotten gains. No sign of anything.
Earl Whistler rode up beside Dawson. “We might as well give it up, Marshal,” he said. “We ain’t never gonna catch up to ’em.”
“We’ll catch ’em,” Dawson said. He might call off the hunt tonight, but he would not give up. “We’ll catch ’em sooner or later.”
Elmer Wiley joined them. The banker was no longer dressed in his business suit, but he sat his horse stiffly, and he looked uncomfortable in his high-crowned hat and slicker.
“It’s not your fault, Rawls,” he said. “I think you’d better turn this over to the Rangers and let them handle it from here on out.”
Dawson didn’t like the idea of letting the Rangers in on things, but he had to admit that Wiley was right. Dawson’s job was to stay in and around Blanco. The Rangers could cover the whole state.
“I’ll get in touch with them tomorrow,” he said. “First thing.”
“Tonight,” Wiley said. “Send a telegram when we get back to town.”
Dawson sighed. “Tonight, then,” he said. “I’ll do it.” He turned in his saddle and called out, “All right, men, it looks like we ain’t gonna do any good out here. Let’s head on back to town.”
The posse didn’t waste any time following his suggestion.
SEVEN
Abner Stone helped Alma down from the wagon. He had stopped as close to the Taines’ porch as he could so her shoes would not get any muddier than necessary.
Alma picked up her skirts to take the two steps needed to reach the porch. She could see Ellie sitting at the table in the lamplight.
“Come along, Abner,” she said, and her husband joined her after tying the horse to the hitching rail at the end of the porch.
They stood together in the doorway looking in at Ellie, who did not acknowledge their presence. It was as if they were invisible.
The Stones were not the kind to stand on ceremony, however, and they did not wait to be invited inside. Alma went in first and stood beside Ellie, putting her soft hand on Ellie’s shoulder. Abner stood in front of them, on the other side of the table. If either Alma or her husband was curious about the shotgun that lay in front of Ellie, neither of them said anything a
bout it.
“I’m afraid we have some bad news, my dear,” Abner said. “Something’s happened to your husband.”
Ellie raised her head slowly and looked at Abner Stone, as if noticing him for the first time. Stone couldn’t remember ever having seen eyes so hard and cold.
“Burt?” she said. “What’s happened?”
“He’s been shot,” Alma said, squeezing Ellie’s shoulder.
Ellie felt the touch and remembered how she had spurned Burt’s hand earlier. “How bad is he hurt?” she said.
“As bad as can be, I’m afraid,” Abner said. He had found it best in such situations not to mince words. “He’s dead.”
Ellie’s expression did not change. “Who shot him?”
“Bank robbers,” Alma said. “Three men robbed the bank in town, and they shot Burt.”
“Why?” Ellie said.
“No one knows for sure,” Abner said. “Apparently he tried to stop them.”
“Where is he?” Ellie said.
“He’s at Mr. Fowler’s,” Alma told her.
Ellie shook off Alma’s hand and stood up. “I’ll need to hitch up the wagon.”
“That’s not necessary,” Abner said. “We’ll take you into town. You can stay at our house tonight. You might not feel like coming back here.”
“I might need the wagon,” Ellie said.
“Very well,” Abner said. “But I insist that you stay with us. I’ll go hitch up your team, and you can follow us into town.”
“You might want to bring Burt’s Sunday clothes along,” Alma said. “For the burying.”
“All right,” Ellie said. She went to fetch them.
Jonathan Crossland was not sleeping when Gerald entered his room this time, either, but again he pretended to be. He lay there, his arms resting atop the blanket that was pulled to his chin, his eyes closed, his breathing regular and slow.
The pain still ran through his veins like a river of fire, and he was convinced that he would not last the few more days that the doctor predicted, but he didn’t want to share that fact with Gerald. No use to give him cause for rejoicing. Let him suffer a little, too.