ROBBERY AT THE MILLVILLE BANK EARLY THIS MORNING. SAME GANG.
“Give me back my telegram,” Cole said to the operator. “I’ve made a big mistake.”
Chapter Ten
“I know you don’t trust banks,” Drew said to Ben, a man who’d gotten too old to be an acrobat and was now responsible for some of the props needed by the cast of the Wild West Show. “But it’s better than putting your money under your mattress and having it stolen.”
“Or gambled away,” his wife said.
“Banks get robbed all the time,” Ben said, ignoring his wife’s comment.
“I know, but this bank is part of the Randolph Bank in Chicago. They’ll give you back your money if anybody steals it.”
“How do you know they’ll do that?”
“Because the people who own it are friends of my parents. I’ve been on cattle drives with Monty and Hen Randolph. If they promise to make good on any losses, they will.”
“I never heard of anybody doing that,” said one of the men who helped with the horses.
“That’s how banks work,” Drew said. “You deposit your money. When you want it back, they give it to you.”
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “It doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Stop arguing,” Myrtle said. “Has Drew ever steered us wrong yet?”
“No, but—”
“Then be quiet and put your money in the bank. You’re an old man, Ben Oliver. You’ll need it before you know it”
For the last two years, almost from the moment she’d discovered that most of the elderly people who worked for the show had no savings, Drew had been urging them to take half of their earnings and put it in the bank. She hadn’t been able to convince anybody at first. They didn’t trust banks, and they didn’t trust her. But when Myrtle decided to open a bank account, others followed suit. Before long Drew was escorting about a dozen people to the bank each payday. Drew kept a record of every account, showing them how much money they had deposited and how much interest it had earned.
At the end of last season, one of the men had been injured by a buffalo. When he was able to withdraw all his money plus interest, the remaining doubters were convinced.
Having reached the bank, Drew went inside and stepped directly up to the teller’s window. Seeing her deposit her money encouraged the old people to keep up their accounts. Having made her deposit, Drew found a seat, opened her book, and prepared to enter the new deposits. She was engrossed in her work when Cole entered the bank.
“Have you talked Cole into saving his money, too?” Myrtle asked.
Despite their argument, Drew’s immediate response was to look up and send Cole a welcoming smile. She couldn’t help being pleased he continued to seek her company.
When she saw his expression, she changed her mind. He looked ready to commit murder. She got up without hesitation and hurried toward him. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Has someone been hurt?”
He looked shocked and hurt, like his best friend had hit him in the face.
“When did your train leave Wilton Springs?” he asked.
Drew had anticipated many responses, but not that one.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Answer me! It didn’t leave last night, did it?”
He was angry, aggressive, and accusing. She didn’t know what was bothering him, but she resented his taking it out on her.
“I don’t know what this has to do with anything, but I decided I wanted some time to myself. I knew there’d be another train this morning, so I stayed overnight.”
“Did Zeke and Hawk stay with you?”
“Of course.”
He looked ready to do something drastic, but she had no idea what, because she didn’t know what was bothering him “What’s all this about?”
“Are all these people with you?” he asked, pointing to the people busy depositing their money. Myrtle had taken over recording the deposits in the book.
“Yes.”
“What are they doing?”
“Depositing their money in the bank. What does it look like?”
He looked about ready to attack one of them. Drew didn’t know what had gotten into him, but his behavior was making her uneasy.
“Are you sure it’s not your money?”
“I’ve already made my deposit.”
“But that would be too much money to deposit at one time without making people suspicious.”
Drew laughed. “I don’t know how much money you think Earl pays me, but I can promise you it’s not enough to raise eyebrows at any teller’s window.”
He seemed unable to take his eyes off her friends.
“How big is your ranch going to be? You don’t need a million acres.”
“It’s a good thing. There aren’t that many acres in the whole valley.”
“What valley?”
“Jake’s valley in the Texas Hill Country. Ward and Buck already have ranches close by. Isabelle hopes we’ll all come back there someday.”
“Who?”
“My brothers. Who did you think I was talking about?”
“What is Myrtle doing?”
“Writing down the amount of the deposits for me.”
His expression grew even wilder. She’d never seen any sign of it before, but Drew wondered if Cole might have a secret drinking problem. She couldn’t think of anything else that could account for such bizarre behavior.
“Why?”
“It’s none of your business.” She was irritated with his attitude. She didn’t understand it or find it excusable.
“Humor me.”
“Why? You’re acting like a steer with a cactus thorn in its nose.”
He walked over, took the book from Myrtle, and looked through several pages. That made her so furious she marched up and snatched it from his hands.
“This is private information.”
“Then why do you have it?”
“Because I’m the one who talked these people into starting savings accounts. I keep a record of their deposits, the banks they’re in, and the accumulated interest. This way they can see their savings grow.”
“Why would you do something like this?”
“They’re all reaching the age when they won’t be able to work much longer. When I found out they didn’t have any savings, I talked them into putting some of their money aside so they won’t be destitute. We’ve had this discussion before.”
“They can’t save much in so few years.”
“I’ll transfer the money to one bank.”
“Which one?”
“One owned by some friends of our family.”
“Who?”
“Jeff and Madison Randolph, if you must know. They nearly doubled the money we invested with them last year.”
“You know the Randolph family?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He was treating her like a criminal, demanding answers to questions he had no business asking. “Cole, what’s this all about?”
“Just answer my question.”
That was it. She didn’t care what was bothering him. He could go on being miserable by himself. She was tired of trying to be concerned and having it thrown back in her face.
“My father served in George Randolph’s company during the war,” she said. “They have a ranch about fifty miles from us. We always send our cows to market together. Now that’s the last question I’m going to answer. I don’t know what’s bothering you, but I resent the way you’ve treated me and my friends.”
He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. Despite her anger, she couldn’t help worrying. This was so unlike Cole. Something must be badly wrong, but she couldn’t imagine what it could be. Or what it had to do with her friends depositing their money in the bank.
He turned to Myrtle. “Is that all the money Earl pays you?”
“Pitiful, isn’t it?” her husband said. “And to think what I used to make when I wa
s an acrobat.”
“We all made more when we were young,” Myrtle told Cole, “but we didn’t save anything.”
Cole seemed to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet, apparently trying to make up his mind about something. “You’re all depositing part of your salary,” he said, “nothing else?”
“We’ve got nothing else,” Ben said. “I wish we did.”
Cole paused a moment longer before obviously forcing a smile to his face. “Sorry.” He turned and strode from the bank without another word.
“What was that all about?” Myrtle asked Drew.
“I have no idea.”
“He looked really worried.”
“Upset,” another said.
“Mad as hell,” a third volunteered.
“All of that,” Drew agreed.
“I wonder why he wanted to know about our money,” Myrtle said.
“From the way he acted, you’d think he thought we stole it.”
“Nobody would steal this little dab of money. It’s not worth the risk.”
But Drew was thinking about something else. The Cole who’d come into the bank was no lazy drifter going from one job to the next with no thought for his future. This Cole had his mind focused on something specific, something that had gone wrong, something that was very important to him.
One thing was certain. Cole Benton wasn’t who he pretended to be.
Drew thought for a moment he might have been hired by Earl to make sure nobody stole his money, but she discounted that. That would have explained why he wanted to know where they got the money they were depositing, but Earl had never been robbed. There were too many cowboys in the show, too many genuine Indians, all of whom were excellent shots.
Cole Benton was here for some specific purpose, she was certain of that. Even though she had no idea what it might be, it made her feel better about liking him. She wouldn’t allow herself to get truly interested in a man. That would wreck all her plans. It would have been especially foolish to like a drifter. But a man with a secret mission? Well, now, that was something else.
The clack of the train wheels nibbled away at the edge of Cole’s nerves, making him jumpy and irritable. At the same time, the noise served as a barrier, cutting him off from conversations around him, allowing him to wallow in the morass of the bleak thoughts that filled his mind.
After their confrontation in the bank, Drew was keeping her distance. Cole was seated with Myrtle and her husband. Other people filled the car with conversation, noise, and the smell of closely packed bodies.
He must be losing his grip. He’d been going around in circles for the last several days, trying to make sense of Drew’s activities. No, that wasn’t true. He’d been trying to find a way to prove her activities couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the latest robbery.
Everything he knew about her character, everything he felt when he was around her, said she was a woman of strong principles. He might not like what she said and did, but she acted according to what she believed.
Then there was all the evidence. She and her brothers had taken a later train, giving them plenty of time to stage the early-morning robbery. And it wasn’t as though it was a random choice. He had seen her sitting in the bank observing everything that went on. Myrtle said she did it all the time.
Then there was this business of her herding all those old people into a bank to make their deposits. It could be exactly what she said, an investment club for their retirement, but show people were notoriously improvident. Saving money was the last thing they’d do. Wasn’t it possible Drew had divided up the money stolen from the bank and had each of those old people deposit a portion of it in his or her name? There wouldn’t be any problem getting it back. They obediently gave her their deposit slips with all the information she would need to take the money out at some future date.
The mention of the Randolph family gave him pause, however. Everybody in Texas knew the Randolphs. Rose Randolph was General Grant’s goddaughter. He’d sent General Sheridan to check on them when they were having trouble with rustlers. Monty was making a name for himself as a cattleman, Hen as a gunman, Madison and Jeff as men of business, while George oversaw the whole family enterprise. They all had reputations as tough men to deal with, but everybody knew they were rigidly honest. They wouldn’t have had anything to do with robbers.
Of course Drew could have lied about her father serving with George Randolph. Any number of people must have known him in the army, and there were hundreds of ranches in that part of Texas. Cole had no evidence to prove or disprove her story, and he wasn’t likely to find any.
But now he had a new worry. Drew had been disappearing regularly the last few days. He hadn’t paid any attention to it when he’d first joined the show. He couldn’t expect to know where she was all the time, but now everything she did could be significant. The fact that she appeared to be determined to make sure he didn’t know where she went was even more worrying. What could she be hiding now?
“You’re worried about something.”
Cole came out of his abstraction. “Sorry I’m such poor company, Myrtle.”
“You’ve got things on your mind.”
“You might say that.”
“Are you in love with Drew?”
The blunt question jolted Cole out of his abstraction. “What?”
“She’s a lovely girl. I suppose I should say woman, but at my age she seems like a girl.”
“She’s definitely a woman,” Cole said. “But I’m not in love with her.”
“It would be all right if you were.”
No, it wouldn’t. It would be the worst thing that could happen. He was having enough trouble dealing with the physical attraction.
“Drew told me she didn’t like any men except her brothers,” Cole said.
“Then a handsome young devil like you is what’s needed to change her mind.”
“She says I’m a drifter, that she can’t depend on me from one day to the next. Not exactly the kind of man to interest a down-to-earth woman like Drew.”
“Maybe not, but she likes you anyway.”
“I haven’t seen any sign of it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a man. I don’t know a single man who understands Drew.”
“That’s all the more reason not to be in love with her,” Cole said. “A man should understand his wife.”
“I didn’t say anything about marriage,” Myrtle said. “Drew is dead set against that.”
Cole supposed it was his proper Southern upbringing, but the women he knew automatically associated love with marriage. He had assumed all women did.
“In that case, it’s a good thing I’m too old to be climbing up a vine-shaded veranda.”
“What a lovely picture. Do you have a vine-shaded veranda?”
Damn! He was talking too much. “No, but if I ever get married, maybe I will.”
“Drifters never stay anywhere long enough for vines to grow big enough to give shade.”
Cole looked up to see Drew standing in the aisle next to him. As usual, Zeke and Hawk were in close attendance.
“Men don’t drift forever,” Myrtle said, with her sweet, understanding smile. “Some—the very best ones—are just looking for a reason to put down roots.”
“Are you looking for a reason to put down roots, Cole?” Drew asked.
Her smile said she was baiting him. Cole didn’t like being needled, especially when Myrtle’s words contained enough truth to make him uncomfortable.
“The word marriage has been responsible for more hasty departures than the threat of a shotgun,” Cole said, trying to sound as lighthearted as he could.
“Are you getting ready for a hasty departure?”
“I told you I’d stay through New Orleans. I may be a drifter, but I’m a man of my word.”
“Sit down, dear,” Myrtle said to Drew. “You’re giving me a crick in my neck.”<
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“There’s not enough room for all of us.”
“Hawk and I will come back later,” Zeke said.
Zeke and Hawk moved away and Drew settled down next to Myrtle.
“I’m glad you invited me to join you,” Drew said to Myrtle. “The boys are very good about keeping an eye on me, but they get tired of hanging around all the time. Especially when there’s a good card game to be had.”
“They like cards?” Cole asked. Somehow, he couldn’t associate those two with gambling.
“Hawk is a genius with cards. If he keeps it up, he’ll win enough money for his ranch before I can earn mine.”
“He wants a ranch, too?”
“All three of us want ranches,” Drew said, “but Zeke and Hawk aren’t very good at saving.”
He wanted to ask what they found to spend their money on, but decided that wouldn’t be smart.
“You ought to enroll them in your savings program.”
“I have, but the kind of ranch they want will take a lot more than we can earn in the show.”
So where were they planning to get the extra? She might as well tell him she had to steal to get the money she wanted.
“I suppose gambling is one way to get the extra money, unless you lose it instead,” he said.
“I think games of chance are stupid. Life is enough of a gamble for me.”
Robbing banks was a horrific gamble. She placed her life on the line every time she did it. “So what do you do when you disappear nearly every afternoon?”
She smiled like a woman with a secret. “I manage to entertain myself.”
“Would I find it entertaining?”
“I don’t know. Myrtle, do you have any leftover cloth?”
“Lots, dear, but what would you want it for?”
She glanced at Cole, then turned back to Myrtle. “I’ve been told that if I dressed in something more interesting than brown, the audience would like it better.”
“I’m sure that’s true, dear. You look very nice, but brown is such a depressing color. It always makes me think of rotting leaves.”
Cole had difficulty suppressing a smile.
“I had no idea you disliked my clothes so much.”
Drew (The Cowboys) Page 13