Chance's Bluff

by Catherine McGreevy

  The thought gave Chance an idea, and he patted the small green book in his breast pocket, the one that Ben had given him. The disastrous events in Baker’s Crossing had shown him that there was an advantage to being book learned. If Chance learned to decipher words himself, there’d be no need to rely on crooks and shysters to interpret documents for him. In fact, there was a chance—a very slight chance—that if maybe he could sneak back to Baker’s Crossing and locate the papers his mother had signed, he could find out if Abe had actually told the truth. If there had been a scheme to take the McInnes farm, Chance might even find a way to get it back.

  It wasn’t at all likely, of course. The same forces that had foxed his mother, who was smarter than he was, would surely bring him down too, if he tried. But what if … ? He thought about it, then shook his head. If there was one thing he’d learned, it was that life wasn’t fair. Likely his efforts would come to nothing. Still, there was no harm in at least learning to read. Lord knew he had nothing better to do with his time out here alone in the wilderness, while he did his best to find Ben Marlowe, an eventuality that seemed m ore remote every day.

  “Stop, mister!” A flash of red cloth behind a thatch of greasewood caught his eye. Chance saw a black-bearded man stand up twenty yards away, pointing a revolver at him. “This is a stickup. Gimme whatever cash you got on you, and I’ll let you on your way.”

  Chance glared at the bandit. He was more annoyed than afraid. After all, he’d already lost everything he valued, and he didn’t much care what happened to him anymore, anyway.

  “You’re out of luck. I ain’t got nothing you could want except this here horse, and I ain’t handing her over to you.” He started to mount again.

  “I said stop, mister!” The bandit took a step forward, tripped on a rock, and fell on his face. His gun discharged, the shot going off wildly. Instinctively, Chance lunged uphill toward him. Before his assailant could get to his feet, Chance fell on him, knocking away the handgun and squeezing his fingers around the bearded throat.

  The man gurgled and the wiry body sagged. Chance released his grip and the stranger flopped to the ground, where for a few moments, the would-be-bandit lay gasping for air. He had a beakish nose with enormous nostrils over a matted black beard.

  Chance snatched up the stranger’s handgun and trained it on the man, noting in the back of his mind that not a scratch marred the carved ivory handle or the gleaming barrel. The weapon looked as new and unused as if it had just left the factory.

  A pair of eyes opened narrowly. “How’d you manage that, mister?” the stranger croaked. “I had a bead on you, and you weren’t even armed.”

  “’Cause you’re clumsy, and probably a bad shot as well. I’d bet you ain’t never fired a gun before.”

  The bandit looked offended. “Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. But it’s your fault. Any man with sense woulda put his hands up when he saw me aiming at him, ’stead of making me come after him.”

  The revolver in Chance’s hand remained rock-steady, and he didn’t bother pointing out the illogic of the statement. “Who told you I got sense?” he asked.

  The man considered this, then threw his head back and laughed hoarsely, the skin of his neck showing ghostly white through his beard except for the purpling indentations left by Chance’s fingers. The laughter turned to raspy coughing, and the gunman gingerly rubbed his bruises. “You’re right. You are my first holdup, mister, and it’s not one I’ll be bragging about. A cool fellow like you would probably do better at it then me, turning the stakes like that.”

  “I bet I would do better, if I had a mind to. Good thing I don’t.”

  The bandit seemed to have lost the urge to rob him, seemingly preferring to stay and chat. But Chance had no desire to do so. Tucking the gleaming new Remington into his belt, he started toward Sally. The battle-hardened horse hadn’t even shied at the gunfire.

  When Chance’s foot settled in the stirrup, the other man’s grin died away. “Wait, now. I paid fifty dollars for that pistol in Kansas City on my way out west from Boston.”

  “I guess it’s mine now.” Chance finished hoisting himself into the saddle and clucked at Sally.

  The bandit snatched his hat off the ground and ran after him, black beard quivering with outrage. “Mister, how do you expect me to survive in the middle of nowhere without a gun?”

  “Maybe you shoulda thought of that before firing on me.”

  The outlaw waved his lanky arms. “Wait! Come back! Don’t you know it’s not safe out here for a fellow on his own, unprotected?”

  Chance rolled his eyes and drew up on the reins. “Five minutes ago you almost blew off my head like a tin can on a fence. Now you want me to hand back your weapon?”

  “I was trying to scare you, that’s all.” The man scratched the scuffed of his boot into the dirt, looking abashed. “I wasn’t even planning to shoot. You can see I ain’t much good at this business, but a man’s gotta eat, after all. If you take my pistol, I’m done for.”

  Chance looked down at him with disbelief. “At this rate, next you’ll be saying you want to ride with me.”

  “Well, tarnation! Why not? At least till we get to a town. I could find a job as a dishwasher or a newspaper reporter or something. That way I won’t have to wait for travelers who never come along, or who take my darned pistol when they do. Anything would be better than skulking out here by myself in these dad-blamed mountains.” Guileless blue eyes under bushy black brows met his, and Chance felt the lower half of his face stretch unwillingly into a humorless smile. The poor fellow seemed more starved for companionship than for money or food. Truth was, after weeks of being content to be by himself, he’d been starting to feel a mite lonely too. Then something occurred to him. The stranger was from Boston. Hadn’t he said something about writing at a newspaper?

  “Say …by any chance do you know how to read?” he asked.

  The other man looked startled but answered promptly. “Sure do, mister. Had four years of grammar school before starting my apprenticeship at the hat factory. Never was at the top of my class, but I never was at the bottom, neither.” He pushed his narrow chest out with pride. “I can read just ’bout anything you set in front of me.”

  Chance tried to hide his growing excitement. “Can you teach me some? I’ve been trying to learn by myself but there’s some words I just can’t figure out, hard as I try.” It was hard to admit his ignorance to this buffoonish stranger, but his desire to read was stronger than his shame. He had to learn. For his mother’s sake.

  “Well, sure, I suppose so.”

  “All right, then, you can come along.” Chance dug his heels into Sally’s ribs and set off.

  The other man lunged for a mangy nag tethered in the underbrush and soon clattered up behind, panting while slapping on a wide-brimmed, black felt hat with a broken turkey feather sticking out of the band. “I’m Walter Higgins,” he announced breathlessly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I can make just about any hat you ask for. Derbys, bowlers, top hats …” He eyed the battered object atop Chance’s head. “Heck, I can even fix yours. A touch of blocking might do the trick.”

  “No one touches my hat.”

  Walter seemed oblivious to the warning growl. “In case you’re wondering, I quit hat-making and came west to try my hand at mining ’cause I heard there was better money in it. Didn’t work out that way.” He fell into a brief, glum reminiscence as their horses trotted along together. “Ended with a little incident involving a faulty winch …I was forced to turn my hand to banditry out of desperation, you might say, though truth to tell, that line of work doesn’t seem to be working out much better than the others.”

  Chance was puzzled at why the hatter had attached to him like a thistle on a wool sock, but, he thought resignedly, company was company. Traveling for weeks under the gigantic upturned blue bowl of the sky, with nothing around but the unrelenting stony crags of the Grand Tetons, did something to a fellow. Too much solitude
made you feel like you didn’t exist. How many men died out here and no one ever knew of it?

  With half an ear, Chance listened to the other man’s jabbering but kept his own string of bad luck to himself: the lost farm, his dead mother, faithless Betty … and the round little banker lying on the ground with dust covering his shoes. Chance’s grip tightened, and the edges of the leather reins dug into his palms.

  Eventually, he began to grow curious about his new companion. As they heated a kettle over a campfire, Chance finally broke his silence. “Tell me more about how a man who starts out as a hatter and then becomes a miner ends up choosing to become a robber.” The liquid warmed his belly, and he almost felt his old self. He even handed back the brand-new Remington to Walter with no hard feelings. After all, they were on the same side now. “Doesn’t sound like a logical choice of a new career to me. Weren’t there plenty of other trades you could have tried next?”

  “Not at all, it came right naturally,” Walter explained, accepting his pistol gratefully and tucking it back in his waistband. “After I got fired for … well, the incident with that golldarned winch, I started thinking about what career to take up next, just as you said. Couldn’t find one, though, and I was running out of money fast. Hunger makes a man think clearly. What was left but banditry? At first, I was against the idea. But the more I thought about it, the more natural it seemed. Look at those men working the mine, for example. The bosses steal from the miners, the miners steal from the bosses, white men steal from the Injuns, and Injuns steal from us. It’s the fellow who manages to hang onto what he has who comes out ahead.”

  Chance opened his mouth, then closed it again. He hadn’t managed to hang on to what was his, had he? Maybe he deserved to lose the farm. The hatter from Boston might be right: all men were out to take advantage of each other, so a fellow might as well rob the honest way. Flat out, without making any pretenses about it. He ruminated on this idea, barely listening as Walter Higgins chattered on, pausing from time to time to pat his waistband as if to reassure himself his revolver was really back where it belonged.

  When the hatter started talking about making up his losses by pulling a bank robbery, though, Chance sat up straighter and paid full attention. Banks? The very word still made his blood hot with rage. Banks were run by filthy thieves who took advantage of good, hardworking folks like his mother. A good piece of developed bottomland sold for about a thousand dollars, the price the bank must have got from auctioning off his land. Therefore, by rights that money didn’t belong to Hosea Lott’s national bank. It belonged to him, Chance McInnes. Why not just take it back?

  “I was planning one out when you came along,” Walter went on. “They got a bank up in Boise that’s ripe for the plucking. You can help me if you want, and we can split it fifty-fifty. If it goes well, I won’t have to be no dishwasher.”

  Chance’s head came up as quickly as a horse testing its bridle. Had the hatter been reading his thoughts? “No thanks. I’m no criminal.” But his blood was pumping faster.

  “You come along and watch, then. When you see how easy it is, maybe you’ll change your mind.”

  “Watch? I just might do that.”

  They split up in Boise. Chance found a saloon directly across the street from the town’s only bank. He ordered a drink and sat at a table where he could see out the window, ready to be entertained.

  It appeared there was no one in the bank but a pot-bellied middle-aged man sitting behind the counter looking bored. A few minutes later, Walter rode up and tied his horse to the post outside the entrance. Hitching up his sagging striped trousers, Walter tugged his black felt hat low over his eyes and sauntered in. Chance couldn’t see much of what happened next, but he could picture it all in his mind. On the long ride to Boise, Walter had told him at length what he planned to do. First, Walter would pull a ten-dollar bank note from his pocket and slap it on the counter, asking the teller to make change. While the teller was distracted, Walter would order him to empty out the safe.

  That was where Walter’s plans went awry. Chance nearly choked on his drink when he saw the sheriff strolling down the boardwalk heading toward the bank, tin star sparkling in the noon sun. A cowboy playing Faro with a group of friends at the next table followed Chance’s gaze. “That’s Sheriff McNeil,” he remarked. “Chews the fat with his brother at the bank every day at three o’clock sharp.”

  “The sheriff’s brother is the banker?” From his vantage point, Chance saw Walter standing in front of the teller’s cage across the street, struggling to disentangle his Remington from a Mexican-style holster. There was nothing Chance could do to help, so he sat nursing his drink bemusedly as the sheriff strode inside the bank.

  The sheriff stopped just inside the door, as if taken aback. From the saloon across the road, the onlookers could hear his barked question. There was a pause, and a scuffle. A moment later, Walter bolted out, bug-eyed, jumped on his waiting horse, and galloped off. The sheriff followed, hands on his hips, and squinted at Walter’s diminishing form for a moment. Then he straightened his hat over his brow, drew his revolver, and aimed.

  The dust behind Walter’s horse may have obscured the sheriff’s vision, or maybe Walter’s guardian angel was working double-time that day. Whatever the cause, the shot went high, knocking off Walter’s felt hat. Chance never would have thought that old horse could gallop so fast. By the time the air cleared, Walter was far in the distance, bobbing straight toward the foothills.

  The sheriff lowered his pistol and pushed back his hat as the bank teller rushed out, waving a small piece of colored paper.

  “Hey,” he called after Walter’s receding figure. “Mister! Come back! You forgot your ten dollars!”

  Seated in the saloon across the street, Chance overheard the teller’s call and scowled to himself. Leave it to Walter to have actually lost money on the attempted robbery!

  Chance headed in the opposite direction as Walter to throw off any possible trackers and doubled back when all looked clear. To his surprise, no one seemed to have bothered chasing the would-be bandit. Technically, he supposed, no crime had actually been committed.

  Chance shook his head, disgusted at the fact that the bank had actually made a profit from the inept outlaw’s bungling. If Walter came back to town, the mayor would probably welcome him with a slap on the back and offer him a cigar.

  “Problem is you didn’t take the trouble to plan ahead,” Chance told his dejected companion when they met at their agreed-upon meeting spot and began to trot westward together. Chance felt a need to lift Walter’s spirits, or at least offer a little friendly advice. “Seems to me that it would be better to pick a town well off the main trails and ride in a few days ahead just to look around. A fellow could learn useful things that way.”

  “Yeah? What kind of things?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Chance scratched the back of his head. “Might be good to know when the next stage loaded with money bags is coming, at least. There’d be more worth taking that way. And it sure would be nice to know the sheriff has a habit of dropping in to visit the banker every afternoon.”

  Walter’s head jerked up. He glared at Chance.

  “Or where the bank’s safe is located,” the big Iowan went on, still thinking out loud. “Find out how easily intimidated a teller is likely to be. And most important, how to get away. You were lucky this time that no one followed you ’cept me. If a posse had been on your heels, it woulda helped to have a hiding spot planned in advance.”

  Walter’s scowl lessened. “It would be a sight easier if you rode along next time, Chance. You seem to have everything figured out.” His long face lit up. “Besides, we’re partners now, ain’t we?”

  While Chance searched for a way to deny this, Walter added, “Unless you got some reason to love banks.” He cocked a speculative glance at Chance from under his bushy eyebrows. “Seems to me if you did, though, you’d a tried a mite harder to talk me out of robbing the last one.”

&nb
sp; Chance’s old resentment flooded back with the memory of the bowler-hatted banker who had harried his mother to death. No doubt all banks were guilty of the same nefarious deeds, every one of ’em run by the same type of greedy crooks. For the first time, he considered Walter’s idea. All this time, he’d been trying to figure a way to get back the money for his lost farm. Well, why not take it back?

  The fact that he was entertaining such a thought shocked Chance. As a boy, he’d never walked out of the dry goods store with a stick of candy unless he paid for it. Oh, he had his shortcomings, all right, and Chance was aware of every one of them, but never had he taken anything that didn’t belong to him, or even been tempted to.

  Yes, and look where that has gotten you, he thought. His mother dead, his farm gone. By robbing banks, Chance wouldn’t be stealing anything that didn’t belong to him. No, he’d merely be recovering his own money, money the bank had stolen from him and other honest citizens who didn’t have the good sense to take back what was rightfully theirs.

  Besides, he was certain he’d make a far-sight better bank robber than Walter Higgins. Chance might not be a fancy thinker like his old friend Ben Marlowe, but he usually had plenty of horse sense—not counting that one terrible moment when anger and grief caused him to go off half-cocked, ruining his life forever.

  Chance glanced at his companion, who was bouncing along on the English saddle, looking morose as usual. Somehow the big-nosed hatter had got the notion they were partners. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Who knew? Maybe they could help each other out.

  That night Chance lay on the ground, head and shoulders propped against his saddle, and gazed into the campfire, thinking harder than ever before. Walter Higgins just might be right. Pulling off a robbery should be a heckuva lot easier with one man to hold the horses and signal if someone approached, while the other slipped inside to discuss matters with the teller in a friendly, reasonable way. Simple. Nothing to it. Even Walter couldn’t muck it up, not with him along to oversee things.