If only Chance could see him now, he thought with an inner chuckle. The big, fair-haired farmer wouldn’t hide his disgust at the sight of Ben dressed as an Indian.
The girl continued to hover, and he felt himself blush. A dimple appeared high in her cheek before she ducked through the flap and let it slap shut.
He’d have to keep an eye on that one, he thought with a mix of amusement and discomfort. She was nothing like the young ladies in New York and Cambridge, overdressed daughters of industrial barons whose simpering conversation consisted of name-dropping and sly inquiries into his father’s wealth. By contrast, he had no idea how to behave around this spirited Indian girl who obviously held him in no awe whatsoever. For the first time in his life, he was in a place where money and family connections meant nothing.
Ben shucked off his uniform and pulled the soft deerskin shirt over his head. When he emerged from the lodge, Spotted Eagle looked pleased. “Better. Now you look like us.”
“The girl …” Ben fought with his curiosity and lost. “Who is she?”
Spotted Eagle frowned. “A troublemaker like her younger brothers. A bad-tempered, chattering raven, who talks too much and never does what she’s told. Shame will come to the fool who marries her.” Then he grinned. “But she is pretty, eh?”
Ben felt his face ease into a responding smile.
Chapter Twenty-One
Chance
Cascade Mountains, Oregon
Summer, 1865
Chance located a deep gully sided by tall bluffs three days’ ride northeast of where they’d found the brown-haired girl. For some reason, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. What had she been doing out here, all by herself? He wished they hadn’t left her behind, but he wasn’t in the business of kidnapping people, and she’d refused to come. That was her business. Chance sincerely hoped she’d find her own folks soon.
Looking around the pitted sandstone cliffs, he was pleased to find them pockmarked with caves of all different sizes, some plenty big enough to sleep in. A perfect hiding place, he thought. A wide, dry riverbed leading through the bluffs hinted at occasional floods, but its rounded rocks would do a nice job of disguising the horses’ hoofprints in case anyone tried to track them here.
“You’re joking, right? We wouldn’t last a week in these badlands.” Walter pulled his hat farther down his face while hunched in his saddle. ‘There’s no water, no shade, and nothin’ but rattlers for company.”
Chance eyed the holes in the rock bluffs, considering. “Exactly. Company’s the last thing we want, remember? Those bluffs will provide some shade, and there is water. I saw a trickle near one of those caves, and when it rains, there’ll be more. It’s enough for us.”
Walter’s grim face looked like he was wondering about Chance’s sanity, but he followed orders. Leaving his partner to set up camp, Chance rode the twenty miles back to the nearest town and made discreet inquiries. As he suspected, these cliffs were so desolate and rough that it seemed that no one ever had bothered to explore them. Besides, so many holes dotted the bluffs in this area that no one was likely to find the ones they’d be camping in anyway.
Over the next couple of weeks, he and Walter loaded up on supplies in scattered towns so as to avoid notice, using Chance’s dwindling military pay and a bit of gold dust that was all Walter had to show for his short mining career. Chance figured they could survive in their new hideout on salt pork and biscuits. He stuffed his last twenty-dollar banknote into his boot for the plan that was taking shape in his head.
Ever since gold and other precious metals had been discovered in eastern Oregon and western Idaho a few years ago, towns were sprouting like mushrooms. New banks, flush with the mines’ rich takings, posed ripe targets for an enterprising young man with vengeance to wreak. Finally, Chance thought with grim satisfaction, he was ready.
Walter Higgins’s long face looked even more hangdog than usual as he slouched in the lobby of the town’s only hotel, looking acutely miserable in the gray early-morning light slanting through a small window cut into the pine-log wall. The two partners sat alone in the room except for a hatchet-faced woman in a faded red shawl who leaned sullenly on the bar. Chance couldn’t tell if they were her first customers of the day, or her last.
Shaking out the still-damp first broadsheet that had rolled off the town’s press that morning, Chance read it silently, hesitating only slightly over the more complicated words. He’d made progress since Benjamin Marlowe had given him the little green book of poetry. Chance wondered if maybe he wasn’t entirely unsuited to book learning after all.
The woman’s brassy hair was tied up in rag curlers. She tapped lacquered fingernails against the counter, no doubt hoping they’d hurry up and finish their breakfast so she could go upstairs to bed.
Walter’s blood-shot eyes gazed at Chance with equal impatience. “You said we was going to rob banks together. All right—when?”
A red-hot glare aimed over the top of the broadsheet caused the former hatter to shrink back in his seat. Chance tilted his head meaningfully toward the woman loitering a few yards away, and comprehension dawned on Walter’s sagging features.
Sensing a change in the conversation, the female saloon keeper straightened. “More coffee, fellas?”
“Leave the pot,” Chance said. “We’ll serve ourselves.”
Gathering up her slipping shawl, the woman headed toward the stairs. As her footsteps receded upward, Chance took a sip from his cup and winced at the burned flavor. The woman had stinted on sugar too.
Walter squirmed in his chair like a badly trained puppy. Feeling more charitable with hot liquid warming his innards, Chance pointed to a column in the middle of the newspaper.
While his partner squinted at the print, Chance congratulated himself at having taught himself to read. Interesting what a fellow could learn from a newspaper. It appeared that the sheriff of Moose City took sick last month after being bitten by a rattlesnake and failed to recover despite the skilled ministrations of Dr. I. P. Gillespie, formerly of Stockton, California. The deceased sheriff had been laid to rest with full honors, and his replacement was expected to arrive by stage in two days.
Last night, Chance had learned even more news from the lips of Dr. I. P. Gillespie himself, who, as luck would have it, was one of the saloon’s frequent visitors. His taste for rum punch may have partly explained his inability to revive the late sheriff. Chance bought him round after round from his shrinking reserves, hoping he wouldn’t have to touch the twenty-dollar banknote tucked into his boot and that Gillespie would offer some useful information.
Finally he hit pay dirt. Dr. Gillespie, who happened to be a gossip, said between gulps from his none-too-clean shot glass that the banker, a middle-aged bachelor, was in the habit of lunching late at the home of his fiancée. That left the young, inexperienced bank clerk alone at least an hour every afternoon, which just happened to be the time of day with the fewest customers.
With the saloon’s proprietress safely out of earshot, Chance now drained the dregs of his cup and leaned back, waiting for Walter to finish reading the article.
“Well?” Walter demanded and shoved the newspaper across the table. “What does this got to do with us?”
“It means we’re gonna strike early tomorrow afternoon. That should be clear as that big nose stuck to your face.”
Walter self-consciously touched his nose. “Tomorrow? Why not wait a couple more days? I been enjoying hanging around town.”
Chance sighed. “I told you it’s been three weeks since the last Wells Fargo delivery. Don’t you see? The bank will be short on cash, so there’s no point robbing it today.” When Walter’s face still showed lack of comprehension, he added with less patience, “And we’ve gotta hit the bank tomorrow, because the next day the new sheriff arrives.”
Walter tugged uncertainly at a pendulous earlobe. “Don’t seem a good idea to me. We’ve been spending so much time hanging around town that people know our faces.
If we hit up the bank tomorrow, they’re bound to remember us.”
“Maybe, but we’ll have a good twenty-four-hour head start before the new sheriff can get a posse together.”
Walter considered this and nodded. Then his face brightened. “And getting the money will be a sight easier with you making sure no one walks in on me this time.”
“Nope. You’ll be the lookout.” Chance had no intention of leaving the actual robbery to the hapless Walter, but even his partner should be able to yell a warning if someone came along. He folded the broadsheet and shoved it into his pocket, congratulating himself on picking the perfect town for his first robbery. Not every community had a newspaper like this, which provided such useful information.
Before leaving the saloon, he left the last of his coins on the table. He hoped the proprietress wouldn’t remember them, but if not, it wouldn’t hurt to be on her good side.
As he and Walter rode back to their new hideout in the bluffs, his companion bounced up and down on the nag like a scarecrow on stilts. The brim of his slouch hat flapped up and down, creating a breeze that caused his unruly black hair to fly up. His long face was screwed up, and he chewed on his lower lip, uncharacteristically silent.
“Why quit when we get to a thousand dollars each?” he asked suddenly. “Why not take as much as we want?”
“I told you.” Chance’s voice was stern. He didn’t want to go into his reasons. “You want more money, go on and get it on your own.”
That shut Walter up. From his partner’s pained expression, Chance eventually realized with surprise he had hurt the former hatter’s feelings. He wondered, with astonishment, if Walter Higgins might look up to him the way Chance used to look up to Benjamin Marlowe, as someone wiser and more experienced, someone it was an honor to ride with. The realization made Chance feel kindlier toward his new partner, and he resolved to treat him better.
As they rounded the base of the dun-colored ridges, he told Walter about the other guidelines he’d settled on over the past few nights. His companion’s already long face lengthened further, especially at the rule about no drinking before any robbery. Chance didn’t mention his dead mother’s hatred for alcohol, only explaining that booze led to mistakes.
“But …” began Walter. His big-veined hands gripped the reins tighter, and he glanced longingly down at the flask in his pocket.
“No violence either.” Chance spoke over his partner. “We won’t load our pistols either, so there ain’t no accidents.”
“But what if …?” Walter tried again.
Tersely, Chance explained that brandishing a handgun and bellowing orders ought to suffice. “Besides,” he finished, a note of finality in his voice, “I’ll be the one handling things. You only got to wait outside and hold the horses.”
Walter stared at him, his bottom rhythmically slapping the saddle with the horse’s every stride. “Not to complain, or anything,” he said slowly, “but ain’t we supposed to be bandits, not a Baptist Sunday school?”
“Robbery’s one thing, but I don’t want to be hit with no murder charge,” Chance said flatly. “All I want is what’s rightfully mine, nothing more.”
Chance stared ahead. He was wanted for killing a man back home, but in Idaho he was starting over with a clean slate of sorts. Maybe the law didn’t see it that way, but he did. His conscience could justify extracting what was due him from a bank, but it was something else entirely to terrify innocent people or kill them.
The caves, clean and dry, were piled with boxes of supplies just as they had left them earlier in the week. Walter picked a comfortable one for himself low on the cliff by a large opening where they could shelter the horses from view, not far from the trickle of water emerging from a hidden spring. Chance chose one a bit higher up, with a wide opening that admitted ample sunlight and a steeply sloping ceiling in the back. They spread their bedrolls and stacked firewood.
Chance surveyed the other caves dotting the sandstone bluffs like holes in a colander. An intruder would have a hard time finding theirs, he reassured himself. That is, should anyone come looking for them. If they kept changing their hideout from time to time, it would be hard for posses to catch up.
He’d discovered these past months that it didn’t take much to satisfy him: just enough grub to fill his belly and a place to rest while brooding over the unwelcome turn his life had taken. He scrunched up his hat, settled it under his head for a pillow, and resumed agonizing over the past.
Chance hoped Abe Swenson had not torn down the farmhouse that had been his family’s home for three generations. Had the old Swede planted corn and wheat in straight lines that rolled toward the horizon like spilled bundles of green twine, or had he put in different crops? Did new cows and pigs now take the place of the poisoned ones?
He racheted up his torment by picturing Betty Cuthbert’s eyes filling with tears for the conniving banker with the spotless white kid gloves. Chance reminded himself that her tears were probably not for Hosea Lott but for the comfortable lifestyle the banker would have given her. Money.
Chance smacked his fist as hard as he could against the uneven surface of the cave’s wall, and the explosion of pain brought him back to the present. Cradling bloody knuckles, he whispered, “Two thousand dollars. Two thousand dollars.” Once he’d regained the cash that was rightfully his, he’d buy another farm and find a wife even prettier than Betty—and a sight more faithful. The last part, he thought, scowling, shouldn’t be hard.
Early in the morning, Chance and Walter left their caves and set off for Moose City, Idaho. Around noon they passed along an outcropping that looked down over the town, and Chance casually glanced below at the unpaved street. What he saw caused him to wrench back the reins.
Walter nearly ran his nag into Chance’s roan mare’s haunches, but his oath died unuttered as Chance gestured toward the bank. Four men wearing long dusters stood by a travel-worn stagecoach, cradling rifles, one with an arm in a sling. Fortunately, none happened to be looking upward, or they would have seen Chance and Walter clearly silhouetted against the sky.
Chance felt beads of sweat pop out on his forehead as if he’d walked into the boiler room of a Mississippi steamboat in August. Taking a deep breath, he tried to settle his nerves.
The Wells Fargo stagecoach was supposed to have arrived yesterday, yet here it was. That upset his carefully crafted plan, which depended on the coach and its armed guards being gone by now. He didn’t want to try his first robbery under the nose of a new, ambitious sheriff. That meant they would have to wait for the Wells Fargo wagon to leave, however long it took, and hope the bank manager took an especially long lunch.
The two men lingered on the bluff above town, playing Faro and taking catnaps, while from time to time Chance cautiously poked his head over the edge of the ridge. Finally, he saw the street in front of the bank stood empty except for a pair of tumbleweeds rolling in the wheel ruts.
He beckoned Walter and the pair started down the steep slope. Nervous excitement built inside Chance, and he found himself battling down a crazy urge to let Sally into a trot. He recollected stories about gangs that rode into town yelling, whooping, and shooting off revolvers to strike fear into the populace. He reminded himself that would be foolish. All he wanted was to quietly relieve the bank of enough money to recover his loss of the farm, thank the employees, and leave. With luck, no one but the teller would notice their presence until they were gone.
Chance hoped there would be enough money in the vault to make this his first and last robbery. That would suit him just fine. Wiping his perspiring hand on his canvas trousers, he hitched his horse to the post in front of the clapboard building with the word Bank above it and nodded to Walter.
A row of white teeth split his partner’s black beard. He touched two fingers to his hat before making a show of peering carefully up and down the empty street. A large-knuckled hand dangled near his shiny revolver, the one Chance had briefly taken when they first met.
Chance fought back a qualm. No doubt Ben Marlowe would have a fancy word for the unpleasant emotion that passed through him, a sense of crossing an invisible barrier that he could never return from. He’d never deliberately broken the law before, but that was about to change. Squaring his shoulders, he pushed open the door and strode inside.
“Well, howdy there!” A young man, not much more than a boy, looked up from behind the counter, quickly shoving a brightly covered dime novel he’d been reading under a pile of papers. The clerk had a fresh-scrubbed look, with pink ears that stood out from his head like the handles on a rose-painted china pitcher. The cravat encircling his stiff-starched collar was tied directly over his Adam’s apple so the bow bobbed up and down when he spoke. His black hair was parted neatly in the center and slicked down on the sides, as shiny as shoe polish.
Approaching the counter, Chance returned the clerk’s polite nod. He’d hoped to discover someone behind the counter with a distempered, unfriendly look, someone who deserved to be robbed, but this eager young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty, reminded Chance of … well, himself, the way he used to be. Hopeful, friendly, and eager to please.
Chance quieted his conscience with the thought that this young fellow could later regale his friends with the story of the robbery. Didn’t the brightly-colored penny dreadful the clerk was reading prove he craved adventure?
“Where’s Mr. Maunaghy?” Chance asked, sweeping his eyes around the small, bare room just to be sure they were alone.
“The bank manager had some business regarding his upcoming nuptials. He will be back in an hour or two, if you wish to wait.”
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