Hot Lead, Cold Justice

by Mickey Spillane

  The milky-eyed one scowled, but the handsome devil put a hand on his leader’s arm and said, “He’s cooperatin’, boss. Let him talk. He seems to have somethin’ to say.”

  The other two, though both frowning, said nothing.

  The outlaw leader nodded, in a barely perceptible fashion, and said, “All right. Talk, banker.”

  He did: “Our cash on hand, right now, is in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars.”

  “Hell of a cheapjack neighborhood,” the leader said skeptically, “for a ranchin’ hub like this.”

  Godfrey acknowledged that with a nod. “But this is a slow time of year, when the ranches have laid off many of their cowboys. Payroll needs are less, so fewer funds are kept on hand. Further, we make it a practice to regularly transfer bags of paper money and coin to Denver, to the Union Bank, another of the Parker firms. Wells Fargo made such a run just a week and a half ago.”

  The grin in the outlaw leader’s face somehow made that odd eye worse to behold. “Here’s how it’s gonna work, Godfrey. You’ll open that safe of yours and we’ll take however much is in it.”

  The banker raised a palm, again gently. “I understand that is your intention. But let me make a counter-proposal. My personal deposit in First Bank is four thousand dollars. If you will settle for that, and leave the balance behind, I will not report the robbery. You would not be pursued, and please understand that a posse consisting of those whose money you have stolen—the depositors in this bank—would only be too eager to help Sheriff Caleb York track you down.”

  His duster-draped guests were thinking.

  “I must also in fairness inform you, gentlemen,” Godfrey said, “that this bank suffered a robbery last year that almost brought it down. While the money was largely recovered, the fact that my presidential predecessor was—as they say—‘in on’ the robbery, well . . . rather dampened the local populace’s faith in banking in general. If I could avoid what you intend to do by essentially paying you not to do it, I might well prevent the collapse of this institution.”

  The sour-faced outlaw said, “And you’d be out of a job.”

  “I would indeed.”

  But he would be alive.

  The four men said nothing. They didn’t even exchange glances. Each was lost in his own calculations.

  Then the milky-eyed leader asked, “Where is York now?”

  “I frankly don’t know. I doubt he’s bothering with making rounds in this weather. The town is virtually frozen in place, everyone inside seeking warmth and shelter, all the shops closed.” The banker shrugged. “I do know that yesterday the sheriff rode out to the Bar-O to see how they were faring.”

  The handsome outlaw muttered, “Bar-O’s the biggest ranch around here.”

  “Yes,” Godfrey said, “a twenty-minute ride on the road north, in normal circumstances. The sheriff is, uh, good friends with Willa Cullen—the Bar-O was her late father’s ranch.”

  “By ‘good friends,’ ” the handsome one said, his grin turning lascivious, “you mean York may have stayed the night?”

  “The storm may have dictated that,” Godfrey said ambiguously. “At any rate, if he’s back in town, I’m not aware of it.”

  This was not a lie, but Godfrey hadn’t been out of his quarters today, so really had no way to know. And he wanted very much to sell his proposal to these men. Their leader had said no discussion, and yet that was precisely what they’d been engaging in for several minutes now.

  Godfrey said, “You would have to take my word that I would not report this incident, and that I would pledge not to identify any of you, when photographs and drawings are brought to my attention.”

  But Godfrey would be alive, and he felt confident that he could discreetly inform Raymond L. Parker of what had happened, and that Godfrey had handled it . . . and be reimbursed for his own life savings of four thousand dollars.

  The bank president risked a smile. “What do you say, gentlemen? Do we have a deal?”

  The skinny one with the cough, the sour-faced fellow, and the handsome devil were finally exchanging glances now, shrugging, eyebrows lifting, obviously seeing the banker’s proposal as reasonable.

  But the outlaw leader said, “No. We’ll take it all, thanks. And you can identify us till Judgment Day. I do not give a damn.”

  “Well, I, uh . . . thought perhaps you might . . .”

  The milky-eyed outlaw grabbed the banker by a coat lapel and jerked him up onto his toes, leaning into the smaller man’s face, till they were all but nose to nose.

  “Banker, I want you to describe me to Caleb York. I want him to know I came to his town and took his town’s money. I would be good and goddamn grateful to you if you did!”

  Would that be enough to keep Peter Godfrey alive? The banker could only wonder.

  “Get your keys and put your overcoat on,” the outlaw leader said to Godfrey. “And everybody plaster on a smile, including . . . ’specially . . . you, Mr. Bank President. If any town folk are out there takin’ the air and freezin’ their damn tails off, they should see four fellers happy as hell to be in each other’s company.”

  Godfrey did as he was told.

  But he now knew he would have to rely on something else he’d deposited in his bank, something whose existence the bank president had not shared with the outlaws—the Colt Model 1877 revolver called a Thunderer with its short two-and-a-half-inch barrel and its long .41 rounds, tucked in a little drawer under the bags of money in the safe.

  * * *

  In his hospital gown and under warm covers, Jonathan P. Tulley—alone in his sickroom in the apartment of Dr. Albert Miller, out dealing with the frostbite epidemic—stirred but did not awaken due to the heavy footsteps on the staircase along the side of the building.

  But conversation on the floor above, and more movement, finally did bring him around. He frowned, as male voices continued, one recognizable as that of the bank president who lived up there. Fully awake now, Tulley heard the call of nature as well, and used the chamber pot before climbing back under the sheets and blankets.

  The talk went on, some of it—from a rough voice he did not recognize—loud and stirred up, which set Tulley to frowning. He could not make anything out, but that was not the point. The deputy had been in this bed for two days and not heard a peep out of the upstairs resident, who seemed to have had no visitors at all in that time.

  Nor had he noticed much noise seeping up from the bank below, during its business hours; but then he’d been pretty well out on the laudanum the doc gived him, and today the establishment was likely closed, what with the snow and all.

  Nonetheless, Tulley just burrowed into the bed clothes, figuring a man had a right to entertain and sometimes arguments broke out between friends. What business was it of his?

  But then boots came clomping back down those outside steps, a whole damn herd of folk it seemed, and he sat up, annoyed, and frowned toward the sound. He got out of bed and padded over in his bare feet to his window to see who had disrupted his slumber, but nobody was out there at all. Main Street was still all drifted over and snow just kept coming down, maybe not so damn heavy now, but still a-comin’.

  So he shrugged, went over, and climbed in bed, tucked himself in and was almost back to sleep when noise from below—nothing big, not a runaway train or nothin’, just more talk and movement—got him to thinking.

  That was the bank down there, under him. And if somebody was up to somethin’ in that bank, when it was closed, that would be Deputy Tulley’s business.

  Yet he could tell one of those voices was the bank president’s, softer than the other male voices he could make out, but that was Mr. Godfrey, all right.

  Tulley climbed out of the bed and his bare feet took him to the scattergun leaning against the wall by the window. Just what he might do with the weapon, he couldn’t have said. But it seemed like he ought to have that in hand, even though he hadn’t figured out what, if anything, he should do.

  * * *
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  Jake Warlow had ridden with Lucas Burnham long enough to be well-acquainted with the outlaw leader’s ruthless ways. Not that Warlow was the squeamish type. And he was grateful to Burnham for the opportunities the man had provided—Jake would never have been able to pull in so damn many dollars these past several years if he’d restricted himself to earning honest ones.

  But Warlow had a feeling the boss was going to kill this banker, once that safe got emptied, and somehow it just didn’t seem right. The stuffy little Godfrey feller was following orders just fine, and that proposal the bank president had made, to pay them off with his own money, had seemed damn white of him. If Jake were leader of this outfit, he’d have grabbed that four grand and the promise of no robbery reported and no Caleb York posse to dog their trail.

  Yet from the start of this thing, ol’ “Burn ’Em” Burnham had been so tied up in knots over getting even with this York that it had screwed things up damn near as bad as the weather. Warlow didn’t like that, didn’t like that one little bitty bit. You keep your feelings out of it. They were professionals, weren’t they? They should act like professionals!

  Still, Burnham was the boss, and Warlow respected him, in addition to fearing that milky-eyed son of a bitch, who a while back he’d seen kill a fellow gang member that crossed him. Not double-crossed him, either—just somebody they rode with who wouldn’t go along with what Burnham wanted.

  So, like the banker, Warlow was just doing as he was told. He went down the steps first, followed by Sivley, then Godfrey, Fender, and finally Burnham. All four outlaws had their sidearms in hand under the dusters. Everybody kept a smile on their face—even Moody.

  No one saw them, or at least it didn’t appear anyone had. The biggest threat of being seen came from the building on the corner across the way, the Victory Saloon, one of the few establishments in Trinidad open for business in the blizzard, though its front doors were shut tight and no honky-tonk or casino sounds were bleeding out.

  In knee-high snow, the five men trudged back behind the big brick building, flakes swirling around them. The alley behind the bank was hidden under a heavy blanket of white, on the other side of which were the backyards of dwellings. That the snow wasn’t coming down as hard now was not enough to invite anyone out into this wintery world, which was more purgatory than wonderland. The closest thing to a witness was a snowman some child had built early on, itself buried in white up to its waist, its coal eyes looking hysterical.

  All of the men, banker included, had to kick away at the snow in front of the rear door, to clear the way enough for Godfrey to work a key in the lock and open it.

  Soon they were inside the big single room that was the bank, which sported the expected fine wood, brass fittings, and marble floor, with a trio of barred cashier windows in a long polished counter. Going in the back way put them on the teller side of those windows. A big rectangular iron safe rested against the back wall under a map of New Mexico Territory.

  The bank president had no office, rather a big fancy desk behind a low wooden railing with a gate, over to the left as the men came in.

  The outlaw leader’s Colt Lightning was out from under the duster. Everyone in the gang had his gun in hand now. The big room, with no lamps lit, was fairly dark and it was doubtful anyone could see what was happening through the front windows. The counter with its teller cages blocked things as well. The only witness seemed to be the storm itself, which continued its moaning, howling, and whistling, as if Nature herself had set off an alarm, only to be ignored.

  “Get to it,” Burnham told the banker.

  “Yes, sir,” the captive said.

  The safe was so big, and the banker so short, that Godfrey didn’t have to bend down to work the dial on the big Mosler Company cast-iron safe, black with gold edging. The combination clicked in place and the little man swung open the big door.

  Now Godfrey knelt. He fished around inside.

  Burnham said, “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing, sir.” He turned and handed the leader a folded-over empty canvas bag, the size of a mail sack. “That’s what we fill up with the smaller bags, in preparation for the Wells Fargo runs.”

  Warlow and Fender stood to one side as the banker passed out bags of cash and then coin to them to fill the bigger bag, which said FIRST BANK OF TRINIDAD in stenciled black. Burnham just supervised, keeping his Colt trained on the banker, who knelt at the open safe as if at an altar. Sivley was keeping a general lookout between coughs of red into an increasingly wretched handkerchief.

  As the banker handed bags of money back to the thieves, Burnham asked him, “Is there any money in the cashier drawers? ”

  “No, sir. After closing each day, the tellers run a tally and everything goes in the safe.”

  The bigger bag of smaller bags was soon full, held together at the top by a wide wooden snap.

  For a few moments, the bank president, kneeling there, stared into the safe.

  Burnham stepped up behind him. “Is that it?”

  Godfrey didn’t answer.

  “Is that it, I said!”

  The banker gulped—it was quite audible—then he said quietly, “Yes. That’s it.”

  The outlaws could not know that the banker had decided against removing the compact revolver from its little hiding place in a small drawer under the safe’s main compartment.

  “That’s it, all right,” Burnham said, and he placed the nose of his Colt against the nape of the neck of the kneeling man. He thumbed back the hammer and the cocking click was itself like a gunshot in the big empty room.

  Warlow put his hand on Burnham’s wrist and clamped down, jerking it away from its target.

  “No,” Warlow said.

  “No?” Burnham bared his teeth. “You’re in charge now, Jake?”

  “I’m not in charge. But you said it before—guns make noise. And as for what you used earlier . . .”

  The Bowie knife.

  “. . . you leave this man butchered and we’ll have every lawman in the Territory down on us. Caleb York will be the least of our worries.”

  Burnham glowered, but he was thinking.

  Surprisingly, Moody said, “Godfrey here’s done everything we asked. He’s a friendly little guy. Leave him be.”

  Sivley laughed. “Hey, he’s crying!”

  And he was.

  Warlow said, “Damnit, Luke—let him be. Hey! Banker!”

  “Y-yes . . .”

  “You still willin’ to promise not to identify us if they start showin’ you pitchers?”

  “Y-yes . . .”

  “You heard us call each other by name. You gonna remember those names?”

  “N-no . . .”

  “’Cause iffen you do, we might just come back and finish the job.”

  Burnham said to the banker, “Where do your people hail from?”

  That seemed to throw Godfrey, who was doing his best not to weep, but his best wasn’t good enough. “What?”

  “Where do you hail from?”

  “Originally . . . Kentucky.”

  That was not true. Godfrey was from Iowa. But he had heard the tinge of Southern accent in the outlaw leader’s voice.

  “Find something,” Burnham said, “to bind him.”

  One teller drawer had twine in it and they used that, tying the banker’s hands behind him and his ankles together, and stuffing a hanky—not one of Sivley’s!—in his mouth as a gag. They left the little man on the floor behind the counter, where he could not be seen through a window on the street.

  Pointing toward the rear, out of the bank president’s earshot, Burnham said, “We go out the way we came in. Ned and me will head back to Maxwell’s. Jake, you and Moody go down to the livery and buy or take a couple of horses. Now let’s go!”

  Before they left, Warlow nodded to the bound banker, who nodded back, gratitude in his expression despite the hanky wadded in the man’s mouth.

  As the four outlaws came out from behind the building, Warlow
was feeling good—they had picked up an easy ten grand to plump up the disappointing Las Vegas haul. And he was pleased at saving the banker’s life. He didn’t like to think of himself a bad man, just someone who’d had some nasty breaks and took some wrong turns. Running with the likes of Luke Burnham, he reasoned, could make anybody think they’d gone bad.

  Warlow paused in front of the bank, knee-deep in snow, and said to Fender, “We don’t need saddles. There’s plenty back at Maxwell’s to choose from.”

  Fender nodded and offered up a rare smile, which disappeared when his face got splattered with blood and bits of gore when Warlow’s head, handsome face and all, got blown off his neck by a double-barreled shotgun from above.

  * * *

  Not long before, Caleb York could not see—from his perch on a saddle on its stand near a window of Maxwell Boots, Harness, and Saddle Depot—the movement within the bank building. That was taking place too deep into the large single room that was the bank, where additionally no lamps were lit.

  So he had no notion, no suspicion, that a robbery was taking place even as he kept watch. He was, in fact, fighting boredom, reminded of the many hours of vigil he’d maintained in his time as a Wells Fargo detective. He’d spent days and nights in high rocks watching through army signal glasses a farmhouse where outlaws might rendezvous. For seemingly countless hours he’d sat in hotel lobbies waiting for a suspect to show.

  Not his favorite part of that job.

  But his boredom vanished, and he sat up straight in his store-bound saddle, when he saw the four men emerge from the side street between the bank building and the Victory—closer to the bank. And in an instant, even from a little distance, he could see that this was Burnham and his three compadres.

  York climbed down and drew his gun, and then it came to him he was inside a shop with its front double doors locked, and cursed his stupidity for not thinking of that. He was kicking those doors open when a shotgun blast sounded up the street, luckily concealing the wood giving way under his boot, and when he got to the street he could make out a ghostlike figure in the window on the second floor of the bank building . . .