The Bank Robber

by Robert Broomall

  He turned to her again. Rosie dropped the blanket from her slender shoulders. In the moonlight, she looked very soft, very warm. Her lips were slightly parted. The scent of her body and hair was intoxicating. Swede leaned toward her, drawn by a force greater than himself. Rosie closed her eyes, their lips were almost touching.

  Behind them, Dancer whinnied softly.

  Swede stopped. He opened his eyes. He grew taut and reached for his rifle.

  “What is it?” whispered Rosie.

  Dancer snuffled and pawed the ground. Rosie sat up straight. She looked behind her, then she put a hand to her mouth, stifling a scream.

  A group of Comanches was standing in the darkness at the far edge of the boulders.

  23

  It was hard to tell how many there were. Swede counted six—no, eight, but there might be more hidden in the darkness. They looked cold; most were wrapped in blankets. The others held out their hands to show that they were unarmed.

  Swede and Rosie were deep in the shadows. They heard Dancer blowing and pawing the ground. Swede took his revolver from its holster, cocked it, and passed it to Rosie. He eased back the hammer of his rifle. “Fire when I do.”

  He stood warily. Rosie scrambled up beside him. “Swede, what if they’re the same ones that—”

  “They are,” Swede said.

  The Indians were filthy and emaciated, pocked from disease. Their clothing was tattered; their reservation blankets were threadbare. Swede moved out of the shadows toward them, holding his Winchester away from his body in an exaggerated show of friendliness. “Howdy, boys. Where’s your horses?”

  The Comanches were bobbing their heads and smiling. Their leader, a tall man with his entire face painted red, said, “We friendly. We no have horses, no have guns.”

  “Hell, I can see you ain’t got no guns,” Swede drawled. “I ain’t worried about that.”

  The Indians had begun moving into the clearing formed by the boulders, a step at a time, so stealthily that Swede wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been looking for it. One of the braves wore a battered gray top hat.

  Rosie caught her breath. “That hat—it belonged to Frank Morgan, my manager.”

  “We want food,” said the red-faced Indian. The others testified to this desire with mutters and more vigorous nodding.

  “Anything we got is yours,” said Swede.

  “Water, too,” added Top Hat. He was an evil-looking devil, with a broad flat face and hooded eyes, like a snake’s.

  “Sure,” said Swede. “Plenty of water here.”

  The Comanches moved with more confidence now. They were edging sideways, flanking Swede and Rosie. The red- faced leader pounded his once-massive chest expansively. “Why you no have fire? We make fire, we smoke pipe. Then you give us water and food, and we go.”

  Swede grinned. “You’ll go, all right—straight to hell.” He raised his rifle. “Now, Rosie!”

  Swede fired, and Red Face fell. Rosie began shooting as well. With howls, the Comanches threw the blankets from their shoulders, revealing rifles. Others drew pistols from their waistbands.

  The fight lasted seconds, but it seemed like an hour. After the first shots, powder smoke obscured everything. Swede aimed at the red muzzle flashes, squeezing off his rounds. The flashes came closer, bullets hummed around him, something plucked at his sleeve.

  Suddenly it was over. Swede and Rosie were alone on the hilltop. The acrid-smelling gunsmoke blew clear in the wind, revealing four bodies at the far side of the clearing.

  Swede jammed more shells into his Winchester and turned to Rosie. Before he could speak, the Comanche in the gray hat burst out of the rocks to his left. The Indian ran full tilt into Swede, crashing him to the ground on his back.

  Swede tried to get up, but the Indian slugged him in the face with a pistol, knocking him flat. Swede’s vision blurred, and he smelled the incredible stink of the Indian. The Comanche pointed the pistol in Swede’s face. There was a shot, and the Indian was jerked away as if by an unseen hand.

  Swede lay breathless. It took him a second to realize that he wasn’t dead. He raised himself on his elbows, touching the welt just above his eye. The Comanche lay half on top of him, blood pumping from a hole in his chest. Swede looked over to where Rosie stood with the smoking .45 still pointed in her hands.

  Swede rolled the Indian’s body off his legs and got up. “Thanks,” he said to Rosie. “How’s it compare with Cross Street now?”

  Rosie lowered the revolver. “It’s getting closer.”

  Swede picked up his rifle. He winced and screwed his eyes shut as a wave of pain swept through his head.

  Rosie said, “How’d you know what they were up to?”

  “It’s what they always do, if they think you don’t know ’em—get just friendly and peaceable as hell before they make their move. That bunch was careless; they thought we was easy pickings. We would have been, too, if Dancer hadn’t—” Swede whirled. “Where is—Dancer, no!”

  The black horse was on his knees, trembling violently. In the thin moonlight, blood gleamed on his forehead and chest, showing where he had been struck by stray bullets. As they watched, he toppled onto his side.

  “Dancer!”

  Swede ran over, falling to his knees beside the horse. Dancer raised his head with a faint whinny. His big eyes looked into Swede’s. Then he kicked his legs out weakly and died.

  Swede hung his head, stroking the dead horse’s muzzle. He remained that way, lost in grief, heedless of the horse’s blood that stained his clothes, heedless of the Comanches still out there in the dark.

  Rosie’s voice seemed to come from out of a fog. “Swede—here’s one still alive.”

  The fog parted. Swede raised his head, his cheeks wet. He saw Rosie bent over one of the Indians, at a loss what to do. She looked at Swede, then she touched the Indian’s shoulder, reassuring him. “It’ll be all right.”

  “Please, wa-ter,” moaned the Indian gutturally, writhing on the ground.

  Swede rose to his feet. He walked across the clearing to Rosie and the wounded Comanche. The Indian was little more than a boy. Streaks of red and yellow paint crossed his face. He wore a tom, store-bought shirt; the stuffed body of a kingfisher was braided into his topknot. He clutched his blood-soaked stomach. “Wa-ter.”

  Swede yanked Rosie to her feet. He grabbed the pistol from her, stood over the Indian, and raised it.

  “Swede!” Rosie cried.

  Swede fired two shots into the Indian’s chest. “He’s dead now,” he said.

  Rosie looked at Swede in horror. With a great effort, Swede controlled himself. He pushed Rosie back into the shadows. “Get under cover. We jumped ’em good, and they run off. But when they regroup, they may rush us again.”

  They returned to the boulders. Swede fumbled the pistol shells from his belt and passed them to Rosie along with the weapon. “Reload.” He was breathing hoarsely.

  Rosie watched him, uncertain whether she was more scared of Swede or the Comanches. “Swede, I’m sorry about—”

  “Don’t! Don’t say Dancer’s name to me! I’ve had three good friends in this life. The Kid and Dancer are dead now, and the third one is looking to kill me.”

  He caught his breath, and his voice lowered. “My folks gave me Dancer. They left him with a neighbor when they got run off our land. Dancer’s all I had to remember them by.”

  He looked at Rosie as though he wanted to say more. A shot rang out and something screamed along the rock between them. “Here they come!” he cried.

  Swede lost control of himself. He moved out into the open, crying with rage. He pumped shots as fast as he could lever shells into the chamber. Around him the gunfire built to a crescendo, like summer rain. When the rifle was empty, he threw it down, grabbed the revolver from Rosie, and kept firing.

  “Swede!” she cried. “Swede, it’s all over. They’ve gone.”

  He stopped, his chest heaving. Gradually his vision cleared. He could see
the open ground in the moonlight. The hilltop was quiet. Rosie was on her knees beside him, fear and awe in her eyes. He wondered why he’d been standing, offering such a target.

  He sank to the ground, feeling weak. His breath came in long, shuddering gasps. The battle seemed to have drained the anger and sorrow of Dancer’s death out of him.

  Rosie raised herself and squinted into the clearing. “Wonder if we got any? Don’t look like it. Thought you was such a great shot.”

  Swede handed the pistol back. “I never said I was a great shot. Anyway, I might have winged a couple, or they might have dragged the bodies off—Comanches do that, if they can. How many shells you got left?”

  Rosie counted the bullets Swede had given her earlier. “Five,” she said as she reloaded.

  Swede took the remaining rifle shells from his jeans. “I got seven—that’s twelve altogether.”

  Rosie’s voice dropped. “You don’t have any more?”

  “I was too broke to buy an extra box before we left Mexico. That’s what comes of spending all my money on whiskey and beer.” Swede shook his head. “Time was, I’d never have took the trail without enough weapons and ammunition to fight a war. Now it seems I don’t care no more. Don’t know what’s the matter with me—getting tired of it all, I reckon.”

  He looked at her closely, his head clear now. “We can’t afford any more misses. We have to wait till they’re right on top of us before we fire next time. It’s our only chance. Be sure to save a bullet for yourself—and be sure to leave yourself time to use it.”

  Rosie took a deep breath and nodded. Swede patted her arm for reassurance.

  24

  They waited for the Comanches to attack. It seemed to grow darker. The only sound was the moaning wind.

  Rosie lay full length on her stomach, the pistol resting between two rocks. Swede was on his knee behind a boulder, but after a while that position became uncomfortable, and he quietly stretched out near Rosie.

  They were cold and thirsty and tired. Something rustled in the bushes, and Swede’s finger tightened on the trigger. His breath came in short bursts. But the Comanches held back. Beside him, Rosie wiped her hand across her mouth.

  The hours passed. The moon set and the wind died. They grew cramped, but they were afraid to move lest they reveal their positions. Swede looked at the Dipper. It would be dawn soon. He gazed intently into the east—was the sky the slightest bit lighter there? Yes.

  He shifted, drawing the rifle to his shoulder. “Dawn’s their favorite time to attack,” he whispered. “Be ready.”

  “I been ready,” Rosie said.

  Rosie gripped the pistol in both hands, smelling the cool, clean air of dawn. For some reason her mind kept returning to hot, humid mornings on Cross Street, and the stench of rotting garbage and dead fish that never went away. She thought of the crowded one-room flat, and the square of newspaper in one comer that served as a toilet. Then she came back to the present. She could make out the bodies of the five Comanches and Dancer in the rapidly graying light.

  “What are they waiting for?” she said. “Why don’t they get it over with?”

  Swede made no answer. Above them the sky turned from gray to the color of burnished brass. The first golden rays of sunlight surfaced in the east.

  “I think they’re gone,” Swede said, incredulous.

  He stood cautiously, his joints aching from age and the damp. He peered from behind the rocks but saw nothing. “By God, I believe they have, Rosie. Stay here and cover me.”

  He moved across the clearing slowly, from boulder to boulder, ready to fire. He passed the dead Comanches. Parallel heel tracks and spots of blood indicated where two more Indians had been dragged off, but whether they were dead or wounded was impossible to say.

  He emerged on the open hillside with his rifle raised, but no one was there. The only noise came from a distant quail. Swede’s eyes quartered the rugged, brush-covered ground. It was empty. He lowered the Winchester as Rosie came up beside him.

  Rosie looked at him funny. “Swede, they had us dead. Why give up now?”

  Swede wrinkled his brow. “We hurt ’em bad—could be it wasn’t worth the casualties for them to rush us again. Could be they just got bored.” He paused. “Or it could be the posse’s near.”

  The sun rose, and the wild landscape was suddenly bathed in harsh, brilliant light. The cool air turned hot.

  Swede walked to the hilltop’s edge. He propped his foot on a lichenous rock, pushing back his old hat. From this vantage he could see a long way to the south and east, across the broken hills, clear to the plain.

  This land was so beautiful, from its spectacular desolation to the deep blue sky and the fluffy white clouds that seemed to go on forever. “God’s country” was the only term Swede could think of to adequately describe what he saw. Hard and cruel it could be, but he loved Texas with a passion that stirred his heart. And this was the last day he would see it. Tomorrow he would be dead.

  His eyes found what they sought—a wisp of dust rising far to the east, heading in his direction. He stood straight and turned away.

  Rosie was looking at the dead Indians with a strange fascination. In the bright sunlight, the bodies were pitiful heaps of rags. Flies were settling over them, ants swarming into open eyes and mouths. The birds would be coming soon.

  “Is this what we were so afraid of?” she asked. “Look at them—their bones are showing through. They were starving to death.”

  “Yankee army’s killed all their horse herds,” Swede told her. “Without horses, they have to come to the reservation for food, or they die. Horses are their whole way of life, and the Army’s destroyed it. This bunch was probably more interested in Dancer than in us—Comanches’ll risk anything for a good horse.”

  “You almost sound like you sympathize with them,” Rosie said.

  “Sympathize? No, I’ve fought too many of them for that. I understand them, though. This land was theirs; now we’ve taken it from them. If I was a Comanche, I’d fight too.”

  Acid crept into her voice. “Well, your behavior ain’t much better than theirs.”

  He rounded on her. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know what I mean. That wounded boy. You didn’t have to—”

  “Oh, hell, if I’d wanted that sonofabitch to feel pain, I’d have let him live. You think he could have survived with that wound? He was gut-shot. He’d have died a long, slow death, and maybe I wouldn’t have minded—or have you forgotten what he helped do to your friends?”

  Swede walked off. He picked up his canteen and shook it. “With Dancer gone, things have changed. Our situation is pretty bad.”

  Rosie threw up her hands, but her bravado could not conceal her concern for him. “Ain’t it always? Trouble just comes in bunches with you, don’t it? Only thing that surprises me is why you’ve never been caught.”

  Swede went on. “There’s only a few swallows of water left. We’d never make Paso San Pedro on foot. We have to try Sand Canyon and head for Scorpion Springs.”

  “How far is that?” Rosie asked, giving him a look that anticipated the worst.

  “Ten miles, maybe.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “A hard walk,” Swede admitted. “If I can get to Scorpion Springs before the posse, I can maybe lose myself in the hills. It ain’t much of a chance, but it’s something. If the posse’s close behind—and they will be—I’ll leave you at the springs.” He paused. “That’s if they don’t catch us first.”

  Swede slung the canteen over his shoulder, then the money-filled saddlebags. Everything else was left behind. “Kinda hate to lose this saddle,” he said. “I bought it with the pickings from my first bank.” He smiled wryly. “The Kid spent all his money on a fancy Arabian horse—which promptly got shot from under him on our next job.”

  Rosie plopped on the torn straw hat, ready to go. Swede held out his hand for the pistol. “I’ll carry that.” He put the weapon in its holster and heft
ed his rifle.

  He hesitated. “There is another choice for you, Rosie. The posse’s coming. I seen their dust. Them Comanches are gone. If you want to wait here for the posse ... I mean, I’ll leave you the water. They shouldn’t be too—”

  Tears welled above Rosie’s freckles, but her voice was hard. “Look, Swede, if you don’t want me to go with you, just say so. You won’t be the first man to bounce me on my ear.”

  “It ain’t that. It’s just that this walk’s gonna be tough. Hell, I don’t know if I can make it myself. And you, you’re a . . . a . . .”

  “A woman—is that it?” Rosie’s lips pouted; her pert nose seemed to quiver. “Why, you fathead, I can keep up with you on your best day. Goddamn men are all alike—I can’t stand it. Come on, let’s get the hell out of this place.”

  Rosie turned and bustled off the hill, swinging her slender hips from side to side. Taken aback. Swede watched her. Then he pulled down his hat and followed her.

  25

  “It’s Dancer,” said Kirby. “I saw him once before.”

  It was midmorning. The members of the posse stood on the sunbaked hilltop. The air was thick with flies and the sickly sweet stench of death. Vultures wheeled overhead, impatient to finish their interrupted meal.

  Young Harry wiped the sweat from his wispy mustache. He stared at the famous black horse, half in awe, half in grief that such a magnificent animal should be dead and that he should be in some way, however small, responsible. “He’s as beautiful as they say.”

  The weathered cowboy Spud spit tobacco juice. “A damn waste, that’s what it is.”

  Brazos nodded. He was thinking about Swede and about what was going to happen to him now that he’d lost Dancer. “Swede got five of ’em, anyway,” Spud went on.

  Brazos said, “Too bad it weren’t fifty, after what they done to them women.”

  Black George was walking up the trail. Blood seeped through the fresh bandage around his head, and one cheek was puffed.