All Honest Men

by Claude Stanush

  But no Jess.

  Then, about two hours in, the announcer climbed up on a platform and started hollering into a cone: “Alright, now, ladies and gentlemen, the famous Booger Red riding contest! Hundred-dollar prize for anything that cain’t be rode, folks! They been led in, they been shipped in, they been drug in. Time’ta watch the dust fly!”

  I throwed my eyes back to the arena. “If he’s here, this is it.”

  “If he’s not too drunk to stand up,” Glasscock said back.

  I kept my eyes glued on the chutes. One after another, out they come—a couple of them grouch-ass little burros and a lot of wild-eyed broncs and kicking bulls: only problem for us, it was Booger Red hisself atop most of ’em. God, them animals was packed with mean, humping up and circle-bucking and splaying their legs and doing ever’thing else you could think of to throw that old boy offa their backs. He rode ’em all right down to sweat.

  But no Jess.

  Then, right when I was thinking my brother’d led me on some wild goose chase, the announcer come back:

  “You all ready for some real dust to fly?”

  The crowd whooped and hollered.

  “Well, we got coming up a real outlaw, one that Mister Booger Red knows ain’t never been rode. Last old boy that tried to do it is pushing up weeds at the Sweet Home Cemetery. This bronc’s name is Paydirt. Nobody’s ever rid him, and the gamblers are giving ten to one nobody ever will. Like you know, most times, it’s Mister Booger Red hisself that rides the wildest of the wild. But we got a cowboy here today, name of ‘Jesse James’ Wayne, who begged Mister Booger to let him try. Ladies, if you don’t wanta watch this contest between a man-killer and a champeen cowboy, put a handkerchief over your face. This could all be over in two or three seconds.”

  Glasscock punched me. “It’s him.”

  “Yeah, and if Paydirt don’t kill ’em, I will.”

  Why the hell did my brother have’ta pick the worst bronc in the world? Particularly if he’d been drinking? If he only got a broke arm, or a broke leg, he’d still be no use to us on our big job. Damn him!

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Glasscock said. “I’ll bet that ‘killer stuff’ is just pump-up. Probably some old farm plug.”

  The gate to the chute swung open and out it come.

  It wasn’t no plug.

  Paydirt raced out squealing—a bald-faced, bawling man-killer that seemed to know ever’ trick in the world for turning a human being into jelly. That animal took Jess all over that arena, snapping him back and forth like you’d pop a whip. Moving so fast it wasn’t nothing but a blur: a blur up and down, sideways, around and around, spinning, cat-backing, crawdadding, sunfishing, even standing up on his hind legs.

  Well, I’ll tell you what, I’d got to where I could blow a safe or a vault with six ounces of grease and not feel one ounce of jitter. But when I seen Jess on that bronc, blood squirting outa his nose, his neck whipping back and fro, my stomach hopped into my throat.

  Still, through it all, Jess was sticking on.

  For a flash, but only for a flash, I was right proud of my brother. Riding broncs, the worst of ’em—that was the one thing Jess could do just about as perfect as it could be done.

  The crowd knowed it too, how perfect that old boy was riding that bronc.

  Ever’body in the stands was jumping up to their feet and they was a-whooping and a-whistling and the ladies was waving their hankies. And when Jess’ three minutes was up, and another rider come racing in and dragged Jess offa Paydirt’s back, you couldn’t hear yourself think for how that crowd was a-hollering. The judge give Jess a blue ribbon and a hundred dollar prize, and then that fool old brother of mine went to strutting around that arena, fanning his hat and waving to the crowd, just like he won hisself a million.

  Together, me and Glasscock walked to the back of the tent. It didn’t take us more’n a minute to find Jess. He was setting on a bale of hay pouring whiskey outa a bottle and into his mouth. After he’d poured five or six times, he’d hand the bottle to a Injin standing next to him. The Injin was wearing a long feather head-dress that come all the way down to his heels.

  “Hoddy, Jess.”

  Jess didn’t look over. He didn’t know it was me. He just smiled and raised his bottle, like he was giving some old boy a friendly salute. Only this old boy wasn’t feeling friendly. I grabbed the bottle outa his hand and turned it over.

  For a little bit Jess stood there looking at the wet spot on the ground. He blinked his eyes and swayed a little. Then he looked up.

  “Willis!”

  “Good ride, boy. Now get your stuff. Let’s go.”

  “What the hell you doing here, old man?”

  “I need you in Chicago, Jess.”

  “Kiss a pig’s nose, Willis. I ain’t going one red inch but sideways here.” And he moved a inch sideways and near tipped over.

  The Injin with the feathers was standing there next to Jess like he was Jess’ brother. I told him to scoot on, that I had some business to do with this cowboy. He walked off with the droopiest look you ever seen. Like he just couldn’t get over how anybody’d waste all that good firewater on a bale of hay.

  When he left, I said to Jess, “Look, it don’t make no sense, you riding in some Wild West show for a coupla lousy dollars a day. You can make a thousand thousand times that on this next job.”

  “What I want in my life, old man, is hog legs.” And he coughed a coupla times. “Legs so goddamned bowed you c’n run a 300-pound hog through ’em.”

  “Well, you’ll get you them hog legs a lot faster if you listen to me. You want a big ranch or not?”

  “That question’s getting smelly, old man. You think you’re so smart? I say you ain’t. Where’s all them millions you was gonna make offa oil? Huh? And what the hell happened up there in Toronto? Huh? And how good you been doing at filling up the well, old man? Naw, Willis, the modern world is catching up with us and I don’t much care for the modern world.”

  “All you’re gonna get working here is a broke neck, Jess. And listen to me.…”

  I caught myself. I looked around ever’where to make sure nobody had their ears out. I said in a low voice, “You go down South with this show, the laws’ll get you for sure. They got arrest warrants out agin us for New Braunfels and San Marcos.”

  I wasn’t giving Jess no bull. According to what I’d been hearing through the underground, there was a mess of warrants out in Texas for all four of us Newton Boys, not just Dock. There was even a murder warrant out for me, for what I didn’t know.

  It wasn’t that they had any evidence on us. It’s because—sure enough—we’d been double-crossed by that dirty-rat ex-detective for the Texas Bankers Association. He’d found out he could get even more money for his retirement if he played both ends agin the middle.

  “Aw shit!” Jess said. I think that news had shook him outa his drunk. “You’re telling me that now?”

  “Now’s when you need to know it.”

  “Goddammit, old man! You never give nobody the full story. I can’t believe I was ever lame-brained enough to hook up with you, Willis. Sometimes I think the only thing I got under this hat here is hair, and that ain’t what it used to be neither.”

  Wouldn’t you know it, after all that trouble to get Jess back, when I finally got all three boys together for the meet in my hotel room, to give ’em the particulars about the big job that was gonna make us millionaires, ever’ one of ’em balked.

  “We ain’t never hit a train that wasn’t no bust, Willis. How you know the money’s gonna be there this time?” That was Dock.

  “Millions? You never did say it was millions! Nobody’s gonna give up all that money without one son-of-a-bitch battle!” That was Jess.

  The biggest trouble was with Joe. He’d been reading too many of them old Wild West story books.

  “You got a holdup that amounts to a whole lot of money,” Joe said, “something always goes wrong. And did’ya know that if they hang you, they gotta
weigh you first to figure out how long the rope’s gotta be? They figured it wrong with old Black Jack Ketchum, yeah, when they got him for that train job out in Twin Mountain, New Mexico. His head popped plumb off his body.”

  “Hey! I weigh the most of any of us,” Dock said. “I get the shortest rope, or the longest rope?”

  “Shortest,” Joe said. “If they use a rope. They got them electrocutions, now, some places. Willis, you know if they use ropes or electric chairs in Illinois?”

  “Yeah, electric chairs!” Jess cut in before I could talk. “I hear they strap you up and they flip on a switch, and wham! Fried!”

  “And they say if you got a bald spot on your head, that when they jolt you, a big old puff of smoke comes off.” That was Joe again.

  “Hey, Jess!” That was Dock. “With that patch of yours, that means you’re gonna smoke when you fry.”

  “Shut up!” Jess was hot.

  “Oh, what’re you crazy boys so boogered over?” I said. “Hell, I could go out and rob this thing with three fifteen-year-old boys.”

  Then I rolled over and went to sleep.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Two weeks before the job, there come a surprise.

  I’d quit trying to call Louise at her folks’ house, but I’d been sending her letters. With my return address marked on ’em, a downtown post office box in Chicago. I’d sent ten of ’em. And all ten’d come back. The first nine was still glued, just like I’d glued ’em. But the last one looked like it’d been steamed open and glued shut.

  Then come a telephone call about eleven at night.

  Most times when I got a phone call that late, it was a man’s voice on the other end. Most times, it was a croaky voice, or a snarly voice, or a sour voice. But this voice was soft. Soft and kinda shaky. It said it wanted me to come up to New London the next Saturday and meet up at a place called Rainey’s Dairy Farm. It was about a mile outside of the town.

  “You coming back to me, Lou?” I said into the phone.

  “I want to see you, Willis.” That’s all she said back.

  I got there early. It was a moonshiny night, and I seen a whole herd of dairy cows bedded down. I could hear ’em a-lowing. I don’t know what it is about me and cows, but something about looking at cows in a pasture always made me feel good. And all that lowing made me feel like, somehow, ever’thing was gonna be all right. Only my stomach was balled up in a knot. And that knot got tighter and harder when I seen headlights, bouncing up and down.

  When she got outa the car and started to walk towards me, the moon was throwing a milky light on the top of her head. There wasn’t nothing I wanted more’n to run up to her and throw my arms around her and kiss her. I’d been seeing her in my mind for months, ever since that mess in Toronto. And that whole way driving from Chicago to New London, I’d been seeing her in my head. I’d been thinking how she was gonna look, how she was gonna feel, how I was gonna wrap her all up in my arms.

  Only now that the time come, it was like too much water’d gone under the bridge to make out like ever’thing was okay.

  She stopped when she was about five feet away. She stood there and didn’t say nothing.

  “God, you’re looking good, Louise. You don’t know how much I been missing you.”

  She still didn’t say nothing.

  “How’d you get my number, honey?”

  Nothing.

  “Lou, say something! You was the one that called me!”

  She looked down and snapped open the handbag she was holding. She reached inside it and pulled out something that was wrapped in brown paper. She took the paper off. The paper crackled.

  “I think this is yours, Willis.”

  The .45 looked big and shiny under that old moon.

  “You gonna use that on me, Lou?”

  “If they’d found this on me when I crossed the border, Willis, I could have been arrested.”

  “I know that, honey. That whole thing was worrying me sick. How’d you get it across?”

  “I did what most women do when they go into their nightbags and find a loaded pistol.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I hid it under my douche bag.”

  That done it. I walked over to her and took the .45 outa her hand and laid it down careful and I throwed my arms tight around her and kissed her all over the top of that little head. Her body felt like a tight, little bundle, and that tight, little bundle was trembly, and I could feel the wet on my arms.

  “I’m sorry, Lou. You don’t know how sorry I am.”

  She pulled her head out from my arms. She looked up at me. I seen the moon in both of her eyes, two little white balls, and it looked like there was about a half dozen other things in there too—some sad, some scared, some mad, some tired, some a-wondering … And what else? I wasn’t sure.

  I cupped her chin in my hand. “None of ’em died up there, honey. You heard that, didn’t you? Not-a one.”

  “That was luck, Willis. That’s all that was.”

  “Joe says it was the Good Lord that had His arm around our necks.”

  “I doubt that, Willis.”

  “Look, Lou. That whole thing in Toronto, I just got reckless. Same old story. I ain’t a bad man, you know that. I just wanted something bad. I wanted it so bad I didn’t think it all through. I just gotta learn how to rein that old horse in that wants to get there, that wants to get there right now.”

  “That’s what you’ve learned?”

  “What I learned is, I ain’t got much of a life if you ain’t in it, Louise. You coming back to me, ain’t you? I hope that’s why I’m here.”

  She didn’t say nothing right off. Then she looked away.

  I pulled her chin back, gentle-like, so she was looking at me again. “I want you back, Lou. You coming back to me?”

  Now there was tears spilling outa her eyes, and them two moons was sliding all over. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve decided there aren’t any ‘whys’ to love, Willis. It just is. It just is, and that’s it. But there’s also lines a person can cross, and lines a person can’t cross.”

  “No more crossing, honey.”

  “You promise me that?”

  “Look, Lou …” My mouth was dry. “I only got one more job left. I ain’t gonna give you the details, but it’s a diff’rent thing. It’s at night, no shooting. It’s more a nerve deal. I been studying this thing for months to make sure I get it right. And it’s gonna be the last one. The last job. That’ll be it.”

  She didn’t say nothing. I seen her jaw tighten up.

  “I gotta do it, Lou. I can’t back out now, that’d be worse. But I got something to show you I ain’t blowing bubbles this time, that things ’r gonna be diff’rent after this.”

  I reached down and picked up a brown package I had with me. “Take this home. Count it out where nobody can see you. Then rent you a safe deposit box. I want you to know I’m serious, Lou. Think of this as a down payment on a new life—a house, a oil lease, whatever you want.”

  “How much is it?”

  “$20,000.”

  “Is there any possibility I’ll need this to bury you, Willis?”

  “You ain’t gonna be burying nothing but the hatchet, honey.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  We knowed all the numbers and the names and the places and the times.

  We knowed ’em all by heart.

  The train was the No. 57, Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. It was due to leave Union Station at 9:10 p.m. It was a short train, only ten cars: two express and eight mail coaches. Like a weasel without a tail. But being short helped make it fast. Hell, it was the second fastest train in the country. Blowed down them tracks at sixty miles a hour.

  The car we was gonna hit was the second one behind the engine. That was the one that carried all the registered mail. But it was gonna be the toughest one to crack. There’d be seventeen postal clerks inside it. And a boxful of pistols right in there with ’em. ’Course the pistols was only there “jus
t in case.” Nobody’d ever tried to rob that train before.

  Who in the hell’d have guts enough to try to hold up a train with seventeen armed clerks? In the middle of the night?

  Going outa Chicago, the clerks inside that car would be busy sorting mail and yapping to each other. All around ’em would be seventy big leather bags, and most of them bags’d be filled with special delivery mail, registered mail, greenbacks in diff’rent denominations, stocks and bonds. A few of ’em would be filled with jewelry heading to shopkeepers—gold pocketwatches and rings and loose diamonds and such like.

  We knowed all this from our inside man.

  At 7:30 on the night of June 12, 1924, our inside man was at home having dinner and drinking gin martinis with his wife and three friends.

  At 7:30 on the night of June 12, 1924, I was asleep. I’d took a nap.

  Jess had to wake me up.

  The other boys had already left for where they needed to go, so me and Jess hit over to the railroad yards.

  Nobody looking at the two of us woulda ever thought we was robbers getting ready to hold up that No. 57. We looked exactly like the other railroad workers wandering around that station. We was wearing dirty blue coveralls, and brown caps with visors, and big heavy work boots.

  We kept on walking ’til we come to the blinds, right between the coal tender and that first express car. Five or six dirty hobos was standing on the little platform, waiting for the train to take off.

  “C’mon, you bums, beat it! We’re the laws!” I kicked one of ’em in the shin with my work boot and it was like I’d throwed a flashlight on a bunch of cockroaches. They all went a-hopping, in ever’ direction.

  I looked at Jess and laughed.

  We reached up and grabbed onto one of them metal bars that’s hooked onto the coal tender and we pulled ourselves up onto the blinds, taking the place of them hobos. We leaned ourselves up agin the cold steel of the mail car and waited for the engineer to blast the high-ball.

  I looked at my pocket watch. It said 9:06.

  The high-ball come a coupla minutes later.