Ever since he was a kid, Barrett had never been able to contain his own excitement. Even now that he was in his early twenties, he seemed more like the boy who was jumping out of his skin to reveal his plot to sneak a peek into a whorehouse with a broken window without getting caught. “There’s a bank less than two miles from here…”
“Oh no,” Nick said. “Hell no!”
“What? Why? You didn’t even hear what I’ve got to say!”
“I heard ‘bank,’ and that’s enough. We’re stuck out here because of that posse that tore after us after that bullshit in Leadville. We ain’t heard from anyone else in the gang since then, and we ain’t set to meet up with no one for another couple weeks.”
Barrett listened to all of this without losing the grin on his face. He simply nodded, waited for Nick to run out of steam and then said, “It’ll only take two of us to rob this bank.”
Rubbing his ears with the palms of his hands, Nick winced at the pain that caused and then leaned forward to stare even harder at his friend. “What?”
“You heard me. I figured out a way for the two of us to rob this bank.”
“You must be shit out of your mind.”
The wind kicked up again and roared so hard that it rattled the entire shack around both of the young men huddled inside. Barrett started to speak, but was cut short as the cold seized up his lungs like a fist clamping around his chest. As the wind kept howling, neither of the two could move. When it finally let up, both young men slumped forward and vigorously rubbed their hands together.
“I’d like to see you swear around your pappy like that,” Barrett said as he blew into his cupped hands.
“My pa ain’t nothing but a goddamn gravedigger and he won’t never be anything more than that. I already got more people who know my name than…them that…know his.”
“All right, you’d better stop trying to talk. I think your tongue’s frozen. Just sit there and hear me out.” Even though Nick opened his mouth to speak, Barrett kept saying his piece before Nick could get rolling. “This bank I saw is a little place on the edge of Willhemene Pass. With the cold and all, there ain’t been more than two or three folks working inside at any given time.”
Suddenly, Nick found the strength required to lift himself and all those coats up off the floor. Once on his feet, he hunched over like a cobra eyeing an unsuspecting mouse. “You been into town enough times to gather all of that?”
“Yes,” Barrett said. “I thought you would have figured that out since I’ve been gone so much.”
“You said you was out getting wood and scouting for the law.”
“I brought back wood and I’ve done plenty of scouting. Haven’t you been listening?”
“You know what I been doing? I’ve been freezing my balls off out here in this goddamn shack while you’ve been warming yourself in a fire somewhere in town, which is where I wanted to be!”
There were only a few years separating Barrett and Nick, but the calmness in Barrett’s eyes made that gap seem a whole lot wider. “You would’ve spent our money,” Barrett said. As soon as those words were out, Barrett realized they’d been poorly chosen. He quickly added, “Besides, your face is the one the law’s getting to know. I can still get around fairly well without being noticed.”
Nick’s eye twitched as he struggled to keep himself from lunging at Barrett’s throat. As he thought about that first reward notice he’d seen with his likeness drawn on it, Nick felt his anger subside. “All right, then. But I still want to get into town to make up for it.”
“I can show you the bank,” Barrett said. “We should be able to live in fancy hotels for a while after knocking that one over.” He paused and backed up a bit before adding, “I still need your money.”
Nick actually laughed this time. “I ain’t holding out on any more than what I already told you about. That means we’re still a long ways from that hundred or two you said you needed. What the hell do you need that much for anyway?”
“The two of us can rob that bank, but only if we get one of the local law dogs on our side. I figure we’d need a pretty good bribe to get that done.”
“You want me to hand over that much money to some fucking lawman? You must be crazy. How do you know one of these lawmen is even crooked?”
Barrett stomped his feet and rubbed his hands together as another gust of wind ripped through the shack. “There ain’t many lawmen out there who can’t be bought off. We may find one cheaper, but I just want to be prepared in case we need to kick in a little extra. Believe me, we’ll make up our losses.”
Nick cracked his knuckles and worked out some of the knots that had been frozen into his neck. “You got any prospects as far as these lawmen are concerned?”
“I found the one that looks to be the weakest link in the chain, and the one that’s the strongest.”
“Take me to both of them.”
“Why?” Barrett asked.
“Because I’m going to save us a hundred dollars or so. Now, tell me the rest of this plan you thought up.”
The deputy was the youngest one in town. He walked with his head hanging low and his arms tight against his body as if he was afraid of getting punched in the ribs at any moment. The hat and coat he wore were a bit too big for him. Every time a stiff breeze came along, it nearly plucked the hat from his head or knocked him over.
Main Street consisted of two short rows of storefronts facing each other and very few people walking between them. Only a few carriages traveled the street throughout the day, leaving the sparse population of Willhemene Pass to huddle inside their homes or in one of the town’s two saloons to keep warm.
A wind kicked up and howled between the buildings on either side of the street, filling the deputy’s ears with a cold roar. That roar was more than loud enough to cover the sounds of footsteps rushing up behind him. When his hat was knocked off his head, the deputy assumed it was from the wind. If he’d bothered turning around, he would have seen Barrett standing there with his arm still outstretched.
“Damn,” the deputy whispered as he rushed forward to chase his hat. He bent to pick it up as the wind died down. Suddenly, he could hear the second set of footsteps rushing toward him from the side.
Nick placed a hand flat upon the lawman’s back to keep him from standing up. “Evening, Marshal,” he said with a grin. The deputy was holding a rifle in his hand, but Nick kicked it down and stepped on the barrel to hold it against the ground.
To his credit, the deputy kept his bony fingers wrapped around the rifle even after the gun was trapped under Nick’s boot. Once Nick put a bit more of his weight down though, the crushing pain shooting through the deputy’s half-frozen fingers was too much to bear.
Nick shoved the deputy toward Barrett with one hand and scooped up the rifle with the other. “It’s all right,” he said as he glanced around to make sure they weren’t being watched. “You’re not the first one to fall for that trick. Now, how about you come along with us so we can have a little talk?”
The deputy flinched and looked over at Barrett when he realized what had happened. Although Barrett didn’t have his own gun drawn, he had his hand upon his holster to make it clear that he could pull his weapon at any time.
“I’d suggest you do what he tells you,” Barrett said through the bandanna wrapped around the lower portion of his face. “Or this could get real ugly.”
Nick walked with an easy stride and dropped his arm around the deputy’s shoulders as if they were just three friends headed out to get a drink. He kept the rifle in his grasp and pointed in the deputy’s direction. “This won’t take long, and you might just be glad you bumped into us.”
They led the deputy away from the center of town and around a corner. It wasn’t a very long walk before they found themselves in front of a darkened store, with a mountain range behind them. The sun had set some time ago, and the moonlight reflected off the snow.
Squinting into the pale shadows, Nick couldn’t see anot
her living thing for miles in that direction. The street was more than quiet enough to suit his purposes, so Nick grabbed the deputy by the throat with his left hand and used his right to jam the rifle’s barrel into the lawman’s gut.
The deputy looked even younger up close than he did from afar. His skin was pale and his cheeks had the sunken appearance of someone who had been deathly ill. With so much fear showing on his face, his eyes looked wider than the sockets that held them. “Who…who are you?”
“I’m the son of a bitch that’s robbing your bank tomorrow,” Nick snarled. “And if you know what’s good for you, Marshal, you’ll steer clear of it so I can do my business.”
“I’m not a marshal. I’m just a—”
“I can see the deputy badge on your coat, you loco son of a bitch. I ain’t blind. I’m just giving you credit for being smarter than another shit-for-brains deputy. No matter what badge you got on, you should be able to influence your fellow law dogs.”
“The sheriff…he’s the one who…” The deputy’s voice caught in the back of his pinched throat as the rifle barrel was driven even further into his stomach.
Nick leaned forward to glare directly into the deputy’s eyes, making certain most of his weight was behind the rifle. “Make up a reason for the law to be somewhere else around noon tomorrow. Find something to keep them busy. Think of something, or everyone inside that bank will be killed. You understand me?”
The deputy nodded weakly at first, but his head found a momentum of its own and was soon twitching up and down.
“Good,” Nick said. “Now, do I even have to tell you to keep quiet about who gave you this idea when you see your law dog friends?”
The deputy shook his head wildly.
“Didn’t think so.” Nick started to turn away, but then shifted back around to fix his glare once more upon the deputy. His lips curled into a predator’s snarl as his finger began to tighten around the rifle’s trigger. “You sure I can count on you?”
“Yes, yes,” the deputy wheezed. “Please. God, don’t kill me.”
Nick could smell the young lawman’s fear and he pulled it all the way down to the bottom of his lungs as if he were savoring a beautiful woman’s perfume. Once he’d had his fill, he nodded and backed away. “All right, then. Get the fuck out of my sight.”
Those words might as well have been a fire lit under the deputy’s backside, since they sent him scampering away from Barrett and Nick so quickly that he almost lost his footing several times. Even after the deputy had rounded the corner, his desperate steps could still be heard scraping against the frozen soil.
Nick was laughing as Barrett pulled the bandanna down from his face.
“Are you sure about this, Nick?” Barrett asked.
“Sure, I’m sure. Now, where’s this weak link you were talking about?”
“In the saloon right down the street.”
“Then let’s get to him before that yellow little runt does. You’d better be the runt’s shadow for a while, just to make sure.”
Barrett took off in the direction the deputy had gone.
Nick had to keep himself from whistling as he stepped back onto Main Street to look for the saloon Barrett had mentioned. The town was laid out just as Barrett had described on their way in from their shack. The saloon was right where it should be, marked with the picture of the wolf’s paw Barrett had described.
Shoving open the door, Nick stepped in and spotted Barrett’s lawman. The man was about Nick’s size and possibly a few years older. He kept himself upright by putting both elbows upon the edge of the bar and wore his badge pinned crookedly to his left collar.
“It’s damn cold out there!” Nick said as he stomped into the saloon.
“It’s always cold, mister,” the bartender replied. “How about something to thaw the blood in yer veins?”
Nick stood beside the haggard man wearing the badge. “You cold, too?” he asked.
The man was barely sober enough to look up and spot the person beside him. “I ain’t…cold enough to piss…in the…” were the only slurred words he could pronounce clearly.
Nick laughed and slapped the man on the back as if the babble actually meant something to him. He then slapped twenty dollars upon the bar. “This is for my drink as well as my friend’s here,” Nick said to the bartender. “Keep ’em coming!”
SIX
The bank was situated near the edge of town. It looked like something closer to a church or schoolhouse, since the building was small, square and had a tall, pointed roof. The two masked men approached it, one anxiously pulling the other along. The more eager of the two kicked open the bank’s front door with his gun already in hand.
It was six minutes past noon.
“Hands where I can see ’em!” the first man shouted as he waved his gun at the three customers standing in front of the two teller windows. “You assholes behind that cage get all the money you can grab and stuff it into a sack!”
There was one young woman behind the cage separating the public and private halves of the bank. She already had her hands in the air and was trembling almost too much to hold them up. The other person behind the cage was a man in his fifties who wore a pair of round spectacles. He’d been sitting at a rolltop desk when the masked men entered and now stood up.
“You!” the first masked man snapped as he aimed directly at the old man behind the cage. “Open the safe and empty it into a sack.”
“There is no safe,” the man replied.
The first masked man shoved forward past a customer to stick his arm between two of the cage’s bars. “Don’t feed me any bullshit unless you want to die, old man!” he said as he thumbed back the hammer of his pistol.
“We’ve got cash in the drawers, but—”
The older man was cut short as the gun in the masked man’s hand barked and sent a bullet through the female teller’s side. Yelping and falling to the floor, the woman grabbed the fresh wound. Despite the pain, the bullet had caught more of her dress than it had of her skin.
“Don’t try my patience, old man,” the first masked man said.
The older man didn’t have anything else left to say. Instead, he nodded and walked behind his desk to reveal a small safe hidden beneath a red sheet and a vase of flowers.
Until now, the second masked man hadn’t done anything but stand in the doorway. When he started fidgeting, the first gunman walked over to him and pulled him inside.
“My partner’s getting nervous,” the first masked man said.
Just then, one of the customers spoke up. “Maybe that’s because the law’s outside,” a young man with smooth features said as he pointed toward the window.
The first masked man looked out the window and nodded. “So they are. All three of them.” Looking toward the cage, he asked, “How much you got for me?”
“The safe’s not open yet,” the old man replied.
The teller was already on her feet. She held up a single bag and whimpered, “This is all I could get.”
“Toss it over.”
She did as she was told and then leaned against her counter.
After scooping up the bag, the first gunman walked to the front door and patted his partner roughly upon the back. “What do you say? Feel like shooting your way out of here?”
The second gunman started to say something, but was cut off as the first one shoved him toward the steps leading to the street.
“Kiss my ass, law dogs!” the first masked man said as he fired a few shots at the approaching lawmen.
The sheriff was a barrel-chested man in his forties with a thick mustache drooping over his mouth. He fired the shotgun in his hand, missing the first masked man and startling the second. As the second masked man started to raise his arm, another blast caught him in the chest and dropped him straight to the ground.
The first masked man was already on his horse, thundering away from the bank. He rode down Main Street, allowing the lawmen to come after him.
The thunder of hooves beating against the ground and shots blasting through the air made it seem as if a storm had rolled in from the mountains to stir up some hell in Willhemene Pass. That storm rolled out of the town, leaving a body in the street and several confused locals standing with their mouths agape.
Inside the bank, the manager scrambled to the teller’s side. “Are you all right?” he asked.
The woman pulled in a few breaths, pressed her hand to her side, but eventually nodded. “It’s not so bad. At least, I don’t think it is.”
“We’ll get you to Doc Whistler.” Craning his neck to get a look past the teller through the bars to the front section of the bank, the manager shouted, “Can anyone hear me?”
Plenty of noise was coming from outside. One voice answered the manager’s question, though. It belonged to the only customer who’d spoken to the masked men before they’d left.
The customer’s steps echoed through the bank as his boots scraped against the floor. “Are you all right, ma’am?” the customer asked, peeking through the teller’s window.
“It looks like a flesh wound, but I’m no doctor,” the manager replied. “Are those robbers gone?”
The customer walked back to the door, looked outside and then shut it behind him. The sound of the lock being turned rattled through the small one-room building.
“The law rode off to chase after that robber. Looks like they got one of them before they left, though,” Barrett said in the same, calm voice he’d used to inform Nick about the sheriff and his men. He walked over to the cage and looked at the area behind it with mild interest. When he spotted the safe, he took a gun from under his coat and eased it between the bars.
The manager was in the process of helping the woman to the back door when he spotted Barrett pointing the gun at him. “What…what the hell is this?”
“Weren’t you listening before?” Barrett asked. “It’s a robbery. Now that we’ve got this place to ourselves, why don’t you finish emptying that safe?”
The confusion written across the manager’s face might have been funny under any other circumstances. In fact, Barrett knew that Nick would have been laughing if he was there to see it.
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