'You were never a cowboy,' Roy said. 'I was. I know what it's like.'
And he did. Roy had ridden for several spreads in Colorado and Wyoming before heading out to Nevada to become a badman. He and Big Boy had punched cows together on one of those ranches, which was how they met. Roy didn't talk about himself much, but I'd heard some yarns about those days from Big Boy. It seemed that Roy had found himself with an almighty powerful crush on the daughter of one of the men he'd worked for, and she felt the same way about him, but that rancher hadn't been about to let his little girl get hitched to some no-account line rider. So Roy took off, and Big Boy, being Big Boy, went with him.
Roy had always had a bit of a reckless streak, and if he'd been able to do anything in the world that he wanted to, he'd have ridden with the Wild Bunch. But by that time, Butch Cassidy and Harry Longbaugh, the one they called the Sundance Kid, had already sailed off to South America with Etta Place, and the Wild Bunch was no more. Roy and Big Boy rustled a few cattle and robbed a store now and then, but they did some honest work too, prospecting and the like. I figure that in the back of his mind, Roy always thought that he'd hit it big somehow and then go back to Wyoming for that girl, but the years went by and he never did. His folks died back in Kansas, taken by a fever, and Roy and Big Boy went to see about Jace, who rode back to Nevada with them, not much more'n a kid, but with the same wild streak that Roy had. They must have gotten it from their old man.
I don't know who first came up with the idea to rob a bank. I've got a feeling it was Jace, after he'd been listening to Roy talk about Butch and Sundance and the old days, the days that Roy had been born just a little too late for. Big Boy told me that Roy pondered over the idea for a long time before they finally did it, and it was during that time that Roy came up with the rules he had for bank robbing, such as how nobody talked but him (so that if there was ever any question about it, the law couldn't prove that any of the rest of us had even been there), and how there'd be no shooting unless we just had to, and how we'd always leave a little money instead of cleaning out the vault entirely. Some might call him good-hearted for thinking up those rules, despite his being a bank robber, but that wasn't really why he came up with them. He just didn't think it was fair to do things any other way.
Aaron and I met up with Roy and Jace and Big Boy about a week apart, as it happened. Each of us had pulled a few small jobs on our way to Nevada, but we weren't what you'd call hardened criminals. We were just young fellas down on our luck, and to tell you the truth, neither of us saw much wrong with lifting a few bucks from a store owner now and then. We were crooks, right enough, and I know now we were in the wrong, but it didn't seem that way at the time. Everybody carries their past around with them, and there's not a blasted thing anybody can do to change it.
Other gents came and went, riding with Roy and the rest of us for a while and then going their own way. Murph Skinner had been with us for a few months when we robbed the bank in Flat Rock, and like I said, the Gunderson brothers were new. The Swedes never said much, but Murph complained all the time, and I was already getting tired of it. So was Roy.
'That's enough,' he said when Murph started in again a few minutes later about leaving some of the cash behind in the vault. 'You know the way we do things, Murph. If you don't like 'em, you're free to leave. I never forced a man to ride with me, and I don't intend to start now.'
'Never said I wanted to leave,' Murph groused. 'I just don't see any point in losin' out on an extra five hundred bucks a man.'
Big Boy shoved a bottle in Murph's hand. 'Here. Have a drink and quit your bitchin', why don't you? I don't know about you, but I feel downright rich.'
So did I. I couldn't remember ever having two thousand dollars in my pocket before. It seemed like just about all the money in the world.
Wanting to keep peace in the gang, Roy came up with an idea that I figured was aimed mainly at making Murph happy. He leaned forward, and I saw him grin in the moonlight. 'Why don't we pay a visit to Harrigan's place?' he suggested.
That brought a grunt from Murph, but when he spoke he sounded happily surprised. 'That's a damned good idea,' he said.
One of the Gundersons asked, 'Vat is this Harrigan's?'
Big Boy laughed and gave him a friendly little slap on the shoulder, which nearly knocked the big Swede off the log where he was sitting. 'You'll see,' Big Boy said, 'and you'll be mighty pleased when you do.'
CHAPTER TWO
We had a regular hideout in the mountains, an old stone house that had probably been built by some rancher fifty or sixty years earlier. Something had happened to make him abandon it, though, and it had been deserted for a long time. The roof had fallen in, but the walls were still standing.
And thick walls they were too, which was what had attracted Roy to the place. The old house was the closest thing to a fort you could find in the mountains, and if ever a posse tracked us there, they'd have a tough time trying to root us out as long as our food and water and cartridges lasted.
Not a one of us thought much about dying in those days, unless it was Roy and Big Boy, because they were older. Jace and Aaron and me, we were young bucks and likely thought we would live forever, if we thought about it at all. But there was always a chance our luck would run out and we'd wind up on the wrong end of a bullet. It was just part of the game.
A couple of days after robbing the bank in Flat Rock, we reached the hideout, riding single file through the twisting, sheer-walled slash in the rock that was the only way in and out of the high mountain valley where the old stone house was located. This was
We didn't stay long, though. Everybody was anxious to get to Harrigan's. We hadn't kept the Gundersons in suspense; it would have been downright cruel not to tell those Swedish boys about all the good things they had to look forward to.
Harrigan was a failed rancher too, but unlike the fella who had built our hideout, he had done something to salvage the situation. He'd turned his place into a whorehouse.
We left the hideout after stashing a little of the loot there, and spent a day riding down out of the mountains into a greener, more gentle land. Harrigan's ranch house sat on top of a small hill surrounded by pines. It was a sprawling, two-story place built of logs. To one side was a big, open-fronted barn where visitors could leave their mounts if they came in on horseback. Sometimes Model A's were parked there too, because there was a road leading south from Harrigan's that connected up with the highway between Elko and Reno, and Harrigan regularly got folks coming up there from the cities too. His whores were young and pretty and his whiskey wasn't watered- down and his poker games were honest, and what more could you ask for in those days?
I'd only been there once, but that had been enough to make me look forward to another visit. I'd gone upstairs with a redhead named Becky, and she'd managed to seem totally innocent while showing me some of the dangedest tricks you ever did see. I wanted to spend some more time with her. I sure hoped she was still working there.
A few cars were parked in the open area in front of the barn when we rode up. A Mex who worked for Harrigan came out of the barn and took our horses, promising to look after them special-like. Being from Texas, I spoke a little of his lingo, and I said, '
Murph leaned his head toward the cars as we walked past them and said to Roy, 'You reckon any of the folks who came up here in those are lookin' for us?'
'Not very likely. It's been almost a week since we were in Flat Rock,' Roy said. 'Besides, Harrigan's got a deal with the law. They don't come up here.'
That was another good thing about the place. Harrigan greased enough palms so that the authorities left him alone. Of course, he could afford to, because he knew his customers weren't the sort to balk at the high prices he charged for everything he had to offer.
He met us at the door, a big man bald as a cue ball. I never saw him when he didn't have a suit and tie on, and he didn't look anything like a rancher. I doubt if the way he looked had anything to do with the fact that he had been a piss-poor cattleman, but maybe it had. All I knew was that he was damned good at running a
