“Yeah, I-I guess so,” Harley replied hesitantly.
“Especially since you know that, by rights, it should go to the three railroad passengers who actually brought Cabot in,” Smoke said.
“Yes,” Harley said. Then he made a dismissive motion with his hand. “They are going to wind up with it anyway, soon as they find out it’s being paid.”
“How are they going to find out?” Smoke asked. “Nobody knows about the reward but us, and I’m under no obligation to pay it to the train passengers.”
“Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it? If nobody but us knows, then they won’t get a cent,” Harley said.
“On the other hand, Sheriff Wallace now knows that you know about the reward. And I would think that your keeping it secret about the reward should be worth something to the sheriff. Don’t you?”
Harley smiled broadly and shook his head. “Damn right,” he said.
“We can go back in now,” Smoke said. “I’m satisfied that I’ve seen his horse and his saddle.”
“What do you think?” Sheriff Wallace asked when the two of them returned to the jailhouse.
“Yes, that’s the horse all right. I’ll be able to report that as well, and we can finally close the books on this case. All that is left to be done now is pay out the reward money to the two of you,” Smoke said.
Sheriff Wallace looked over at his deputy, then back at Smoke. “What do you mean pay the reward to the two of us? I’m the one that made the arrest. I thought—that is, when we were talking—I thought you said that I would be getting the reward money.”
“Yes, but that was before I learned that there were some railroad passengers involved. By rights, the reward money should go to them. But that could get very complicated. The best thing to do is keep the news about the reward quiet. And as of right now, only the two of you know about the reward. So the easiest way to keep it quiet is to just pay the two of you off and forget about it. Do you understand?”
Wallace glared at Harley for a moment, then he nodded. “Yes,” he said without enthusiasm. “I understand.”
“I thought you might,” Smoke replied.
Chapter Sixteen
“Ha,” Conklin said. “Look at that! I just pissed that grasshopper offen that branch.”
“Now, why the hell would either one of us want to know what you do when you take a piss?” Dodd asked.
“I just thought it was funny, that’s all,” Conklin said as he rebuttoned his trousers.
“When is the stage coming?” Clark asked.
Emmett Clark had accepted Dodd’s invitation to join his gang and this, a planned stagecoach holdup, would be his first job. He’d wondered about it when Dodd invited him along. Should he join him? He’d considered all of the ramifications.
On the one hand, if he joined and actually participated in the coach robbery, then he would be as guilty as Dodd and Conklin. But it would also give him a position of trust with the two of them, which he could use to bring them both in and collect the reward. If, in fact, that was still his purpose. The truth was, the more he associated with the friends he had made in Desolation, the less appeal the idea of being a bounty hunter held for him.
“It’ll be here soon,” Dodd said.
“How much money is it carryin'?” Conklin asked.
“It will be carrying some of the money that was on the train,” Dodd responded. “You know, the money we didn’t get?”
“So if all the money is on the stage, why didn’t we rob the stage in the first place, instead of tryin’ to hold up the train?”
“The money comes down from Battle Mountain to Austin, where it’s divided up, then put on stages and sent out to other banks all over the county,” Dodd explained. “That means there won’t be as much money on the stage as there would have been on the train.”
“How much will there be?” Clark asked.
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Well you been gettin’ all your information from somewhere,” Conklin said. “I figured you would know.”
“Where do you get your information?” Clark asked.
Dodd stared at Clark for a long moment. “You ain’t been ridin’ with me long enough for me to answer that. ”
“Sorry,” Clark said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just curious, is all.”
“Yeah, well, no need in your being curious, because you don’t need to know.”
“What if you was to get kilt?” Conklin asked. “If that was to happen, we wouldn’t know where to go to get the information so’s we could keep on a’ doin’ this.”
Clark was glad that Conklin was also showing some curiosity about Dodd’s source of information. That would lessen any suspicion that Dodd might have about Clark’s inquiry.
“What difference does that make to me?” Dodd asked. “If I get myself kilt, then I don’t care whether you keep on doin’ this or not. Seems like to me, the best thing you could do is just make sure I don’t get kilt.”
