“How come there ain’t hardly nobody here?”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning, Senor,” the bartender said. “We don’t get busy until afternoon.”
“Whiskey,” Schuler said.
“We have tequila and beer.”
“Tequila.”
“And breakfast,” Odom added. “You serve breakfast in here?”
“
“That’ll do,” Odom said. “We’ll be there in the back.” He pointed to the table that was the most distant from the bar.
When the four men took their seat at the back of the room, Odom put the canvas bag on the table.
“All right,” he said. “If this bag has twenty thousand dollars, that is eight thousand for me, and four thousand for each of you.”
“Senor, how is it that you get twice as much as we get?” Paco asked.
“Because I am twice as smart,” Odom answered, glaring at Paco. “You should be glad I agreed to let you come with us in the first place.”
“Paco, we agreed going into this that Odom would get the most money,” Bates said.
“I did not agree,” Paco said.
“Then I agreed for you,” Bates replied.
Paco glared at Bates for a moment, then looked over at Schuler. “How much money is he getting?”
“He is getting four thousand, same as the rest of us,” Bates replied.
Why should he get as much money as we are getting? He did nothing.
“What did you say?” Bates asked.
“I said he was drunk the whole time. We did not need him to plant explosives on the safe. He did not earn his way.”
“He gets his cut,” Odom said, ending the discussion as he counted out the money, eight thousand dollars for himself, then four thousand each for Bates, Paco, and Schuler.
“Here you go, boys,” he said. “Don’ t spend it all in the same place.” He laughed at his own joke.
Chapter Twelve
The stagecoach depot and corral of horses were on the west end of Purgatory. That was good for Matt, because it meant he could deliver the string of horses without having to ride all the way into town and take a chance on being recognized. However, being seen in town wasn’t as risky as it might appear to be, because his trial had been held within an hour of the shooting. The trial had not taken place in a courthouse, nor even a city building. Instead, the trial was held in a saloon—the Pair O Dice Saloon—and the jury was made up entirely of saloon patrons, most of whom were drunk. That meant that there were very few of the town’s citizens who had actually had the opportunity to see him. He could probably walk the streets without fear of being recognized.
The depot was small and unpainted, except for a sign that read: MARICOPA COACH COMPANY. At the side of the building was a fenced-in corral, and at the rear of the corral, a large barn that was badly in need of painting.
Matt pulled his horse to a halt, dismounted, then tied his mount off before he started tending to the string of eight horses he had brought with him. A man about Matt’s age came out of the barn and started walking across the corral, picking his way carefully between deposits of “horse apples.” He had on an apron and was using it to wipe his hands as he came up to the fence.
“The name is Joe Claibie,” he said. “And you might be?”
“Cavanaugh,” Matt said. “Martin Cavanaugh.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Cavanaugh?”
“Actually, I suppose it’s what I can do for you,” Matt replied. “I’ve brought you this string of replacement horses for the stage line.”
“I thought that might be it,” the affable young man said. “You working for Rittenhouse now, are you?”
“Temporarily,” Matt answered.
“Temporarily? What do you mean, temporarily?”
“I mean I’m not working for Mr. Rittenhouse full time. He just hired me to deliver this string for him.”
“Well, you must’ve done a pretty good job at it,” Claibie said. “I see you got them all here in one piece.” He laughed at his joke. “You’ve already been paid, right? I mean, we don’t owe you anything?”
“Not a thing,” Matt said.
“Good.” The hostler smiled. “You’re a good man, Mr. Cavanaugh. You’d be surprised at the number of people who would try and get paid twice.”
“I imagine there are a few like that,” Matt said. He ran his hand across the bare back of the horse he had been riding. “This horse belongs to you as well.”
“It does?” Claibie replied in surprise.
