A World of Thieves

wheelbarrow. Now one of them started away with a barrowload and the other looked our way and for a minute I wasn’t sure, and then I was.

“Got him,” I said.

“Like he knew we were coming today,” Russell said.

“The guard’s looking over,” I said.

“Wondering who the hell we are,” Russell said. “Let’s get on down there. Off with the hat, girl.”

Belle took off her hat and shook her hair out, and I put the roadster in gear and got us moving again. When we got down there she would turn on the smile. We figured the sight of a woman in our bunch would ease their wariness. Except for that advantage, Russell figured to do it just like he had at Sugarland. He would call out to the guard that we were looking for the Burchard Oil drill site but had obviously taken a wrong turn, and could he give us directions. When the guard got close to the car he’d put a gun in his face and I’d jump out and relieve him of the shotgun and put it to his head and he’d tell the other two guards to come on over to us with their hands up and empty. Russell would cover them from the car and Buck would grab up their weapons while I disabled the truck and Belle got in the rumble seat with Russell. Then Buck and I would hop in the car and I’d wheel it around and barrel us out of there.

The night before, after Russell had gone over the plan with us, Belle had whispered to me in bed, “Will it really be that simple, one-two-three?” I said the plan had worked well for them once before and left it at that. I could feel her wanting to say something else but she didn’t. For a minute I felt like some kind of liar for not admitting my doubts to her—then told myself there was no reason to think the thing wouldn’t go as well this time.

But of course you never know. Even from the crest of the sand hill, parts of the trail between us and the work site had been hidden from view behind other mounds. We were within forty yards of the site when we came around a rise and saw a pair of large rocks that had been placed in the trail to block it. They were too big for the car to clear, and if we tried driving around them we’d get stuck in the sand for sure. And the trail was too narrow to turn the car around on it.

“Fuck a duck,” Russell said. “The inside guy didn’t say anything about this.” His right hand was down out of sight and I knew he had the revolver in it.

The near guard came out to the trail and started toward us, the butt of his shotgun braced on his hip. The other guard was coming at a brisk stride from the far side of the site. Prisoners were looking our way even as they went on wielding their tools.

“What do we do?” Belle said.

Buck decided it. He grabbed a big rock and scurried up behind the guard, his arm cocked to brain him. The guy must’ve heard him coming—he spun around and halfway ducked and took the blow on the shoulder. They started grappling for the shotgun.

“Help him out!” Russell shouted, bringing up the long-barreled .38 and bracing his shooting arm on the front seat. I jumped out and ran toward them, slipping the .380 out of my pants.

The other guard was coming on the run. I heard men shouting in the distance and the pop…pop…pop…pop of Russell’s .38 behind me and the running guard went down and his hat rolled off. He rose to all fours and Russell’s revolver popped twice more and the guard’s head jerked and he fell over.

I was almost to them when Buck wrested the shotgun from the guard and hooked him on the side of the head with the stock, staggering him backward. Belle’s pistol popped behind me and the guard grabbed at his side. Then Buck shot him from a span of six feet and he lofted rearward, arms and legs flung wide and portions of his midsection spraying red.

Buck whirled toward me and hollered, “Let’s go get a beer, kid!” He was grinning like a lunatic and I was astonished to hear myself laugh.

Belle was between us and the car, the .38 up and ready. We ran toward her and Buck yelled, “Move that pretty ass!”

She turned and ran, with me on her heels and Buck right behind me.

Then a rifleshot sounded—and Russell hollered, “Nooo!”

I turned and saw Buck sprawled facedown…the back of his head bright red…the ground before him smeared with what must’ve been his brains.

The rifle cracked again and Belle cried out.

She was sitting, clutching her bloody arm, her pistol in the dirt.

“Buck!” Russell shouted. “Get Buck, goddammit!”

I stuck the .380 in my pants and ran to her and scooped her up and lumbered to the car, hearing another rifleshot and the tick of a sudden hole in the windshield.

“Damn you, God damn you!” Russell hollered. He was trying to get out of the rumble seat, hampered by his bad leg. I heaved Belle into the car and slammed the door and ran around to the driver’s side, shouting for Russell to get down—just as the rifle fired again and he jerked and grunted and fell back in the seat.

I rammed the gearshift into reverse and twisted around to see behind me and floored the accelerator. The roadster went tearing backward over the narrow trail, fishtailing and raising a plume of rock dust, the motor whining so high I couldn’t hear anything else. I drove in reverse all the way back to the highway and then wheeled out onto it backward and barely missed getting clobbered by an oil carrier that swerved past with a long angry blare of its horn.

I ground the gears with every shift and sped about a mile down the highway and then pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped.

The sun was low and deeply orange and the dust we’d raised was red. I was pouring sweat. My tongue kept sticking to the roof of my mouth.

Belle was hunkered against the door, holding to her wound, her eyes huge on me. Russell groaned. I hadn’t known if he was dead or alive. I put the gearshift in neutral and squirmed around up on my knees to see how he was doing.

He was slumped down low and looking at me and holding the .38 at his hip, cocked and pointed at my face. The right side of his shirt was sopped with blood.

“You left him,” he said. His voice was wet.

“He was dead,” I said.

“As dead as last time? He’s your partner, Sonny, you bastard! He’s your blood!”

“Point that somewhere else, man.”

Belle sat up and said, “He is dead, I saw him. His head was all—”

“Nobody’s asking you, you—”

In the instant he shifted his eyes to her I grabbed his gun and pushed it away, the hammer snapping on an empty chamber, and arched up and drilled him with a straight right that took his eyes out of focus. Then gave him another shot, right under the ear, and this one put his lights out.

Another oil truck coming. I opened a road map and spread it over his chest to hide the blood and pulled his hatbrim over his eyes, then slid down behind the wheel and put his pistol under the seat. The truck went clattering by.

I got out the flask and took a pull, then offered it to Belle, but she shook her head. “How bad are you?” I said.

“Not too, I don’t think. It hurts.” She cut a look toward the rumble seat. “Jesus, Sonny. Is he gone crazy?”

“Let’s see,” I said, leaning for a better look at her wound.

She took her hand away. The bullet had cut through the flesh of her inner arm just above the elbow. She was lucky it hadn’t hit bone.

“Just hold tight to it,” I said, and then knelt up on the seat again to tend to Russell. I ripped his shirt open to examine the wound and was relieved to see the blood was oozing, not pumping. I got his coat off the rumble seat floor and formed it into a thick pad, packed it against the wound and tied it firmly in place with his shirttails. His jaw was swelling up bad. I’d probably busted it.