She watched him across the table as he poured another cup of coffee. “You’ll need help with this job.”
He looked over his cup. “What have you got in mind?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“What about your little journey to Juneau, Alaska?”
“I’ll simply postpone it.”
Cromwell considered that for a few moments. “I can’t put you at risk.”
“You haven’t failed yet,” Margaret admonished him. “But, this time, you may need me.”
He was quiet for a while. Then he smiled. “I do believe you’d come along if I ordered you not to.”
She laughed. “Have I ever bowed to your demands yet?”
“Not even when we were children,” he said, remembering. “Though you were two years younger, I could never get the upper hand.”
She patted a napkin against her red lips. “It’s settled, then. We’re in this job together.”
He sighed. “You win. But I hope I won’t be sorry I didn’t put you on the boat to Alaska.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He stared down at the table, as if seeing an abstract image, while he circled his fork on the tablecloth. “Take a train to Colorado tomorrow and then make a connection to Telluride.”
She stared at him. “You want me to leave before you?”
He nodded. “I’ll deviate from my usual routine. Instead of my spending time mingling with the locals and studying the bank operation, you can do it. As a woman, you can conduct a close scrutiny without arousing suspicion.”
“A woman in Telluride?” she mused. “I’ll have to pass myself off as a prostitute.”
“Better yet, claim that you’re an abandoned wife whose husband left her to strike it rich in the mines and disappeared. That way no one will be suspicious of you asking questions and snooping around.”
“But in order to live and eat, I have to find work in a bordello.”
“Have it your own way,” he said, resigning himself as always to his sister’s whimsical ways.
“And you?”
“I’ll come a few days later, after I’ve checked out the shipment and firmed up my plans for the robbery and our getaway.” He paused and gazed at her with a look of brotherly love. “I must be mad for involving you in such a risky venture.”
“I’m mad, too.” She laughed a lilting laugh. “Insane with excitement and a growing rage for adventure.” She threw him the feminine expression of a cat about to leap on a mouse. “Of course, the thought of acting like a prostitute is an attraction I find delicious.”
“Spare me the details.”
Then she suddenly became serious. “What about Isaac Bell?”
He shrugged. “What about him?”
“He seems to show up everywhere, maybe even Telluride.”
“The thought crossed my mind, but, once I verify the currency shipment, I believe that pretty much eliminates him. He’s too busy chasing ghosts all over San Francisco to show up out of the blue in Telluride.”
“I don’t trust him any more than I can throw this house.”
He laughed. “Cheer up, sister dear. This will be a walk in the park just like the other robberies. You’ll see.”
23
THE SPRING DAY WAS COOL AND BRISK AS BELL DEPARTED the train at the town depot and walked to the corner of Aspen Street and Colorado Avenue, where he found a three-story wooden building with a sign out front that read MAMIE TUBBS BOARDINGHOUSE. He carried a battered valise and wore a worn wool coat with a vest and flannel shirt underneath. His pants were heavy cotton with almost the consistency of canvas. Boots that looked as if they had walked five thousand miles protected his feet while a rumpled old Stetson sat solidly on his head. The fabricated image was embellished with a Dublin-style bent pipe wedged between his teeth. Bell also walked with a pronounced limp as if his left leg was stiff.
He stepped into the parlor of the boardinghouse and was greeted by Mamie Tubbs, a jolly woman as round as a huge pear. Her gray hair hung down her back in two braids, and she had a face that looked like a large saucer with a nose.
“Greetings, stranger,” she said in a voice as deep as a man’s. “Looking for a place to stay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bell politely. “I’m new in town.”
“Seven dollars a week including meals, providing you’re at the table when I dish up.”
He reached into a pocket, brought out a few folded bills, and counted out seven dollars. “Here’s your money, in advance. “I don’t have much, but enough to tide me over for a while.”
She had noticed his limp when he came into the parlor. “You lookin’ to work in the mines?”
Bell tapped a hand against his leg. “My mining days ended when I was injured by a badly laid stick of dynamite.”
She eyed him suspiciously, beginning to wonder where any future rent was going to come from. “Where do you expect to find a job?”
“A friend found me work as a cleanup man at the New Sheridan Hotel.”
She smiled. “They couldn’t find you a room in the basement?”
“All beds in the basement were taken by miners,” Bell lied. He had no idea if miners slept in the basement.
The impression of a crippled miner, he knew, would satisfy Mamie Tubbs enough so she wouldn’t gossip around town about her new boarder. She showed him to his room, where he unpacked his valise. He removed a towel wrapped around a Colt Browning model 1905 .45 caliber automatic pistol with a custom twenty-shot magazine and shoulder stock that fit in a slot behind the grip. He slipped the weapon under the bed but kept his trusty Remington derringer inside his Stetson. He retightened the wrapping around his knee so it hindered normal movement.
After a beef stew dinner in Mamie’s dining room, he met the other people who were staying at the boardinghouse. Most were miners, but there were a few store clerks, and a husband and wife who were opening a restaurant. After dinner, Bell strolled up
