“Strangers, ain’t you? Be five dollars for the care.”
“Kinda high. That your strangers price?” B.W. said.
“Take it or leave it. I’m the only livery stable in town. Pay in advance.”
“Check their shoes, too, we don’t want one of ‘em to throw one.”
“I’ll do it. Cost another dollar for the three.”
B.W. shook his head and counted out the money. “That shotgun on my horse disappears, you’ll pay for it. Where can we get some goods?”
“It’ll be there. There’s a store down the street to your left,” he said. “You can get breakfast at the Emporium Saloon next door if you have a mind to.”
They pulled the Henrys out of their saddle boots and looked up and down the street, saw a saloon with an Emporium sign and a mercantile store next to it.
“My gut tells me there’s trouble here,” B.W. said.
“Don’t know ‘bout your gut but the less contact we have here the better off we are,” Rance said.
“Best we pick up what we need at the store and get back to the horses.”
“Think so too,” B.W. said.
They cradled the Henrys and headed to the store. When they walked in a mousy-looking little man with an apron was putting money in his register. He stopped and looked at them.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, glancing down behind the counter at a sawed-off shotgun.
“Just need a few things,” Rance said. “And the boy wants some peppermint sticks.”
”I’ll get it for you and run a tally. Tell me your list.”
“Okay,” Rance said. “You got some oats?”
“Yep, fifty pound sacks in the back.”
“Don’t need that much,” Rance said. “If you could put about twenty pounds in a gunny sack for us that would be good. Need some canned meats and beans, some beef jerky, coffee…”
“And peppermint sticks,” Tommy said.
“You got ammo?” B.W. said.
“What you need?”
“Six boxes for the Henrys. Three boxes each for the .44 and .45 Colts. Two for a twelve-gauge.”
“That’s a lot of ammunition. Plan on startin’ another war?” the man said and smiled.
“Might be,” B.W. said with a frown and the clerk’s smile disappeared faster than it came. He gathered the rest of the supplies and laid them on the counter.
Tommy spotted the peppermint sticks in a glass jar and took the top off and grabbed a handful and laid them on the counter beside the supplies. “You got any licorice?”
“We do.”
“I’ll take some of that, too,” Tommy said.
The clerk picked up several sticks of licorice from a jar and showed them to Tommy.
“That enough?”
“Yes sir,” Tommy said.
“Anything else?”
“That’s it,” Rance said. “How much we owe you?”
“Let me get your oats and I’ll add it up.” He came back with the oats and started ringing up the goods on his register. “Looks like eight-fifty.”
B.W. pulled a ten dollar gold piece out of his pocket and handed it to the clerk.
“Ain’t seen one of those for a while.” He put the gold piece in the register, handed B.W. his change and closed the register. He put everything in sacks and they picked up the supplies and headed for the door.
Three men stepped into the doorway with tin stars on their shirts, pointing rifles at them with six-shooters hanging on their hips. The man in the middle wore a sheriff’s badge and the other two men deputy badges. They were all young, the sheriff the oldest. The one on his left was stocky, freckled-face with red hair. The one on the right was shorter, heavier, wearing a straw hat and knee-high boots, his pants stuffed in his boots. Probably more sod buster than deputy. The sheriff was the neater and slimmer of the three, with a white Stetson on his head, brown eyes and a neatly-trimmed black mustache.
“Looks like they knew we were coming,” Rance said.
“Yeah, got us cold,” B.W. said.
“I’m Sheriff Russell Brim and these men are my deputies, Red and Bobby. You’re under arrest for robbing our bank. Put your weapons on the floor and step away from them.”
Rance, B.W. and Tommy looked at each other. “Did he say bank?” Tommy asked.
“Did you say we robbed a bank?” Rance said.
“Yep, now put them guns on the floor like I told you,” Brim said.
Rance and B.W. sat the goods down then laid the rifles and Colts on the floor beside them.
The store clerk lifted the sawed off shotgun from under the counter, pointing it at them.
“The tomahawk too,” Brim said.
B.W. slid his hand under his tomahawk and looked at Rance.
Rance shook his head no and B.W. laid the tomahawk on the floor.
“Witnesses saw you ride out of town last night on a buckskin and a big black after you blew the bank safe. They couldn’t see you straight up but you got the same profile.”
“Sheriff,” B.W. said. “You got the wrong men. We been ridin’ a train all night. Got into town just a couple hours ago.”
“You’re lyin,’” Brim said. “Red here saw you talkin’ to the smith this mornin’ holdin’ them same horses.”
“We brought the horses in on the train. Not the horses you’re talkin’ about,” Rance said. “We got a receipt.”
“A load of cattle for the army did come in this mornin,’” Red said. Bobby nodded in agreement.
“Let’s see that receipt,” Brim said. “Red, check their saddle bags.”
Red lowered his rifle and walked out the door.
“What’s in those saddle bags is ours,” B.W. said.
“I’ve got to get the receipt out of my pocket,” Rance said. “Don’t anybody get an itchy trigger finger.” He reached in his pocket, took out the receipt and handed it to the sheriff.
Sheriff Brim looked at the receipt. “Where’d you get them horses?”
“Raised mine,” Rance said.
“I picked mine up on the battlefield when his rider was shot off him at Gettysburg,” B.W. said.
Rance looked at B.W. He didn’t know that.
“What about the boy?” Brim asked.
“That’s another story. You said it was two men,” Rance said. He makes three.
Red came back in shaking his head. “Got some money but not enough to be the banks,’”
