said.
“Most of the cash from the bank was paper money the Yankees just brought in. Southern money ain’t really worth a shit right now,” Brim said. “Maybe we do have the wrong men. Be awful stupid for you to come back if it was. Hell of a thing, though, same kind of horses and all. Guess we’ll have to form a posse, see if the bank wants to put up a reward.”
“Then we can go?” Rance asked.
“Yeah, pick up your gear and be on your way,” Brim said. They lowered the rifles, turned and walked out of the store. The clerk let the hammers down on his shotgun and put it back under the counter. ”Sorry boys, the war has brought a lot of bad people our way.”
Rance and B.W. picked up their things, left the store, stopped at the emporium, picked up a batch of biscuits and walked back to the livery stable.
“Can you believe that?” Rance said, looking at B.W.
“Nope.”
“Me neither,” Tommy said. “They don’t know ‘bout us.”
They paid the blacksmith and divided the biscuits, B.W. getting two more than Rance and Tommy.
They gathered their horses and gear and rode out easy-like, Tommy chewing on a peppermint stick.
“You know,” B.W. said, “it just occurred to me. The bank wasn’t the only one robbed. I think that deputy stole two ten-dollar gold pieces. Noticed they was gone when I paid the smith.”
“You sure?” Rance said.
“Yeah, that sonofabitch stole our money.”
“Well we ain’t goin’ back,” Rance said. “May not get out of there again. We were lucky the first time. Let him keep it.”
“Wonder where those bank robbers went,” B.W. said.
“No way,” Rance said. “If you’re thinkin’ ‘bout robbin’ the robbers you can forget it. We’re goin’ to Texas.”
“Bet we could take ‘em.”
Rance looked away and kept riding.
15
They put a ride on and got several miles away as fast as they could before they slowed down to let their horses lumber along across a green meadow, snipping the moist grass as they moved along.
“Is this pretty country or what,” B.W. said, his horse’s reins wrapped around the saddle horn taking a drink of whiskey and a bite of a biscuit.
“Think we can relax a little now?” Tommy asked.
“That train ride left Marshal Preston a long way behind, if he’s still comin’ that is,” B.W. said.
“Unless he caught a train, too,” Rance said. “You thought out how we’re goin’ about Tommy’s problem when we get to Texas?”
“If you mean the law, no,” B.W. said. “Have to get a license to practice there so it may not matter anyway. May have to figure something else out.”
“I don’t care what you do,” Tommy said.
“Probably just as well. He’s not goin’ to share his fortune with a kid he hasn’t seen since he was a baby, regardless of what a court says. May have to kill the sonofabitch,” B.W. said.
“No-never-mind to me,” Tommy said.
“You never intended to go to court with this did you?” Rance said. “We should have had this talk before we started.”
“Meaning what?” B.W. said.
“Meaning we ain’t no better than he is if we don’t do this right. We’re nothin’ but outlaws.”
“Guess you could say that. You sound like you’re thinkin’ about what you’re goin’ to get out of it.”
“Didn’t come for the money,” Rance said. “Trying to help the boy, that’s all.”
The cracking sound of a rifle shot echoed across the meadow and clipped B.W.’s whiskey bottle, breaking it into a thousand pieces. They saw gun smoke rush out of a pine grove tree line.
“Run!” Rance said as he spurred Buck and he was at a full gallop in two strides with B.W. and Tommy close behind.
They rode into a small group of cottonwoods along a creek bank, dismounted, grabbed the Henrys from the saddle boots and hit the ground.
“What’a we do?” Tommy said.
“Wait and see who’s out there,” B.W. said.
A bullet slammed into a cottonwood just above B.W.’s head and two riders rode out of a thicket like the devil was after them, firing their pistols.
B.W. knocked the lead rider off his horse with his first shot some twenty yards away and Rance picked off the other one.
The riderless horses galloped on toward them then turned and trotted off several yards away. One was a buckskin and the other one a black.
When no more riders appeared. Rance took the spyglass off his saddle and scanned the trees but didn’t see anyone else. They walked out to the men on the ground, leading their horses. B.W. rolled one of them over on his back. He was dead. He didn’t look much older than Tommy.
“I’ll be damned,” B.W. said. “It’s a kid.”
Rance checked the other one. “This one too.”
“Was awful dumb for them to charge like that,” B.W. said. “Had to kill ‘em.”
“Couldn’t be more than fifteen,” Rance said. “Got on rebel pants and boots, might have been in the war. You notice the horses?”
“Yeah, looks like we found the bank robbers. Too bad we had to kill ‘em.”
“Must have thought we were the posse.”
“Would think so.”
“Kids. Why would they rob a bank?”
“For the money, I imagine.”
“You know what I mean. Kids!” Rance said. “They probably didn’t even have a family.”
“Guess we’ll never know,” B.W. said. “I’ll check the horses.”
“I’ll see what the boys have on them,” Rance said.
Both looked like they had been wearing the same clothes for a while. One of them had a small pocket knife and the other one two aggie marbles and some gold coins in his pants pockets. They had pictures inside their hat brims of a middle-aged man in a Confederate uniform with a woman about the same age standing beside him. Rance compared the pictures, they were the same. Must have been brothers.
B.W. appeared leading the boys’ horses. “These horses got four bags of money in the saddle bags from Pinefield State Bank,” he said. “Maybe fifteen or twenty-thousand dollars in them bags. Lots of federal
