Tabor Evans (24 page)

"We're still going to be short a man, even with Windy joining in," Steed pointed out.

"No. Sam's going with you," Belle said. "We've known all along the job needs five men. There'll be one at the end of the block on each side of the bank, and three to do the inside work. What you and Floyd and Windy have got to work out is who's going to go in and who's going to be the outside guards."

"Mat's easy enough," Floyd said. "It's just good sense for me and Steed and Windy to handle the bank. Now that my mind's at rest about Windy, I figure he's the equal of me and Steed any day. He'll keep cool and move fast, and if there's shooting, he'll handle it quick and straight."

"Oh, now wait a minute, Floyd!" Bobby protested. "I was in with you and Steed before Windy come along. It seems to me it's only right that I'd go inside. That's where the fun will be."

"Hold up there, Bobby," Longarm told the youth. "This ain't no play-party we're going on. It's business."

"You think I don't know that, Windy?" Bobby shot back. "And I can do anything you can, as good as you can. Sure, Floyd and Steed think you're right big of a much now, because you killed that officer in Fort Smith. Well, that don't make you one bit better than me!"

"That's enough, Bobby!" Floyd commanded. "You and Steed both agreed when we started out on this job that I was going to have the last word. All right, I'm giving you the last word now. You and Sam will be the outside guards. Me and Steed and Windy will take care of the inside work."

Bobby didn't look happy, but he subsided. Longarm turned to Belle. "I still don't know where this bank is we're going to take."

"You don't, do you, Windy? Well, neither does Floyd or Steed or Bobby. Or Sam, either, for that matter. The only one who knows that is me, and I'm not going to tell anybody until the very last minute."

"Now wait a minute, Belle!" Floyd flared. "You never said that before. That's no goddamn way to work! I'm with Windy. I want to know where we're going, how long it's going to take us to get there, what we can look for, and how we'll get away."

"I'll give you part of it, Floyd," she answered. "But not everything."

"You better tell us the whole layout, Belle," Longarm said. "I told you once before, I don't buy a pig in a poke."

Longarm was anxious to get the whole picture. He still had a few days during which he could manage to find a way to get word to Gower where the gang planned to strike, and set up the trap that would catch the entire bunch. With Sam in custody, he was pretty sure that either Belle or Sam would talk.

"This is one pig you'll buy without seeing it," Belle said. The emphasis she gave her words left no doubt in Longarm's mind that she couldn't be argued around. She went on, "Now, you don't need to know where the bank is, not yet. The fewer people who know that, the less chance there is of word getting out about the job."

"You might be right about that part of it, Belle," Longarm began.

Belle cut him off short. "I know damn well I'm right about the whole plan, Windy. Now shut up, all of you, and I'll tell you what you need to know. You can find out the rest later on."

All of them listened intently while Belle explained the layout. "There would be no marshals or sheriffs deputies around to interfere, she guaranteed. There were only three in town, one deputy sheriff and two marshals, and she had two of the three in her pocket. They could be counted on to get the third man out of the way.

As for the bank, it was in the middle of the block. The two men outside could guard the street in both directions and keep anybody from getting close while the holdup was taking place. The outside men would hold the reins of the horses ridden by the three who'd go in. There might be a private guard inside the bank; some of them hired a man when there was a lot of extra money on hand. Handling him would be up to the men who went in. They'd also have to get the tellers and bank officers away from their desks, because all of them had weapons close at hand.

At ten o'clock, the time set for the holdup, the bank would have been open two hours, so the vault was sure to be open. The inside men would divide the loot among themselves; she'd see that they had sacks to put it in. The whole job shouldn't take more than four or five minutes, and then they'd all be riding out.

Their approach and escape routes would be mapped out for them by Sam, the night before. They'd be stopping at a place she and Sam knew well. At that time, they'd also work out what to do in the event they had to separate during their getaway.

"So that's the way it's going to work," Belle said firmly as she concluded her explanation. "Now, what day do you want to move, Floyd?

I'll have to send a letter to the man who's handling things for me, when I go to Eufaula tomorrow."

"No use putting it off." Floyd didn't speak with quite as much authority as he had earlier. Belle's dominance of their discussion had somehow diminished his stature. "If it's all the same to everybody, we'll give the money shipment three days to get to the bank. We'll pull the job on the fourth."

"Sounds all right to me," Steed agreed. "I guess so," Bobby said, when Floyd looked at him. "Whatever you say, Floyd."

"Windy?" Floyd asked Longarm.

Longarm nodded.

"All right," Belle said succinctly. "It's settled, then."

Longarm told Belle, "I intend to go into Eufaula with you and Sam tomorrow, if you've got no objections to my company. I need cigars, and I'd sort of like to look the place over, since I've never been there."

"If you want to," Belle said. "We could use somebody to give us a hand with the mules." She looked at the others. "You can see there's not one thing for you to worry about. When Belle Starr plans a job, it's done right. I don't leave anything to chance. You just handle things the way I've told you to, and it'll come off as smooth as silk!"

CHAPTER 15

Although the sky was clear when Longarm, Sam, and Belle started from the house shortly after daylight, a line of low, black clouds showed to the northeast when they came out of the ravine and started along the trail leading to Eufaula. Each of them led a pack mule, which clopped behind them on a lead-rope and slowed the progress of the longer-legged horses. By the time they'd covered half the distance to the little town, the clouds had crept closer and there was a smell of rain in the air.

Belle scanned the sky anxiously. She'd put on what Longarm supposed was her regular going-to-town costume; at least it was what she'd been wearing the first time he'd seen her, when she and Sam had just returned from a visit to Eufaula. For this trip, Belle wore the same long green velvet dress with a full, flowing ankle-length skirt and a white scarf tucked in and drawn high around her neck.

Her hat was the same one, a wide-brimmed white Stetson with one side of the brim caught up by a pin that held a streaming plume. Around her waist, Belle had strapped on her polished gunbelt with its twin holsters carrying pearl-handled, silver-plated Smith & Wesson.32s. She wore the belt high on her waist. Belle rode in a silver-trimmed sidesaddle, as though to underscore the fact that, while she might be the Bandit Queen, she was still a perfect lady.

"I hope you remembered to put my slicker in your saddle roll," she said to Sam as the trail widened so the three of them could ride abreast. "And brought enough tarps, too. If a rain comes up, half the sugar will be melted away by the time we get back, unless the bags are covered."

"I smelled the rain coming last night before I went to bed," Sam replied patiently. "Your slicker and all the tarps we'll need are lashed across the packsaddles.

Longarm said, "Maybe it won't rain hard. It don't look to me like those clouds are moving very fast."

"It'll rain," Sam told him. "Maybe not until late, and maybe not very hard. It's early in the season for a real downpour, but we'll get at least a drizzle before we get back."

"If we hurry, maybe we can get back before the rain starts," Belle fretted. "I just hate to think of my nice dress and all that sugar getting wet."

"Stop worrying, Belle," Sam said. "If it rains, there's not a damned thing we can do to stop it. It'll just have to rain, won't it?"

Signs of settlement increased as they drew closer to Eufaula. For the first five or six miles of the ride, the trail had curved along a northern crook of the Canadian River. Then the trace became more clearly defined and the first houses began to appear. The houses were small when the trail swung northeast and left the river, and the land had been only partly cleared. The transition from a wooded path with cottonwood and blackjack oak growing thickly along its sides had been sudden when they changed direction. The first small fields and shacks dotted the roadside for a short distance, then gave way to wider cornfields and bigger houses. The fields were stubble-dotted from the recent harvest, and the narrow trace turned quickly into a wheel-rutted road beaten in the red soil.

Eufaula appeared ahead. It was a straggling town, stretched out in a single line of stores widely spaced along the road, which curved into the settlement. Even at a distance, the false fronts that rose above most of the awnings failed to hide the fact that except for two or three of the bigger buildings, the structures had only a single story. Red was the dominant color. Barn-red paint covered all but a few of the stores, and in most cases, the painting had been confined to their fronts. The sides had only the dark patina laid on them by sun and rain to distinguish their raw wood from the shining yellow pine boards of the newer buildings.

Even Longarm's sharp eyes couldn't make out the wording on the signs above the stores until they got within pistol-shot of the community. Most of the signs were small, their lettering straggly and thin. The stores were concentrated on one side of the main street--a continuation of the road--and on the less closely built side, there was an unusually large area vacant except for the big barn and corral of a livery stable. In the bare space, a number of unhitched wagons, buggies, and sulkies stood, their tongues slanting to the ground. Eufaula's residences were scattered, without the regularity imposed by streets, in well-defined half-circles on both sides of the main road. Longarm was surprised at their number; there must have been a hundred houses.

"It sure ain't such a much of a town," he remarked as they got close enough for him to read the signs. "But I guess it's a lot better for you that it ain't."

"We Like it the way it is," Belle replied curtly. "But even if it grows, it still won't be big enough for any law to move in and bother us at the Bend for a long time to come."

They reined in at the hitch rail in front of the general store. A few doors farther on, another sign proclaimed the presence of yet another general store; it was in a newer building, still unpainted.

Belle said to Sam, "I guess you'd better take a mule and start rounding up bottles. I'll do the trading while you're taking care of that."

"If you ain't got anything you need for me to help you with, I'll just find me a nice quiet saloon and sit down with a sip of Maryland rye until you've done your business," Longarm said. "I can get my cigars before we ride out; I've got enough in my pocket to tide me over for a while."

Belle laughed mockingly. "Your memory's too short, Windy. I guess you haven't been in the Nation long enough to remember that saloons are against the law here."

Longarm frowned. "Now wait just a minute. That little town on this side of the Arkansas across from Fort Smith, the place they call Little Juarez. There's plenty of saloons there."

"And they pay plenty to stay open, too," Belle retorted. "So do the saloons you'll find in the Nation right on the Missouri border up north, and on this side of the Red River, down on the Texas line, where there's a town on the other side."

"Belle's right, Windy," Sam said. Bitterness crept into his tone as he went on, "Our Great White Father back in the East doesn't think us Indians can hold our liquor. You know, we go crazy wild when we take a drink, and start killing all you white people."

Belle added, "So the only liquor you're going to find here in Eufaula is what we make out at the place, or what comes from one of the little whiskey ranches in the brush farther east And it's none of it as good as the whiskey Yazoo turns out."

Longarm turned to Sam. "But you're going to buy bottles. Where from?"

"Jugs," Sam told him. "We've got to save all the bottles we can get our hands on to send over into Arkansas. We deliver the whiskey here in jugs, and the customers bring their own bottles."

"I'll be damned," Longarm said, shaking his head. "I never heard of such a damn fool thing."

"Oh, we like it that way," Belle told him. "The moonshine we make at the Bend pays the freight and a lot more. The jobs we pull off are all gravy."

Longarm saw his plan to get away from Belle and Sam going up in smoke. He'd intended to work things out so that he'd have a few minutes by himself, enough time to Mail to Gower the note he'd written last night, telling him that the bank job had been set and advising him that as yet he hadn't been able to learn which bank in which town would be the target.

He said, "Well, if that's the way of it, I guess I'll just walk around and stretch my legs while you two tend to your business."

"You can help me, if you've a mind to," Belle suggested. "Two of those mules have to be loaded with hundred-pound sacks of sugar. It'll hurry things along if you'll give the storekeeper a hand, and we might get started back to the Bend in time to miss getting caught in the rain."