Trigger Gospel (14 page)

“Get on with it, Bill,” Tonto prompted nervously.

“Just waitin' for Link to join us,” Bill informed him. He was carrying his rifle cradled on his left arm. Without setting it aside he picked up a stick and cleared away the leaves on the ground in front of him and began to make marks in the black soil.

Link edged in between Scotty and Tonto before he had finished.

“I'll tell you all of it now,” he said. “Just don't interrupt me till I'm done. If there's anythin' about this you don't like or understand you can say so then.” First he told them that they were heading for Reed City.

He saw at a glance that neither Cherokee nor Latch liked the idea. Even Link and Luther shook their heads. The others were noncommittal, their faces wooden. They had been through Reed City and remembered vaguely that a bank stood at one of the town's four corners.

Methodically, his voice emotionless, Bill outlined his plans. Using the map he had drawn on the ground, he told them how they were to ride into town, the stand they were to take and the course they would pursue in their get-away. The location of the railroad, the town marshal's office, the fact that there would be activity at the railroad corrals—he appeared to have missed nothing.

“This Reed City bank ain't been stood up in years,” he ran on. “That'll be in our favor. With half a break we'll be makin' our get-away before the town knows what's happened.” He looked them over slowly. “I guess that's it,” he said. “You can fire away now …. I see some of yuh don't like it.”

“Not for a minute!” Latch exclaimed positively. “You put up the best argyment ag'in it yerself when you say that bank ain't been touched off in years. There's a reason fer it, and I can tell yuh what it is: yuh got two railroads to cross before you can git back to the Strip. Yuh can't beat the telegraph no matter how fast yuh ride. By the time yuh hit the Sante Fé yuh'll find more trouble waitin' fer yuh than yuh can handle.”

“Latch is right,” Luther agreed. “I wa'n't thinkin' so much about the railroads, but no matter how late we ride into Reed City, if it's only ten minutes before the bank closes, we'll have close to five hours to go before it gits dark, and all of it out in the open. As I remember it, there's hardly a bit of cover north of here! … I tell yuh it's too far north.”

“It's pretty far, all right,” Link chimed in.

“Yeh?” the red-haired one got out slowly. “What you got to say about it, Cherokee?”

“Just what's been said, together with the fact that I can't see takin' a chance like that for what we stand to get in Reed City. There's never no money in that bank. We'd be lucky to walk out with two or three thousand. That don't go far, split eight ways.”

There was further talk, but it developed no additional criticism of the plan. Finally, they talked themselves out.

“All that you boys have said is true enough,” Bill admitted when they had done. He was singularly unperturbed. “If I didn't think we could be a little smarter than you figger, I'd call this thing off.”

“You can't outsmart the facts!” Latch declared pessimistically.

“Maybe there's some facts you ain't considered,” Bill returned. “It's never been mv intention to come back this-a-way. When we ride out of town we'll let 'em think we're takin' the shortest cut to the Strip, but in a mile or two we'll swing off to the east and get across these railroads before any Kansas sheriff can organize himself. In an hour's good hard ridin' we'll strike the big bend of the Cimarron. That ought to be cover enough for anybody. We'll follow the river south until we git near the line. We'll take another turn to the east then and slip down into Oklahoma between Kingfisher and Bowie. They won't be lookin' for us there. When we git as far down as the Skull we'll turn up the creek and work back into the Strip from the south …. That's a lot of ridin', but we got good horses, and it's about as safe as yuh can ask.”

It won Luther and Link over.

“Now as for the money,” Bill continued, “we'll do better than Cherokee thinks. Don't forgit they been shippin' beef for a week …. But shucks, whatever we git will be a stake. That's all we had in mind.”

“That's right,” Scotty echoed. It was the first word out of him. His old air of detachment had returned and he appeared as cool and deliberate as ever. “Accordin' to last reports this was an outfit without a dollar to its name, so we'll take what we can get and like it. It's just a waste of time to sit here and talk about it. The only question before the house is: can we make a get-away.”

“That's the big question,” Latch grumbled thoughtfully. “I'm almost persuaded we can. There's jest one thing I'd like to know, Bill: how are we goin' to make any time after we turn east if we don't keep to the roads? There's a lot of farms around New Stockholm. The country's pretty well fenced off.”

“I know it,” Bill admitted. “But they ain't got no telegraph to give us away. We'll ride right through New Stockholm. If anybody gits in our way we'll pull up for a second and tell 'em we've come to warn 'em that outlaws have robbed the Reed City bank—that they're headin' that-a-way. Before they have time to think it over twice we'll be out of town.”

“Good enough!” Latch chuckled. “It'll fool them squareheads!” He shifted around to fix his attention on Cherokee. “Kid, I told you this boy had a head on his shoulders and knew how to use it. He may be new at this game, but he ain't green. Let him git his hand in and he'll be mighty hard to stop.”

“I hope you're right,” Cherokee said grudgingly. “If you're all set on this thing we'll go through with it. A man likes to do a little thinkin' for himself though.”

“Wal, you bin doin' your own thinkin' fer a long time,” Latch observed, “an it's kept you busted fer months. We'll jest let Bill do the thinkin' from now on.”

There was a challenge in his words, but the Kid, realizing that he stood alone, refused to take it up.

Stretching out, some of them dozed off to sleep.

“We all ought to get a nap,” Luther stated.

“Of course,” Bill agreed. “You take it now. I'll wake you in an hour or two and you can spell me for a bit.”

Propping himself up against a tree, he watched as the others slept. Nothing happened to break the peacefulness of the warm, lazy afternoon. Inevitably his thoughts strayed to matters far removed from the grim business just ahead. And yet it seemed there was a connection, for they always brought him back to the grassy flat among the cottonwoods. He found it easy to understand, in so far as his thought concerned his father, Tascosa or Martha. He knew that if it were possible to change places with his father that Waco would do as he was doing. It would be Tascosa's way, too. He never questioned for a moment but what he would always have a staunch supporter in old Tas.

“I reckon Martha will stick up for me long after she ought to,” he brooded. Memory of her suddenly became so sharp that he winced. He could fancy Tascosa trying to explain things to her, to win pardon for him. “I don't want it that-a-way!” he scourged himself. “That's a closed account, and every step I take just puts another nail in it!”

Fate had played many tricks on him. In the days to come things might so happen that he could see her again.

“It mustn't be,” he decided. “I couldn't stand it. I'm sure to see Tas sometime, and he'll have plenty to say. Or I may run into Paint. That'll be hard enough to take.”

The shadows were getting long before he awakened Maverick.

“If yuh brought anythin' along with yuh for a snack you'd better set it out for the boys,” he told him. “We can be movin' soon.”

Luther sat up, awakened by the low drone of their voices.

“You're takin' a few winks first, ain't yuh, Bill?” he asked.

“No, I ain't sleepy a bit. You can shake up the rest now and roll your blankets.”

Silent, alert, they moved north through the star-studded night. Morning dawned, and they still rode on, always saving their horses. If they saw a distant ranch-house, they avoided it. When they had to cross a road they scrutinized it for minutes before moving on. An hour short of noon found them in an abandoned barn, two miles west of Reed City.

There was nothing to do but wait now. Cherokee got out a deck of greasy cards and played solitaire. It was a gesture; his attention was not on his game. Some of them smoked. Others walked back and forth. If they spoke it was about anything but the business in hand, and their voices were strained and off-key.

“Nerves beginnin' to snarl some,” Little Bill said to himself.

The road they were to take into town was visible from the barn. Along its dusty length nothing moved. Overhead a pair of hawks sailed black against the sun. Noontime passed. Then it was one o'clock. The Kid had put away his cards. Cigarettes had been pinched out. Finally Little Bill drew out his watch and studied it thoughtfully.

“Ten minutes past two,” he announced. “We can be movin'.”

They welcomed the news as though it were escape in itself.

“Look to your guns; be sure they're free in the holsters,” Bill advised. “Speakin' of guns,” he continued after a momentary pause, and he was addressing himself to Cherokee now, even though he did not say so, “just remember this: no one gits very excited if somebody's bank is robbed. It's somethin' else when a band of men ride into a town and begin shootin' down innocent citizens. We'll git along without that. Course if we git in a jam we'll have to shoot and shoot to kill every time. But I ain't lookin' for that. After we git back to the horses we'll bang away a little just to let the town know we can throw lead if we have to. That'll pile 'em up long enough for us to git out on the prairie.”

“That's sense,” Latch said approvingly. “Jest how are we ridin' in, Bill. You got it all figgered out?”

“Yeh … At the edge of town I'll go ahead with Link, Tonto and Scotty. The rest of you tail along a couple hundred yards behind. If all goes well, we'll stall around at the hitch-rack at the side of the bank until you boys ride up. You want to look sharp then. Maverick and Tonto will stay with the horses. Link and me will start into the bank. You come in right behind us, Latch. Cherokee and Luther will stop at the corner. I want Scotty to drop across the side road in back of the horses and edge up to the main street. You'll see an old tar kettle there that they use for a waterin' trough, Scotty. Just plant yourself and drop behind it if things start to go wrong.”

He told it off a second time so that there could be no misunderstanding.

“When we git inside the bank Link and me will line up whoever we find there. You git across the counter, Latch, and git the money. Is that all plain to yuh?”

They said it was. Bill passed two gunny sacks over to Link.

“Latch will be the first one out of the bank,” he continued. “He'll go right to his horse. Link and me'll back out after him. When we step out, Luther, you and Cherokee can fall back to your horses. We'll pick up Scotty at the corner. That side road runs south. We'll take it even though it means crossin' the main street. It may be pretty hot there for a few seconds.”

They got away a minute later. Before they reached the road Bill noticed that Six-gun was limping. The others saw it too.

“Why, that horse is lame!” Link exclaimed.

“That's a break!” Luther fumed. “A horse goin' lame at a time like this! I'm thinkin' Tas was right when he said those claybanks was unlucky!”

“Nothin' to it!” Bill whipped back. “The horse wasn't lame when I put him in the barn. He's picked up a nail or a piece of glass.”

He slipped out of his saddle anxiously and raised Six-gun's right foreleg.

“Say, look at that!” he exclaimed. “It's a buckthorn! It ain't in deep enough to do any damage.”

He got it out. The gelding seemed as sound as ever.

“Never heard of buckthorn this far north,” Latch declared as Bill held the thorn up for their inspection.

“Neither did I,” he said. His voice was stony.

“You were lucky to get it out so soon,” Cherokee drawled carelessly.

“I sure was,” the red-haired one answered. “I'll just keep it for a little souvenir.”