Wolf Creek (13 page)

This was no way to rob a bank! He was
supposed to be in there with his partner, taking half the risk,
doing half the work. He didn’t have to fake a Worried Face as they
resumed play. The hard thing was remembering to lose. He got to
thinking too hard at one point, and nearly ended up with the pot.
Luckily, he had time to fold, tossing aside the three tens in his
hand with disgust. A man could only take so much stress, damn it
all.

He tossed his last chip into the pot as the
sun speared through the plate glass window. “I’m done,” he said,
not trying to hide his exhaustion. He shoved away from the table
and rose on wobbly legs. The trip to the hotel took twice as long
as it should have, left him panting like a coyote at midday. It
took three tries to get the room key into the lock.

“That deputy better have seen you at the
game tonight.”

Kye sat in one chair, his legs propped up on
the other. He jerked a thumb toward the desk, and Chance’s heart
gave a great thump at the sight of their bulging carpetbag. His
legs gave way, and he shoved Kye’s big feet out of the chair just
in time to drop into it, dropping his face into his hands as well.
He couldn’t catch his breath for a moment, then the reaction hit
and he started laughing.

Kye clapped him on the back, harder than he
really needed to. “Don’t go squirrely on me now, kid. We still
gotta get out of town with that bag.”

Chance wiped his eyes. “How much did we
make?”

“Only a few thousand on top of what we
already got. Must not have had all the tournament money in
there.”

“Mayor Henry probably has a safe in the
Eldorado, like Breedlove does at the Wolf’s Den.” Chance shoved out
of the chair and fanned a stack of hundreds beneath his nose. There
really was nothing like the smell of freshly-stolen money. “We
don’t need it anyhow.”

“Not so long as you held up your end of this
thing. Was the deputy there?”

For an instant, Chance stared at his partner
without comprehension. “He ... yeah, he was in the corner, same as
always, eyeing me the whole time.”

Kye’s brows dropped. “That looks an awful
damn lot like your ‘Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-In-My-Mouth Face,’ kid.
This had best not be some kind of trick.”

“Believe me, old man. The trick’s on the
lawmen. There’s no way I could have been cracking that safe if I
was sitting in plain sight all night. And there’s no way anybody
else could have cracked ‘er besides me.”

“You’d best be right. We ain’t got no way to
change out any more bills, not if we ‘lost’ all our money in that
robbery.”

He’d best be right, indeed. He let his worry
show through, because Kye would have seen it anyway, and started
splitting the take between their other bags. Smaller bills went
into their wallets. The original carpetbag, rolled small, fit into
the bottom of the supply bag. Hopefully, the marshal wouldn’t
decide to search everyone riding out of town. Hopefully, he’d solve
the damn murder, too. And most hopefully, Deborah would be off the
trail after the bank announced the robbery.

That brought up the next order of business.
“I’m not going to be taking the prize this time, old man. I’m going
to lay low and let someone else win.”

“Wish you’d figured that out before you
forked over the entry fee.” Kye reached out a long arm and clouted
Chance on the side of the head. “Get some sleep before you fall out
on the floor.”

Easier said than done. He tried a couple of
chapters of
Five Weeks in a Balloon
. When he found himself
reading the same paragraph for the third time, he gave it up and
went for the bottle of whiskey. Three shots relaxed him enough to
let him nod off. Deborah and the redheaded deputy chased him
through his dreams until he was happy to hear Kye’s big boots
thudding across the floorboards.

“It’s all over town,” his partner said with
a grin. “Them notorious outlaws done run off with everything in the
bank.”

Chance rolled out of bed and managed to
shave without slicing off the end of his nose. “I take it you were
suitably incensed.”

“Whatever that means, I reckon I was. I said
the bank ought to make it up to folks. T’aint our fault some
no-goods got through their security.”

“Wouldn’t that be rich? We take the bank and
they pay us back what we ‘lost.’”

“They got a posse out now, but nobody thinks
they’re gonna find anything.”

“Those two do have a remarkable ability to
vanish. You done with your blacksmithing project?”

“Couple of finishing touches left.”

“The train leaves at 11.”

Kye gave him the eye. “You act like that
deputy’s still on your tail.”

“I just want to get the hell out of
Kansas.”

“That’s what you said right before you heard
about this poker game.” The long arm, wiry with a farm boy’s
muscle, reached out once more, and Chance’s ear stung. “Next time I
say this ain’t one of your brighter ideas...”

“I got it already!” He stumbled downstairs
after his partner and downed a meal he barely tasted. “I need to
give the bank manager a good show before the game starts.”

He almost felt sorry for the man. Chance’s
Incensed Face was the best in the business, and the manager
actually quailed before its splendor.

“I swear to you, Mr. Knight, that our safe
was the finest money could buy! No one should have been able to
open it.”

Chance felt a fleeting urge, the tug of the
dare. Could he have cracked the thing without the combination? He
tamped down his emotion and scowled even harder. “Thanks to you,
sir, we have lost money entrusted to us by our shareholders, as
well as every cent of my winnings.”

The word “shareholders” was an especially
nice touch. The manager’s face paled as though every drop of his
blood now pooled in his feet. Chance closed in for the kill. “We
shall certainly alert our business partners to avoid Wolf Creek.
There are other railroads, sir, other towns. Towns with banks whose
owners understand how to keep a gentleman’s hard-earned wages safe
from outlaws.

Chance took pity on the man at that point,
as the poor fellow seemed on the verge of swooning. He whirled,
sweeping Kye along, and added insult to injury by closing the door
oh-so-gently instead of slamming it. He waited until they were two
blocks away before giving in to a grin. Kye elbowed him in the ribs
with a chuckle.

“I swear, kid: you’re better than any play
we done ever seen.”

Chance gave him a mocking bow. Now for the
second act of that play. “Applause is appreciated, but I’d best get
to the game and cash in my chips.”

“You’d best go get a pot of coffee,” Kye
said, closing a hand over his shoulder and turning him toward the
hotel. “You’re still half-asleep and one of us ought to pack if you
plan on leaving tonight. They’ll figure it out when you don’t show
up.”

Kye was right, even if it was for the wrong
reason. Chance didn’t have to show up at the game. Deborah would be
taken in by the robbery just as everyone else had been. He opted
for another hour of shut-eye instead of that coffee, then made it
to the station in time to have two first-class tickets ready when
Kye strolled up, a canvas bag over one shoulder.

Kye patted the bag proudly. “Wait ‘til you
see this thing, kid.”

As if Chance even knew – or cared – what the
“thing” might be. Mouth open for a sarcastic reply, he froze as
movement caught his eye. Deborah and her boyfriend were mounting
the second-class steps. She glanced his way and her eyes shot wide
open. Shoving Silas aside, she scrambled aboard as though the
platform were on fire.

Could this get any more ridiculous?

He hustled his partner aboard. Fortunately,
Kye’s attention was centered on his creation. Chance sat through a
demonstration of the thing-a-ma-bob, even managed a reasonable
Interested Face now that the man’s sister was out of sight. Soon
enough, his partner’s long day caught up to him, and Kye stretched
out on his seat. Chance slipped through the cars, dodged between
other nodding passengers, and stopped when he caught sight of his
quarry.

Deborah wasn’t asleep. Her wide eyes spotted
him in the doorway, and she rose quietly, murmuring something to a
dozing Silas. Chance jerked his chin toward the front of the
train.

“You couldn’t wait for the next ride?” He
asked as they entered the dining car.

She gave another of her sighs, even
including an eye-roll this time. “You dropped out too damn fast.
Silas didn’t last the night.”

Chance signaled to the waiter for coffee. “I
did exactly as you demanded, young woman. And top of losing to your
blasted boyfriend, I lost everything I had in the bank when the
real outlaws blew through town.”

“Why do you think we’re on this train? Our
money was in that bank, too. I had just enough in my shoe to buy a
couple of tickets to Kansas City.”

At least she wasn’t headed for Denver. “I
hope you’re ashamed of what you thought about your own
brother.”

Her cheeks pinked. “I reckon I was wrong.
Ain’t no way he could have got into that safe on his own, and you
was right there in front of me.”

He probably should have felt worse about her
finances. He and Kye didn’t take the little fellow’s money if they
could help it. But what kind of idiot put everything they had into
one bank? His ire was still up, anyhow. She’d not only ruined his
enjoyment of the poker tournament, she’d actually forced his hand –
something few could claim. And now he had her savings in his
pocket, did he?

The coffee arrived, and Deborah perked up at
his offer of a little something to go with it. Of course, he was
imagining a slice of pie, or perhaps some of the chocolate cake.
Still, a steak dinner “with all the trimmings” was a small price to
pay to be rid of the girl and her partner. He handed the waiter a
gold piece, told the man to keep the change.

Rather than returning to their compartment,
he made his way to the platform at the rear of the train. He should
be jubilant. They’d taken two banks, after all, left every lawman
in Kansas with their thumbs up their asses. His betting had
returned the tournament fee with interest. His would-be blackmailer
was on her way home, thinking him, not an outlaw, but a generous
man who’d bought her a meal. Heck, he’d even heard that the Wolf
Creek lawmen had grabbed a couple of ne’er-do-wells from the train
before it departed, believing them to be the bank robbers.

Chance leaned against the railing, staring
at the tracks as they vanished into the darkness. He needed to dump
this irritation. A professional stayed in control of his emotions.
A professional moved on. A professional wouldn’t let some snip of a
girl make a fool out of him.

The idea struck, and he was through the door
before the rest of his brain caught up. Deborah lifted her head as
he strode back through the dining car. Her brow furrowed, and one
hand rose as though to cover her half-eaten steak. Chance pulled
out his wallet, thumbed a couple of bills onto the table. They
might even be from her bank account.

“Your brother would want you to have
this.”

He was whistling by the time he reached the
compartment.

THE END

EPILOGUE

By Troy D. Smith

Marshal Sam Gardner and Sheriff G.W.
Satterlee were sitting on the front porch of the jail, chairs
tipped back and feet on the hitching rail, watching the sun set,
when Mayor Dab Henry walked past.

“Evenin’, Dab,” G.W. said. “You headed to
the bank to deposit your fortune?”

Dab shook his head. “I’m just coming from
The Wolf’s Den, me and Ira and Virgil were comparing notes on how
this tournament worked out for us. Pretty damn good, just like we
figured. Worked out good for everybody else, too.”

G.W. shrugged. “Most everybody else, I
reckon. Some didn’t fare so well, just like
we
figured. But
even that worked out for Gravely the undertaker.”

“Yes, well,” Dab said. “You can’t make an
omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

“I’m sure the deceased would take great
comfort in that,” Sam chimed in.

“At least nobody local got killed, that I
know of,” Dab said. “It was all gamblers and drifters. And not that
many of them, really.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed and he started counting
on his fingers. “Let’s see. There was the outlaw, Cash Hooper.”

“Can’t really count him,” G.W. said. “That
bounty-huntin’ dentist killed him outside of town. And then we
caught his brother and put him in jail.”

“All right, we don’t count him,” Sam said.
“But him and his brother Walt do count as attempted bank robbers,
as that’s why they were here.”

“Yeah, but they never had a chance to
actually try it, so that don’t count, neither.”

“All right,” Sam agreed. “But there were
still two other sets of bank robbers. Devon Day and the Sweetwater
Kid, who succeeded in robbing the bank but before hardly anybody
had put any money in it. Then there were those other two jokers,
that Billy Below thought were Sweetwater and Day. They were real
bank robbers, just the wrong ones.”

Dab snorted. “So you caught the fellas who
robbed a bank somewhere else, and let the ones who robbed ours get
away.”

Sam grunted. “Maybe the folks in the next
town over will catch them for us, it’ll be like some kind of
parable or somesuch.”

“Then there was Cash Gibson, who got stabbed
at the hotel,” G.W. said.

“Did he rob a bank, too?” Dab asked.

“No, Dab, I’ve done got off the subject of
bank robbers—which was a tangent—and back to the original topic of
who-all got killed this week.”

“Oh.”

Sam chuckled. “The week of the big poker
tournament, and two Cashes cash out. Cash Hooper and Cash
Gibson.”

“Did you catch the person that stabbed Cash
Gibson?” Dab asked. “I’ve been sort of busy.”