Van ducked down, holstered his pistol and sprinted up the alley toward a side alley which led back to the hotel. His heart was pounding, his vision a little blurred from the surge of excitement, but he heard no one call out, saw no one rushing out to challenge him. Van slowed his pace to a walk, unholstered his revolver and flipped the empty shell casing away, reloading with a fresh cartridge. If anyone was suspected of the murder it would be the man Shawnee had shot, or perhaps one of his friends trying to get even. Not that anyone would be concerned enough about Burns to take the trouble to find out who had done it.

  Van emerged from the alley onto the main street where all remained silent. Despite himself he found that he was smiling as he made his way back into the hotel lobby, nodded at the bleary-eyed clerk and climbed the stairs to his room.

  Piece of cake. It was a piece of cake knocking over that cracker-box bank. They had scouted the place for days and knew that the portly little bank manager arrived at 9 a.m. every morning, his clerk half an hour later. The first customers never showed up before ten when the bank was officially open.

  Trapper McGee held their horses in a side alley as Van and Archie Slater, timing it exactly, met each other from opposite ends of the plankwalk and greeted one another, talking about the weather, the grass and the price of cattle as the bank manager passed them with barely a glance and inserted the key into the front door of the bank.

  Turning with guns drawn, Van and Archie followed on his heels before the round little man could close the door and lock it.

  ‘What’s this?’ the banker asked. His hands were shaking.

  ‘Don’t waste time asking stupid questions,’ Van Connely snapped. ‘Just open up that vault.’ Van wore no mask – they didn’t figure to be around long enough for anyone to identify them, and his hard eyes and set mouth told the banker that it would be wise to obey. For added emphasis, Van cocked his revolver. ‘I don’t like making a lot of noise unless I have to,’ he said, lifting the muzzle of his Colt until it was level with the bank manager’s heart. ‘Get on with it!’

  The round little man fumbled with the combination of the safe for a few minutes, perhaps thinking help might arrive, but with the constant urging of Van’s pistol, he eventually swung the door to the green safe wide. The banker was perspiring by then although the room was cool. He kept glancing at the brass-bound clock on the wall. ‘Fifteen minutes before your teller gets here,’ Van said. ‘Besides, he won’t be of any help to you. We’ve got men outside to keep him from walking in. Start filling these bags,’ he added as Slater handed him two of the canvas pouches ordinarily used for making large transfers between banks.

  The banker must have figured that there was no point in further delay, in risking the ire of the robbers, for he had the safe emptied, its contents transferred to the bags within five minutes. Van Connely watched him, sifting out property deeds, liens and loan agreements for which they had no use. Also he still was not sure there wasn’t a hide-away gun secreted somewhere in the safe. It had been known to be done.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Archie Slater said, glancing at the clock. ‘We don’t want to be here the one day the teller decides to show up early.’

  ‘No,’ Van agreed, placing the bags of cash and coin on the counter. ‘Got anything to tie him up with?’ he asked, nodding at the banker whose face was now glistening with perspiration.

  ‘Why waste the time?’ Slater said, and he slammed his pistol barrel against the banker’s head just behind his ear, driving him to the floor, his eyes rolled back.

  ‘Let’s ride,’ Connely said, snatching up one of the bags while Slater collected the other.

  Outside, the morning sun was casting long shadows. Its glare was brilliant through the gaps between the buildings. A kid ran by rolling a hoop, another younger one ran after him screaming. Along the boardwalk they watched as the rail-thin man they knew to be the bank teller, strode toward the bank. Van and Slater scurried around the corner to take their horses’ reins from Trapper McGee.

  Exiting the alley onto the main street, Van saw the teller approaching the bank’s door and he tipped his hat to the man who stood puzzled for a few minutes before entering. ‘Walk ’em, boys,’ Van said in a low taut voice as Trapper started to heel his long-legged roan horse into a run. ‘Let’s not draw more attention to ourselves.’

  A long minute passed when presumably the bank teller tried to attend to his boss. Then the younger man emerged from the bank and yelled up and down the empty street for help. Before anyone could come forth to help him, the robbers were at the outskirts of town, passing through a large grove of cottonwood trees that grew along the creek. Van held the gang up for a minute before crossing the creek. Trapper McGee asked anxiously, ‘What about Shawnee?’

  ‘We’ll come back for him,’ Van assured him. ‘We’ve got the money to put up bail now. In the meantime we should put a little distance between ourselves and the citizens of Hazlit.’

  After they had started on Archie Slater asked Van, ‘How much do you think we took?’

  ‘Didn’t have time to think about counting it,’ Van Connely answered, ‘but it sure is a hell of a lot more than we started the morning with. And it was easy, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Easy. Van, I think I could take a liking to this sort of work.’ He nodded toward Trapper, riding a little away from them, ‘What about him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When he finds out that we aren’t going back for Shawnee.’

  ‘I’ll think of something to tell Trapper. A fistful of money should soften his regret, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’d think so,’ Slater said with a thin smile. ‘Cash always has a way of salving my conscience.’

  ‘Mine too,’ Van said. ‘If it isn’t enough for him, Trapper can go back and try to save Shawnee. Though I doubt he’ll have much luck at that.’ And they rode on, both smiling at Van’s black humor.

  EIGHT

  When Randy Staggs dragged into Hazlit, he felt its dark mood as he walked the black along the street. It seemed the men he was following cast dark shadows everywhere they went. He did not know that the gang had passed through here, but he felt as if it were so. He stopped first at the office of the town marshal. Ordinarily he would have seen to his horse first, but there was a growing urgency within him to find Van Connely’s gang. The long trail had not fostered frustration but determination. He had been only days behind them in Cameron Corners – if they had laid over in Hazlit for long, he could be right on their heels. The thought lifted his spirits but did nothing to quiet the notion that he was a fool on a fool’s errand.

  ‘’Mornin’,’ Staggs said to the beefy man who sat behind the scarred desk as he entered the office. The marshal glanced up but was not smiling. He wore a sagging expression as if the burden of his duties weighed heavily on him. In the corner sat another man, his face flushed so deeply that it nearly matched the color of his red hair. This one did nod to Randy.

  ‘Is this important?’ the marshal asked. ‘Because if not, come back another time. I’ve got other things that need my attention.’

  ‘What I need …’ Staggs began but the marshal continued his little speech without listening.

  ‘A bank robbery and a man murdered in my own jail cell,’ the lawman said. ‘And election time coming up next month! So, young man,’ he said, leaning back, his hands flat on his desk, his eyes now meeting Randy’s, ‘I can’t offer much help right now whatever your problem is, and since you can’t do anything for me, we’ll have to have a conversation at another time.’

  ‘Maybe I can,’ Randy Staggs said, removing his hat for the first time.

  ‘Can what?’ the marshal asked.

  ‘I may have some information that will help you – I’m not sure that it’s connected, but it just may be.’

  ‘Out with it then,’ the lawman said almost angrily. He was obviously very disturbed by events.

  ‘One thing first – can I take a look at the murdered man? I think that may clear matters up.’

  The marshal sighed heavily, rising from his chair. ‘He’s still in the back. Sent for the mortician, but he hasn’t come yet.’

  Randy was led down a short corridor past the cell where evidence of blood still colored the plank floor, and into a small storage area. Shawnee Burns’s face was not covered, and Randy only needed a quick glance to make his identification.

  ‘That was a man you know?’ the marshal asked. Randy nodded. ‘Come and tell me about it, then. My name’s Traylor – sorry I was so abrupt, but this is a bad day for me and for Hazlit.’

  Back in the office Randy pulled up another chair and faced Traylor across his desk. ‘The dead man’s name is Shawnee Burns,’ he told the marshal. ‘You’ll likely get a circular on him in the next few days out of Cameron Corners. He was traveling with a gang of no-goods led by a man called Van Connely. There are a couple of others – I’ll give you their names. If Burns was in Hazlit, the others likely were as well. You can ask at the hotel, any other place that might have seen them. I’ll give you their descriptions.’

  ‘You talk as if you know them well,’ the red-faced man in the corner said.

  ‘Too well,’ Randy said. ‘They’ve been raising hell in this part of the territory for weeks now. It’s a good bet that they’re the ones who knocked off the bank.’

  ‘What about their friend back there?’ the marshal asked, nodding in the direction of the room where Shawnee Burns’s body rested.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Randy said honestly, ‘except that Burns had a habit of stirring up trouble wherever he went. Looks as if Connely finally got tired of it.’

  ‘I suppose that could be,’ Traylor agreed. ‘This Burns – if that’s who he is – was shot at point blank range through the window. Somehow it doesn’t seem that he’d have gone up there to meet someone he didn’t know.’

  ‘I have no proof, of course, but that’s what I think happened, too. How many men were in on the bank job?’

  ‘Three, as far as we know, which fits with what you are saying. I’ll need those men’s names and descriptions now.’ Randy who had just gone through this procedure in Cameron Corners rattled off their names, along with descriptions of Van Connely, Trapper and Archie Slater.

  ‘That name – Archie Slater – seems to ring a bell. I think I have an old warrant on him. A killer, if I remember, a hot hand with a gun.’

  ‘Sounds like him. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have old warrants on all three of them as well as Burns.’

  The marshal finished scribbling notes to himself and then asked, ‘What about the other three? Do you know where they’re headed?’

  ‘None. No idea at all. That was one of the reasons I came in here – to ask if anyone had seen these men ride out, which direction they would be most likely to take.’

  ‘Temple City would be my guess,’ the man in the corner muttered.

  ‘Could be,’ Marshal Traylor said thoughtfully. ‘There’s not much else around west of here. And that’s the direction they took unless they were just laying a false trail.’

  ‘I’d start tracking in that direction,’ the red-faced man said to Randy. ‘You’ll likely cut their sign, and if they switched directions, you’ll know. If you’re any kind of tracker.’

  ‘I’m not so sure I am,’ Randy admitted.

  ‘What are you thinking, Resolute?’ the marshal asked. ‘Pardon me, son, I was remiss in not introducing you two. This is Resolute Duncan. Used to be my deputy before the years caught up with him.’

  ‘I resent that, Ben,’ Resolute Duncan said, stirring in his chair. ‘You know that the town council only used that as an excuse so Bradford’s son could take my job.’

  Randy could see that the two were going to rehash an old discussion, so he reached for his hat and planted it. ‘I’ve got to be going, men.’ This was as close as he had ever been to catching up with Van Connely, and he meant to waste no time.

  ‘Want me to go with you?’ Resolute Duncan asked, rising. ‘All I need is enough time to throw a saddle on my horse.’ He paused and smiled, his thick lips parting slightly. ‘Me, I’m one of the best trackers in the territory – isn’t that right, Ben?’

  ‘It’s right,’ the marshal replied without reluctance. ‘You know I can’t be paying you for any assistance you might give this young man.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to,’ Resolute said with a brief display of temper. ‘And I wouldn’t take spit from the town council. It’s just civic duty, and the wish to be doing something. I’m getting fat as a hog now that I’m not working.’

  It was still mid-morning when they trailed out of Hazlit, the sun riding high in a crystalline sky. There was a cool, fitful wind blowing, the last remnant of the storm that had passed. Resolute rode an off-white gelding with a gray mane and tail and a few flecks of gray on either side of its rump. For some reason Randy’s black didn’t seem to like the other animal. Twice he tried to nip its shoulder.

  ‘Bad tempered, ain’t he?’ Resolute commented after the second attempt.

  ‘He’s got a lot of faults,’ Randy answered. ‘Up till now I was the only one he’d tried to bite.’

  Not Kate. That thought shifted and took the form of fond remembrance in his mind. He rode silently beside Resolute as they reached the sun bright creek and crossed it, their horses sending up fans of water, making tiny rainbows in the sun. After riding up the sandy bank on the far side of the creek, Resolute reined in his horse, took off his hat, ran his wrist across his forehead, and swung briefly down.

  ‘Here they go again,’ he said, indicating fresh hoof prints. He then only stared at the tracks for a minute or two. ‘I’ve got ’em memorized now,’ he said. ‘This one long-striding animal has a chip in his left hind shoe. See that?’

  Randy didn’t, but he was already glad that he had taken on Resolute. He just had never learned the tricks of man-hunting. Resolute had had more than twenty years working the trade. Randy asked as they rode westward, ‘Was that true, what you were saying about the town council pensioning you off so that one of them could put his son to work?’

  ‘True,’ Resolute said defiantly. ‘Or not true – you asked two questions, Randy. I didn’t get “pensioned off.” I don’t get no pension. The marshal will get one – he’s an elected official, but not a deputy. I got nothing to show for my years of working for the people of Hazlit.’

  ‘That’s tough,’ Randy sympathized.

  ‘You should say so! All I’ve got to look forward is joining the old-timers that sit whittling and telling long-ago stories.’

  ‘Aren’t you married?’ Randy inquired curiously.

  ‘You bet I am!’ Resolute said, raising a finger to indicate the direction they should travel across a brushy ravine. ‘That’s one reason I offered to come along.’

  Randy frowned. ‘I don’t get you,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t? It’s like this, my young friend. A woman might be a good and faithful wife when you’ve got a job and are out of her hair for most of the day, might cook a fine dinner for you to come home to at night. But … I sometimes think they let resentment build up over the years, and when you’re not doing anything but getting in the way while they’re still doing as much work as ever, they seem to get angry easier, start carping at you even though you’ve done nothing wrong, nothing you could help doing. They seem almost like they’re trying to get even for the lean years they’ve endured – especially when dinner has to be made up of roots and fat meat instead of the plump roasts they used to be able to afford to buy.’

  ‘I see,’ was all Randy could think to say.

  ‘I doubt it. I hope you never have to find out,’ Resolute said as they crested the canyon rim and continued on westward, Resolute still studying the tracks they were following. The land now was chaparral, dominated by purple sage and much creosote and sumac. Randy could see nothing ahead of them.

  ‘Did you come along with me to try solve things at home?’ he asked.

  ‘Sort of – mostly to just get away for a while, but this could be to my advantage, too.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Those boys – at least two of them have reward posters out on them, don’t they?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘I have,’ Resolute said smiling distantly. ‘The bank might have a reward up too, by the time we get back. Besides, I mean to show the people of that town that I am still the man for the job. You don’t see young Bradford, or the marshal out tracking these bank robbers down, do you? No, sir, I mean to show Hazlit what a washed-up old man can do!’

  They rode on mostly in silence after that, Resolute showing the way with certainty, although Randy had to admit he could not always see the tracks the horses of Van Connely’s gang had made over the broken, rocky ground. The day remained bright, the wind cool as sunset began to settle and they paused their ponies on a low knoll to peer into the distance toward the scarlet sun which flushed the land.

  ‘There ’tis, son,’ Resolute said, drawing in his breath heavily. The long ride had betrayed his protestations of age.

  ‘What?’ Randy asked, seeing nothing across the long brush-covered land.

  ‘Dead ahead,’ Resolute said proudly, his eyes apparently being sharper than the younger man’s. ‘That is Temple City right there. And unless our quarry has made a sudden decision to veer off their course, that is where we will find them.’

  At dusk they rode the main street of Temple City. Randy was beginning to think that all of these remote border towns had been designed by the same drunken planner. Their sameness was the only thing notable about them. Overhead a large flight of doves was winging its way homeward as darkness began to settle across the desert. Nobody was about. The good folks of the town were home sitting down to supper and the local no-goods did not emerge from their lairs in the daylight.

  ‘Do you see a hotel?’ Randy asked. Resolute pointed up the street.

  ‘That might be a little boarding house. There’s a few men standing around.’

  ‘All right. Keep your eyes open.’

 

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