“Only three hundred dollars? Damn it, Lath, I haven’t got three hundred to spare, not if I’m gonna make the trailer payment on time.”
Lath drew back his head in feigned surprise. “Did I ask you for the money, little brother?”
“You didn’t have to,” Rollie answered in disgust. “You’ve been bumming money off me ever since you came back.”
“And you’re such an easy touch, you keep forkin’ it over.” He grinned and sauntered over to a rusty metal canister sitting by a shelving post on the cellar’s dirt floor. Squatting beside it, he wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his T-shirt, pried off the metal lid, then reached inside and pulled out a thick wad of bills. Rollie’s mouth dropped open when he saw the amount of money still left in the can.
“How much is in there?” he breathed the words.
“Close to ten thousand. I got a can with another twenty thousand buried at the southeast corner of the barn.” Lath paused in his counting of the money and grinned up at him. “You don’t think I spent all that time in prison without some seed money waitin’ for me when I got out.”
“You mean…you have nearly thirty thousand dollars?” Rollie had trouble absorbing that.
“And this gun deal comin’ up is gonna net me another five.” He raised an eyebrow in open mockery. “Do you still want me to leave you out of the deal?”
Almost woodenly, Rollie walked over to the can, needing to touch the bills and make sure they were genuine. “You made all this from selling guns,” he murmured, awestruck.
“Nope. This is only what I managed to save. I did me some livin’ with the rest.”
Rollie frowned. “If you had all this, why didn’t you send Ma some when she was needin’ it?”
“I couldn’t get to it, not without taking the risk of those Treasury boys following me and seizing it like they did just about everything else I had. ’Sides, even if I had, we both know she would have plowed the money back into the damned farm. This way’s better.”
“Jeezus, we’re rich,” Rollie murmured, lovingly fingering the bills. “I can quit my job—”
“Not so fast, little brother.” Lath pulled the canister away from him and stuffed the excess bills back inside, pocketing the rest. “You gotta keep that job. One of us has to be makin’ an income people can see. That was another mistake I made the last time, flashing more money than I could account for. This time, I’m gonna look poor, live poor, and drive poor, and let people think I’m spongin’ off my hardworkin’ little brother. In a year, maybe two, I’ll have enough that we can blow this place, buy us some new identities, and show Ma the good life.”
Seeing all the money turned Rollie into a believer. He watched Lath shove the canister into the black shadows under a shelf. “You aren’t going to leave that there, are you?”
“It’s okay for now. Later I’ll be buryin’ it right inside the cellar door.” He laid an arm across Rollie’s shoulders in a confiding gesture. “I’m tellin’ ya that so you’ll have it for Ma in case I run into any trouble. Okay?”
“Okay.” He was suddenly and deeply moved by the trust Lath was showing in him. He had been the little brother and called the little brother for so long that he’d always felt inadequate. Now, Lath trusted him, and he felt somehow bigger, stronger, more competent.
“I knew I could count on you.” Lath slapped his back. “Come on. Let’s go get cleaned up. We’re both about as rank as an old man’s dirty laundry.”
It wasn’t until he was out of the shower that Rollie remembered the news he’d heard in town. He padded into the kitchen, a towel wrapped around his hips and water still dripping from his long hair. His mother was at the sink, peeling potatoes to add to the roast in the oven. Lath sat on the kitchen counter, a beer in his hand, watching her.
“I forgot to tell you—I saw Reverend Pattersby in at Fedderson’s getting gas. You’ll never guess where he was going.”
“To hell?” Lath grinned.
Emma pressed a hand to her mouth, smothering a girlish titter. “Lath, you’re awful.”
“No, it was better than that. He was heading out to the Triple C. Echohawk’s marrying Cat Calder, and Pattersby’s performing the ceremony.”
Lath pushed off the counter, surprise digging a deep furrow across his forehead. “Echohawk is marrying the Calder girl?”
“That’s what Pattersby said.”
“I never heard any talk about him seeing her,” he mused aloud.
“He’s marrying a tramp, that’s what he’s doing.” At the sink, the paring knife flashed with new fury, sending strips of potato peelings flying into the air. “Her and that little bastard of hers.”
Rollie had saved the juiciest tidbit for last. “There’s some that are speculating Echohawk is the kid’s father.”
“Wouldn’t that be interesting.” Lath arched an eyebrow, then took a thoughtful swig of beer and gazed off into the middle distance.
“It’d be just like Calder to hold a shotgun wedding.”