Desperadoes

‘Meaning you and Emmett split fifteen thousand dollars,’ said Pierce.

‘I don’t know where you’re coming up with your numbers. Four hundred dollars times eight—’

‘Eight?’ asked Doolin.

‘Miss Moore,’ I said.

‘Is three thousand two hundred dollars. I counted the spondulix three times and only arrived at three thousand eight hundred and forty-five bucks. The rest was non-negotiable securities and I fed them to the fire.’

‘Ah, so that’s what you did,’ said Doolin. ‘Well then, my mind’s completely at rest.’

‘Heck, when we robbed the Santa Fe at Wharton we hardly got a hundred twenty-five cutting it just four ways. Ask Bitter Creek if you don’t believe me.’

Newcomb threw a stick into the fire. ‘That’s right. Didn’t last me the summer.’

‘It’s not that profitable an occupation,’ said Bob. He picked his saddle up by the horn and jammed his hat down and smiled. ‘It’s just that it beats moving longhorns on the prairie and eating sowbelly and beans.’

I stuck by my brother, of course, but the others murmured amongst themselves most of the day. The gang slouched in their saddles and rode single file through snatching weeds along the Arkansas, Cimarron, and Canadian rivers until we got to the sod house. I had to break a morning skin of ice to wash in the river; then I shaved in my spotted mirror piece while Doolin cooked a big kettle of whatever food we had left. Bob rolled all his property into his bedroll and tied it to his horse and rode over to the six of us as we squatted with bowls by the fire.

‘Adios,’ my brother said.

‘Where the hell you goin’?’ Doolin demanded.

‘What’s it matter?’

‘Well, how we gonna get the next job arranged?’

‘No such thing as a next job, Bill. Emmett and I are through.’

Broadwell swallowed. ‘Through! Are you loco, Bob? Why, I haven’t hardly started yet!’

‘You’re full of surprises today,’ said Pierce.

So another argument went on for most of an hour but I didn’t say a word and Powers just listened with his eyes closed. I washed out my bowl in the river and put on my cleanest dirty shirt and rolled everything else in my raincoat. I heard Doolin say how the express companies were tying money up in pink and blue baby ribbons and that the gang ought to step up and say thanks for it. I pulled a pack mule from the corral and strapped my tools and boots and whatall onto the carry rack.

When I got on my horse, Bob was saying he didn’t give a dang about all the deputies that were crowding on our heels; he wasn’t talking about lack of nerve when he said he wanted quit of the gang. He said it was plain horse sense though that you can’t keep robbery up for long and get away with it.

Something like that. I wasn’t listening very close.

He said, ‘I’m twenty-one years old and I know my mind. You boys and I have always understood each other and there’s no misunderstanding now. This is where Emmett and I call a halt—and you can tie to that.’

I said good-bye with some real sadness, and I printed addresses and said we should get together for Thanksgiving. Then Bob and I rode northwest for the Fort Supply reservation and the town of Woodward where Miss Moore had rented a house. I saw the five of them sulking and brooding and loitering near the fire like men in a railroad yard; then Newcomb jerked the Indian blanket from the doorway and Broadwell came out of the sod house with his cat Turtle under his red flannel shirt and Powers crouched through the pole gate of Pierce’s corral and saddled up his horse.

By late afternoon it was very cold for September. The sky was cobbled and the river was purple and red leaves floated on it. The wind ruffed the weather hair of cattle bunched at a fence. Mud hoofprints froze hard by nightfall and the knuckles turned red on my hands. I but

toned up a sheepskin and rode ten yards behind my brother until he stopped at Canton Lake.

‘Look yonder,’ he said.

I saw a four-horse team and a wagon far across the water. The white canvas had U.S. GOVT. painted on it and I could see lawmen leaning on rifles and jolting in the box.

‘The manhunt,’ he said. ‘Remember you and I doing that? Seems like a long time ago.’

The wagon was gone in the trees.

‘You know what I wish, Bob? I wish I could get a wet rag and scrub the year 1891 clean off the slate. It’s been nothing but trouble and misery for nine months now.’

‘That’ll stop,’ he said. My brother borrowed my tobacco pouch and papers and constructed a cigarette. ‘Did you get taken in by all I said back there?’