Ride Tall, Hang High Page 5

  Chapter FIVE

  Johnny Joe vaulted over the counter and put his revolver against the head of one remaining bank teller and told him to lay down on the floor. He did at once. He put his knee in the middle of the teller’s back and quickly tied his hands and feet, then put the gag around his mouth tieing it tightly in back of his neck.

  By the time he had the teller tied up, all four men in the bank were tied and gagged.

  Johnny Joe cleaned out the teller’s cage cash drawers, looked around for more money but found none. He ran to the vault with its standing open door.

  Willy Boy was there stuffing stacks of bills into canvas bank bags. The Professor did the same with a drawer filled with gold coins. They went through the vault twice, decided they had every bit of money in the place and checked the teller drawers again.

  One locked drawer gave way to a sturdy kick by a number twelve boot belonging to Gunner. Inside were more stacks of bills. They scooped them up, then went

  through the office and out a door into the bank lobby.

  "Right this way, gentlemen," the Professor said. "The back door to the alley is this way. Oh, we did make sure that no one looking in the windows can see anyone tied, up, didn’t we?"

  Gunner shrugged. The Professor ran back toward the front door and pushed the first teller next to the front wall where he couldn’t be seen. There were only two windows, and now anyone looking in either one could see that the bank was closed and the workers gone for the day.

  The Professor came to the back door. "We go out one at a time and drift down to the general store. Act normally. The bank bags we slip in our saddlebags when nobody is looking. Everybody have some spending money?"

  Ten minutes later Willy Boy and Johnny Joe had started stacking up goods they wanted to buy at the general store. They each took two wool blankets at two dollars each, and new western black hats with a low crown on them,

  They got canteens, and trail tin dinnerware to serve six, plates, cups, silverware, and some pots and pans.

  The store owner, Art Evertson, nodded at them.

  "Peers you boys going to be taking a trail ride," he said.

  " ’Bout the size of it," Willy Boy said. They picked out a sackful of food: a slab of bacon, two loaves of fresh bread, salt, sugar, coffee beans, some cans of sliced peaches, and a bunch of dried fruits and jerky.

  When the store owner totaled it up he had a bill of $26. Willy Joe fished in his pocket and came up with a ten and a twenty dollar bill he had put there in advance

  from the bank loot.

  "Why don't 1 throw in about three gunny sacks or flour sacks you can use to tote that stuff in," Everston said. "Least I can do. Hope you boys have a good trip. "

  They carried the sacks out of the store and down to their horses. In case the store owner was watching, they tied one sack of goods on each of the two animals, and then led them down the street. They had agreed to meet back at the same camp site they used the night before.

  It was a half hour after Willy Boy and Johnny Joe got to the camp before the other three came in. All wore low crowned black hats. The professor had a new shirt and a red checkered vest.

  "Took my fancy," the Professor said.

  "You each got blankets and canteens and personal gear you wanted?" Willy Boy asked.

  "Yeah, sure did," Eagle said. "Almost wouldn’t sell me anything until Gunner came up and stared that clerk right into the table. "

  "We’re set," the Professor said. "Where we heading?"

  "We know that Sheriff Dunwoody will probably be after us again. We’ll watch for him. I’ve got some business up in Kansas. Figured we might head up that way. Should be able to find out where the Fourteenth Cavalry Regiment is at the same time. "

  Eagle nodded. He was sharpening his eight-inch hunting knife with a new whetstone he had bought in town.

  Gunner nodded. Juan shrugged, Johnny Joe grinned and saluted. The Professor made it unanimous.

  "Let’s get out of here then before they find out they just lost their bank money," Willy Boy said. "We’ll count the cash on our first stop. As I remember, there’s a main trail running from the corner of New Mexico across the edge of the Indian Territories and up to Fort Dodge, Kansas. Shouldn’t be hard to find. "

  "Kansas sounds good," Eagle said. "I haven’t been in Kansas yet talking to the army. "

  "We’re not going to wait for Sheriff Dunwoody this time," Willy Boy said. "If he wants us, he’ll have to catch us. "

  They rode hard the rest of the afternoon heading straight north. It was almost dark when they saw a stage coach rattling along a road of sorts. When they got to it they found it was only a trail, but a well used one.

  "Must be the trail from Fort Dodge down to some fort in New Mexico," Willy Boy said. "I’d guess we have a ride of about two hundred miles. "

  The sun was dropping behind the western prairie when they angled to a small stream and found a place to camp behind some cottonwood and a few misplaced live oak trees.

  They swung down from their horses and Willy Boy called them around. "Bring your sacks of bank money. Let’s count up and divide and see how much we earned for ourselves this afternoon. "

  "Yeah, yeah," the Professor said.

  They dumped the money out on a blanket and the Professor said he’d had experience counting bank money so they sat back and watched as he did the honors.

  "Remember, that was a tiny bank in a small town, so don’t expect a hell of a lot. "

  He counted and dug a small pad of paper and a stub pencil from his pocket and noted down figures as he went along. Then he stacked the double eagle $20 gold coins,

  and then stacked the smaller gold coins.

  When he had it all noted down on the pad he added it. Then he frowned, put down a figure and added the total again. At last he sat back on his heels and looked at them.

  "Gentlemen, we took from that little bank $2,466. ""Woweeeeeeeee!" Willy Boy shrilled.

  The others yelped in glee and looked back at the Professor.

  "That means each of us gets $411. That don’t count what we already spent back at that same town. " Juan’s eyes went wide. "That’s more money than I make in two years!" he said.

  "More than I’ve seen in a long time,’’Johnny Joe said. Eagle shook his head. "I never have owned that much real money. "

  "Divide it up," Willy Boy said. "We won’t have a banker, don’t want nobody getting any big ideas. We’re a team, we busted out together, and if we don’t stick together, Dunwoody or some bounty hunter’s gonna cut us to pieces. "

  "I don’t got a purse to carry it," Gunner said. "Next town we get money belts and pocket books," Willy Joe said. "Until then, stash it in your saddlebags. " Eagle put his money away, then he dug a small fire pit and lined the outside of it with dry rocks from the river bank. He made a fire and took the bag of dry beans the rancher had given them.

  "If we put them on to cook tonight, and let them cook all night, it’s as good as soaking them overnight and cooking them the next day," Eagle explained. "They’ll be ready for breakfast and dinner. "

  Juan looked around to see who was going to be cook.

  At last he talked to Willy Boy who nodded and Juan began peeling potatoes and dropping them into a pot of water to boil. He fried slices of bacon and gave Eagle three raw slices to put in with the beans. They cut off steaks and fried them as well and sliced the loaves of bread with Eagle’s long knife.

  When the potatoes were done, Juan dished them out into the six plates, piled on two slices of bacon each, and then slid in a pound of beefsteak fried to a sizzle and added a slice of bread.

  The coffee had been boiling and the men had been drinking it as the dinner was readied. They sat around the fire cross-legged, balancing the tin plates on their laps or on a handy rock.

  When the meal was over, Eagle tossed his plate in the air and caught it. "I move we elect Juan our full time cook. Best food I’ve had since I left the tribe about a hundred years ago. "

&n
bsp; They all shouted and Juan grinned.

  "At home I help my wife cook. She has a bad hand and it’s hard for her. "

  "If you think this was good," Eagle said. "Wait until you taste my beans and bacon for breakfast!"

  They all hissed and booed.

  He grinned. "What the hell, I’ll eat them all myself. " When the dinner was cooked, he pushed the coals around his bean pot so the water would keep boiling gently. He added just enough wood to the blaze to keep the heat about even.

  As the others rolled out their blankets, Eagle used a small folding shovel he had bought at the hardware. He dug a hole twice as big as his bean pot next to the fire. He moved over a shovel full of coals and built a new fire in the second fire pit putting on a lot of wood so it would bum down to coals.

  "What the hell you doing, Eagle?" Willy Boy asked.

  "Making a bed of coals to keep my feet warm tonight," he said.

  When the others crawled into their blankets, Eagle poured more fresh water into the bean pot and sealed on the lid. Then he used a pair of gloves and lowered the bean pot into the hole directly on top of six-inches of glowing coals. When the pot was in safely, he shoveled dirt from the hole back into the area around the pot. When he got to the top, he took a folded gunny sack and put it over the top of the pot, then covered the whole thing with a mound of dirt.

  Willy Boy watched from his blankets. "So that’s how you get it to cook all night without tending the fire," he said.

  "Old white eye trick," Eagle said. "I learned it from one of the Brothers at Catholic school in San Antonio. "

  They let the fire die down, and Willy Boy lay there with his fingers laced together in back of his head staring through the leaves at the stars.

  So far, so good. They had food and equipment and arms and were on their way to Kansas to try to find that bastard Deeds Conover. He’d have the Professor make inquiries with the lawmen in the Kansas towns. Sooner or later one of the sheriffs would know where the bounty hunter was. He wasn’t liked by the law, but they respected him. He brought in a lot of postered men.

  As he drifted off to sleep, Willy Boy was thinking up new kinds of torture for Deeds Conover. He wanted the man scared shitless, screaming for mercy, and agonizing right up to the last minute of hours and hours of physical

  torture. Yeah!

  Morning came with a gust of wind and sunshine. Clouds were building in the west and moving toward them. With luck they could find a stage station or a small town before the angry clouds turned loose and showered them with hail or a cloudburst.

  There was time to dig out the bean pot. They had eaten bacon sandwiches for breakfast and three cups of coffee each along with a chew of dried apricots, but the beans interested them.

  Eagle dug off the gunny sack and shook it clean, then washed it out in the creek. He lifted off the top of the bean pot and the smell of the white beans cooked with the bacon won them over.

  They lined up to spoon out beans on their plates. Eagle stood back and waited until last. Then he tasted them, nodded, sprinkled some salt on them and had another slice of the bread.

  "Damn good!" Johnny Joe screeched. "How you learn to do that? My old mom used to soak beans overnight, then cook them for a day and a half. "

  "White eye much crazy," Eagle said, going into his dumb Indian pose.

  They laughed together, ate half the beans and put the rest in a pot with a lid they could seal and strapped it in with the rest of the food. They’d heat the beans up for dinner.

  For the next two days they rode toward Kansas. They never were sure when they went through the edge of Indian Territory or when they came into Kansas. They got soaked twice with summer thunderstorms but missed getting struck by lightning.

  The third day they came to a small town and rode directly to the first saloon. It was early afternoon and Gunner bought five bottles of beer at the bar for a dime each and came back and gave each of the men one.

  "Where’s yours?" Willy Boy asked Gunner.

  "Don’t drink," Gunner said. "I go kind of crazy. "

  He stared at them and they nodded.

  After two beers they went outside and Willy Boy talked to the Professor for a minute, then he went across the street to the building with the sign on it that said,"Jesse, Kansas City Marshal. "

  Five minutes later the Professor came back to the horses shaking his head.

  "Sorry, Willy Boy, the marshal here never heard of this Deeds Conover. He said there’s the county seat down the line about ten miles and they might know about him. "

  It was getting on toward supper time and they all trooped into the Jesse Cafe and Bakery and had a real supper. The specialty today was beef stew with six different vegetables and cherry pie.

  On the way out they bought three loaves of bread and got back on their horses and rode.

  They had been putting in long days, and Willy Boy figured they had covered about 40 miles a day. That meant they should be about halfway there. Their horses were holding up good. Willy Boy wondered if Sheriff Dunwoody was still after them.

  "Two more days and we should be at the army post," he told Eagle. "You’ve looked for this army outfit before?"

  "Yes, but they usually won’t talk to me. If you or the Professor could talk to the Post Commander, he should know where the Fourteenth is, if it’s anywhere in this section of the country. I think he’d have a roster or a list showing where every army is stationed. "

  "I’ll do it. I almost joined the army once. Glad now that I didn’t. They would have shot me by now for sure. Don’t worry, Eagle, we’ll find the bastard outfit that shot down your family. I promise you that. "

  They rode again. Willy Boy was anxious to talk to the county sheriff where they might know something about bounty hunter Deeds Conover. His trigger finger itched just thinking about that bastard!