Out of gratitude, the people of Painted Rock let them have whatever they wanted, including extra pack horses, canvas to wrap the bodies in, and a buckboard to transport them. By the second week of the trip back to Denver, the smell was so rank, they flipped a coin each morning; the loser had to drive the buckboard.
The Rocky Mountain News carried their story on the front page, and for a while they were the toast of the city. Walter Radtke didn’t dare touch them.
Enos soaked up enough liquor to kill twenty men, dallied with any woman who looked at him twice, then had to leave Denver in a hurry after the mayor’s older sister went to His Honor and accused Enos of trifling with her affections. Later, Charley was told Enos had drifted into Arizona, went off into the Superstition Mountains in search of gold, and vanished.
Tony Fabrizio wasted no time leaving for New York. He planned to send Maria the money for her passage. Then they would find somewhere they could live without fear of retribution. “If there is such a place,” Tony said the last night before he left. He shook Charley’s hand. “You have made my fondest dream possible. For that I can never thank you enough.”
“I am proud to call you my friend,” Charley said.
Tony gave them an address in New York City where he could be reached. Charley wrote to him twice but never received an answer. Charley liked to think things worked out, and Tony and Maria lived long and happy lives together.
As for Charley and Melissa, they were married two days after they reached Denver. Eventually they moved to Kentucky and bought a farm next to Charley’s parents. Five children and fifty years later, they often sat in their rocking chairs in the cool of the evening and reminisced about their days as manhunters.
One such night, with stars twinkling above and cows lolling in the meadow by their barn, Melissa looked thoughtfully at Charley. “Tell me true. If you had it to do all over again, would you do it the same?”
Charley smiled and clasped her hand.
“What do you think?”
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA