“What are you saying?” said Casings.
“What I’m saying is, do what suits you best,” said Rock. “I’m going after my money.”
“All right, I’m in with you,” said Casings, he and the Giant catching up to him. “But what about Spiller, Penta and Shaner? They won’t know what happened to us.”
“They’ll have to figure it all out as they go,” said Rochenbach, gigging his dun up into a gallop on the rocky hill trail.
Riding alongside Rochenbach, the Giant said in his deep voice, “Grolin is going to be madder than a hornet at us.”
“If Grolin gets mad when we hand him a saddlebag full of money, we shouldn’t be working for him anyway, Giant,” said Rochenbach. He gave Casings a knowing look as he spoke.
“Yeah,” said the Giant with a wide grin, “that’s what I say.”
Macon Ray Silverette and the other two ambushers swung wide around the main street of Central City, but they stopped long enough to load up on bottles of rye whiskey at a small trading post along the trail. While a bleary-eyed store owner concentrated on tallying the whiskey, Macon Ray wrapped a hand around a thick bundle of cigars and shoved them inside his coat.
“I saw that,” the owner said, raising his eyes.
“No, you didn’t,” said Macon Ray, feeling full of himself after the night’s robbery. “You just think you did.” He drew his Colt and cocked it arm’s length in the clerk’s face before adding, “Otherwise you’d be calling me a thief and a liar right to my damn face.”
“You’re absolutely right, sir!” said the badly shaken man as Kinney and Fackler both followed suit, raising their guns, cocked and pointed in the clerk’s face. “I—I don’t know what must have come over me!”
“That’s what I thought,” said Macon Ray. “You two grab that whiskey,” he told Kinney and Fackler. “This man all but called me a thief; he’s got to make recompense for it.”
They gathered the bottles of whiskey and left without paying, while the owner stared helplessly at them, grateful to still be alive.
With their regular saddlebags stuffed with whiskey bottles, they rode on in the night through the mining town of Black Hawk and on through Gregory Gulch, a stretch of scrub, craggy cliff and ledges strewn with torchlit hard-rock mines. The odor of wood smoke and burnt sulfur loomed in the chilled air above glowing smelter mills.
When the last flicker of torchlight and furnace glow fell away behind them, the three riders turned onto a narrow path leading up to a long-abandoned mining camp perched on a sawtooth ridgeline. At the edge of a clearing hidden behind a stand of pine, Macon Ray brought Joe Fackler and Albert Kinney to a halt behind him, seeing a dark figure standing on the porch of a run-down mining shack.
“Who the hell goes there?” an unfriendly voice called out from the dark porch.
“Hobbs, it’s us,” Macon Ray called out across the small clearing. “Ray Silverette, Albert Kinney and Cockfighting Joe Fackler.”
Fackler eyed Macon Ray in the dark.
“Nobody’s ever called me that, Ray,” he said.
“I just thought it fitting after what you did to Dirty Dave,” Macon Ray said with a dark chuckle.
From the porch, Parnell Hobbs called out, “Where’s Dave Atlo?
“In hell, I expect,” said Ray. “But that’s a long story, best told closer up.”
“Come on up, then, Macon Ray. Let me get a look at you,” said Hobbs.
As Macon Ray nudged his horse forward, Joe Fackler and Albert Kinney following right behind him, Fackler grumbled, “I don’t like being called Cockfighting Joe. Don’t get it started, Ray.”
“Or what?” Macon Ray asked, feeling satisfied, the saddlebags full of money across his lap. “You going to shoot me?”
Joe started to cock the shotgun lying across his lap, but he thought about the money and eased his thumb off the gun hammers.
“I just don’t like it, is all,” he said, the three of them drawing closer to the porch.
“Who don’t like what?” asked Hobbs as the three came to a halt and he stepped forward off the dark porch. He eyed the saddlebags across Macon Ray’s lap, Ray’s rifle lying atop them.
“Fackler here don’t want to be called Cockfighting Joe,” said Macon.
“Who’s calling him that?” asked Hobbs.
“I am,” said Macon Ray. He looked past Hobbs as the shack door opened and two more men stepped onto the rickety porch.
“Howdy, Raymond Silverette,” said a lean old gunman named Latner Karr. He struck a match and lit a thin cigar. Then he stepped forward, eyeing the saddlebags. “Whatever’s in the bag, I bet it recently belonged to somebody else.”
“Howdy, Latner,” said Macon Ray, recognizing the old man in the flicker of match light. “You’d win that bet,” he added. “It’s money, and some of it’s yours for letting us hole up here.”
On the porch, a sightless outlaw named Simon Goss stepped forward, testing his footing with each step. Following the sound of Karr’s voice, he stopped and stood beside him. His right hand rested against a large Walker Colt hanging down his chest by a lanyard cord.
“What kind of money? How much is there?” he asked with great interest, his blind eyes searching aimlessly in the night. “Is some of it mine?”
“Howdy, Blind Simon,” said Macon Ray. “It’s money we thieved from Andrew Grolin’s thieves.” He grinned proudly. “And damned right, some of it’s yours—all three of yas, like I said,” he added.
Latner Karr stared knowingly at Macon Ray.
“Andy Grolin’s men could be right on your ass, is that it, Raymond?”
“No, we got away clean as soap,” said Macon Ray. “I’m just wanting to lie low awhile. Cockfighting Joe here threw Dirty Dave Alto over a cliff. I’m taking charge.”
“Stop calling me that name,” Joe said in an angry tone. “And I didn’t throw Dirty Dave over a cliff. I forced him to climb down over it on his own.”
“At the end of that goose gun he’s packing,” Macon Ray added, gesturing at the shotgun on Joe’s lap.
“And he’s dead now?” said Karr. “You’re certain of it?”
“Yep, I’m certain of it,” said Ray. He pulled Dirty Dave’s pistol from his belt slowly and pitched it down to the lean old gunman. “You know how partial he was to this six-shooter.”
“He wouldn’t give it up without a fight,” said Karr, inspecting the pistol in his hand.
“He got himself gut-shot by Lonnnie Bonham, so he was dying anyway,” said Ray. “But that’s the end of his string. Whatever he was, I now am.” He smiled proudly and patted the saddlebags. “I’m hoping you three will celebrate with us.”
Latner Karr looked off along the path they’d ridden in on. “I need to mull it over,” he said.
“You do that, Lat. But believe me,” said Macon Ray, “nobody knows we’re here.” He lifted the saddlebags and pitched them to the ground at Karr’s feet. Blind Simon jumped a step at the sound of bags landing in the dirt. “So, mull it over while you help me count this money,” he added with a sly grin.
“I smell whiskey,” said Blind Simon, sniffing the air toward the three horsemen. “Cigars too.”
“The nose on this man, I swear to God,” said Macon Ray. He shook his head in amazement.
Chapter 11
Before daylight, Casings and the Stillwater Giant stood back holding the horses as Rochenbach rapped on the side door to the trading post where Macon Ray and his men had stopped for whiskey in the middle of the night. When the door opened a crack and the owner looked out and saw the three trail-weary gunmen, he almost gasped at the sight of the Stillwater Giant staring at him. He quickly began to slam the door shut, but Rochenbach’s big boot jammed against the bottom of the door, stopping him.