Ben came back with four beers, spilled a little out of each of them as he put them down.
“What’re ya talkin’ about?” he asked.
“Spendin’ money,” Wilson said. “And I asked your brother what we’re doin’ here.”
“What are we doin’ here?” Ben asked.
“He says waitin’.”
“Waitin’ for what?”
“And now you’re all caught up, Ben,” Wilson said.
“Just shut up and listen, all of you,” Jeb said. “The last town we stopped in I sent a telegram.”
“When’d you have time to do that?” Ben asked.
“When you were spending the last of your money on whores and booze,” Jeb said.
“And gamblin’,” Wilson added. He turned his attention to Jeb. “Who’d you send a telegram to?”
“Vic Delay.” He pronounced the name Dee-lay.
“Delay?” Wilson asked. “He’s a cold-blooded killer. Why’d you contact him?”
“I just want a little insurance when we go into Pearl River Junction after Belinda and my kid,” Jeb said. “Struck me that the town—and the local law—might not take too kindly to us grabbin’ a little kid and a woman.”
“We don’t know what kind of law they got there,” Wilson said.
“All the more reason to have some insurance.”
“Vic Delay,” Wilson said, again, shaking his head.
“Vic’s okay,” Ben said. “I like Vic.”
“And some of his boys,” Jeb said. He was ignoring Ben’s remark and responding to Wilson’s.
“Jesus.”
“Hey,” Jeb said, sitting forward in his chair, “if the Pearl River Junction bank looks good, we’ll probably take it while we’re there. Vic and his men will come in handy.”
“I never understood why you became friends with him,” Wilson said. “We’re thieves, not killers. That’s why you only got two years in Yuma, ’cause we never killed anybody during a job.”
“I killed people,” Ben said. “I killed plenty of people.”
Jeb and Wilson continued to ignore Ben, as did Dave Roberts, only he seemed to be ignoring everybody. He wasn’t included in any decisions and was never asked any questions or opinion, so he generally just sort of wandered off in his head until his name was called.
“Dave!” Jeb said.
“Yeah? Huh?”
“Go out in the street and watch for Delay and his men,” Jeb said. “Show ’em in here when they get here.”
“Sure, Jeb.”
“Ben, go with him,” Jeb said. “You’re drivin’ me crazy in here.”
“What am I doin’?” Ben complained.
“You can’t sit still, damn it!” Jeb said. “You’re makin’ me feel like I’m in a stagecoach.”
“Aw, Jeb—”
“Get up and git.”
Both men stood up and walked out the batwing doors of the little saloon. Jeb picked it because there was no music, no gambling, and no women.
“They’re probably gonna end up in another saloon,” Wilson said, “or a whorehouse.”
“Between ’em,” Jeb said, “they ain’t got the price of one whore.”
“Jeb, you sure about Vic Delay?”
“I’m sure, Clark,” Jeb Collier said. “A little bit of insurance never hurt nobody.”
33
Vic Delay didn’t like Jeb Collier, but he saw in Jeb something that Collier didn’t even see in himself: a killer. In that way he felt that he and Jeb Collier were kindred spirits. So when he got the telegram from Jeb asking him to meet him in Waco, he agreed.
Delay knew a lot of killers, but in none of them did he sense what he did in Jeb Collier and he wanted to be there the day it came out.
“You know what this fella Delay looks like?” Dave Roberts asked Ben when they were outside.
“Yeah, I know.”
Roberts waited for Ben to elaborate. When Ben didn’t, Roberts asked, “So, what does he look like?”
“He’s scary-lookin’,” Ben said.
“Whataya mean, scary-lookin’?”
Ben shuddered.
“You’ll know when you see him,” he said. “It’s somethin’ in his eyes.”
“How can somebody’s eyes be scary?”
“Don’t take my word for it,” Ben said. “Take a look for yourself.” Ben pushed off the pole he’d been leaning against. “Here he comes now.”
Riding into Waco, down the main street, Delay spotted Ben Collier, who he disliked even more than his brother—but Ben had no redeeming qualities to make up for it. Delay thought Ben Collier was a waste of air and was surprised and disappointed that somebody hadn’t killed him by now.
“That looks like the brother,” Lou Tanner said.
“Yeah.” Tanner was Delay’s right hand and had been riding with him much longer than the other two men, Roy Leslie and Bill Samms.
“I could put a bullet into him from here,” Tanner offered, knowing how Delay felt about Ben Collier.
“Forget it,” Delay said. “Some day his own brother will probably do it.”
The four men reined in their horses in front of Ben Collier.
“Jeb’s in this little saloon, Mr. Delay,” Ben said, nervously.
“Who’s this?” Delay asked, indicating Roberts.
“Uh, this is Dave Roberts.”
Delay stared at Roberts until the other man looked away, then dismounted, followed by his men.
“Want us to take care of your horses, Mr. Delay?” Ben asked.
“No,” Delay said, “leave ’em. We don’t know if we’re stayin’, do we?”
“No, I guess not.”
“But I tell you what,” Delay said, handing Ben his horse’s reins. “You can stay out here and watch ’em for us.”
“Sure, Mr. Delay, sure,” Ben said.
Delay turned and walked into the saloon, followed by Tanner and the other two men.
Ben turned to Dave Roberts and looked at him expectantly.
“Jesus,” the other man said.
“I told you.”
“Them’s are the deadest eyes I ever seen,” Roberts said. “He’d just as soon kill ya as look at ya.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “That’s why I don’t mind stayin’ out here and watchin’ his horse.”
“Me neither.”
Jeb Collier saw Vic Delay as soon as he entered the saloon, followed by Lou Tanner and two men he didn’t know. He stood up as the man approached, because you never knew what to expect from a killer like Delay.
“Vic,” he said.
“Jeb,” Delay said.
“Beer?”
“Sure.”
“Clark?” Jeb said. “Why don’t you get Vic a beer and then take his men over to the bar. Hello, Tanner.”
“Jeb,” Lou Tanner said.
“Lou,” Delay said, “take the boys over to the bar with Wilson.”
“Sure, Vic.”
Wilson brought a beer back to the table for Delay, another for Jeb, and then went to join Delay’s boys at the bar.
“So,” Delay asked Collier, “when did you get out?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“Do anything worthwhile since then?”
Jeb Collier named the two banks he and his men had hit since his release from Yuma.
“Those were you?” Delay asked. “You didn’t waste any time.”
“I needed some traveling money.”
“To travel where?”
“Pearl River Junction.”
Vic Delay drank some beer and said, “Never heard of it. What’s there? A bank?”
“They got a bank, sure,” Collier said, “but I’m headed there for another reason.”
“Like what?”
Jeb hesitated then asked, “You got any kids, Vic?”
“No,” Delay said with a laugh. “What would I do with a kid?”
“Well, I might have one.”
“Might?” Delay asked. “You mean you don’t know?”