Matt saw a flicker of humiliation pass across Cynthia’s face as she glanced down in mortification.
“And this is my employee, Ken Hendel,” Bixby added. “I keep him on because of his business acumen and—also—because he is, at heart, too frightened to ever challenge me.”
As Cynthia had before him, Matt saw Hendel react to Bixby’s harsh words. The reaction, however, suggested that Hendel might not be quite as subservient as Bixby believed, and when Matt smiled knowingly at him, he was pleased to see Hendel return the smile. It was as if Hendel had just verified Matt’s observation.
“Tell me, Mr. Jensen, where are you bound?” Bixby asked.
“Phoenix.”
“Phoenix? Well, what a wonderful piece of luck. We, too, are bound for Phoenix,” Bixby said. “That means we shall be able to keep each other company during the journey.”
Phoenix, Arizona Territory
“I’ll give you one hundred dollars for all of it,” the jeweler said.
“One hundred dollars?” Meechum complained. “These here necklaces is worth a lot more than one hundred dollars. Why, there’s twenty of ’em here and I’ve seen just one of ’em bring twenty dollars in Denver.”
“You aren’t in Denver,” the jeweler said. “Of course, if you don’t like my offer, you can always take ’em to Denver to sell.”
“Take the money, Billy,” Philbin said. “It’s better’n nothin’, and right now nothin’ is what we have.”
“All right, all right,” Meechum said disgustedly. “We’ll take the one hundred dollars, but that ain’t right and you know it. It ain’t no way right.”
“If it isn’t right from you, consider the Indian you bought these from,” the jeweler said. “I don’t know what you paid for them, but I’d be willin’ to bet you didn’t pay no one hundred dollars.”
“Hah! You got that right!” Cantrell said.
Meechum glared at Cantrell for a moment, then said, “Give us our money so we can get on about our business.”
The jeweler counted out five twenty-dollar gold pieces. Meechum kept two for himself, than gave one each to the other three men.
“How come you get to keep two?” Oliver asked.
Meechum held the piece up. “This here is for all of us,” he said. “We’ll go over to the saloon, get us somethin’ to eat and somethin’ to drink, have some left over for some whores—and we’ll still have twenty dollars apiece in our pockets.”
“Yeah,” Philbin said with a big smile. “Yeah, that sounds good to me.”
The three men tied off their horses, then went into the Last Chance Saloon. The barkeep was at the other end of the bar talking to a couple of his patrons. He laughed loudly at something one of them said, then with the smile still on his face, moved down the bar toward Meechum, Philbin, Oliver, and Cantrell.
“What can I get you gents?”
“Whiskey,” Meechum said. “Leave the bottle.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t care what kind. We want to get drunk, not give a party.”
The bartender took a bottle from beneath the counter. There was no label on the bottle and the color was dingy and cloudy. He put four glasses alongside the bottle, then pulled the cork for them.
“That’ll be a buck-fifty,” he said.
Meechum slid the double-eagle gold piece toward him, then waited for the change.
Philbin poured four glasses, then passed them around. He took a swallow, then almost gagged. He spat it out and frowned at his glass.
“What the hell is this?” he asked. “This tastes like horse piss.”
Cantrell took a smaller swallow. He grimaced, but he got it down. Meechum and Oliver had no problem at all with the whiskey.
“It’s all in the way you drink it,” Meechum explained. “This here is sippin’ whiskey and it can’t be drunk down real fast. What you got to do is, you got to sort of sip it.” He demonstrated.
Philbin took another swallow, following Meechum’s advice to sip it, and this time he, too, managed to keep it down.
“Yeah,” he said, coughing to clear his throat. “Yeah, I guess it ain’t all that bad.”
They were on their second glass each, and the bottle was more than half empty, when another patron stepped into the saloon. He stood just inside the swinging batwing doors for a moment, taking everything in with one comprehensive sweep of his eyes.
“Whoa, get a load of that little dandy over there who just come in to the saloon,” Oliver said, chuckling. “Ain’t he somethin’ now? I bet that little feller wouldn’t dress out more’n seventy-five to eighty pounds. Ninety pounds at the most.”
“I’d be careful makin’ them comments about that little feller iffen I was you,” Meechum said.
“Why, what’s he going to do? Come over here and beat me up?” Oliver asked, laughing again.
“No,” Meechum said. “But he might put a hole between your eyes.”
“What do you mean, he might put a hole between my eyes? What are you talkin’ about?”
“We’re over here,” Meechum called out, and the little man at the door started toward them.
“What the hell you invitin’ him over here for?” Oliver asked, obviously irritated by the invitation.
“Men, I want you to meet Pogue Willis,” Meechum said when Willis joined them.
Oliver had just taken another swallow of his whiskey, and he spat it out in surprise.
“Willis?” he said. “This is Pogue Willis?”
The others laughed at Oliver.
“Damn, Abe, iffen you ain’t man enough to drink that whiskey, maybe you ought not to even try,” Cantrell said, and they all laughed again.
“What do you say we find us a table at the back so we can talk?” Willis said. “Get another glass and bring the bottle.”
Meechum grabbed the bottle and another glass, and they all went to a table at the back of the room.
“I told the boys you had a job for us,” Meechum said.
“Only he didn’t tell us what it was,” Oliver added.
“Does it matter?” Willis asked as he poured himself a glass of whiskey.
“It don’t matter as long as it pays off,” Oliver said. “I just don’t want no more bank jobs like the last one.”
“I told you I sent word callin’ that job off,” Meechum said. “It ain’t my fault if you got greedy and went before you was supposed to.”
“Yeah, well, that one is behind us,” Cantell said, “and there’s no use in palaverin’ over it now. What is this new job, and what do you want us to do?”
“The bank of—” Willis started, but Philbin interrupted him before he could continue.
“Whatever bank this is, I hope you checked out the safe so’s there’s nothin’ like happened before,” Philbin said.
Willis glared at Philbin with such intensity that Philbin had to look away.
“You boys goin’ to let me tell you what this job is about? Or are you goin’ to sit there and prattle on like a bunch of women?” Willis asked, his voice showing his irritation.
“I’m sorry,” Philbin said. “I was just makin’ a comment, is all, given what happened to us the last time we tried to hold up a bank.”
“I am not in the mood to listen to any comments any of you might be wanting to make,” Willis said.
The others were quiet.
“Like I was about to say, the Bank of Phoenix gets a transfer of funds from a bank in Colorado every Friday,” Willis said.
“What is a transfer of funds?” Oliver asked.
“It means the bank in Colorado is sendin’ a lot of money down to the bank here in Phoenix,” Meechum said. “By train,” he added.
“Son of a bitch, you’re talkin’ about robbin’ the train, aren’t you?” Oliver asked.
“No,” Willis said. “We’re goin’ to rob a stagecoach. That’s a lot easier than holdin’ up a train.”
“But I thought you said the money was comin’ by train from Colorado.”