“Three hundred dollars?” the liveryman gasped.
“That’s right. And it was left in your safekeeping.”
“This here ain’t no bank,” the liveryman retorted. “You ought to’ve had more sense than to leave money here. What do you think that sign is for?” He pointed to the wall, which displayed a large painted sign declaring, THIS ESTABLISHMENT RESPONSIBLE FOR HORSE AND TACK ONLY. NO OTHER VALUABLES TO BE LEFT HERE.
“Oh, damn,” Ken said. “I didn’t see that sign last night.”
“Didn’t none of us see it,” Eddie said. “Wouldn’t surprise me none if the son of a bitch didn’t even put it up till this mornin’.”
“I assure you, that sign has been up all along,” the liveryman sputtered. “You can ask anyone in town, if you don’t believe me.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Hank said, disgustedly.
Dejected, the five cowboys saddled their horses, then rode out of town.
“Damn, we’re no better off now than we were last week,” Eddie said.
“We’re worse off,” Ken replied. “Last week we had what was left of our pay.”
“That’s true.”
“It could be worse. At least we got that telegram offering us a job,” Chad said.
“Yeah, I reckon so,” Gene agreed. “But it galls me to have to show up in El Paso without a dime to our name.”
“Maybe we won’t have to,” Eddie suggested.
“You got any way of gettin’ around that?” Gene asked.
“I might have if you boys are game.”
“I’m game,” Hank said. “Whatever it is, I’m game.”
“Me, too. Less’n it’s robbin’ a bank,” Ken added with a chuckle. “I don’t think I want to do that.”
“I’m not talkin’ about robbin’ a bank,” Eddie said. “I’m talkin’ about robbin’ a train.”
“What?” the other four boys shouted as one.
“You gone plumb crazy, Eddie?” Gene asked. “A train’s worse than a bank. At least a bank is sitting still.”
“The train will be sitting still, too,” Eddie said. “If we do it right.”
“If we do it right?” Ken scoffed. “Tell me, Eddie, just how the hell do you rob a train right?”
“It can be done,” Eddie insisted.
“I didn’t ask if it could be done,” Ken said. “The James boys have robbed enough of ’em to show that it can be done. What I want to know is, how do you do it right?”
“Well, for one thing, we do it different from the James boys.”
“Why? Seems to me like they were pretty successful with it.”
“Yes, but they also did it so many times that they got famous for doin’ it. I only want us to do it one time, just to get the money back that we got stole from us. Hell, there ain’t nobody knows us around here, and we ain’t never done nothin’ like this before, so there ain’t no way anyone’s ever goin’ to know who it was.”
“I don’t know,” Ken said. “Seems to me like folks could get themselves killed doin’ stuff like that.”
“Not if we’re real smart about it,” Eddie insisted.
“If we were real smart about it we wouldn’t be doin’ it in the first place,” Gene said.
“Chad, you ain’t said nothin’,” Eddie said. “What do you think about the idea?”
Chad had been listening in absolute shock. His brother and his friends were discussing the idea as if it were a real possibility, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“What do I think about holding up a train? The idea scares me to death. I hope you aren’t serious.”
“Oh, yes, I’m serious all right. And I know how to do it so that nobody gets hurt. Nobody on the train, and especially not one of us. I can guarantee it!”
“And just how can you guarantee it?” Gene asked. “What is this plan you have?”
“Gene, why are you even asking?” Chad said. “Don’t listen to his plan! Can’t you see that you’ll just encourage him into thinking you’re interested?”
When Gene didn’t answer him, Chad appealed to his brother. “Hank? Tell him! Tell him this is a crazy idea!”
“Well, now, maybe it won’t hurt just to hear what he has to say,” Hank said.
Chad let out a long sigh of defeat and turned his head away to stare off into the distance. Eddie, encouraged by the interest of the others, started his explanation, and Chad could tell by Eddie’s words and the tone of his voice that, in his mind, the proposal had already won acceptance. He was beyond trying to talk them into it, and was now explaining how it would be done.
“It’ll be a snap,” Eddie said. “All we have to do is pick us out a water tower that’s not near a town or anything. Then we’ll wait for a night train to come along. We don’t even have to do nothin’ to stop it, just wait for it to stop for water. It bein’ a night train, all the passengers will be asleep, so none of them will be any problem. Now, when the train stops, we knock on the door of the express car and get them to open the door. All them express cars got safes, and you got to figure that every one of ’em’s got from three to four hundred dollars in ’em. The folks inside the express car won’t be expectin’ nothin’, ’cause train robbers don’t generally brother with that little amount of money. And they ain’t gonna put up no fight where they might get themselves hurt over somethin’ that small. Hell, boys, it’ll be easy as pie.”
“You know, I’ve got to admit, Eddie, that sounds like something we might be able to pull off,” Hank said. “They say the simplest plans is the best. What do you think, Chad?”
“I think it’s a simple plan, all right. And anyone who’d do it would have to be simple. Hank, will you listen to yourself? Do you know what you are saying?”
“Yeah, I reckon I do know what I’m saying, little brother,” Hank replied. “I’m saying I think we ought to do it.”
“Chad, what’s the harm?” Ken asked. “Who’s going to get hurt? What’s a few hundred dollars to a big railroad company?”
“Yeah,” Gene added. “It’s not like we were stealing from some person. I mean, this is a big company we’re talking about, not some poor cowboy who’s worked hard for his money. This ain’t at all like what was done to us. Besides, all we want to do is get our money back.”
“Why are we even worryin’ about it? We got a telegram from Jim and Frank tellin’ us there’s work in El Paso. Let’s just go there and do the job. Make our money the honest way.”
Even as Chad pleaded his case, he knew he had already lost the argument.
“I’ll tell you what, Chad. You don’t have to go with us,” Ken said by way of compromise. “The four of us will do it. You can wait somewhere else and we’ll give you your cut, same as if you had done it with us.”
“Yeah, that’s all right by me,” Eddie said.
Chad felt a cold chill run down his back, and he took a long, slow breath.
“No,” he finally said, speaking so quietly that they could barely hear him. “If you boys are determined to do this, I’m going with you.”
Hank laughed and slapped his brother on the back. “Well, now, wonderful!” he said. “That’s the way it should be. The five of us, riding together.”
The five cowboys sat on their horses in a ditch at the bottom of the track bed. The mournful whistle of the approaching train brought home to Chad Taylor exactly what he, his brother, and their three friends were about to do. Under dripping trees in the dark of night, with a cold rain spitting in his face, Chad tried one more time to talk the others out of it.
“Listen, fellas, I don’t think we’ve considered the real consequences of this,” he said. “We’ve had some fun thinking about it, sure, but it’ll mark us as outlaws for the rest of our lives.”