CHAPTER 1
Kitty Bannack pushed the screen door open far enough to stick her hand out and ring her little silver bell to call the boys to supper. Tommy, six and Billy, four, ran from the barn where they had been playing, but there was no one else in sight. “Tommy, run down to the other end of the corn field and tell your papa and Uncle John that supper’s ready.” She knew the men were working down there, clearing some more of the land near the creek. They couldn’t hear her little bell that far away from the house. Warren complained that he couldn’t hear the tiny silver bell even when he was no farther away than the barn. He said she should use a cowbell if she was really serious about calling him. Kitty didn’t have many really nice things like that little bell, a wedding gift from her aunt Sophie, so she enjoyed an opportunity to use it. She held the screen door open to let Billy in. “Go to the pump and wash your hands,” she told him. He went over to the other side of the back porch where there was a bucket beside the pump. She remained at the door watching Tommy until he disappeared behind the corn. I declare, she thought, I just patched that boy’s trousers and he’s wearing through the patches already. She sighed and went back into the kitchen. “Let me see ’em,” she said to Billy and grabbed the back of his collar when he walked past her. “Go back to the pump and wash ’em like I taught you to.”
“I washed ’em, Mama,” Billy protested.
“You watch your papa and Uncle John when they come in for supper,” Kitty said. “That’s the way you need to wash your hands. Use that soap. I made it to take the dirt off your dirty little paws.” Still holding him by the back of his collar, she turned him around and gave him a little push back toward the pump.
After a few minutes, her husband and Tommy joined Billy at the pump. “You still washin’ your hands?” Tommy asked his brother.
“I done washed ’em once,” Billy complained. “Mama’s gonna wear the skin offa our hands.”
“Where’s John?” Kitty asked, concerned that the biscuits were going to get cold if they didn’t sit down and eat.
“He volunteered to put the horses away, so you wouldn’t give us a scoldin’ for being late for supper,” Warren said.
“I’ll give him a scoldin’, then,” she joked, well aware of John’s tendency to make sure he didn’t eat more than his share of the food they were able to raise. No one worked harder than her husband’s younger brother. Only eighteen years old, he was already as big a man as Warren. It was a shame, she thought, that all he knew was hard work with none of the pleasures of life that many men his age pursued.
Her thoughts were brought back to her husband then as she filled his cup with coffee. She was saddened when her eyes rested upon the recent appearance of gray streaks in his sideburns, far too soon for a man as young as he was. She knew the cause for his rapid aging was because of the poor performance of the crops he had planted. The farm was not providing a sufficient living for two families. And while John had no prospects for starting a family of his own in the immediate future, that had been the grand plan from the beginning. As the situation stood now, however, they needed more land to support another family. And there was no money for them to buy more land. That was the cause of Warren’s sleepless nights and the ever-increasing silent moods noticed by Kitty and John.
* * *
It was a pleasant spring morning in Waco when the unthinkable happened. Warren went into town alone, having been pushed to the desperate position of asking the bank to make him a loan with his farm as collateral. He stood outside the bank for a while trying to summon the willpower to go inside and ask for the loan, so reluctant was he to put a lien on his property. He only needed a few hundred dollars to get him by this slack period. And he hesitated to tie his land up for that small amount of money. Looking through the window, he could see both tellers taking their cash drawers to the back of the bank to fill them with money from the safe. It would be so easy to walk in right then with his gun drawn and demand that they dump their trays into a bag and he could be gone before they knew what hit them. No one in the town knew him, other than a couple of store clerks. He looked around him, the thought taking root in his desperation. The OPEN sign was on the door, but there were no customers as yet. All the signs were right. Just do it! He thought and in that insane moment, a normally honest man changed the pattern of his and his brother’s life forever.
“No customers yet,” James Feldon, the bank manager, said, “both of you fill your drawers.”
Robert Tice and Wilbur Davis followed him through the door to the back and the safe room, which Feldon had already unlocked. Both tellers were confused when Feldon turned to face them and appeared to be stunned. They were both startled then when they heard the voice behind them. “Just do like I tell you and nobody will get hurt,” Warren Bannack advised them. They turned to discover the bank robber, his hat pulled down low on his forehead, a bandanna tied around his face, and a Smith & Wesson revolver in his hand. Seeing a couple of canvas sacks lying on a table in the corner of the room, he said, “Take one of them sacks and fill it with money and be quick about it. The rest of my gang will be in here if I ain’t out pretty quick.”
Feldon sensed the desperation in the robber’s tone, so he made one attempt. “You’re making a big mistake, mister. You don’t wanna do this. If you’ll just turn around and walk out of the bank, we won’t press any charges.”
“If this is a mistake, it’s already been made,” Warren said. “And if you don’t hurry up and fill that sack with money, I ain’t got no choice but to shoot you down.” Davis and Tice took him for his word and started filling the sack. “That one sack’s enough,” Warren said. “I ain’t lookin’ to clean you out.” He would have liked to have more but figured he could only handle one sack and his gun, too. They filled the sack quickly, so he took it and told them to sit down on the floor. Then covering them with his pistol, he backed out of the safe room, closed the door, and locked it. Running back through the door to the lobby, he took the key out of that door, closed the door, and locked it from the lobby side of the door.
When he got to the front door, he was relieved to see there were still no customers. He holstered his pistol and ran to his horse with his bandanna still in place. Holding onto his sack full of money, he stepped up into the saddle and wheeled his horse away from the hitching rail, almost running over a man and his wife heading to the bank. Realizing at once what was happening, the man started yelling, “Hold up! He’s robbin’ the bank!” Other pedestrians picked up the outcry, loud enough to bring Sheriff Hank Bronson running out of his office in time to see Warren gallop past. With no time to raise a posse, Bronson ran for his horse and was soon in the saddle, racing out the south road after the robber.
In a panic now, Warren pushed his horse for everything the animal had. He had not counted on the sheriff giving chase this soon. He thought about dropping the sack of money and maybe the sheriff would stop to pick it up. But what if he didn’t? Or even if he did stop to pick it up, he would still be coming after him. “Oh, my Lord, my Lord,” he groaned. “What was I thinking? My wife, my children, I’ve got to get away from the sheriff!” With no other choice, he laid low on the dun’s neck and encouraged the willing horse and it responded. When he reached the narrow trace that led to his farm, he saw that he was out of sight of the man chasing him. So he turned the dun onto the trace that led to the river through a heavy patch of oak trees. He was sure the sheriff didn’t have him in sight when he veered onto the trace. It turned out that he was right. He was out of sight when he reached the trace, so the sheriff did not see him turn off the road. The sheriff didn’t go very far before realizing that the obvious trail he had been following was gone. So he turned around and backtracked until he found the narrow trace and the tracks of the galloping horse that he had missed before.
Alert now that he might be riding into a dangerous situation, Bronson reined his tired horse back to a walk, allowing for the possibility of riding into an ambush. It occurred to him that he might have been wiser to raise a posse, instead of chasing the thief all by himself. When he cleared the trees, however, he found the narrow trace led him to a clearing with a cabin and a barn in the center. One tired horse stood in front of the barn and standing in the open door of the barn were two men, seeming to be waiting for him. One of them held the sack of money from the bank. Neither man was holding a weapon, but there was a gun belt hanging from the saddle horn on the horse. Hank Bronson was not quite sure if he had ridden into a trap or not. He drew his rifle from his saddle scabbard and stepped down. “I know you,” he said, looking at Warren. “Your name’s Bannack, right? I reckon you know why you’re under arrest.”
He paused then when Kitty Bannack came out the back door of the cabin, followed by her two young sons. “Warren, what’s going on?” Kitty asked her husband. When he didn’t answer right away, she turned to Hank. “What is it, Sheriff Bronson. What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid I’ve got to arrest your husband for bank robbery, Miz Bannack. He just held up the First Bank of Waco.” He held his rifle on Warren, not sure himself what was going on, for Warren just stood there as if frozen, while his wife registered genuine shock upon hearing what he had done.
The one person who remained calm spoke then. “This ain’t what it looks like, Sheriff,” he said. “My name’s John Bannack. I robbed the bank. I just didn’t figure on you gettin’ on my tail right away. I did it because we needed the money, but when I gave it to Warren, he said he’s fixin’ to take it back to the bank. Said he’d rather starve than turn into a common thief. I told him I’d take it back, but I needed to rest my horse first. It was a bad idea. I’m sorry I did it, but I reckon I’m ready to pay the penalty for what I did.” Unable to believe the drama playing out before her eyes, Kitty ran to stand beside her husband. John looked at them and said, “I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me.” Back to the sheriff then, he declared, “I won’t cause you no trouble, Sheriff. All the bank’s money is in there. It ain’t been opened since I left the bank with it.”
“John . . .” Warren started to protest, but his brother interrupted him.
“Enough said, Warren,” John declared. “I made a mistake. It’ll be tough workin’ the farm by yourself, but it’ll be easier not having to feed a big eater like me.” Back to the sheriff again, he said, “I wore my horse out, so I’ll take another one back to town. I won’t bother to switch my saddle. I’ll just ride him bareback. You ready to go?”
Hank snorted a laugh, still amazed by the weird circumstances of the arrest. “Yeah, I reckon I am,” he answered, although he was tempted to tell John to come into town whenever he was ready and he’d see him there.
John didn’t want to risk another minute. Kitty knew very well which one of the brothers went into town and which one stayed home, and she looked as if she might lose all control at any second. He counted on her knowing she couldn’t afford to have her husband away at prison. He was also aware that either one of her two sons could destroy his story if they thought to say something. “Come on, Sheriff, I’ll get another horse,” he said, picked up the sack of stolen money resting now beside his brother, dropped it beside the sheriff’s feet, and turned to go into the barn to get his horse.
“Just hold it right there,” Hank told him. “I don’t want to interfere with your arrest, since you seem to be doing such a fine job of it. But my horse is just as wore out as yours is, so I think we’ll just go back on the same horses we got here on. Most likely you can understand why I think that would be best.”
“Oh, right,” John replied. “I didn’t think about that. You don’t mind if I ride bareback do you? I’d like to leave Warren my saddle. It’s a lot better saddle than his.”
“Don’t mind a-tall,” Hank said. “Go ahead and take it off and just leave it right there but take that gun belt off the saddle horn and drop it on the ground first. And be real careful about it. Then we’ll get started back right away.” John took the saddle off and placed it at Warren’s feet. When Warren started to speak, John shook his head, turned around, and jumped up on the horse’s back. Already in the saddle, Hank said, “We’ll take a leisurely little ride back to town now.” He nodded to the still dumbstruck couple then. “Mr. Bannack, Ma’am, sorry to make your acquaintance under these circumstances.” They rode out of the clearing at a slow walk, and when they were out of sight of the couple still standing in front of the barn, Hank informed his prisoner, “Normally, I’d handcuff your hands behind your back, but since you’ve been so cooperative about surrendering, I’ll leave your hands free to help you hold on to your horse, since you ain’t settin’ a saddle. Besides, if you was to take a wild notion to take off without me, it’s easy enough to just shoot you in the back. And John, make no mistake, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it.”
“I understand,” John said. “You won’t have to.” Behind him, he could only imagine the hysterical conversation going on between his brother and his sister-in-law. For surely Kitty was as shocked by the desperate decision Warren had acted upon as he was. He hoped that she would be understanding and forgiving for his brother’s foolish mistake. They were all three in a state of despair for their poverty. But Kitty, like himself, was determined to survive until their lot improved, thinking that it surely would. Maybe it would have, but after Warren’s unthinkable act, John knew that he had been left with only one way to save his brother’s family. So he didn’t hesitate to confess to the crime. Now as he and Sheriff Hank Bronson walked the horses slowly back to town, he tried to think of anything that might cause a question about the truthfulness of his confession. The biggest problem would be the eyewitnesses in the bank. He and Warren were close to the same height and build. He was sure that Warren must have tied his bandanna around his face, an identical bandanna to the one he was wearing. As for their work clothes, they were not exactly alike, but they were similar. The only major difference in their clothing was that Warren wore a hat and he often did not. And at the moment, he was not wearing one. Thinking that a possible problem, he asked a question. “If I see my hat, is it all right if we stop and pick it up?”
“What are you talking about?” Hank asked, alert to any tricks his prisoner might be thinking up. “What about your hat?”
“My hat,” John came back, “when you were chasing me from the bank, my hat flew off. It was somewhere right along here. If I see it, can I stop and pick it up?”
“I reckon,” Hank said, not remembering if John had been wearing one or not, “but only if we see it somewhere beside the road. We ain’t gonna stop to go lookin’ for it.”
“’Preciate it,” John said.