They didn’t really think they needed to defend the cargo. After all, it appeared to be only a wagon, too heavily laden with dead bodies. Visibly it was a veritable flood of business for the undertaker, Cornelius Janderslaag, when they got back to Headland. Even so, the members of the posse ranged protectively before and behind the wagon the whole way.
With what had been loaded on to Belinda’s horse, all the stolen gold had been recovered. It lay incognito beneath the macabre load of death, en route back to its owners.
Nearly all the paper money was recovered as well, all packed into the outlaws’ pockets, bedrolls and saddle-bags. Along with it was the considerable amount of paper money that Birdwell had brought with him to pay off the members of the gang. Because of that added cash, the posse brought considerably more back into Headland than the outlaws had taken out of it. The excess amount was divided between the widows of the men killed in the robbery. It wouldn’t replace their lost husbands, but it would provide them with a comfortable living for a goodly while.
The wedding was a quiet, modest affair, in the pastor’s parlor in Headland. The pastor’s wife and Val Lindquist served as witnesses. Both bride and groom, his left arm still bandaged, wanted only to have some private and quiet time together. Maybe fifty years or so, for starters, Dwight figured.