Jim Murphy

It was a hot afternoon, but cool in the shade. I was sitting in my rocking chair on the porch of my Cove Hollow place, and I seen them coming while they was still some ways off. When I first seen them they was so far away I couldn’t tell they was only three. Then they dipped below a little rise, and I didn’t see them at all for a while. When they topped the rise I seen they was only three, and I wondered why. They was coming real lazy, at a walk, and the tails of their horses was switching. It was only the fifteenth of June, but the flies was already bad. I knowed who they was. I mean, I knowed who one of them was, as soon as they topped that rise. I’d recognize the gait of that mare even if she was on the moon. When I seen they was only three, I stood up and squinted at them coming, trying to see who wasn’t there. I felt fluttery in my belly, and the closer they come, the worser the flutter got. I seen that Arkansas and Henry wasn’t there. Jackson and Barnes, they was there. And Sam, of course, on that mare.

They was a mess. Their clothes was tore and covered with dry mud. Their horses was covered with mud, too, and all their rigging. Their faces was all scratched up, like they’d been in a fight with a wildcat or a woman. They pulled up by the fence and just set there, slumping in their saddles, looking at me. They looked older than I remembered them, and I never seen nobody tireder. They was a bunch of hard cases, all right.

“Well, look what the cat drug in,” Sam said. His voice was thin and weak, like somebody that had been sick a long time.

“You’re the ones the cat drug in,” I said. “I ain’t never seen a sorrier looking bunch.”

They got down and tied their horses to the fence. They come up on the porch and flopped down against the wall. “Well, old fellow, how do you like the Tyler jail?” Sam asked.

“Not at all.”

“How’d you get out?”

“Jumped bail.”

“And your daddy?”

“Him, too. We just hopped a train to Dallas and then hired us a buckboard and come home.”

“Well, they’ll be after you,” Sam said.

“Not for a while. It’s you they want.”

Jackson and Barnes wasn’t saying nothing. They’d took off their hats and laid their heads against the wall. Their eyes was closed. I thought they was asleep.

“Is Sarah Underwood still at your daddy’s place?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. I left him in Denton.”

He peered off into the sun and didn’t say nothing else, so I said, “How about a drink of whiskey?”

“Fine,” he said, still looking off in the distance. So I went in the house and got the jug and four glasses and brung them out. Barnes opened his eyes and said, “We don’t need no glasses.”

“Well, it’s Sunday,” I said. “We might as well do it polite.” While I was pouring the whiskey I asked, kind of casual, “Where’s old Henry, anyways?”

“Don’t know,” Sam said. “He left us.”

“I ain’t seen him,” I said.

Jackson opened his eyes and picked up the glass I’d set beside him and took a pull. We all was drinking for a while, not saying nothing, then I said, “Where’s Arkansas?”

“Dead,” Sam said. “Salt Creek, two days ago. The day Henry left.”

“Who done it?”

“Rangers.”

“Bastards,” I said.

“That’s the truth,” Barnes said.

Sam said, “So we need a good man, Jim. Why don’t you come with us now? We have lots of fun and plenty of money in our camp.”

I could tell how much fun they’d been having, but I said, “I been thinking on that. But I been thinking on going back to Tyler and facing the music, too. They ain’t got nothing on me.”

Sam laughed a bitter little laugh. “The hell they ain’t! You’re a friend of mine, and that’s all they care about. The best thing for you is to come with us and make some money.”

“You the ones that cleaned me out?” I asked.

“Yeah, I owe you,” Sam said. “We lost all your horses but that one Seab’s riding. Can you wait?”

So I could tell how much money they’d been making, too. “No hurry,” I said.

“How long you been back?” Jackson asked.

“About two weeks. I camped down on Hickory for a long time, figuring I’d run into you.”

“Surprised you didn’t,” Jackson said. “We been in and out of there.”

“You been other places, too. I read in the paper you was way over in Stephens County.” “Yeah, we been everywhere.”

“The papers has been raising hell with June Peak,” I said. “They say it’s time for you and him to fight.”

They got a laugh out of that, and we passed the jug around again. “It may have been Peak that jumped us at Salt Creek,” Sam said.

“Bad?” I asked.

“They just got lucky,” Sam said. “You coming with us, Jim?”

I rocked for some time and stayed quiet like I was thinking. Then I said, “I promised Daddy I’d help him thrash his wheat. If you can wait till I’m through, maybe I’ll go.”

Sam stood up. “All right, we’ll wait. We need you in our business. Our horses could use a rest, anyways.”

He went down the steps, and Jackson and Barnes dragged theirselves up and followed him. “We’ll be up the hollow,” Sam said.

“I’ll be there,” I said. The fluttery feeling was worser.

Daddy’s cell was a ways down from mine, but I could hear him coughing. He coughed all day and all night, but it was worser at night. I thought he’d never stop, and prisoners would yell, “Shut up!” and “Cut that out!” Of course there wasn’t no way he could quit. I worried when he coughed, and I worried when he didn’t, afraid he was dead. “My daddy’s got the consumption,” I would tell the jailer. “He needs the sunshine.”

“Well, Jim, this here’s a jail, not a sanitorium,” the jailer would say.

“But he’s innocent,” I would say. “There ain’t no reason for him to be here.”

“And are you innocent, too?” the jailer would say. “Yes,” I would say.

The jailer would put his hand on his hip and look at me kind of disgusted and shake his head. “You know, Jim, this is the damndest jail,” he would say. “Every man in it’s innocent. How you reckon them Rangers keep on making so many mistakes?”

It went like that for almost two weeks. Then one day June Peak come with the key in his hand. “Major Jones wants you,” he said, and he unlocked the door and taken me to a little office. Major Jones was setting behind the desk, but he got up and waved to a chair and said, “Set down, Jim.” I taken one chair, and June Peak taken another, and Major Jones set down again. I’d never laid eyes on him before. He was big, big as me. Heavy, you know. With a big brown mustache and little black eyes. “The jailer says you been raising hell about your daddy,” he said.

“Daddy ain’t done nothing wrong,” I said. “He didn’t know what Sam Bass was doing. He’s a good man. Everybody in Denton will tell you that.”

Major Jones smiled. “Don’t know nothing about nothing, eh?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

Major Jones looked at June Peak, and they laughed. “He hid on your place,” Major Jones said. “He come and went at your house whenever he wanted to. You even got his supplies for him.”

“We been friends for years,” I said. “I didn’t know he was wanted.”

“You didn’t, eh?”

“No. Dad Egan never come after him. He never asked me nothing about Sam.”

The two Rangers laughed again, then Major Jones said, “Well, Jim, you’ll get a fair trial. Your daddy, too. If you’re innocent you got nothing to worry about.”

“Daddy’s a sick man, Major. If jail don’t kill him a trial will.”

Major Jones shrugged. “What can I do? The law’s the law.” He swiveled his chair till his back was to me and looked out the window, rubbing his chin. “Of course, if we was to catch Sam Bass, everything would be different. I reckon half the men in this jail would go free then. I guess the charges against your daddy would be dropped then. Maybe yours, too, although we got a good case against you.”

I didn’t say nothing, and he swiveled his chair back around and faced me. “I’ll lay it right on the line,” he said. “You help me catch Sam Bass, and I’ll see that you and your daddy both go free.”

The fluttery feeling started in my belly right then. “What can I do?”

“Join his bunch,” Major Jones said. “Help us lay a snare for him.”

“Sam’s my friend, Major.” “Better than your daddy?” “No.”

“Well, then.”

“And after you get the snare laid, what am I supposed to do then? Kiss him on the cheek?

Major Jones smiled. “That won’t be necessary, Jim. We want all the disciples, too.” I didn’t say nothing.

“There’s another thing,” Major Jones said. “There’s all that reward money.”

“I don’t care nothing about that.”

“Well, it’d be quite a sum if we was to get all five of them.” I didn’t say nothing.

“You want some time to think about it?” “All right.”

“When you decide, tell the jailer you’d like to talk to Lieutenant Peak.”

Major Jones swiveled back to the window, and June Peak stood up and taken my arm and walked me back to my cell.

Daddy coughed all night, and the next morning I told the jailer I wanted to see June Peak.

Peak told me he’d arrange for the charges against my daddy to be dropped and would see that my bail got paid. I lied to Sam when I told him Daddy and me left Tyler together. Daddy got on the train for Dallas that same day, and my brother Bob met him. But Peak told me to hang around Tyler a few days like I was waiting for my trial. I did. I spent a lot of time around the federal courthouse, and the lawyers and officers and bondsmen got to know me pretty good. Then one day Peak showed me a document that the United States attorney had drawed up and signed. It said all charges against me would be dropped if I helped capture Sam or any of his bunch. “It’s time you went,” Peak said. “Just get on a train and get out. But be careful. The word’ll spread fast, and the bondsmen’ll try to have you arrested in Dallas. And stop somewhere and get that mustache shaved off. It’s like a goddamn flag.”

He got up and walked me to the door, then picked up one of the hats that was on the rack there. “Here, try this on,” he said, and I did. “Fit?”

“Yeah, pretty good.”

“Wear it, then.”

“Whose is it?”

“Some lawyer that’s trying a case today. Go ahead and take it.” I got on the train and slumped down in my seat and put the hat over my face like I was sleeping. At Mineola I got off and went to a barbershop and told the barber to give me a shave, mustache and all.

“You sure? It’s a pretty one.”

“Take it off,” I said.

I caught the next train to Dallas and got through the depot without no trouble. I bought me a horse and rode to Denton to see my brother Bob. He told me Daddy had made it home all right. It was dark when I started out to Daddy’s place to see him. I was riding past an alley, and this voice come to me real low, saying, “Jim. Come here.”

I rode over, and Dad Egan was standing there, leaning against the wall. “I hear you done some business with Major Jones,” he said.

“Goddamn!” I said. “Nobody’s supposed to know about that but Jones and Peak and me!”

“He had to tell me,” Dad said. “He was afraid I’d arrest you again.”

I didn’t say nothing, and Dad just stayed there in the shadows, not moving. “You know how to get in touch with me,” he said. “I want to be in on it.”

I turned my horse and headed on up the road toward Daddy’s house, worrying about how many more sheriffs and deputies and Rangers and Pinkertons knowed about our business. The fluttery feeling was something awful, because I knowed if word about me was to get out, Sam would hear it, and old Jim would be a gone gosling.

Daddy was glad to see me and told Sarah Underwood to give me a cup of coffee. When she left the room Daddy closed the door. He was coughing as bad as in the Tyler jail. “Why’d they let us go?” he asked.

“They didn’t have nothing on us, so they dropped the charges,” I said.

“Is that right’”

“You seen Sam or any of the bunch?” I asked. “No. Why?”

“Thought they might’ve come by.” “Not since I been home.”

“Well, if he comes by, tell him I’m looking for him,” I said. Late that afternoon I saddled me a good horse. “You be careful,” Daddy said. And I rode down to the Hickory bottoms, thinking I might run into Sam down there. I camped there for better than a week, and I seen a couple of posses, but I never found Sam or any of his boys. And the longer I stayed there the nervouser I got, so I just packed up one day and rode up to my Cove Hollow place.

If Sam knowed about the deal I made with Major Jones, he hadn’t let on when he showed up at my place. But Jackson and Barnes hadn’t been a bit friendly. They was tired at the time, and maybe a little scared theirselves. But maybe they knowed, and I tried to figure how I’d feel if I was in their place and one of my friends done what I done. I had to admit that if I was in their place, I’d blow my head off. But what’s a man to do when his daddy’s dying? Blood runs thicker than water, don’t it? And when your daddy’s coughing his guts out in a goddamn cell, well that’s worse than hell. No son worth his salt can just let that happen. I wished it would take forever to thrash Daddy’s wheat, but of course it didn’t.

Halfway up to the cabin, I heard the gunfire. At first I thought it was meant for me, then I knowed it was too far away. Then I thought maybe a posse had finally got the nerve to come up Cove Hollow, but it didn’t sound like no fight. Just a shot or two, then a long quiet, then two or three more shots. Rifle shots, echoing down the hollow.

When I got to the clearing below the cabin I seen what they was doing. Some tin cans was set on the creek bank, and they was shooting at them from the ledge. I seen the boys bellied down with their rifles and hollered, “Hold your fire!”

Sam hollered, “Come on up!” and Barnes and Jackson set up and started reloading. I worked my horse up the slope. “Wheat put up?” Sam asked.

“Yep.”

“Good crop?”

“Pretty good. What the hell you doing?”

“Just practice. Take down your rifle and come.” I put up my horse and joined them. “How good are you on the shoot?” Sam asked. “Not very good. Hello, Frank? Seab?”

They nodded but didn’t say nothing. They sure had changed in the weeks I was in Tyler. Frank had, anyways. I’d never knowed Seab too well, and he was a quiet one anyways.

“Well, you better practice,” Sam said. “The posses is getting serious, and the boys and me decided to get serious, too. See that can on the end? Play like that’s old Dad sneaking up on us. What you going to do to him, Jim?”

I took careful aim and fired, and the can jumped. It was a lucky shot. Barnes laughed. “‘Bye, Dad,” he said.

We practiced for half an hour, and I hit about one out of five, the worst of the bunch. But Sam said, “You’ll do.”

“Seen any posses lately?” Barnes asked.

“Not a one,” I said.

“Now ain’t that strange?”

“Maybe they’re wore out,” I said. “Or maybe they had to go get their crops in. Or maybe they think you left the country.”

“That’s what we’re going to do,” Sam said. “The boys and me decided its getting too hot here. We’re going to strike out and find us a bank.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know yet. We’re just going looking.”

“Maybe Henry would like to go with us,” Jackson said. “You seen him, Jim?”

“I ain’t,” I said, “but Daddy has. He showed up the night before I went to help with the thrashing and collected his wife and kids and taken off. He’s running.”

“That son of a bitch,” Barnes said.

“Maybe he ain’t so dumb,” Jackson said.

“You know where we could get a good horse?” Sam asked. “That old crowbait of yours that Seab’s riding is about give out.”

I thought a minute. “Yeah. Bill Mounts. He bought a nice saddlehorse just the other day.”

“Mounts? Down by Denton? Well, tonight we’ll lift that horse.” Sam stood up and raised his arms like a medicine show man trying to raise a crowd. “The old rascal will walk out in the morning and find that horse gone, and he’ll go back to the house with his lips hung down and his face long as hell. ‘Well, old lady, my fine horse is gone,’ he’ll say. ‘Sam Bass got him! What shall I do! My horse is gone! I bet Jim Murphy told him about him! Oh! That Murphy!’ “This was said with a lot of clowning and hand-wringing, and we all laughed. Sam laughed, too, and set down. “Oh, they’ll give you hell for joining us, Jim. But you won’t mind, will you? You’ve turned loose now.”

“I’ve turned loose,” I said. “We’ll just rob them where we find them.”

“Damn right,” Sam said. “We’d just as well rob one as another now, because they’re all after us.”

So that night we rode down to Denton and stole Bill Mounts’s horse, and then on east toward the Elm bottoms. As we rode along next morning Sam talked a blue streak about the Rangers, saying he’d made a mistake by running from them, and bragging about all the killing he was going to do if he run into them again. “Yeah, boys, we’re going to quit this running,” he said. “We’re shut of old Henry, and I hope we stay shut of him. That old man just couldn’t stand the racket, and I don’t want no man with me that can’t stand the racket. If I’d never ran from nobody, they never would’ve been so hot after me as they’ve been, and I ain’t going to let that happen no more.”

Jackson and Barnes didn’t answer a word, and neither did I. Sam didn’t seem to be talking to us, anyways. I think he would’ve did the same thing if he’d been by hisself. And it was hotter than blazes. The sun was bright and the air still and the prairie steaming. We sweated through our shirts, and sweat was rolling down my face and dripping onto my saddle. It wasn’t weather for talking, or riding, neither. Late in the afternoon it clouded over and got cooler, and I knowed the weather was going to break. “We better be looking for a place to stop,” I said, but Sam said, “No, let’s push on.” When darkness fell it started raining like the clouds had just been waiting for the sun to go down. It was dark as the inside of a hat, and we was in the middle of a big pasture and couldn’t see nothing, and soon we was lost. We just wandered around with the rain hitting us in the face, and we could’ve been going in circles for all I knowed. But after a while we seen a farm house with a light in the window, and Sam dropped back beside me.

“Jim, ride up and tell them we’re looking for a pair of stolen mules and a big, fine horse. Tell them we’re June Peak’s Rangers, and you live in Wise County, and your name is Paine. Tell them you met up with Peak and got three of his boys to come with you to help arrest the thieves.”

I didn’t see no need for such a complicated tale, but I rode up and knocked on the door, and when the old man answered it, I told the story the best I could. The old man invited us in, and his woman fixed us a good supper. After we ate, while we was still setting around the table, the farmer started talking about Sam Bass. “I heared the railroads beat him out of a big pile of money, and that’s why he robs them trains,” the farmer said.

“I don’t know nothing about the man,” Sam said. “Old June Peak had me out on a couple of raids after him, but I don’t know nothing about him. There must be something good about him, though. He’s got a lot of friends.”

The old farmer filled his pipe and lit it and said, “Well, I think a heap of him myself, even though I’ve never seen him. He never done no harm to decent folks, and far as I’m concerned, he can rob them railroads all he wants to. More power to him.”

That tickled Sam, and the next morning when we was riding away, he said, “Well, it wouldn’t take much to make that old man solid with me. There’s still some good people left.”

Later than morning the horse we’d stole from Bill Mounts throwed a shoe, and we stopped at the village of Frankfort to have him shod. We left the horses at the smith’s and stepped across the road to the store, and Sam bought some candy. We was setting in the store eating it, and this towheaded farm boy come in with a sack of peaches. He was about ten years old. He went up to the clerk and tried to trade him his peaches for some candy. The clerk wouldn’t trade, and the kid got mad. “I worked hard all year and made nothing!” he hollered. “I got a notion to go find Sam Bass and rob some trains! I ain’t making nothing farming!”

We all laughed at that, and the clerk did, too. The kid looked our way and seen we was eating candy, so he come over and said to Sam, “Stranger, if you’ll give me some candy, I’ll give you some peaches.”

“How many peaches you got?” Sam asked.

“A dozen.” The boy reached into the sack and pulled one out. It was a big, golden, juicy one.

“Well, that looks like a fine peach,” Sam said. “Will you trade us the whole sack for the candy we got left?”

“You bet!” the boy said. So they made the trade, and the boy left happy.

We asked the store clerk and the smith if they’d seen anybody driving a pair of fine mules and a fine horse, but of course they ain’t. We rode off and stopped about two miles out of town to fix our dinner. “What do you reckon that boy would’ve did if I’d told him I was Sam Bass and showed him a couple of double-eagles?” Sam said. “I bet I could’ve broke his eyes off with a board. I bet he never seen twenty dollars in his whole life. That’s the way it is around here. We’re coming into good country now. They know what Sam Bass is about.”

We rode on about three or four miles, and nobody said nothing the whole time. Then Sam said, “You boys go on ahead. I got some business. I’ll meet you again a couple of miles farther on.” He spurred his mare and taken off toward some trees. The rest of us looked at each other like we wondered what was up, but we didn’t say nothing. Sure enough, a couple of miles down the way Sam caught up with us, and three other men was with him. Just as they was riding up, one of the strangers said, “Blast that Murphy! Sam, you ought to kill him right now!”

I thought my belly was coming right up through my mouth. Oh God, the jig’s up, I thought. I turned to Jackson and said, “Frank, did you hear that?”

“Yeah, Jim,” he said. “Just set easy. I won’t let them hurt you.” Barnes was looking at me real peculiar. The men rode up to us, and fell in with us. Sam didn’t make no introductions. While we was riding along one of the strangers said, “People around here say they expect June Peak to show up any time now.”

“Yes, we’re going to have hell,” Sam said, real angry.

A little farther one, the stranger said, “Well, we’ll be leaving you now. Keep your eyes open and watch each other.” Then him and his friends turned and rode away.

“Who was that?” Jackson asked.

“Henry Collins,” Sam said. “Joel’s brother.”

We continued some ways, still not saying nothing, but there was something in the air. Barnes had dropped back behind the rest of us. Every time we would slow down, he would, too, always keeping just a few yards behind us. Then we come to a place where the road went through a grove of big live oaks, and when we got into their shade Barnes stopped and pulled his gun and pointed it at me. “Sam!” he said.

Sam hadn’t been watching Barnes like I had, and he looked surprised. Jackson did, too, and put his hand on his own gun, but didn’t pull it.

“Sam, did Joel’s brother ever tell you a lie?” Barnes asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, I think we ought to kill this son of a bitch right now.” Barnes waved his gun at me.

“Take it easy, Seab,” Jackson said.

“The hell I will! That bastard’s in cahoots with the Rangers! I’ve thought it all along, and now Collins comes and tells us flat out!”

“Well, if that’s the case, we will kill him right now,” Sam said. He slouched on his mare, staring at me in that Indian way he had. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. But Barnes meant it. He cocked the pistol and raised his arm.

“Now wait a minute!” Jackson said. “We ain’t going to kill him just like that!” He drawed his own pistol and cocked it.

“Frank, ain’t it strange that Dad Egan ain’t been around looking for him?” Barnes was screaming. “This son of a bitch didn’t jump bail at all! Ain’t it strange that we ain’t seen a single posse since he tied in with us?”

I considered going for my gun, but Barnes had such a drop on me I knowed I wouldn’t stand a chance. I stayed still. Jackson glanced at me like he wasn’t sure Barnes wasn’t making sense.

“Can I have a say before you bust my hide?” I asked.

Jackson looked relieved. “Yeah. We owe you that.”

I taken a deep breath and said, “Well, boys, I know it looks bad, but it ain’t what you’re thinking. Seab’s partly right. I did make a deal with Major Jones, but it was just to get me and Daddy out of jail. I never had the slightest notion of really doing it. You boys got me in this trouble, you know. But you wasn’t doing nothing to get me out of it. And I fallen on this plan to give Major Jones the grand slip. I’m free now, and I’m a hundred per cent with you boys. And I reckon if you’ll think on it a while you won’t kill me.”

They didn’t say nothing for the longest time. Sam just slumped there holding his reins. Jackson and Barnes, still holding their guns, didn’t move a muscle. It was so still I could hear a mockingbird in one of the oaks. Finally Jackson said, “Jim, I would’ve done the same thing myself.”

“No!” Barnes screamed. “It’s too goddamned thin! How does it sound to you, Eph?”

Sam pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “I don’t know how to fix that up under my hair. What do you say, Frank?”

“You and me have knowed Jim a long time,” he said. “Sometimes he’s been the only friend we had. I just don’t think he’d give us away.”

“I think he would!” Barnes said. “And we’d best kill him while we’ve got the chance!”

Sam looked me straight in the eye and said, “All right, he goes.”

Jackson aimed his gun at Barnes’s chest. “Well, he don’t go. You ain’t killing Jim without killing me, too. We talked him into leaving his home and coming with us, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you kill him. He’s been like a brother to me, and we mustn’t hurt him.”

“Well, I don’t trust my brother no more,” Barnes said.

“He’s been a brother to all of us,” Jackson said.

“Hell! Hell! Blast the brother!” Sam was in a rage like I’d never seen. “I got no brothers! I don’t need no brothers! They’re just brothers for my money!”

Jackson said quietly, “I’m your brother, Eph.”

There was a spot of spit at the corner of Sam’s mouth. He wiped it away. “Yeah, Frank, you’re my brother,” he said. He looked down and didn’t say nothing for a long time, like he was studying his saddle horn. Then he looked at Jackson. “If you say Jim’s all right, then he’s all right with me, too.” He turned and started down the road.

Barnes cussed and uncocked his gun and rode to catch him. Jackson stayed beside me like he was protecting me. In a few minutes we rode into a dark bottom, and I become alarmed. I thought Sam and Barnes might turn around and shoot me. Jackson must’ve noticed my fear, for he said, “Don’t worry. I won’t let them hurt you.” Then he said, “But it was nearly hell, wasn’t it?” He leaned to me and whispered, “If you ever do lay a plan to catch anybody, you’ll have some place for me to get out, I know.”

I didn’t know whether he meant it or was trying to trick me. I said, “I don’t want to catch any of you.” “Of course not,” he said.

We traveled into the dismalest swamp I ever seen and was too busy looking out for snakes and bogs and fighting off the mosquitos to worry much about the fate of Sam Bass, or Jim Murphy, either. I don’t know why Sam led us into such a place. The thickets and vines was thicker than in the bottoms around Denton, and the ground was so wet and soft our horses tired quick, fighting their way over it. Sometimes we was in black water up to our stirrups, and cattails and long, sharp-bladed grass growed all around. We couldn’t see nothing ahead but more of the same, and I was afraid a water moccasin was going to take a nip at one of the horses, then we would be in a fix. It was the evilest place I ever seen. We was still in it when darkness fell, and we stayed in it so long I figured Sam must be lost.

Sometime after midnight we rose up on high ground again and stopped. I was bone tired and didn’t get a wink of sleep. I laid there slapping at the mosquitos and thinking back on the day. It’s a terrible thing not to be trusted. It was the first time I could remember not being trusted, and the showdown on the road filled my mind with fear. I thought of Daddy in his bed in Denton County and could hear him coughing, and I dearly wished I was with him. I cussed the day I met Sam Bass and swore to Almighty God that if I lived to get out of the mess I was in I’d live an upright and decent life and choose my friends with more care. I wished I could fulfill my bargain with Major Jones and begin that new life right now. But till Sam give me some idea where we was going and what we was going to do, I had no message for June Peak or Dad Egan and no way to send one. I was stuck. Maybe Sam had a plan that everybody knowed but me, but I doubted it. We seemed to be wandering without no aim at all, and I couldn’t believe there was a point or purpose to the hours we’d spent in that swamp. I knowed we was somewheres east of Dallas, and that was all I knowed. We was leaving Sam’s old stomping grounds and headed God knows where, while the Rangers and Dad Egan’s men was camped miles and miles away. At times that night I wished I was dead, but the memory of Seab Barnes’s pistol aimed at me always drove that thought away.

The others must’ve had an easier night than me, for they was in fine fettle when we got up. Barnes was quiet and still sullen from our set-to the day before, but Sam and Jackson laughed and joked as we saddled up. “Well, boys, it’s time to go down the country a ways and cash in these old pistols of ours and get us a good roll of greenbacks,” Sam said. “Seab, how much you reckon your old pistol will draw?”

“I don’t know,” Barnes muttered. “About ten thousand, I guess.”

“Hell! I want at least twenty thousand for mine,” Sam said.

And Jackson said, “Well, if you scrubs can get that much, I figure Jim and me can draw at least fifty thousand apiece, because we’re the best looking. The old banker won’t be afraid to trust us.”

Sam laughed. “What do you reckon that old banker will say when we tell him we want to cash in these old pistols?”

“Don’t know,” Jackson said. “What will he say?”

“Well, when I drop mine up to his ear, he’ll throw his old top to one side and wall his eyes like a dying calf, and he’ll say, ‘Well, here’s the boys! They want a little money! The damn old express company can’t furnish enough for them, and I guess I’ll have to give them some.’”

That convinced me all over again that Sam did have some plan in mind, so as I rode alongside Jackson all day I tried in roundabout ways to find out what it was. But either there wasn’t no plan or Jackson was cagey enough to figure what I was up to, for he told me nothing. It was a spooky day. Sam always rode just ahead of us by hisself, and Barnes rode always behind Jackson and me. I glanced over my shoulder at him from time to time, and he was always looking straight at me. I knowed he was watching every move I made and listening to every word I said. I knowed he was looking for an excuse to kill me, and if he found one maybe he’d shoot first this time and consult with Sam and Jackson later.

We pushed on toward Rockwall, and when we sighted the town Sam sent Barnes ahead to buy some canned fruit and eggs and canned salmon and a bottle of whiskey. “We’re cutting south from here,” he told him, “so just ride south when you get the goods, and you’ll find us. We’ll camp early, so it won’t take long.”

I was glad to hear him mention early camp, for it was beginning to drizzle, and I knowed it would be a dark night. If we wasn’t in camp by sunset we’d probably spend another night lost and wandering. We pulled off the road a couple of miles south of town and settled on the bank of a little creek. Jackson and me rushed around trying to grab enough firewood before it got too wet, and Sam was trying to get the fire going. I’d just dropped my load of wood by the fire, and Jackson was walking toward Sam and me with his own when he stopped stock still and stared and said, “Look!” He dropped his wood and pointed, and Sam and me looked. Rising out of the bushes, hard to see in the mist, was two tall beams with another beam fixed across them.

“What is it?” Sam said. We went over by Jackson and stood staring at the thing. Then Jackson walked toward it, and we followed after him. We pushed our way about forty yards through the wet bushes, and then we seen what it was. It was a gallows. I knowed that as soon as I seen the platform and the trap door hanging open like a tongue lolling out of a mouth. It was an old one. Its heavy timbers was dark, almost black in streaks where the water was running down them. But hanging from the beam that was fixed across the uprights was a brand new rope. About two foot of rope was hanging there, and the end looked like it’d been cut. Drops of water dripped from it through the open trap door. That gallows had been used, and not long ago.

We gawked at it for the longest time, not saying nothing. Sam stared at it real solemn, his mouth hanging open like the trap door. It was raining harder, and water was dripping off his hat-brim and soaking the back of his shirt. Just then, Barnes hollered, and Jackson yelled, “Over here!”

Barnes was saying something while he was coming through the bushes, but none of us was paying attention. And when he seen what we was looking at, he gawked, too. I knowed every man of us wasn’t thinking on nothing but the man that had swung there, maybe only a day before, and how he felt while he swung, and what his last thought might’ve been. And what happened after that thought. “Don’t unpack, Seab. We’re getting out of here,” Sam said. We pushed our way back through the bushes and packed what we’d unpacked and killed our fire. Without another word we climbed on our horses and headed south toward Terrell without another glance at that gallows. But the horrible sight stayed in my mind, and I guess it did with the others, too, for none of us said nothing at all. The rain was blowing, and lightning was cracking around us, and we didn’t stop for nothing till we was three or four miles on down the way.

It was useless to try to find dry wood, and none of us seemed in a mood to eat. Barnes fetched the jug, and we set in a little circle under two blackjack trees with our blankets draped over our heads like tents, and passed the jug around. After three or four pulls on the jug I was sleepy, so I wrapped my blanket close around me and laid down where I was and put my hat over my face to keep out the rain. I heared Jackson say, “We’ll be lucky if we don’t all get the croup,” and then I dropped right off.

I don’t know how long I slept or what woke me. Maybe it was the rain when it stopped, or the voices. I heared the voices for some time, I think, before I realized what they was saying. And Barnes was saying, “It was a sign, Sam, I tell you, Murphy’s a Jonah.”

“It was a sign, all right,” Sam answered. “I knowed soon as I seen it. But that don’t mean old Jim had nothing to do with it.”

“It was a warning, Sam, and if we don’t do nothing about it, we’ll die. It’s plain as that. We got to kill him now.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I heared a click then, and knowed somebody had cocked a pistol. They say in moments like that your whole life passes in front of your eyes, but all I remember is the stink of my wet hat over my face, and I closed my eyes real tight, waiting for the bullet.

“If you kill him, you’ve got to kill me, too.” That was Jackson. No bullet come, and nobody said nothing else. I would save Jackson, I thought, if I could find a way.

After breakfast Sam and Jackson rode to Terrell to look at the bank and see if it was worth our trouble. I wasn’t tickled to see them go. I thought Barnes might murder me while they were gone, then make up an excuse to tell them when they returned. Also, if we was to rob the Terrell bank, I would be in trouble with Major Jones, for I hadn’t had no chance to telegraph him, and he’d think I welched on our deal and joined Sam’s gang in truth.

I tried to strike up talk with Barnes, thinking if I showed him I was friendly he might decide I wasn’t such a bad egg after all. Of course I didn’t let on that I’d heared his talk the night before. I played like everything was fine and that I was pleased to be on the scout with him. But he didn’t bite. He answered with grunts, and then stopped answering at all and walked off to the horses. He curried his, the one we’d stole from Bill Mounts, and then set down on the ground and tinkered with his rigging, making some little repair or other. I knowed he was just keeping as far from me as he could, so I set down by the fire and drunk coffee and whittled on a cedar stick.

Sam and Jackson was gone a couple of hours, and come back with crackers and canned peaches and clean shirts for everybody. Jackson was wearing a new low-crown black hat. He called it a “doctor hat,” and it looked good on him, wearing it the way he did, cocked over one eye. He was a handsome boy in spite of his dirty clothes and the stubble of whiskers he had, but he didn’t look like no doctor. A gambler, maybe, or a whorehouse piano player. “They got a bank?” Barnes asked.

“Yeah, but it ain’t much,” Sam said. “We’ll look for better.”

Barnes asked a couple of questions about it, but Sam answered in a vague way. I figured he was still spooked by that gallows and wanted to get as far away from it as he could before practicing his trade again, and that was fine with me. So after we ate we rode off to Kaufman.

We went into camp in the early afternoon, and Sam sent Barnes and me into the town to look for a bank. I was tired of being in Barnes’s company by myself because of the bad feeling he had, and as we was riding along I said, “Seab, I sure wish you wasn’t so down on me. I’d like to be your friend.” But he just looked the other way and said nothing.

We looked around the town, but didn’t find no bank. So we put our horses up in the livery stable and went to the barbershop and got shaved, then found the biggest store in town and bought new pantaloons and coats to go with the shirts Sam and Jackson had brung us. I wrote my name on a slip of paper with a pencil I had and put the paper in the pocket of my old pantaloons and left my old clothes in a pile in the little room where I put on the new ones, hoping it would serve as a clue if the Rangers come through looking for our trail.

The man that sold us the clothes was old and shriveled and bald and white all over, except the green eyeshade and red sleeve garters he wore. He was so rickety you could knock him down with a feather. When he taken our money and went into a little room behind the counter, he left the door open, and we seen him taking our change out of a safe in there. It was a big safe, and I figured maybe that was where the town kept its money, but I didn’t say nothing to Barnes. But he figured like I did, and when we got back to camp, the first thing he did was tell Sam about the safe.

“Well, I reckon we better go back and look into that,” Sam said. So next morning him and Jackson and me went back to Kaufman, leaving Barnes alone at the camp. Jackson and Sam went and got a shave, then I showed them the store. The same old man was behind the counter, and he sold Sam and Jackson some new clothes, too. When he taken their money he said to me, “Wasn’t you in here yesterday, young man?”

“Yessir,” I said.

“Well, you left your old clothes here. Do you want them?”

“Nossir.”

“I’ll throw them out, then.”

I knowed if the old man found the paper with my name on it, it wouldn’t mean nothing to him. So there went my clue.

The old man taken the money from Sam and Jackson and stepped into the little room. This time he opened the safe door wider, and we got a good look inside. When we left the store, Sam said, “Well, boys, there wasn’t much in that safe but dust. That old man barely had enough to give us our change. Blast this country! It ain’t worth a fig!”

So we set out for Ennis and camped that night between Chambers Creek and East Fork, then headed for Trinidad Crossing, where there was a ferry across the Fork. But the water was as high as it was upriver a few days earlier, and the ferryman told us his cable across the river was broke and the boat wasn’t running.

“We’ll just swim it, then,” Sam said, and he headed his mare into the water. We swam about a third of the way across, and then the horses turned downstream. We turned them back against the current again, but they turned downstream again. The ferryman stood on the bank, laughing at us thrashing around out there and getting nowhere. “We got wet for nothing, boys,” Sam said. “If Jenny says it’s too strong, then it’s too strong.”

So we returned to shore and went looking for a grassy spot where we could lay back in the sun and dry off. We passed a farmhouse close to the road, and there was a pile of watermelons under a tree in the yard and a lot of people setting in the shade eating them. “Some party!” Jackson hollered at them.

“You bet!” said a big man I taken to be the owner of the place. “Come join, us!

“What’s the celebration?” Jackson asked.

“Why, man, it’s the Fourth of July!”

So we got down, and Sam introduced us around as cattlemen from Wise County.

“Wise?” the farmer said. “Ain’t that up in Sam Bass country?”

“That’s right.”

“They caught that boy yet?”

“Not that I heared,” Sam said.

The man handed us hunks of watermelon and said, “Well, he’ll make another strike soon. I don’t give a damn how many trains he robs, just so he lets the citizens alone.”

“From what I’ve heared,” Sam said, “I don’t reckon he bothers nobody but them Yankee railroads.”

We set under the trees with the farmer and several other men that I taken to be brothers and sons and talked cattle and ate watermelon. There must’ve been two dozen kids around the place, running races and playing tag, and a bunch of women on the porch that giggled and talked in low voices except when they was hollering at the kids. It was a pleasant afternoon. Jackson beat four of the young men in a watermelon seed spitting contest, and him and Sam laid aside their weapons and coats and rassled some of the kids, taking on three or four of them at a time. I didn’t see how they could do it, having ate as much as they did, but they laughed and hollered as much as the kids. Towards sundown some of the kin loaded their younguns and wives into their wagons and taken off, but some was going to spend the night. “I ain’t got no room in the house,” the farmer told us, “but you’re welcome to spread your blankets under the trees. It’s going to be a hot night, anyhow.”

We accepted, and he brought out the whiskey jug and passed it around amongst the men that was left. Before he taken his first swig he raised the jug and said, “Well, here’s to the Republic. I wish to God she was the Confederacy.”

We all said, “Amen!” and then drunk a while and had supper and talked cattle and politics some more. Then the farmer and the other men invited us to stay for breakfast in the morning and went inside. While we was spreading our blankets, Sam said, “I hope them kids knows someday that they was rassling with Sam Bass hisself.”

The river had dropped some, and Sam and Jackson offered to help the ferryman fix his cable. They set out in a skiff and pulled the cable across the river and tied it on the other bank. Then the ferryman carried us and our horses across. “You boys has been so nice I’ll just charge you half the fare,” he said.

“Why, you old robber!” Sam said. “You ought to let us ride free!”

The ferryman grinned and said, “Well, son, even robbers has to make a living.”

And Sam said, “You’re right, old man,” and he paid him.

The sun was so hot and the air so steamy it was hard to breathe, and flies was everywhere. They drove me crazy, and the horses, too. It wasn’t no day for traveling. But there was a nervousness in Sam’s manner. He was looking to make a strike, and looking hard. I knowed I had to get a message to the Rangers soon, for my belly told me Sam wouldn’t back down from killing somebody now if he was crossed, and maybe all of us would be killed, too.

We hadn’t went far when this dude on a mule come up to us at a crossroads. He was wearing a fancy brocade vest, kind of gold in color, and a black string necktie. His coat and shirt was frayed, and the vest was dirty, and his pantaloons was patched in several spots. His mule was a poor, spavined thing. The man rode bareback, and his legs hung a considerable ways toward the ground. He give us a friendly smile. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Headed for Ennis?”

“Yep,” Jackson said.

“So am I. Mind if I accompany you?” And he fell in beside Jackson and stuck his hand out and said, “Claudius Parker, schoolteacher.”

Jackson introduced hisself as Frank Allen and give some names for the rest of us. “Where you teaching at?” he asked.

“Well, I happen to be between appointments now,” Parker said in a prissy voice. “But I’ll have a school by fall. That’s why I’m going to Ennis.”

“Does teaching pay good?” Jackson asked.

“Oh, no,” Parker said. “Barely enough to keep me and Achilles alive.”

“Achilles?”

“My mule, Mr. Allen. Poor beast. He’s weak in more than the heel, I’m afraid.”

“So you taken his name from Homer,” Jackson said.

Parker looked at him in surprise. “Do you know The Iliad, Mr. Allen?”

“Why, yes,” Jackson said kind of proud. “Matter of fact, I happen to have The Odyssey on me.” He unbuckled a saddlebag and pulled out a little book and handed it to the teacher. Parker looked at it and made gasping noises like a woman about to faint, and him and Jackson commenced the goddamndest conversation I ever heard. They went on and on about one-eyed monsters and women that turns men into hogs and all sorts of outlandish things. I thought the sun had taken hold of them, and Sam and Barnes looked at Jackson like he was a lunatic. But Jackson and Claudius Parker didn’t pay no mind. They rattled on and on, passing the book back and forth between them. Parker even started talking in tongues, and Jackson acted like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Nothing wears on you like somebody talking about something you don’t understand, and finally Sam couldn’t take it no more. Next time we come to a crossroads he stopped and said, “Well, Mr. Parker, we got to go down this road and look at some cows, so I guess we part company here.”

Parker looked disappointed. “Oh,” he said. He closed the book and handed it to Jackson. “It’s been a rare pleasure, Mr. Allen. A rare pleasure.”

“Same here,” Jackson said.

“Well, gentlemen.” Parker tipped his hat and kicked the old mule so hard that dust rose out of his hide. The broke-down old thing hustled hisself into a trot that was painful to watch, and we turned down the other road.

“Christ, Frank!” Sam said.

“There ain’t nothing wrong with book-learning, Sam. And old Claudius has got plenty up under his hat.”

“Yeah, plenty of slop,” Sam said. Then he laughed. “I wonder what old Claudius would say if he knowed he was riding with Sam Bass.”

We camped about a mile above Ennis, and Sam and me went to town to look around. We got us a fancy dinner at the hotel, then taken our ease, walking up and down the streets, looking at the stores and offices. We stopped into one of the stores and was looking at a fancy cartridge belt. “What do you think of it?” Sam asked.

“It’s a fine belt,” I said.

“All right, I’ll buy it for you. To make up for the hard time we give you back there.”

I said, “Aw, that’s all right. You was just nervous.”

“Well, we was wrong about you, and I feel bad about it, so take the belt. A present between friends.”

So I agreed. He also bought hisself a nice pair of little saddle-pockets made out of cashmere goatskin. “Ain’t they pretty?” he said. “Just right to carry money in.”

We found the bank and went in, and Sam stepped up to the teller’s cage and cashed a five-dollar bill. When we was back on the sidewalk he said, “There ain’t no use trying that one. The bannisters is too high. We’d be killed before we could get behind them.”

“Well, where now?”

“Waco,” he said.

Jackson and me rode into Waco and got shaved, then went to a hotel to eat. We done these things nearly every time we come to a town now, for we was a long way from Denton County, and the boys ain’t seen a posse in almost a month. They enjoyed walking around in the open and not worrying about somebody recognizing them and taking shots at them. They was having a good time being just ordinary people.

While we was eating, Jackson smiled at me and said, “Jim, are you going to betray us, or not?”

His question, coming right out of the blue, scared the hell out of me. I knowed if Jackson didn’t trust me no more, I was dead. I said, “Frank, it pains me that you ask that. I thought you knowed me better. No, I ain’t going to betray you. I joined up with you boys in truth.”

Jackson kept on smiling. He said, “Well, I believe you, but I think you joined up with the losing side. If I was in your boots I’d go back to Tyler and throw myself on the mercy of the court. You got a family and you got land and you got money, and you ain’t done no robberies yet. Even if you was to spend some time in jail you’d be better off than us. We’re going to get killed. I know that.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve knowed it since Salt Creek,” he said. “When I seen how many Rangers was against us and I seen Arkansas fall, I knowed that’s what’s going to happen to all of us. It’s that or the rope anyhow, and my preference is Arkansas’s way. I wish I was you. I’d be riding for Tyler now.”

“Well, I’ll think on it,” I said.

“You’re running out of thinking time. We’re going to do something soon. We got to, because we’re just about broke. We might do it right here in Waco, and if we do, then the law’s going to be on us again. And once them Rangers comes after us, you’re sunk with the rest of us.”

I said, “Why don’t you get out, too?”

His smile turned kind of sad. “I got no place to go that’s better than where I am. I’ve went too far to turn back now, and Eph and me… Well, we’ve been through too much to split now. I wouldn’t know what to do without the little son of a bitch, and he wouldn’t be nothing without me.” He looked at the white china dishes on the table and the crystal lamp hanging from the ceiling and said, “This is putting on a heap of style for highwaymen, ain’t it?”

“It’s getting up a little,” I replied, and I knowed we was through talking about anything that mattered. I felt lower than a snake’s belly. Being trusted by Jackson made me feel worse than not being trusted by Sam and Barnes, and it was hard to look him in the eye during the rest of the meal. I was glad when he pulled out that tinkling watch of his and said, “Well, it’s time we done our duty.”

We strolled around Waco real casual. It was the biggest town we’d been in during our travels, and it was pure pleasure seeing the pretty, well-dressed women and several fine horses and carriages mingled in amongst the farmers and the mule wagons. We found out there was three banks, and Jackson decided he’d check them all before we returned to camp. He’d go in and change a bill and look the place over while I waited on the sidewalk. I kept trying to think of a way to get away from him and send a telegram to Major Jones, but I couldn’t think of no way without Jackson asking questions and getting suspicious. I didn’t have nothing to tell the major nohow, except where we was. We still didn’t have no plan.

When Jackson come out of the third bank, the Savings Bank, he was excited. “If we mean business, this is the place to commence,” he said. “They got piles of greenbacks and gold just laying on a big table in there, and the bannister’s low. We can get it easy as pie.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “All these banks is in the middle of town, and we’d have a lot of town to ride through to make our getaway. We’d have plenty of chances to get ourselves killed.”

“I don’t think there’ll be no trouble,” he said. “We’ll map us a getaway ahead of time.”

His enthusiasm scared me. If Sam decided to tap a bank in Waco, the deed would be did before I could get a message off, and certainly before the Rangers could get to us. And I knowed if Jackson was in favor of the idea, Sam probably would be, too. On the way back to camp I tried to persuade Jackson that Waco was too dangerous. He listened polite, but just said, “We’ll let Eph decide.”

He give Sam a real excited report, and Sam’s eyes lit up when he heared about the piles of money in the Savings Bank. But I tried again. “Frank’s too excited over what he seen there,” I said. “We’d have a devil of a time getting out of that town. Maybe you better go up and have a look yourself.”

Next morning Sam and Jackson went to town, and I was stuck in camp with Barnes looking daggers at me. Sam come back as excited as Jackson. “Boys, we’ve struck gold if we work it right,” he said.

He sent Jackson and me back to buy coffee and bread. While he was busy with that, I sneaked to the post office and bought some paper and envelopes and stamps and stuck them in my pocket. Later, as we rode through the streets, I pointed out all the danger spots I could find, places where our run could be cut off, places where we would be exposed to fire.

Jackson didn’t buy none of it. “Hell, Jim,” he said, “we’ll take that bank easy as a drink of water. If you’re sticking with us, you got to know there’s a mite of danger in our business. But we’ll scare this town so bad they won’t know what’s up till we’ve took the money and gone.” I didn’t say nothing, and Jackson said, “If you’re going to strike for Tyler, now’s the time. It might be your last chance.”

I wondered what would happen if I was to turn and start. Would he just watch me go? Would he shoot me in the back like Barnes would? I wasn’t about to try, and I made no answer.

When I started to tell Sam about the dangers in the town, he interrupted me. “Hell, Jim! We can take that bank easy. Hell! Don’t get scared. I’ll get you some easy money in a few days, as soon as little Jenny rests up for the run.”

There wasn’t no use talking anymore, so I shut up and got very serious, staring into the fire. “Jim, hold your head up,” Sam told me. “Keep in good spirits. Old Eph’s going to get you some money.”

Sam and Jackson and Barnes was in good spirits, all right, and we had a deal to drink. They was still laughing and carrying on when we rolled into our blankets.

So you could’ve knocked me over with a feather the next morning at breakfast. Sam turned to me and said, “Well, Jim, if you think there’s too much danger in Waco, we won’t hit it. We’ll go wherever you say.”

Jackson and Barnes went on eating, so I knowed they already knowed, and I become suspicious. Why had they changed their minds? But I said, “Well, I’m glad, boys. I was afraid you all would be hard-headed and run us into danger and get us killed. So we’ll go down to Round Rock and pull the Williamson County Bank.”

They agreed to that, and we rode out to get on the road south to Round Rock. The day was hotter than hell, and as we was riding through Waco Sam said, “Let’s get us a cold beer while we got the chance.” So we stopped at the Ranch Saloon and had several. When we was ready to leave, Sam taken out a double-eagle and dropped it on the table. The bartender heared it and come and taken it, and Sam watched him walk away. “Well, boys, there goes the last piece of ‘77 gold I had,” he said. “It ain’t done me the least bit of good. But let it gush. It all goes in a lifetime.”

“You going to fool around and miss that boat?” Jackson said. “Don’t you worry,” Sam said. “I’ll have me some more gold in a few days.”

“What boat?” I asked. I was jumpy, I guess. I feared maybe the Round Rock plan was just a trick and we was heading on down to Galveston.

“Sam’s taking to the water,” Jackson said. “He’s even got hisself a captain’s lady waiting.”

Sam raised his glass. “Maude,” he said. “It ain’t going to be long now.”

The bartender come back with his change, and he started to get up. “Wait,” I said. “Tell me about the boat.”

“It ain’t nothing,” he said. “Just a little joke that Frank and me has.”

We camped that night on a high hill near Belton. Next morning Sam chose me to go into town with him to check for banks, in case we might be interested. “I got to shit first,” I said, and I walked off among some bushes some ways from camp and dropped my pantaloons and hunkered down like I was taking a shit. I pulled out my pencil and the paper I’d bought in Waco and wrote two letters, both the same, to Dad Egan in Denton and Major Jones in Austin.

SB on way to Round Rock to rob bank. For God sake come quick.

I signed them “J. W. Murphy,” then wondered if they would know who “SB” was. Then I thought, hell, who else would they think I’d write about? I knowed Major Jones would have the best chance to get to Round Rock, since the town is only about twenty miles from Austin, and Dad Egan probably wouldn’t have no chance at all. But if Sam wasn’t caught and the law decided to haul me to court, I wanted Dad to testify that I’d did my best. I stuck the stamps on the letters and folded them and put them in my pocket. Sam was mounted and ready when I come out of the bushes.

Belton wasn’t much of a town, and I knowed it wouldn’t take long to find out whether there was a bank or not, and I had to figure a way to get to the post office, so I said, “Sam, if this burg has a bank it’s probably in the back of some store. Why don’t you take one side of the street, and I’ll take the other?”

He agreed, and I went into the first store I come to and asked where the post office was. The man told me it was way down at the other end of the street, on my side. I walked as fast as I could without seeming to hurry, for I seen Sam some distance ahead of me on his side. My heart was going thumpity-thump the whole way, for I knowed if Sam seen me sticking them letters in the slot, I was gone. I found the store where the post office was, way back in the back of the building. When I come in the door, I almost run to the back. An old man was standing in the post office window with a newspaper spread out in front of him. The mail slot was right under the window. I’d just dropped my letters into the slot when Sam come in. “What the hell you doing?” he asked.

“I was trying to buy this man’s newspaper,” I said. The old man must’ve thought I was talking to him, for he said, “Eh? I won’t sell it, but I’ll let you borrow part of it.” “You want to hear some of the news?” I asked Sam. “No. Let’s get moving.”

My belly was going flippity-flop, but I done my best to be calm, and when we was on the sidewalk I asked, “Did you find a bank?”

“Yeah, but it’s a pitiful little thing. We’ll wait for Round Rock.”

So we moved south to Georgetown and rested a day, then moved on to Round Rock. We come in by the San Saba road and made camp in a cedar brake not far from town. We could see the whole town from there, and Sam said, “I been through here with Joel, but it sure has growed since then. A whole new town’s coming up there in the east.”

“It’s the railroad,” I said. “The railroad missed the town, so they’re building over there now.”

Sam laughed. “God bless the railroads. They’re good to everybody, ain’t they?”

Sam and Jackson went off to find the bank, and Barnes and me went to Mays and Black’s store in the old part of town and bought some horse feed. Sam and Jackson got back before we did, and they was sitting on their blankets drinking a jug of whiskey when we come with the feed. Sam rushed up and shook my hand. “Damn it, Jim, you was right about coming to this place,” he said. “We can take that bank too easy to talk about.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” I said.

“You did, you old son of a bitch. You got the makings of a real highwayman.”

We drunk the rest of the jug that night, and everybody was in good spirits. Next morning Barnes said he wanted to look at that bank, too, so I offered to go with him, just to show I wasn’t worried about him. We rode in and got a shave, then walked over to the Williamson County Bank. It was a busy one, and they had more greenbacks in sight than a tree has leaves. Barnes cashed a bill at the window, and when we was walking to get our horses he said, “I wish we had fresh horses. We could take that bank this evening.”

“I do, too,” I said. “But if we go to stealing horses now, the law will get on us before we get mounted. The best thing to do is stay here four or five days and let our horses rest and play like we’re wanting to buy cattle.”

“Yeah, that’s the right idea,” he said.

Sam and Jackson had their plan already set. As soon as we dismounted, Sam stood up and said, “Well, she goes about half past three o’clock Saturday evening. And here’s the way we’ll do it. Seab and me will walk in first. Seab will throw down a five-dollar bill and tell the banker he wants silver for it. While he’s getting his change, I’ll come in and throw my pistol on the banker and tell him to get his hands up. Seab will jump over the counter, and Jim and Frank will show up at the door and get the drop on whoever comes in after us. Anybody got questions?”

“No,” Barnes said, “but I got something I want to say in front of everybody.” He come over to my side of the fire. “Boys, I want you to know I think Jim’s all right. I’m glad Frank kept us from killing him. He’s the man we need. But blast him, I just couldn’t fix him all right before. I’m proud to say now that he’s my friend.” He shook my hand.

“I’m your friend, too,” I said.