Butch Cassidy by Charles Leerhsen

Author:Charles Leerhsen [Charles Leerhsen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2020-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

2

14

ELZY

Angus “Bud” McIntosh, the assistant cashier at Idaho’s Bank of Montpelier, always called it the unluckiest moment of his life, and it was easy to see why. At precisely 3:13 p.m. on August 13, 1896, he said, right after he’d recorded his thirteenth transaction of the day, the depositing of a check for $13, a strapping fellow with a bandanna tied around his face suddenly appeared in front of his teller’s window, pushed a canvas sack into his cage, and told him to fill it with money. Even though the man brandished a pistol, McIntosh tried to put him off at first by burbling something, in his heavy Scottish burr, about being fresh out of cash. But the robber only got angry, called him “a goddamn liar,” and hit him very hard on the head with the barrel of his gun. Stars swirled, tears welled; poor McIntosh thought he was a goner.

In the West, though, your luck could change very quickly. From a spot near the front entrance, a voice suddenly rang out, telling the robber to “leave that man alone!” It wasn’t the sheriff because Montpelier, an odd little town with distinct Mormon and gentile districts, was too small to have a sheriff. The speaker, unknown to McIntosh, sounded like the man who had just assaulted him, a bit angry as well as a bit bandanna muffled. Could it be, McIntosh wondered, that I am being defended by another bandit?

As it turned out, he was. Witnesses would say later that the man who’d stationed himself by the front door was sandy haired, somewhat on the stocky side, and obviously the leader. Even in that tense moment, with his gun drawn, he’d managed to calm down the customers and make it clear that while he and his friends—a group of three if you included the nervous-looking fellow standing outside with the sorrel packhorse—wanted to steal as much as they could, he didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Something was happening in Montpelier that day, something more than just another a robbery. Those nicely dressed boys were not really the Wild Bunch yet, but a hierarchy was being worked out there on the floor of the bank for everyone to see. On a peaceful summer afternoon in Idaho, a gang was born.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.