Desperadoes by Ron Hansen

Author:Ron Hansen [Ron Hansen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780285641235
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2012-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

The seven of us slept under yellow leaves that night. At five in the morning I sat up smelling coffee and I saw Bob walk up to each man and drop a jangling canvas sack into the leaves near his head. ‘You look like Santa Claus,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘I’ll divvy up with you later.’

I’ve said elsewhere the take was nineteen thousand dollars. I reckon it was closer to ten. Divided seven ways it would’ve come to almost fifteen hundred apiece, but Bob gave the five men of the gang not kin to him wages instead of shares: four hundred dollars for a night’s work.

Newcomb walked over to the fire and poured a tin cup of coffee and squatted to count the silver coins and paper money into his hat. ‘I can’t believe this, Bob!’

‘Believe what?’

Doolin kept his head on his saddle pillow and stacked the money on the leaves. He glared at Bob. ‘Where’s the rest of it, Dalton?’

‘That’s the arithmetic,’ said Bob.

‘But I carried that sack,’ said Doolin. ‘There must’ve been three thousand dollars just in silver!’

‘There was,’ said Bob. ‘And there’s also the sod house to supply and Bryant’s funeral expenses and implements and tools and payoffs to the local police, plus Jim Riley gets a little something for allowing us his property. You don’t give a thought to that.’

‘Meaning you and Emmett split fifteen thousand dollars,’ said Pierce.

‘I don’t know where you’re coming up with your numbers. Four hundred dollars times eight—’

‘Eight?’ asked Doolin.

‘Miss Moore,’ I said.

‘Is three thousand two hundred dollars. I counted the spondulix three times and only arrived at three thousand eight hundred and forty-five bucks. The rest was non-negotiable securities and I fed them to the fire.’

‘Ah, so that’s what you did,’ said Doolin. ‘Well then, my mind’s completely at rest.’

‘Heck, when we robbed the Santa Fe at Wharton we hardly got a hundred twenty-five cutting it just four ways. Ask Bitter Creek if you don’t believe me.’

Newcomb threw a stick into the fire. ‘That’s right. Didn’t last me the summer.’

‘It’s not that profitable an occupation,’ said Bob. He picked his saddle up by the horn and jammed his hat down and smiled. ‘It’s just that it beats moving longhorns on the prairie and eating sowbelly and beans.’

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