An American Outlaw (29 page)

I looked at Michael. “That's it.”

We were parked among the cars and trucks in the square, just an ordinary sedan, nothing to look at. Michael behind the wheel. He could drive, just; with his arm in a sling. But nothing more, he couldn't handle a gun. 

I slipped the SIG from my jacket, dumped the clip, ran a finger over the top round.

“Last night,” says Michael, “that doctor...”

“Connie?”

“She was drinking Lean.” He grinned. Shook his head.

“What the hell's that?”

“Promethazine with Codeine. And Jolly Rancher candy.”

“How do you know that shit?”

“Booze shark I know. Out of Houston.”

 I slapped the box magazine back in the grip. Put the pistol in my lap.

“I must've been pretty bad,” he says. He grabbed the wheel, pulled himself upright in his seat. “We really doin' this?”

I nodded.

“Guess we're never going back to Lafayette.”

I stared at the stone front of the bank.

“You think she'll even take the money?” he says.

“She'll take it.”

“I keep thinking on Steven.”

I'd tried to shut that out—what was the use? Steven was dead, in some cold room five days. When I thought of him, a lick of anger flared in me. Michael took two bullets on account of him—rushing in a bank, not waiting, screwing up. He couldn't have been less like his brother.

“I'll do it now,” I says, “while it's clear.”

“Fuck, Gil...” 

Michael pressed a hand against his brow.

I put the gun in my jacket, stepped out, crossed main, no cars, not a living soul. 

Tired as I was, run out, I felt Nate's spirit close to me—something like it. I felt him near me, clearer now. 

I put a hand on the polished glass door of the bank. Pushed it open. 

I knew in my heart what he would've said. From what he did, the life he led. But it was no good. I pushed the door wide. Stepped inside, into the dark interior. 

Three staff. 

All men in suits, no customers.

One man seated behind a counter—jacket off, white shirt, middle aged. A second guy at the left in a gray suit—older. The youngest of the three to the right. Black hair, gelled back off his face.

I reached in my jacket. Pulled out the gun. “This is a robbery...”

They all stared. Then raised their hands, slowly.

“I got fourteen rounds in this. But let's not do that.”

The eldest, in the gray suit, clears his throat.

“We don't have any big cash deposits here, sir.”

“You the manager?”

“I am.”

“Where's the safe?”

“It's in the back.”

“You two are coming with us.”

The guy in the white shirt gets to his feet, the young guy with the gelled hair has to think about it. 

I flicked the barrel of the SIG at him. “Don't fuckin' blow this.”

He stood. 

I marched all three of them on the point of the gun, into the back room. 

The manager approaches a steel door in an interior wall. He works a code on a keypad. 

I turned to the guy in the white shirt. “Get something to put the money in.”

He opens up a desk drawer, starts to search through the stationery. 

The young guy's starting to look real nervous. 

The manager opens up the steel door, picks out a stack of wrapped money. He turns. “Mr Russell?”

The guy in the white shirt steps forward—a bunch of business envelopes in his hand.

“This is everything we're carrying, sir,” the manager says. “It's Saturday. We don't carry much over a weekend.”

“How much?”

“I believe it would be between twenty-five, to thirty five thousand dollars.”

They stuffed the money in the envelopes. 

The manager pushed the safe door wide, showing it empty.

I took the three envelopes he held out to me. 

There's a noise behind, I span around—the young guy's disappearing out the door.

I ran after him, he's already at the street door, grabbing for the handle.

He charges out, tearing into the road.

Across the square, a uniform cop's emerging from the County Courthouse—running between the trees, gun in hand.

The cop gets down on one knee.

He shouts something—puts his arms out. Opens up—six shots, wild and fast.

I jumped behind the tailgate of a truck.

The bank clerk drops to the ground—to lay in the middle of the square, hands covering his head.

From the auto shop, a guy in greased-up coveralls runs out with a shotgun. He hoists it to his shoulder. Fires, twice.

Behind the kneeling cop, out the door of the Courthouse, a second officer's running out.

I put a round at the shotgun shooter—one at the kneeling cop.

The second cop's sprinting away left.

Michael's got the car facing up the main street, gunning the engine. “
Get in
...”

The grease monkey trains the barrel and fires—the rear window in the Camry shattering.

Then he turns, and runs back to the garage.

Michael's shouting, “
Get in here
...”

But the second cop's about to run down the side of the square and cut us off.

And a fourth guy's running from a storefront unit—three hundred pounds, a bright red T-shirt, carrying a handgun. He's on the left flank of the square, same flank as the second cop.

The grease monkey's back out from the garage.

The store owner in the T-shirt fires a square-looking semi-auto—a Glock.

Both cops are moving forward, shouting out; “
Drop your weapon
.
Get on the ground
...”

I fired at the red T-shirt, at the second cop, trying to push them back up the left.

I lunged for the Camry.

Michael hit the gas, tires screaming.

I snatched up the Moss from the back seat. The second cop's running forward, I stuck out the barrel—a warning.

He checked stride.

The guy in the red T-shirt turns to follow the movement of the car—snapping more rounds, loosing a second clip.

I pulled on the trigger of the Moss.

They both hit the ground, searching for cover.

But a sheriff's car is coming down the street from the back of the Courthouse building.

“
Jesus Christ, Gil
...”

“Get us out of the square.”

Michael mashes the pedal—shots are spitting from all points.

The sheriff's car rams down the left of the square as we pass the end of the block.

And a green pick-up appears out of nowhere—from the next street back.

We T-bone the rear end of the pick-up, it spins, the driver flings open his door.

He jumps out, rolls on the ground.

The Camry's wrecked, front end buckled.

We're both dazed; winded. Michael scrambling out.

I grabbed the money, the flight case, the envelopes from the bank.

Michael shouting at me, “
Get in the truck
...”

He jumps behind the wheel of the pick-up, its engine still running. We're ten yards past the square, seconds left to get out.

The sheriff's car flashes out from the end of the square.

I fired on the engine block and the wheels.

I steadied myself at the pick-up side. Threw in the flight case, the cash-filled envelopes—and pulled myself up into the truck bed.

The grease monkey steps around the corner.

I hammered on the side, “
Go, go, go
...”

He aims his shotgun—fires.

He pumps another slug, fires again, pulling on the trigger, till he's out.

Michael floors it.

We're burning down main, the west edge of town—the square receding faster and faster.

All the buildings in our wake, a red barn, a cattle yard.

We're clear.

“
Where Gil?
” Michael shouting, above the wind.

“
West
,” I shouted, heart racing. “
Any back road you can find
...” My own voice strange in my ears. 

CHAPTER 30

Rocksprings.

The central hall of the County Courthouse is filled with people. There's Edwards County sheriff's men, civilian admin staff, a garage owner in oil-smeared coveralls, a guy in a red T-shirt; triple-X. 

Plus three men in the center, dressed in suits.

Whicher eyes them all with the same unease.

A young deputy, name of Keane, stands closest to him. Gym-pumped arms. Neat trimmed goatee. 

“We acted with proportionate force, Marshal.”

“Looks like you shot up half the town.”

“It's not the Wild West.”

“Y'all sure on that?”

Thirty minutes earlier, he could have stopped it. Whicher stares at an oak table to one side of the corridor. A shotgun on it. A Glock. Weapons used by two of the witnesses acting in support of police. Nothing the news boys liked better.

“No sightings? Nobody's seen 'em?”

“You haul out of here,” says Deputy Keane, “there's a score of tracks any direction you can think of. East into the hills, west across the plains. North or south, who knows? They shot up the patrol car, it couldn't pursue.”

Whicher nods.

“Once they're out of here, Marshal, they could go anywhere.”

“They can't just disappear.”

A second officer takes a pace forward. “They're in Dale's pick-up.” He points toward a shaken-looking guy in a denim shirt. “Dale Vance,” he says. “Tried to block 'em in.”

“Make? Model?”

“Green Ford pick-up. With a heavy side-impact. Anybody sees it...”

Whicher can already imagine the story they'll run.

In his hand, the marshal holds the photocopied picture of Gilman James. It's creased and battered, four days in his pocket. But the same defiant face stares back whenever he looks at it.

“Y'all are sure there was no sign of a girl? A young woman, Hispanic? Mid-twenties?”

Deputy Keane shakes his head. “I saw it all go down, I was first man out. I got out the courthouse, there was Brandon Wickes,” he points to a young man with gelled back hair, standing with two suited, older men.

“He works in the bank?” says Whicher.

“Yessir. He was running out of there, followed by that guy.” Deputy Keane points at the photocopied picture. “That's definitely your man, Marshal.”

“I know it's him. That Toyota out there with its front end stoved is the car they stole last night. In Kerrville.”

Deputy Keane holds his wrist. Flexes the muscles in his forearm. “The guy driving that car looked like he was wearing something around his arm. A sling maybe.”

“He have blond hair?”

“I think so.”

The second deputy cuts in; “I was driving the patrol car, I got a look at him—I'll say he was blond.”

Michael Tyler. Injured or no.

No sign of him at Jackson Fork. No sign of the girl, now. 

“I need to speak with the manager of the bank.”

Deputy Keane points to the elder of the three suited men talking with a female county sheriff's officer.

Whicher crosses the high-ceilinged hall. 

The doors to both ends of the building are open, a hot Texas wind blows straight through. The courthouse is early nineteen-hundreds, according to the plaque on the wall. Whicher thinks of countless men in chains walking the floor. 

The man in the gray suit turns at his approach. Thinning hair. A cold look in his eye.

“Deputy Marshal Whicher. Are you the manager?”

He nods. “Richardson.”

“How much they get?”

“About thirty thousand.” The manager purses his thin mouth. “We haven't had time to tally everything.”

“Any chance tracing it?”

“It's not serialized. It's from small accounts here in town.”

“No bait money?”

“No.”

“Dye packs?”

“We're too small.” Richardson shakes his head. “We don't have to trouble about all that.”

“Y'all have cameras in there, right?”

“Of course.”

Whicher shows him the photocopied picture.

“That's the man.”

The marshal nods. Witnesses. Plenty of evidence. First, they have to find them.

“I need to ask about a former customer of yours at the bank. Name of Nathaniel Childress.”

The manager bunches his small shoulders.

“It's part of a criminal investigation I'm running. Childress is now deceased.”

Through the open doorway into the square, Whicher sees a group of vehicles arriving. New-looking Chevy express van. Mid-size Cadillac.

“Mr. Richardson, I need to know what happened to the Childress family? The widow and children? After they lost their house here.”

“Oh.” Richardson shifts his slight frame. “Good Lord. Yes. I remember, now. Childress...”

“That's right.”

“I'd have to check. This was all very recent. And most unfortunate. They don't owe us any money...”

“Any address?”

“There may be some particulars. There's a process to be gone through. In the circumstances, the bank thought a little time might be required.”

“Y'all thought that now.”

Richardson clamps his mouth shut. The set of his small shoulders seems to harden under his suit.

The marshal glances through the open doors into the town square. Something happening. Something around the Chevy van. A young man, camo shorts and a polo shirt. Unloading a TV camera out the van door, lugging it onto his shoulder.

“Holy crap...”

“Excuse me?”

Whicher pinches the bridge of his busted nose. “Y'all are telling me the bank have no current whereabouts for the Childress family? That it?”

“I'm afraid I can't be much help, Marshal.”

Whicher strides for the door of the courthouse building. Two sheriff's deputies are walking out into the square, thumbs hooked in their gun belts. 

He follows them—stands alone, on the step. 

Outside, a young woman in a tailored two-piece checks her hair, fast, snapping away a compact mirror.

Whicher mutters under his breath. “Jesus wept...”

The camera guy is lining up a shot of the Home Valley Bank. There's a sound guy stepping from the Chevy van, now. Flip flops. A battery pack on his shorts.