Chapter 13
Morgan opened the door for Jane and followed her into Cobb Bridger’s office. They both stamped snow off their feet at the entrance, although Jane was more delicate about it.
From behind his desk, Cobb dropped his chair onto all four of its legs and stood. He lifted his hat to greet Jane. “An unexpected pleasure, Mrs. Longstreet.” His smile faded as he looked at Morgan. “Let’s just say it’s unexpected.”
“I was thinking the same,” said Morgan.
Jane looked from one to the other and shook her head. “Now that you two have observed the niceties of social convention…”
Chuckling, Cobb came around his desk and showed Jane to a chair in front of it. “Would you like to take off your coat?”
Morgan said, “We’re not going to be here that long.”
Jane said, “Thank you, Marshal. Yes, I’d like that.
After the ride into town, it feels rather cozy in here.
” She unbuttoned her coat, but when Cobb stepped forward to help her out of it, Morgan warned him off with a glare and did it himself.
Jane pretended she didn’t know what had happened.
Instead of taking the chair Cobb had offered, she walked over to where the notices of wanted men, and one wanted woman, were tacked on the wall.
“Morgan told me about this,” she said. “I cannot decide if it is impressive or merely sad.” She looked back at Cobb. “But I don’t suppose you regard it in either light.”
“No, ma’am. It’s my job.”
Morgan said, “She wanted to see it. Make sure I wasn’t up there.”
“That’s a lie,” said Jane. “I wanted to see it. Period.”
Cobb said, “Am I getting wind of some kind of domestic dispute here? Because if that’s the case, you probably don’t want me in the middle of it.
Mrs. Sterling, now she’s the one who delights in that sort of thing, and I know she’s at the Pennyroyal because I just came from having lunch at the hotel. ”
Morgan shook his head and said flatly, “Jane knows.”
“She knows,” Cobb said with as little inflection. His eyebrows lifted. “She knows?”
“Mm-hmm. She does. I told her.”
“When?”
“Not that it matters, but eight or so days ago.”
“Six,” Jane said as she continued to study the Wanted Wall.
“I guess it does matter,” said Cobb.
Morgan shrugged. “Feels like eight.”
Looking at Jane’s stiff back, Cobb spoke softly to Morgan. “I know that feeling.”
One corner of Morgan’s mouth lifted. “I bet you do.”
Jane turned around and faced both men, but she addressed Cobb. “I wonder what your wife would say if she learned you were someone other than she thought you were.”
Humor tugged at Cobb Bridger’s lips. “It gives me no pleasure to say so, Mrs. Longstreet, but I can pretty much recite what she said chapter and verse. I had a similar problem. That’s why I told Morgan he should let you know straightaway.”
“You never told me that,” said Morgan.
“Didn’t I? Could be because I knew you wouldn’t be receptive to hearing it from me. I sure thought about it enough.”
Jane said, “You two can sort that out later. It certainly seems you have enough in common to forge a sustainable friendship.”
Cobb scratched behind his ear. “Maybe so.”
“Jury’s still out,” Morgan said.
Jane gave her husband a pointed look.
“Maybe so,” he said.
Cobb laughed outright and pointed to the chairs again. “Please. Sit down and tell me why you’re really here.”
Morgan and Jane sat. Both declined Cobb’s offer of coffee, and he did not pour any for himself. He returned to his chair and pushed a book and a few papers out of the way.
Jane folded her hands in her lap and began.
“The last time I was in town, I met someone who Morgan believes might have been one of his brothers. Morgan did not see him, so we can’t be sure.
” She described the meeting outside Mrs. Garvin’s shop and how it meant so little to her that she mentioned it only in passing to her husband.
“Morgan and I thought you should know in the event that he returns to Bitter Springs.”
Cobb’s attention shifted to Morgan. “Is that right?”
“My wife just said so, didn’t she?”
Jane interjected, “Morgan said he gave you his word that he would tell you if something happened that concerns you and the town.”
“He remembers what I told him,” Morgan said. “He’s just having trouble believing my word is good.”
Cobb sighed heavily. “I’m not questioning anyone’s word. I guess I’m a little surprised you’re coming forward when all you have is suspicion. When I tried to get you to go along with me before, you weren’t having any part of it.”
Jane asked, “When was this?”
“He’s talking about what happened to Jem,” said Morgan. “He had a lot of questions for me when I got here. He thought then that one or two of the men who beat up Jem could have been Gideon or Jack.”
“Or part of their gang,” Cobb said. “Your husband couldn’t confirm it.”
“I don’t know that they have a gang. In the beginning, there were only the three of us. We were brothers, not much of anything else, not then. That’s how I remember it…”
* * *
“It’s not like Ham’s safe,” Morgan said, joining Gideon and Jack outside on the boardwalk. They stood there for a time, silent and reflective, in front of the Cumberland Bank in Rock Springs until Gideon thought they should move on.
“No point in attracting attention,” he said. He pointed to the saloon across the way. “Let’s go to Angel’s. Think this through.”
They chose a table out of the way even though it was the middle of the afternoon and the saloon offered a lot of empty tables. Gideon and Jack had a pint of whiskey to share. Morgan had a beer.
“Tell us about it,” said Gideon. “Zetta Lee said it was like Daddy’s.”
“Last time she was here, it might have been. Or it could be they just look alike to her.” Morgan gave his brothers a frank look. “Or, and here’s what I’m really thinking is the truth, she just said that to get us here.”
“What are you saying? We should go back with nothing to show for it?”
“I didn’t say it, but yes, that’s what we should do.”
“I don’t like it,” said Jack. “And Zetta Lee sure isn’t going to like it.”
Morgan lifted his beer and drank. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Jesus,” said Gideon, rolling his dark eyes. “You look like you’re about twelve when you do that. If you’d grow some hair on your lip and chin it would take care of that foam for you. I should have bought you a sarsaparilla.”
“Would have rather had a sarsaparilla. This beer’s sour.”
Jack said, “Forget about that. Can you do it, Ginger Pie?” He held up his hands, palms out, when Morgan scowled at him. “Sorry, but Gideon’s right. You look about twelve. So, can you?”
“I don’t know. It’s a Newell and Chester. I don’t have a feel for what it might be like. It could take longer than usual.”
“What’s that?” asked Gideon. “It takes forty minutes instead of fifteen? We go in at night, like we always do. Bankers don’t expect that.
It ain’t been done until we done it, and no one knows it’s us.
There is no one looking out for the place come nightfall.
We saw that plain enough for ourselves last night. ”
“That doesn’t mean there’s no risk,” said Morgan. “There are still people around. Most of them in and out of this saloon.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Cumberland Bank. “You haven’t forgotten the proximity, have you?”
Jack snorted softly. “We ain’t virgins staring at a twelve-inch pecker. We’ve done this before. Three times.”
“Not with a Newell and Chester. I’m not going in there.”
Gideon and Jack did not miss a beat. They spoke as one. “The hell you’re not.”
That night they left Rock Springs with a little more than fourteen hundred dollars from the Cumberland Bank in their saddlebags.
No one saw or heard them. Mr. Horatio Cumberland discovered the theft the following morning when he opened the safe to put cash in the tellers’ drawers.
He remarked that it was unnaturally thoughtful of the thief to shut the safe after relieving it of its cash contents.
No documents were stolen, no jewelry. The office was left tidy, too.
He mused aloud that if he had to be robbed, it was better done by a man with a light touch than one with four sticks of dynamite.
Mr. Cumberland hired someone that afternoon to stay in the bank at night until the new safe was delivered.
It had taken Morgan twenty-seven minutes to open the safe once he was kneeling in front of it. He might have done it in less time, but the gun Gideon held to his head while Jack stood guard made his feel for the tumblers a slippery thing.
The Cumberland Bank robbery was the last time they worked alone.
Gideon and Jack decided that they needed help in the event that Morgan could not be counted on to do his part.
Gideon did not relish the idea of turning his gun on Morgan again; for that matter, neither did Jack.
They agreed it was best done by a third party who had never heard Morgan answer to Ginger Pie.
Morgan opened two more safes for them, one in Leadville, Colorado, the other in Logan, Utah, and still it wasn’t enough.
Their number grew to six, and Gideon and Jack had to hold the reins tight on their little group as dissension grew.
Zetta Lee, too, thought they could take more risks and make Morgan’s role less important.
They set a bonfire in the middle of the night on the Union Pacific tracks west of Rock Springs and allowed Morgan ten minutes to open the safe in the mail car.
At eight minutes Gideon started setting the charges.
At nine, Jack lit the fuses. Morgan felt his bones rattle when the safe blew.
He was standing forty feet away by then, in the flickering light of the distant bonfire, apologizing to the mail clerks for destroying their car.
His brothers dragged him off as soon as the payroll money was packed away.