Chapter 14
“But the bandits have been on Chrissie’s farm for over a month—more like almost two,” Alice protested when Kyle and his friends told her their theory.
“They can’t have been waiting for one train all that time.
” It was late in the evening now, and the bar was all but closed.
She was wiping the counter, trying to get the sticky stains off the wood.
“No, you’re right,” Kyle agreed. “But I’ve been thinking. Life seems to have its own plans for folks. We were happily moving through this part of the country with no intention of stopping here, and yet here we are.”
“So?” Alice asked, not seeing where he was going with this. “Not that I’m not terribly grateful for you all being here. But what are you trying to say?”
“Only that just as things went all awry for us, maybe the same thing happened to Joel’s bandits,” Kyle said.
He was starting to look really excited now as he got into what was most likely the meat of his theory.
“Think about it. Let’s say they’d been on a bank robbing spree through all these little towns that don’t talk to each other much.
They all have beef with each other and won’t work together, so the bandits feel kind of safe.
Maybe some of the towns don’t even know they’ve all been robbed since there’s such a total lack of communication between them. ”
“Okay,” Alice agreed. He had a point. She’d never known people to hold onto grudges like they did here.
One of the bar’s most frequent customers, Bob Gilmore, was in a feud with his neighbor thanks to something or other his great-grandad had done three generations back.
And Bob didn’t even know what sin had been committed—yet he was still angry at his neighbor.
As was his neighbor at him. “So, what were they waiting for?”
“What if there was some kind of delay with their big score? What if that forced them to hang around?”
“That would mean they would be spotted,” Michael said. “Someone would eventually notice that many strangers hanging around.”
“Exactly,” Kyle said. “So, they would have to find a safe place to stay …”
“That would have to be Jason’s farm. Because he’s Joel’s cousin,” Alice realized, her heart sinking into her toes. Oh, Chrissie, what have you gotten yourself mixed up in?
“Yes, but farms aren’t that isolated, are they?” Kyle asked. “Not enough for Joel and his men to feel safe, right? Perhaps they were spotted and were afraid the sheriff would come with a posse from town and that would be it for them.”
“They would be arrested, and there would go their big score and their freedom,” Michael said with a decisive nod. “In that situation, there are only two options. Stay or leave.”
“And they can’t leave because the train derailed straight into a sinkhole, and they have no way to go until the railway company sends a new train,” Warren said. “That makes them antsy, vulnerable, and very unhappy.”
“Exactly,” Kyle says.
“But then what about the town?” Alice asked. This didn’t explain the town being so apathetic.
“Their attacks on the town were most likely a by-product of being stuck on the farm,” Michael said.
“Chrissie and Jason would need to go to town from time to time. Perhaps they mentioned something, and the sheriff got interested, tried to help them, and was overpowered. Maybe he was left alive but in fear to keep him in line.”
“Then the bandits would be able to stay,” Alice said, liking this less and less. “And the farm would become both their haven and their jail.”
“Exactly,” Kyle said with a nod.
Alice bit her lip.
“You know, your theory might be right,” she said, taking up her cleaning again.
“I heard from a train passenger a while back that there was a bank robbery over in Alberton and another town farther away a couple of months ago. They never found the men who did it. At least not that I heard. The sheriff from Alberton tried to find them, but they seemed to have disappeared. Maybe they ended up in Cherryville.”
“Maybe,” Kyle said, nodding. “Perhaps these bandits meant to rob all the banks in the area, and something went wrong.”
“They did already,” Mr. Benson said, walking over to them with a tray full of clean glasses.
He set the tray down on the patch of bar Alice had cleaned and started stacking them behind the counter.
“You missed it all, Alice. It was about a month before you arrived here. There was a spate of robberies in the towns in this area. It started in one town and spread and spread. Then it hit Alberton, and they’re not far from here.
Folks panicked, and the banks here and in Cherryville let us know they wouldn’t be keeping much money on hand. ”
“What did they do instead?” Kyle asked, leaning his elbows on the part of the counter Alice hadn’t wiped yet. She poked him with the cloth, and he moved so that she could finish up.
“They let us know that because of the robberies, they would be trying out a new system,” Mr. Benson said.
“It was based on promissory notes. So, the bank would keep less actual coin and real notes on hand. They would issue their own notes that weren’t federally endorsed or anything in lieu of actual money.
So, folks could still pay for their services and goods, just not with actual currency. It was a nightmare.”
Warren was smiling and nodding his head thoughtfully.
This discussion was right up his alley. “Yes, it would be a nightmare. Keeping track of the actual notes and trying to root out fakes would be difficult. Vouchers are difficult to keep track of on that scale, I should imagine. And the forgeries wouldn’t have to be too intricate, would they? ”
“No,” Mr. Benson said. “We were paid in some wonderful fakes. I’ve framed them. See, there they are.”
Alice, Kyle, Warren, and Michael peered at the papers in a frame behind the bar.
Alice stepped closer to get a better look.
She’d never paid any attention to the frame in all the time she’d been here.
The two pieces of paper would each fit in the palm of her hand.
One was a note saying it was worth five dollars, and the other said it was worth one dollar.
“It was difficult for businesses and the bank to keep control, so there were almost riots,” Mr. Benson said with a shudder. “We shut everything down until they brought the regular money back, and everything went back to normal.”
“I think I arrived toward the end of that,” Alice said. “I remember something about it. Was it only to avoid the riots that the money was brought back?”
Mr. Benson shrugged. “I guess so,” he said. “There hasn’t been much talk about bank robberies or anything in the area since. No more than a whisper here or there. Do you think you know where the bandits are?”
Warren nodded. “We don’t just think we do. We know exactly where they’re holed up.”
“How?” Mr. Benson asked.
“We stumbled onto them at my sister’s farm,” Alice said with a sigh. “That’s what I’ve been doing on my days off—trying to figure out a plan to help her. Any idea what we can do now? Everyone thinks the bandits moved on.”
Mr. Benson looked shocked. “Have you told Sheriff Butler?” he asked.
“Not in so many words,” Michael said. “I wanted to know where he stands on such things before rushing in there. I don’t want to get Chrissie and Jason into trouble.”
“Are you going to tell him?” Mr. Benson asked.
Michael nodded. “Definitely, as soon as we have a plan that will work to nab these bandits.”
“And what about the Cherryville sheriff? I think his name is Wilkes?” Mr. Benson asked.
“We think he’s been compromised,” Kyle explained.
“We think that the bandits have found a way to threaten Sheriff Wilkes and keep him in line,” Warren explained.
“Perhaps with family or something,” Kyle suggested.
“Then they would own him,” Warren said with a sage nod. “They would own him from head to toe, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything because any misstep would result in some sort of terrible penalty for his loved ones.”
“Exactly,” Kyle said. “And they were smart—giving their occupation an end date must have made people feel better. It’s only a week, they’d think.
We can survive a week. Some of the people in our town back in Texas dealt with a similar thing.
Bandits came into their town and said they’d just be there a short while, so no one bothered them … But then they never left.”
Alice nodded her agreement. This all made sense. Hadn’t Chrissie said the same sort of thing to her? “But what can we do about it?”
Kyle smiled. “I think we have a bit of an advantage on them,” he said.
“Really? How?” Michael asked.
“We know where they are, and we know what they want,” he said. “I think it’s a safe bet what they want is here. It’s either the bank or the train station or maybe both.”
“Yes, one of those options is the most likely, but I’m not sure which one,” Warren said. “Except for the train. That’s a given. If they meant to ride off into the sunset, I’m fairly certain they would be gone by now.”
“So, they’re really going to just get on the train whenever it arrives?” Alice asked. “Isn’t that risky?”
“Not if they buy tickets and get the loot into the baggage car as normal luggage,” Warren said. “Who would suspect men who look like workers, salesmen, travelers, lawyers, and bankers? No one looks twice at gentlemen on a train. We certainly didn’t.”
“But folks from Cherryville and Chrissie and Jason would be able to give descriptions,” Alice pointed out. “One or two sketches later, and they’d be caught.”
“I don’t know,” Warren said. “There are so many of them. People might get confused. Anyway, it’s not a bad plan. Well, except for the derailed train, of course. More and more, I’m starting to think it was an act of God, designed by Him so we could help get everybody out of this mess.”