The captain looked at the sergeant.
“It’s true, Captain,” Goodrich said. “The trail will cut over the hillsides instead of winding through the woodlands.”
Captain Boone nodded and said, “Lead us on, then, Mr. Smith.”
The sergeant and Rochenbach rode in silence, side by side across the rolling hillsides for the next half hour.
Finally, Rochenbach took a chance.
“Not offense intended, Sergeant,” he said, “but if you’re rail guards, how did the robbers steal that train out from under you?”
“You mean your accomplices?” The sergeant stared at him in the grainy moonlight. Rochenbach only gave a shrug.
The sergeant said, “We were unprepared.”
“Unprepared?” Rochenbach let the word hang.
Goodrich let out a breath, as if confessing.
“We were expecting the robbery Thursday night, not tonight—” He stopped short, catching himself. “But I’ll have no more talk of the robbery, not with one of the thieves who committed it.”
Good enough. Rochenbach didn’t reply. He only nodded and gazed ahead into the night. He had no more questions. The Secret Service had done its job. So had he. All he had to do now was get off the case without getting himself shot.
Chapter 20
Along the trail away from the abandoned rail depot, Grolin had the Kane brothers stop the wagon twice, ten miles apart. At each stop, he pulled out a wallet stuffed with bills, paid his extra men their night’s pay and sent them away in different directions. After the second stop, when the last two new men had disappeared onto trails leading off toward different mining towns, he looked around at his regular men seated atop their horses around the loaded wagon.
Dent Spiller, Frank Penta, Pres Casings and the Stillwater Giant looked at him from their saddles. The Kane brothers half turned toward Grolin as he stepped from his saddle over into the wagon bed.
“Well, men,” Grolin said with satisfaction, “this is what it always comes down to in the end.” He picked up the opened crate of ingots and set it atop the rest of the load. “Just a few good men—close friends I can count on to get a job done.” He looked at each man in turn as he took the loose lid off the crate.
“Speaking of good men,” Casings said, “what’s happened to Rock?”
“Yeah,” said the Giant, “we heard the shot back there. What have you done to him?”
“The shot you heard was from a pistol,” Grolin reminded the two. “Most likely it was Rochenbach’s Remington. I left Shaner there to put a bullet in his head.”
The Giant stiffened in rage and started to step his big Belgium horse forward, but Spiller and Penta both closed their horses in front of him. Casings held a hand up to stop the Giant.
“Easy, big fellow,” he whispered.
Grolin continued. “But I’m guessing that as slick as Rochenbach is, he killed Shaner instead.” He shook his head in regret. “Poor Bryce. He couldn’t match wits with a man like Rochenbach—none of yas could. I saw it right off.”
“Give me my share, Grolin,” the Giant said, barely managing to control his rage. “I’m going back to see about him. I better not find him harmed.”
Grolin took his cigar from his mouth and let out a breath of exasperation.
“Giant, Giant…,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at Casings. “What about you, Pres? Are you all broken up over me leaving Shaner behind to kill Avrial Rochenbach?”
“It was a dirty deal, Grolin,” Casings said, “and you know it.”
“Well, hell yes, it was a dirty deal, Pres,” Grolin chuffed. “Do you think every deal is supposed to be straight up and honest? This is an outlaw gang, not a Christian choir! I saw there was no way to control a man like Rochenbach. He was too shifty, too hard to deal with. He stayed three moves ahead of the game! He’d’ve had us all killing one another if I let him keep at it. He had to go!” Grolin’s words ended in an angry shout.
Silence fell over the men for a moment. Finally Casings broke it.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said, sizing the odds he saw standing against him and the Giant. “I don’t want to argue about it. You’re the boss.”
“Yeah, so I am.…” Grolin looked surprised. “Does this mean no more foolishness about you and the Giant going into business with Rochenbach?”
Casings just stared at him; so did the Giant. There was no way Grolin could have heard anything about it, unless Spiller had told him. Still, Grolin wanted to hear Casings admit it. But Casings wasn’t going to.
“If I wanted to go into business on my own, I would have done it long ago. And I wouldn’t have done it with a man like Avrial Rochenbach—for all the reasons you just gave.” He sat relaxed, in spite of the tension he felt in his spine, seeing that Frank Penta, Dent Spiller and the crazy Kane brothers were ready to kill him at the slightest signal from Grolin.
“Oh…?” said Grolin in a more even tone. “Maybe I was misinformed.” He slid a sidelong glance to Dent Spiller and blew out a stream of cigar smoke.
Now Casings knew Spiller had told him something, but how much?
“Yeah,” said Casings, “maybe you were.” He stared at Grolin, knowing the others had their eyes on him and the Giant.
Grolin laid a hand on the opened crate of ingots.
“Giant wants me to pay him off, let him go check on his pal, Rock,” he said cynically. “What about you, Pres? You want to ride back with him?”
“If you stopped us here to split up our shares anyway,” Casings said, “yeah, I’ll take mine and ride with the Giant—like always.”
Grolin looked at the Kane brothers, then at Penta, then Spiller and back to Casings. He took his hand off the crate and slipped it inside his coat to his lapel pocket.
“Sure thing,” he said. He jerked the thick wallet from his coat, pulled out a handful of large bills and started riffling though them, counting to himself.
Casings and the Giant looked at each other, then at the stone faces on the other four.
“Come on, Grolin,” Casings said quietly, almost sounding like his feelings were hurt. “This is us, the Giant and me. We’re not some extra help pulled in to watch horses and load wagons. We take our cut in gold.”
“Used to be, Pres,” Grolin said sharply. “Not this time.” He held a stack of money out in one hand. His other hand lay on the butt of a Colt holstered on his hip. “Take it and go. Split it up between the two of you.”
“I don’t like this,” said Casings, turning leery of Grolin and the men around him. “Giant has always done right by you. So have I.”
“Giant maybe,” Grolin said, “but not you.” He glanced at Spiller and said, “Tell him, Dent. Tell him what you told me.”
Spiller said to Casings, “I told him everything, Pres—how you and your pal Rochenbach offered to cut me in as a partner when you start your own gang.”
Casings sat staring at Spiller, feeling the world tighten in around him.
“Keep talking, Dent,” Grolin said with a thin, cruel smile.
“I told him about the Hercules Mining money. When we saw how much was there, you and Rochenbach offered me a cut of it to keep my mouth shut, say it was only a couple thousand dollars. But I turned you both down.”
“You lying son of a bitch!” shouted Casings, unable to take it any longer.
Seeing Casings swing his rifle up into play, the Giant did the same, just as Spiller, Frank Penta and the Kane brothers started firing.