Shot in the Back (19 page)

All the time the conversation was going on with the teller, Dempster, under Jesse's watchful eye, was putting bound stacks of bills into one of the bank bags. He reached for some of the coins.

“Don't bother with any of the silver,” Jesse said. “Your paper money is good enough for me.”

“This is all of it,” Dempster said. “We are a very small bank, in a very small town. And the town isn't very wealthy.”

“I'll bet you are just real wealthy though, aren't you?” Jesse asked.

“I earned my money. I haven't stolen it.”

“By loaning money to poor folks, I suppose?”

“They have to have some place to get their money. Without banks, how else would people buy houses, or put in their crops?”

“You hold mortgages on quite a few houses, do you?”

“I am proud to say that I do.”

“Let me have them.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Let me have all the mortgages you hold on the houses in this town.”

“Why would you want that? They are of no possible use to you. What are you going to do with them?”

“I'm going into the banking business.”

More angry now than afraid, Dempster reached back into the vault and took out a small metal box. “They're in there,” he said.

“All of them?”

“Yes, damn you. All of them!”

Jesse took the mortgages from the box, then dropped them down into the bag of money.

“Mr. Jones?” Jesse said.

“Yes, Mr. Smith?” Cummins answered.

“I believe it is time to go. Mr. Dempster, do you have a back entrance to this bank?”

Dempster didn't answer, and Jesse raised his pistol and cocked it, the sound of the sear engaging the cylinder, making an ominous click.

“It's back there, in the corner,” Dempster said, the pitch of his voice raised by fear. “Behind the stove,” he added.

“Thank you, you have been most helpful,” Jesse said.

As Jesse and Cummins started out the back door, the teller managed to get hold of a pistol, and he fired at them. The bullet hit the iron stove, then ricocheted through a side window. Instinctively, Jesse whirled and returned fire. He saw the teller clutch his stomach, then go down.

“Damn!” Jesse shouted. “What did you make me do that for?”

Evans, having heard the gunshot, mounted his horse and rode to the back of the bank, leading the other two horses. When all three were mounted, they rode up in the gap between the bank and the furniture store, then pulling their guns began firing them into the air and shouting as they rode down Main Street. Jesse, in the meantime, had pulled the mortgages from the box and was scattering them in the street as they galloped away.

At first the people who were out on the street, walking up and down the sidewalks, hurried inside, or got behind the corners of the buildings, not comprehending what was going on.

“Stop them! Stop those riders!” Dempster shouted, running out into the street then. “Stop them! Get the sheriff! They have just robbed the bank!”

By then, some of the more courageous of the townspeople had come out from where they had taken cover and began gathering up the scattered paper.

“I'll be damn!” one of the men said. “Tom, this here is the mortgage to your house.”

“Give that to me!” Dempster shouted angrily. “Those belong to the bank. They are all the town's mortgages!”

At that bit of news everyone within hearing ran out into the street picking up mortgages, looking at them, then passing them around.

“You can't do that!” Dempster said. “Those are mine! Give them back to me! Sheriff! Sheriff! Where is the sheriff?”

“I'm here, Mr. Dempster. Did you say the bank has been robbed?”

“Yes, but never mind that now! These are my mortgages! Get them back!”

“Help!” a woman screamed. “Homer has been shot!”

The sheriff, hearing the woman's cry, turned back toward Dempster. “What is she saying? Was your teller shot?”

“What? Yes, but never mind that. Sheriff, you must get these documents back for me! I'll be ruined!”

“Carl,” the sheriff yelled to one of his deputies. “Get the doc down to look at Homer. Pete, start rounding up a posse. We're goin' after them.”

“What about my mortgages?”

The sheriff fired his pistol into the air. It had the effect of getting everyone's attention and they all looked toward him.

“You people, leave these documents where they are. All of you, get out of the street now.”

Nobody moved.

“Anyone who doesn't get out of the street right now will be thrown in jail!”

As the men and women walked away, the sheriff called out to them. “Men, any of you who will volunteer for a posse, go get a gun and get saddled. Most of you have money in the bank, and you'll be wanting to get it back.”

 

 

Jesse, Cummins, and Evans rode at a full gallop for the first two miles, then they alternated between a trot and a walk. They reached Daingerfield within half an hour. There, after dismounting, they let the horses go with a swat on the rump. The horses started back toward Linden.

“They'll be back to the livery before it closes tonight,” Jesse said. “Robbing banks is one thing, but I'll be damn if I'll ever let anyone call me a horse thief.”

The others laughed as they got into the car.

“All right, Billy, you're driving. Let's go.”

“Where?”

“John, you want to go back to Texarkana?”

“Not particularly. I didn't leave anything behind.”

“Jim, think you could put us all up on your farm for a while?”

“I reckon I could.”

“All right, Billy. Let's go back to Blytheville.”

“Pa, if we do that, we'll have to go back through Linden,” Billy said.

“That's right,” Jesse said.

“Well, if they've sent a posse out, we're liable to run into 'em.”

“Billy, they're looking for two roans and a black horse. They aren't looking for a red Oldsmobile.”

Billy laughed. “You're right!” he said.

Starting the car, they left Daingerfield, going north. Five miles north of Daingerfield they saw a group of about ten horsemen, riding toward them.

“Stop the car, Billy,” Jesse said.

“But, Pa, we can outrun them if we have to. You know we can.”

“Stop the car; pull over to the side and give them the road.”

“All right, if you say so.”

The riders came by at a rapid trot. Jesse gave a friendly wave to them, and the lead rider, who was wearing a star, nodded as they rode by.

“Ha!” Billy laughed as they continued on. “They never even gave us a second look!”

“That's because nobody paid any attention to us as we rode out. They just saw the horses we were riding.”

A short while later they drove right through Linden. There was a blacksmith shop and a garage on the corner, with a gasoline pump in front.

“Stop here for gas,” Jesse asked.

“Pa, we got enough to get all the way to Texarkana,” Billy said. “You really think it's a good idea to stop here?”

“Stop here,” Jesse repeated.

Billy pulled up to the pump, and a man came out to meet them. “Gasoline?”

“Yes,” Billy said.

The man turned and called back into the small building. “Eddie, gas!”

A much younger man came out to the pump, then moved the handle back and forth, which had the effect of filling the large graduated cylinder on top of the pump with gasoline. Then, sticking the hose into the car's gas tank, he began dispensing the fuel.

The man who had come out first was now washing the windshield. “You folks just missed it,” he said.

“What did we miss?” Jesse asked.

“We had some excitement here in town today,” he said.

“Oh? What kind of excitement would that be?”

“Why, we had the bank robbed, that's what happened. There were three of 'em. Say, you might have seen 'em as you was comin' into town.”

“What did they look like?” Jesse asked.

“What did they look like?” The man stroked his chin. “Well now, I don't rightly know. He smiled. “But I can tell you this. They was ridin' two roans and a black. And they was shootin' up into the air and shoutin' bloody hell when they galloped out of town.”

“Shooting you say. Was anyone killed?” Jesse asked, thinking of the man he had shot.

“No, nobody was kilt. Homer, he's the teller, he was shot in the stomach, but the doc said it was mostly in the side 'n more'n likely didn't hit none of his vitals. But that ain't the most excitin' thing.”

“You mean there was something happened that was more exciting than a bank robbery?” Jesse asked.

“Yes, sir. It seems that the bank robbers,” the man laughed, “the bank robbers also took all the mortgages from the bank, 'n they scattered them all up 'n down Main Street as they was ridin' out.”

“Ha!” Jesse said. “I'll bet that bothered the banker more than getting his bank robbed.”

“Yes, sir, you better believe it did. You see, gettin' the bank robbed, well, that weren't hardly none of Dempster's own money. But the mortgages now, that's how he makes his money, so he was fit to be tied.”

“You mean he didn't get them back.”

“Oh, he got most of 'em back, I reckon. But there was quite a lot of 'em that he didn't get back.” The man pulled the cloth away from the windshield, then looked around to make certain no one overheard him. “He didn't get mine back,” he added with a conspiratorial smile. “Want me to check the oil?”

“Yes, please.”

Eddie finished putting gas into the car, and he pulled the hose out of the tank, screwed on the cap, then squinted up at the graduated glass on top of the pump. “Looks like you used about three and a half gallons,” he said. “That'll be twenty-one cents.”

Billy paid him, then drove away.