“Of course. Wouldn’t be right to leave you behind. Anyway, if I kill you there it won’t exactly look like you did it on your own, and I think preserving the illusion for a little while makes sense.”
“All right, but why do you think anyone will suspect me? People around here don’t know about me, what I’ve done.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But they’ll come to it because I’ll be leaving somethin’ of yours behind. That’ll bring the marshal and his men out this way first, and we’ll be long gone.”
“Well, I can tell you’ve thought a lot about it. Do you know what you’re going to leave behind? It should probably be my hat.”
Gideon looked it over. “I suppose that might work. There’s nothing special about it, though.”
Morgan removed his hat and placed it on the table. “What’s special is this.” He pointed to his hair. “There are probably one or two threads of it in the crown. Besides, if anyone does see me slinking through town, they’re likely to catch sight of my hair first. I’m known by that.”
“It is like a struck match. Sure, we’ll leave your hat.”
Morgan nodded. “So how do we do this? I figure everyone’s not going into Bitter Springs.”
“Marcie and Avery stay. Dix comes with you and me.”
“Then we are all coming back here?”
Gideon shook his head. “No, Morgan. You do your best work under pressure. Like I said, we will stick to what we know. You will want to pay attention to the time. Once we leave, Avery and Marcie will also take notice of the time. You will do the same. I’m figuring about eight, maybe nine miles as the crow flies to town. We can be at the Cattlemen’s Trust in forty minutes. Of course, how long it takes you to open the safe will determine the outcome for these folks at the table and the ones you can’t see. I figure you’ll have an hour left once we to get to the bank. The less time you use fiddlin’ with the safe, the more time you have to get back here. If Marcie and Avery don’t see you one hundred minutes after we leave, there will be nothing for you to come back to. That’s clear, isn’t it?”
“I have not opened a safe in nine years, Gideon. I’ve never touched an 1884 Barkley and Benjamin.”
“See? You know it’s a Model 1884. That’s what I’m talking about here.” He pointed to himself. “I didn’t know that. Marcie? Dix? Either of you know that?” When they both shook their heads, he went on. “I guess you did something to keep up. You always set store by book learnin’.” He dropped his hands to his sides and pushed away from the wall. “Now, who do you want to take with us? Never hurts to have extra insurance.”
“No,” Morgan said. “They stay here. I will come back for them. All of them. They stay here.”
“I’m thinking along different lines. It seemed polite to give you a choice, but I can see how that could be a hardship for you. I don’t mind making the pick, although I do wish I had better pickings.”
“No,” Morgan said again.
“Stay in your chair. It’d please me to have your wife along if she didn’t think I cared about her opinions, and Rabbit over there is a little too bold for my tastes. Now Finn here, depending on how you look at it, either pissed on Marcie or pissed him off. Maybe he did both. That makes him the best one to come along, seeing as how Marcellus is staying here.”
Jane opened her mouth to protest and clamped it shut when Gideon cocked an eyebrow at her.
“That’s right,” he said. “I don’t care for your opinions, and if Dix shoots the boy because you have it in your mind you can talk now, I’ll just take the other one.” He jerked his chin at Morgan. “How the hell did you meet this one?”
Morgan did not look at his brother. He only had eyes for Jane. The slender smile that lifted the corners of his mouth touched his gaze. “She answered my personal advertisement.”
“Mail-order bride? You don’t have another one in that crate in the front room, do you?”
Morgan waited until Gideon was done laughing at his joke. “No. That’s a sewing machine.” Still watching Jane, he said, “She told me once that she had one when she lived in New York.” He saw tears well in Jane’s eyes and watched her bite her lower lip to keep it from trembling. She, too, was remembering their first morning in this house, in this kitchen, when he was critical of her apple green dress with the white polka dots and ruffled neckline because it was too pretty. I shall miss the sewing machine I had in New York, she had said, but I do well enough with a needle and thread. She told him she would make aprons, and she did, and every time he saw her wearing one, he thought of the sewing machine. “Unlike you, Gideon, I care a great deal about the things she says.”
“Huh.” He scratched behind his ear. “You always were a ladies’ man. Now I know why. You poke them and listen to them. I just poke ’em.”
“Shut up, Gideon.”
A soundless chuckle made Gideon’s shoulders rise and fall. “Let’s go. Take your hat.” He walked behind Morgan to get his hat and coat. “Finn, you got anything you want to say to your brother before you go?”
Finn nodded and stared at Rabbit with solemn regard. “I reckon we should’ve ate more of those cookies. Maybe had some of the pie.”
Rabbit nodded. “I had that in my mind, too.”
“Touching.” Gideon finished buttoning his coat. “C’mon, Finn. This way. Morgan, you follow. Dix, you’re the caboose. Marcie, I’ll fire one shot to let you know when to start that hundred minutes. You have your pocket watch?”
“I do.”
“Then we are out of here.”
