The broom maker was still talking when Ellsworth slipped out the door. Thankfully, the men sitting on the bench across the street now seemed to be in a deep discussion, and he managed to get away without being noticed. He was almost out of town when he saw the saloon across from the paper mill, a shabby hole in the wall called the Blind Owl. Ellsworth pulled the mule over and thought for a minute. Though he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone else today, a drink surely would do him good after all the aggravation he had been through. Of course, there were bound to be people in there telling tales and spreading lies, but what if he just kept his mouth shut and minded his own business? That would work, he told himself, and he set the brake on the wagon and went inside.
The room was dark, and he’d already laid a quarter on the bar before he realized to his surprise that he was the only customer in the place. The keep set a glass of warm beer and a shot down in front of the farmer, then went to the other end of the bar and reached his hand down into a gallon jar. All the while Ellsworth sat there, the man stood silently looking out the window at the street with a scowl on his face, crunching pig’s feet and spitting the gristle out on the floor. Not a single word was said. His name was Frank Pollard, and he had been a hateful bully for as long as anyone could remember. He had grown up believing that he was something special, and the discovery, around the time of his fourteenth birthday, that this was not the case had ruined him for any sort of happiness that didn’t involve making other people miserable. Pollard’s father had left him a little house and twelve acres when he passed ten years ago, but the son despised country life even more than people, and so he sold the place the morning of the old man’s funeral and moved to Meade that afternoon. He bought the Blind Owl three days later. He slept on a cot in the back room, and barely made enough to keep the bills paid—nobody in their right mind would have ever hired Pollard to run a business of any kind—but he didn’t care. He’d discovered the first week he owned the joint that it was perfect for attracting the kind of scum he could feel superior to, which was a feeling he needed much more than any amount of money. Drunks were weak-minded and careless and apt to let their emotions get the best of them. He loved to goad them into saying something stupid or taking a swing at him so that he had an excuse to take them out back in the alley and beat them senseless; and for many years that had been enough.
13
UNBEKNOWN TO COB, his brothers had already decided his fate and theirs by the time they sat down that evening and proceeded to eat up everything in the shack: a quarter of a hog and several dozen mealy potatoes and a partial bag of buggy flour and two rusty cans of peaches they found in Pearl’s winter coat. Using Bloody Bill as inspiration, the plan they’d quickly put together while Cob was out fetching a bucket of water involved stealing three of the Major’s horses, then riding to Farleigh, the nearest town, and robbing the bank there. After that, they would head north to Canada and start over. Cane wasn’t sure—hell, he’d never even been inside a bank before—but he guessed the haul would be worth a few thousand dollars at the very least. But for it to work, they needed to leave tonight, before Tardweller discovered that Pearl was dead and they lost what Bloody Bill called “the element of surprise.” On all of these things, Cane and Chimney had been in total agreement.
However, deciding how to deal with Cob had been a different story. Chimney believed that, because of his thickheaded nature and his obsession with all that heavenly table bullshit, he would prove to be a liability when it came to taking a bank, or even stealing a goddamn horse for that matter. As dumb as he was, he might get killed, or even get one of them killed. “He’d be better off with some farmer,” Chimney said. “Hell, he wouldn’t mind, long as they feed him. We could even send for him once we get to where we’re going.”
Cane realized, of course, that what Chimney said made sense, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t leave either of them behind. Though he had never mentioned it, not once in all the years they’d been together, Lucille had called him to her bedside when she was sick and made him promise to look after his brothers. “Especially Cob,” she had said. “He’s always going to be slow.” It was just a day or two before she passed, and as far as he knew, it was the last thing she ever said to anyone. “We can’t do that,” he told Chimney. “For Christ’s sakes, he ain’t some dog you can kick out when you get tired of takin’ care of him. He’s our brother.”
Yearning to get started, Chimney decided it best not to press the issue, at least for now. Besides, he figured Cane would realize his mistake the first time Cob fucked up. “Well, if you say so, but how the hell you going to talk him into it?” he asked. “He’s not gonna like it, you know that.”
Cane got down on one knee in front of the fireplace and lit some kindling under a couple of pine logs, then replied, “The first thing we do is get his belly full.”
And that they had, even holding themselves back, as hungry as they were, so that Cob could have more. When all that remained was a greasy potato or two, Cane casually suggested that they take an inventory of their inheritance.
“Inheritance?” Cob said. “What’s that?”
“Everything Pap’s left us.”