“Keep quiet,” Cane said.
“And what if I don’t?” asked Wilson loudly, shifting his eyes over to the fat one someone had described as a half-wit, sitting on a log in the gloomy shade in a cowboy outfit with what appeared to be a paper bag of Circus Peanuts in his lap. He wondered where the third one might be. Probably passed out in his bedroll, he figured. That was another thing about such scum; within a few hours of committing a crime, they usually got liquored up, either to celebrate their haul or to keep from dwelling on the fate that awaited them once they were apprehended. He was about to say as much when he heard a footstep behind him and the swish of something cutting through the air. There was no chance to call out to his comrades over the hill or draw his weapon or even utter a final prayer. As he landed with a soft thump on the pine needle floor, the last thing he saw was a skinny boy bend down in front of him and wipe blood off a machete; and the last thought that went through his partially detached head was that today was a Thursday, and tomorrow would be a Friday.
Just a few hours after the posse brought Bill Wilson’s body back to Wayward, the attorney general of Tennessee, Ezra Powys, consulted with his most trusted political advisers and upped the reward for the brothers dead or alive from $750 to $5,000 American dollars. It was an outrageous amount to offer, even for cop killers, but he had run on a platform pledging to clean up corruption, and recent allegations that he was in the pocket of a consortium of Memphis moonshiners were steadily gaining traction throughout the state. But, as his consultants told him, if he played this right, and showed the people that he was willing to do whatever it took to bring the criminals to justice, the murder of Bill Wilson might just save his career. Within hours of making the announcement, he realized he had made a mistake ever listening to the dumb bastards. According to several editorials that ran in that evening’s papers, the majority of taxpayers of Tennessee didn’t think there were more than three or four people walking the globe worth five thousand dollars, and certainly not a self-deluded, two-bit constable from Henderson County who had a reputation for shooting misdemeanors and old drunks in the back. Too, many of these same taxpayers lived on collard greens and corn pone six or seven days a week; and a great percentage of them were beginning to view the robbing of a bank as a just blow against the system that helped keep them in poverty. One of the writers even speculated that the reason the attorney general was so eager to offer such an outlandish reward was because the money the Jewett boys had stolen in Wayward belonged to one of his Memphis cronies! Even worse than that, Powys found out that the funeral for Bill Wilson was to be held on Sunday at noon, and he had a tee time scheduled for one o’clock at the newly opened Happy Valley Golf Course. Though he had only recently taken up the game, it was already becoming an obsession. One of his underlings discreetly tried to get the service changed to an earlier time, or perhaps even moved to Monday, but Mrs. Wilson insisted that her husband be buried on the Sabbath at the same time of day that he had entered this world forty-two years ago. “Sorry, Chief, she won’t budge.”
“Well, shit” was all Powys said. He glanced regretfully over at his clubs sitting by the door of his office. All week, the only thing he’d had to look forward to was spending some time practicing his swing. By the time he was photographed kneeling in prayer beside the coffin, and sat through three hours of pompous preaching and teary accolades, and walked the widow through the cemetery, he almost hated Bill more for getting killed than he did the outlaws for killing him.