The Bank Robber's Lament

Jonesy pushed his hat up with the shooting end of his Colt. After daring a peek from behind the big oak, he ducked to join the rest of them. "You go in first, Smith. You the ugliest one of us, anyway!" The two other gang members chuckled, their pistols drawn and hanging easily in their slender hands. Smith had only pulled one other job with these guys and hadn't bothered to learn anyone's name but Jonesy's. Smith figured that, like him, they were probably all using fake names anyway, so it didn't make much sense to pay them any special attention.

"Did you hear me, Smith, or are you deaf and ugly?" Jonesy's face twisted up into a sneer. "Get in that bank and get 'em to sack up that money, just like last time. Then we'll come in to collect it."

Smith let his fingers trace the wide scar that had been a gift from his father. The angry gash snaked from the corner of his eye, the one that now drooped, beneath his nose, and ended at the opposite corner of his mouth. He coughed. "Alright Boss, just like last time."

Their snickers haunted his ears as Smith pulled his black felt cowboy hat down low, concealing most of his disfigured face. The dusty main street of Gabriel's Settlement, Texas was empty, aside from a lone wagon just coming into town. Being Wednesday, most of the townsfolk were probably headed to evening services at the church house.  He glanced at the giant clock on the bank's façade. 4:45. Just about closing time.

The wagon, driven by a large man in bib overalls and a straw hat, groaned to a halt right in front of the bank. A blonde-haired woman, who couldn't have been much older or younger than Smith, sat tall and stoic beside him on the rickety seat. "Durn the luck," Smith muttered. He glanced at the sun, trying to look inconspicuous.

The large man's grating voice echoed in the street as he struggled with the wagon's brake. Finally, he was successful and heaved his burly frame from the wagon box onto the wooden boardwalk in front of the bank. "Come on woman. Let's get this over with." He turned his broad back, leaving the woman to struggle out of the wagon without help.

Smith's brows knotted together. That didn't look right. Casting a glance over his shoulder, Jonesy's face poked out from behind the oak. Go on, he mouthed, waving the pistol in the direction of the bank.

Drawing in a haggard breath, Smith shoved his hands deep into his duster's empty pockets and started toward the bank. His fingers wiggled, a nervous habit he'd had since as far back as he could remember. If he still had his six-shooter, he'd have been able to feel it with the incessant wiggling. At the first job, when he'd realized he'd forgotten his pistol after commanding the bank teller to empty the vault, Smith had made a strange discovery. When he'd tipped up his hat, the mousy gentleman behind the counter had simply gasped and filled the burlap, a look of horror on his thinly-mustached countenance. "Y-y-yes. Yessir," he'd managed as he'd filled the bags. Smith shook his head at the memory and stepped onto the tumbledown boardwalk.

"Can you help me, Mister?" The tiny voice of a girl chimed from the back of the wagon. "Please?"

Smith looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, there was a little girl seated in the back of the wagon. She wore a blue dress, obviously store bought, and her pretty blonde hair was tied back in pigtails. One eye was shadowed and a lone trickle of blood ran from her puffy lip down to her trembling chin. "Please, Mister."

"You talkin' to strangers, Sadie?" The big man's grating voice came from behind them. "That's three lashes with the belt when we get back to the homestead."

Then, there it was. That remembrance that showed up at the most inopportune times. The knife in his father's hand flashed in his memory just as it had in real life so many years ago. Remembering the pain, anger, and humiliation made something hot surge from the depths of Smith's gut. His father had always told him that he deserved what he got. Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't. One thing was for certain though, this little girl in the wagon had done nothing wrong.