The Last Hard Men

Lee Roy’s feral face became crafty. Provo knew what he was thinking. Well, that was all right. He wasn’t going to give Lee Roy any guns, but Lee Roy didn’t have to know that until the last minute. In the meantime the anticipation would keep him quiet.

“It’s going to take timing and brains,” Provo told them. “First off, we’ve got to time it to go with the train schedule. This so-called money train pulls in tomorrow morning at nine. Well hit the smelter paymaster not later than ten minutes after nine. Now, at nine o’clock exactly, Mike Shelby’s going to be on the Casa Grande road north-west of Tucson and Quesada’s going to be on the Benson road east of town. At four or five minutes after nine you two will cut the telephone and telegraph wires at both ends of town. That’s what we stole these two-dollar watches for. Now, once you’ve cut the wires you’ll ease around wide and make your way right back here where we stand now. This is where we’ll meet afterwards. Right here at noon sharp. Then we divvy up the money and go our separate ways. Meantime, while these two are cutting the wires, the rest of——”

Quesada said, “How do you cut through them wires, Zach? Them poles hard to climb.”

“No trouble. They only run seventeen poles to the mile, Joaquim. The rest’s held up by cactus and mesquite. You’ll find a low spot easy enough. Use your hacksaw.”

Quesada gritted his neat white teeth. The back of his neck was red. He sat down, grunting with burly effort, losing interest in the rest.

Provo said, “Will Gant rides down below the smelter to cut the telephone line between the smelter and town. That leaves six of us. We go into the paymaster’s office and tie everybody up, with gags. Lee Roy blows the safe open with the blasting gear. We clean it out and get to our horses fast. When we light out, we head down the road and pick up Will Gant and cut straight across the north side of Tucson.”

Lee Roy said, “You crazy in the head. Right acrosst the damn town? Why not fade back into them mountains back of the smelter?”

“Because I say so, Lee Roy.”

At four in the morning he kicked them awake and passed the guns out. When Lee Roy didn’t get one there was a dangerous moment. Lee Roy exploded in a few choice phrases and tended his bony fists. Provo had to level a gun on him. “You’ll have your hands full with blasting powder.”

“That ain’t no goddamn call to——”

“Shut up, Lee Roy. if you want me to spell it out, I don’t want you behind me with a gun. I don’t trust your hillbilly ass, understand? You don’t need a gun. Just blow the safe, that’s your job. It’s worth better than two thousand dollars to you.”

“How do I know you ain’t go

“If I was going to kill you, Lee Roy, I wouldn’t have dragged you all this way alive, would I,” he lied.

Will Gant took Lee Roy by the arm and spun him around. “Quit acting like a fool.”

Lee Roy stalked off to his horse in high dudgeon. Provo caught a corner of Menendez’s dry glance in the starlight and wheeled to his horse. “All right. Let’s move.”

There was always the chance a horse would throw a shoe and go lame, or some other delay would crop up. Provo gave it plenty of time to cover possibilities. They reached the canyon behind the smelter a full hour ahead of time. He checked his watch and dismounted them, eased himself down with his back against a rock, and felt idleness trickle through his muscles. Lee Roy’s resentful glance lay against him, harsh and baleful; Provo ignored it. Menendez crouched right beside Provo and spoke low:

“This idea of yours, goeen right across Tucson after we pull it off. That got something to do with Burgade?”

“Maybe.”

“Ahjess. I din’ figure you was goeen to let him off that easy. Bot I don’ want my ass hung on Burgade’s account, Zach.”

“Ain’t nobody’s ass going to be hung.”

“You ain’t maybe thinking of goeen looking for Burgade, are you?”

“No.”

“I thought you wanted him.”

“I intend to skewer the bastard,” Provo said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to go gu

“Then you got me pozzled, Zach.”

Provo smiled. “I never said I aimed to shoot him, did I. I spent twenty-eight years coming to this—I don’t aim to let him off easy with a bullet. He’s going to sweat his balls off before I’m done with him. He’s going to bleed slow and long. I told you before—I’m going to peel him down to a whimper.”

“Ahjess. But how?”

“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you.”

“I don’ like surprises, Zach.”

“You just take care of Lee Roy when the time comes. Let me worry about the rest.”

“It ain’t Lee Roy I’m worried about. It’s you.”

Provo smiled a little. “Just trust me, amigo. You’ll get rich.”

Menendez spat out the side of his mouth. “I don’ trost nobody, Zach. You know that.”

“You could always get on your horse and ride out. Why not do that, right now?”

Menendez smiled. “You want that?”

“No. I need you to help me keep an eye on the rest of these fools.”

“That’s what I thought,” Menendez said, but he didn’t press it further.

Provo kept checking his snap-lid watch. Presently it was time. He stood up. “All right. Let’s put it in the saddle.”

Provo split them up at the head of the road. Gant rode down first, bypassing the smelter, heading for the telephone line where it sagged across the creek half a mile below. Provo took Lee Roy with him and split the rest of them up, to drift in from various directions so as to avoid attention.

The smelter was a sprawl of smoke-grayed structures, conveyor ramps, shacks, corrugated roofs, a fifty-foot smoke-stack that spewed a rancid cloud into the sky. The last stragglers of the 8:00 A.M. shift were trudging into the buildings, big men in gray coveralls and railroad-style caps. Outside the manager’s building on the hill above the plant stood five or six parked chain-driven trucks and two open horseless carriages. That was where the paymaster’s office was. There was a pay window at the side of the building and a well-worn foot track where the men queued up for their pay. Beyond, to the north, was a neighboring sand-and-gravel operation, making a great racket. Provo sent Lee Roy out in front of him and they rode downslope toward the back door of the manager’s building. They dipped into a canyon and lost sight of the building, but the tall smoke-eruptive stack was still in view above the intervening hump of cactus-clumped ground. A few fleece-ball clouds drifted across the sun; it wasn’t as hot as it had been yesterday:

They tethered the horses in a cutbank-arroyo thirty yards behind the building. As far as Provo could tell, no one had remarked their arrival. Shortly Taco Riva rode in from the far end of the arroyo and dismounted, staying put to hold the horses. Portugee and George Weed came up from the direction of the sand-and-gravel quarry. Weed looking like a black sack of potatoes in the saddle: he was no horseman. Finally Menendez showed up. “Ain’t got moch time now, Zach.”

“Too much time gives a man whiskers.” Provo snapped his watch open. One minute after the hour. He could hear a train hooting in the distance; the train was a couple of minutes late but that didn’t matter, Tucson’s attention would be focused on Congress Street right about now, and that was fine.

Provo cast an eye at Lee Roy. “Got everything you need?”

“I reckon,” Lee Roy said reluctantly.

“You know how to set the charges, don’t you?”

“Ain’t no call for you to tell me how to handle my bi

Portugee Shiraz unholstered both his .45 Army automatic pistols. The damn things bothered Provo for no good reason other than his ignorance of them; he had no familiarity with newfangled handguns, but Portugee claimed he could handle them fine. The Negroid lips peeled back on his dark vulpine face in an expression that was more spasm than smile.