The Last Hard Men

The roots of Provo’s hair were damp with sweat but his hands were rock steady. He swept them all with his ungiving face. “Let’s go, then.”

Provo went across first, with Portugee. They moved quickly, bent double: up the cutbank, across the flats through the brush, up shoulderblade-flat against the wall beside the back door.

No one inside the building gave any alarm. There was only one window on this side anyhow—possibly a latrine or storeroom. Provo made an arm signal and two heads appeared at the lip of the cutbank. Weed and Lee Roy came humping it over the edge, Menendez right behind them. They came in tight, sweating, and Provo nodded to Portugee. Portugee palmed the latch of the door and tested it. It wasn’t locked. He swung it open and went in. Provo twisted through the doorway right behind him and braced the riot gun against his lip.

They were in a clerical office—four desks: two women secretaries, a clerk type in a green eyeshade, and a middle-aged man at the back desk in shirtsleeves and mining-engineer boots.

“Not a word out of anybody,” Provo hissed, “or you get dead.”

Shock and terror chased each other across the four startled faces. Menendez whipped inside and strode across the office to the nearest door: wrenched it open and went in gun first.

One of the women started to babble something incoherent in a tiny falsetto voice. Portugee took two long strides and clapped his palm over her mouth, digging his thumb and fingers into her cheeks, holding his big .45 auto on the others. Weed sidled toward the front of the room to post himself on the front door.

Menendez came out of the back office prodding a man at gunpoint. That had to be the paymaster. The man was loose-fleshed, florid, overweight, pale hair going thin over a pink scalp. He was swallowing in regular spasms and his eyes looked like the fishy popeyes of a hyperthyroid victim.

Provo wheeled to the door near him and pulled it open. It was a closet, filled with shelves of order blanks and stationery. He pushed it shut and moved deeper into the room. Portugee Shiraz took his hand away from the woman’s mouth. She scrubbed her lips violently but didn’t make a sound. Portugee said, to no one in particular, “Everybody stay quiet like a mouse and nobody gets their-selves hurt.”

Provo said, “We’re going to tie you up and put gags in your mouth.” He talked in a very low voice; he didn’t know how thin the walls were, or how many others were in the building. “Don’t fight us and we won’t hurt you.”

Lee Roy put down his gu

Provo said, “Where’s the safe? Back in that room?”

“Ye-yes. But you won’t——”

“Please don’t tell me I’ll never get away with it,” Provo said. “Just give us the combination.” He was walking the man into the back office as he spoke.

The vault was built into the back wall. Big, substantial, with wheels on it like steamship valves. There were two big combination dials.

The paymaster whimpered and Provo struck him along the cheek with the barrel of his gun. “Quit it. The combination. I ain’t going to ask again.”

“I’ve only g-g-got half of it, mister. I swear to God. The company manager, he’s got the combination to the other d-dial.”

“And where’s this company manager?”

“D-d-d-down at the depot.”

It didn’t surprise Provo. He propelled the paymaster back to the outer office. “Tie him down and gag him. Lee Roy, in here. Get to work.”

Lee Roy lugged his sack in and looked around. “Sheeyit. That’s a big ’un.”

“Don’t stand there griping. Just blow it.”

“Will you quit awderin’ me around, Zach? Jesus.” Lee Roy studied the furniture. “Reckon I’ll have to back that big desk up against it to shape the charge. Christ, Zach, I’m go

“Get busy,” Provo said, and went back to the outer office. He set his hip on the corner of a desk and talked mildly at the four bound-and-gagged prisoners. “In a few minutes my associate’s going to blow up that vault in there. You’ll know when it’s coming. When you do, I suggest you open your mouths and breathe easy through your mouths. Otherwise the explosion might bust your eardrums. Hear?”

Portugee shoved the paymaster down on the floor with the other four. Then he went over by the front door with George Weed and stood there cleaning his fingernails with the point of an ugly-looking knife he’d taken off a Mexican in the shack in Gila Bend. Portugee was never comfortable without a knife in his hand.

One of the women was fat and middle-aged. Her swollen cheeks were wet with tears; she was whimpering like an injured animal through the gag in her mouth. Provo glanced at her with his ungiving face but said nothing.

It seemed a long time. Sweat trickled down Provo’s spine inside his shirt and linen duster. Menendez walked across the room and propped the back door fully open, and then came into the center of the room and stood slant-eyed, watching the door where Lee Roy would appear when Lee Roy’s job was done.

Portugee said to George Weed, “Sure takin’ his fucking time in there.” The two black-ski

One of the prisoners was breathing hard, in asthmatic rasps. Provo went over to make sure the gag wasn’t choking him, but it was just fear that made the clerk wheeze. The eyes blinked like semaphores. Provo said mildly, “Take it easy, nobody’s going to shoot you,” and ambled back to the desk.

Portugee said, “They seen our faces. They can identify us.”

“It’s all right,” Provo said. “Burgade will figure out who done this quick enough anyway.” He smiled just a little. It occurred to him to go over and open the window inside the storage closet; but he didn’t bother; the blast would probably knock some walls down anyway, and everybody within miles would hear it. That was all right, too. He wanted noise.

In time Lee Roy appeared in the doorway. “All rat. I’m fixin’ to light the fuse. Won’t give us more’n about ten seconds. Everybody get behint some kand of cover. Leave me a space by that desk there.” He turned around and disappeared back into the office.

Provo caught Menendez’s eye and nodded slightly. Then he went across the room and wedged himself under the knee hole of the desk by the trussed prisoners. “Take it easy now,” he told them. “Remember what I said—open your mouths.”

Lee Roy came skittering into the room and dived behind the desk beside Menendez. Portugee and Weed were down behind cover somewhere near the front of the room. Provo shut his eyes and opened his mouth and breathed shallowly, waiting nervelessly.

The explosion knocked him back, rapped his head painfully against the underside of the desk. The ear-splitting thunder beat strident echoes around the enclosed space. There was an immediate smell of plaster dust and sawdust, very hot and acrid, mixed with a sulfur stink of cordite powder. Provo sneezed. Things were still falling down, making noise. He crawled out from under the desk and heard the relatively quiet crack of a small-caliber gunshot. He didn’t glance toward Menendez. “Come on.” He scuttled toward the office door. Menendez came to his feet beyond the desk and Provo could see Lee Roy’s boots lying on the floor beyond it; the boots didn’t move. Weed and Portugee stood up and faced the front door to drive away whoever came to investigate the godawful noise. Provo curled into the smoke, barked his shin against a chair leg, batted smoke with his hand, and climbed across wreckage into the big vault. Lee Roy had done his job well. The door had been smashed. Menendez said, “Chingado, what a mess.”