Leaving Epitaph: The Sons of Daniel Shaye

61

Aaron Langer stopped to take a drink from his canteen and pull out a piece of beef jerky. Morales stopped alongside him and did the same.

“I’m thinkin’ there’s somebody comin’ behind us,” Aaron said, looking off into the distance.

“Do you believe it is our old friend, Señor Shaye?” the Mexican asked.

Morales turned to look, then froze when he heard the hammer of Aaron’s pistol being cocked behind him.

“Just sit still, Morales,” Aaron said. He reached out and removed the man’s saddlebags, containing the money.

“You are robbing me, Jefe?” the Mexican asked. “I have been your most loyal servant for many years.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said. “If you weren’t makin’ so much money with me, I’d like to see how loyal you would have been. Put your hands way out from your sides, Esteban.”

Morales obeyed, spreading his arms like wings.

“Now turn around.”

Morales swiveled back around in his saddle, stared down the black barrel of Aaron’s gun.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” Aaron said, “you’re gonna take care of whoever’s followin’ us. After you’ve done that, I’ll be waitin’ for you in Red Cloud, just over the border in Nebraska. There, I’ll give you your money back.”

“Why do you feel the need to hold my money?”

“Because if I send you off with your money, you just might keep on goin’.”

“And if I say that I will not?”

Aaron touched Morales’s saddlebags, which were laying across his saddle, and said, “Safer this way, Esteban. This way I know you’ll do what you’re told, because you want your money.”

Morales stared at Aaron Langer for a few moments, then shook his head. “I thought we were amigos.”

“When, in the past twenty years,” Aaron asked, “did I ever say we was friends?”

“Never.”

“Exactly. We’ve been a good team, Esteban, but it’s only because you always did what you were told.”

“Sí, Jefe.”

“Now, do you want your money back?”

“Sí, Jefe.”

“Then take care of whoever is trailing us and meet me in Red Cloud,” Aaron said.

“And if no one is following us?”

“Oh,” Aaron said, “somebody is, Morales. If it ain’t Shaye, it’s somebody. Believe me.”

Keeping his gun trained on his segundo of many years, Aaron started his horse walking.

“I’ll give you until tomorrow night, Morales,” Aaron said.

“And why should I believe that you will not just keep going with my money?”

“Because then I’d have to worry about you followin’ me, Esteban,” Aaron said. “And you wouldn’t stop until you got your money back or died tryin’, right?”

“Sí, Jefe,” Morales said, “that is very right.”

“So,” Aaron said, “see you in Red Cloud.”

He kicked his horse into a gallop and only then turned his gun away. Morales knew he could probably take out his rifle and pick Aaron Langer out of his saddle, but he decided not to. Why destroy a successful working relationship over one transgression? Besides, if there was someone following them, it would be a good idea to deal with them now, rather than later.

Morales turned his horse south and began riding. He was reasonably sure he’d find Aaron waiting for him in Red Cloud, with his money.