Leaving Epitaph: The Sons of Daniel Shaye

5

Ethan Langer poured himself a cup of coffee and replaced the pot without offering any of his men some. Terry Petry picked up the pot and filled his own cup. The other men were too busy eating to notice or care what was going on with the coffee.

“Whataya think, Ethan?” Petry asked. “We do better than Aaron and the boys?”

“We won’t know till we meet up,” Langer said.

“Yeah, I know, but whataya guess?”

“I don’t guess, Terry,” Langer said. “I never guess. I pick my banks because it’s where I know we’ll do the best. Aaron picks his the same way. We’ll see who got the most when we meet up, like always.”

“Okay, sure,” Petry said, “sure, Ethan.”

Langer drank his coffee and avoided looking into the fire. He’d had one plate of bacon and beans and that had been enough. Despite what he told Petry, he was wondering how his brother Aaron had done in South Dakota. He hated going north himself, because he hated the cold. That’s why most of the jobs he’d pulled over the past year had been in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

“Too bad about the woman,” Petry said.

“Huh?”

“That woman that we rode down,” the other man said. “Too bad she was in the street.”

“Stupid bitch got what she deserved,” Langer said.

“Wonder who she was?”

“Who cares?” Langer demanded. “Look, Petry, go and sit at the other fire, okay? Yer startin’ to piss me off.”

There were two campfires for the eight men, and they were sitting four and four, but now Langer took out his gun and waved it around.

“All of ya, go sit by the other fire, damn it! Now!”

Petry and the other men moved quickly, so that there were now seven men seated around the other fire. Ethan Langer was known to have a short fuse. A big man, he dealt out punishment with his fists or his gun, and none of the men wanted to risk either.

Langer holstered his gun and poured himself more coffee. What did he care what happened to some stupid woman who was standing in the street? Goddamn dumb bitch was too slow-witted to move, she deserved to get ridden down.

His horse had been the first to strike her, and the shocked look on her face was still vivid in his mind. So vivid that he had been seeing it in his sleep every night since then.

Goddamn bitch, she’d haunted him all the way here to the Oklahoma Territory. How much longer did she intend to haunt him?