Vengeance Creek: The Sons of Daniel Shaye

39

Ben Cardwell dumped the remnants of the morning’s coffee on the fire and shook out the pot. Simon Jacks came walking over, leading both their horses. At Cardwell’s feet were his saddlebags with his share of the money. Jack’s saddlebags were already on his horse. They hadn’t actually gone through the saddlebags to see how much was in each, because they were on the run, so their split hadn’t yet been made. Cardwell wanted to wait until they were someplace safe, and until then they were joined at the hip.

“Ready to go?” Jacks asked.

“Just let me put this coffeepot away,” Cardwell said.

While he did that, Jacks took the time to look behind them, around them, and ahead. Nobody was in sight.

“If I was Davis,” he said, “I woulda traveled at night to make up some time.”

“Not him,” Cardwell said. “He hates to ride at night.”

“Maybe I should just wait here and ambush him,” Jacks suggested. “Get rid of him once and for all.”

“Sure,” Cardwell said. “Just let me have your saddlebags and I’ll take care of the money.”

“You don’t trust me to catch up to you with the money that’s in my saddlebags?”

“Let’s just say I trust you more than anyone else, Jacks,” Cardwell said, “and the answer is no. When it comes to this much money, I don’t trust anybody.”

“You know what?” Jacks said. “Neither do I. Why don’t we both wait here for him and get rid of him?”

“Because on the off chance that there actually is a posse coming after us,” Cardwell said, “we better just keep movin’.”

Jacks handed Cardwell the reins of his horse and said, “Okay, so let’s go.”

Both men mounted up and took the opportunity to look around them again.

“Nothin’,” Jacks said.

“For now,” Cardwell said, “but I coulda swore I smelled a campfire last night.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jacks said.

“Bacon?”

Jacks nodded. They had made coffee and beans the night before, and that was all.

“Let’s move, Simon,” Cardwell said. “Faster we get to a town, the faster we can split the money.”

And go our separate ways, Jacks added to himself.