Bill stood inside grinning, his hands on his hips, tarps thrown off frozen kegs of water, cases of food, a wooden box of shotguns and rifles. His voice had an echo to it. “What’d’ya think? Pretty fancy? You give me time, Miss Moore, and I’ll have hideouts in every county. We’ll have the best escape and intelligence network the West has ever seen. I’ll have every sheriff paid off, every circuit judge bribed, every banjo-assed politician running scared for his job. They might even make me director of a railroad.”

Eugenia touched a handkerchief to her nose and lifted the woolen scarf up again. “Maybe you ought to go slow on this, Bill. Bob and I really do want to quit for Argentina.”

Bill blew on his hands. “My little brother isn’t the only train robber in the world. I’ve been talking a few things over with Bill Doolin. We may just reach agreement one of these days.”

Snowflakes were dissolving on her face. She brushed them away from her lashes. “Shall we go back?”

“We could wait out the snowstorm in here. I’ve got a stash of food, mattresses, blankets.”

“I don’t think so.”

Bill pulled the tarps back over his provisions and propped the dead trees again. He lifted an overshoe into a stirrup and swung on and slapped the snow from his pants legs. He reined his horse southeast towards Ingalls. “We’ll have a toddy at Old Man Murray’s saloon.” He turned in his saddle. “Or doesn’t that meet with your satisfaction?”

She spurred her horse past him. “Sounds fine.”

He followed and for three miles never lifted his eyes from her deep tracks in the snow. When they tethered the horses at Ingalls, he said, “I’m not really such a bad guy, Mrs. Mundy. I’m liked by most who know me.”

She slouched in a saloon chair drinking whiskey with Doolin, Newcomb, Broadwell, and Powers. Bill hung his greatcoat on the hall tree and walked from table to table in his chalk-striped suit, the buckles jangling on his overshoes, shaking hands and finding anything in the world to laugh about and paying for drinks with bills he snapped from a silver dollar money clip. Eugenia wore greased wing chaps and a nappy coat and her tall hat was canted down to her nose so that she looked like a male hired hand. She said, “That’s Bob’s money Bill’s throwing around.”

Doolin looked over his shoulder at my parading brother and back again at Eugenia. His voice was sweet with sarcasm. “Now how could that be? Bob didn’t get but a measly few hundred bucks from the Katy holdup in Leliaetta, same as the rest of us. And mine’s already gone. What about you, Bitter Creek?”

“Swiped cash is fast cash, just like they say. I ain’t seen a smidge of my take in six weeks.”