It would happen this way: The Dalton gang would ride in on Eighth Street, park in front of the Opera House, split up to pilfer the banks. We’d return to the animals and cover the exit of whoever was last out and fire some shots to stall a commotion. We’d haul east on Eighth for our getaway, horseshoes sparking on the bricks, and turn south on the dirt road behind the stores, galloping next to the Santa Fe tracks to Elmwood Cemetery where Eugenia would pick us up. Then we’d meet black Amos Burton in a schooner wagon of cotton bales, hiding under them until we got to the Missouri River where we’d board a riverboat south and then a transatlantic steamer.

The two banks did not seem difficult at the time.

I kept a lookout in that midnight town while Broadwell and Powers hunched over to peer at the walnut counters of the First National, while Bob delivered lessons. I saw Grat sag against the doorjamb and stare across the plaza to the Lang & Lape Furniture Dealers and Undertakers parlor which was next to Slosson’s drugstore. Slosson sold medicinal liquor. That must’ve given my boozy brother the notion. I saw him spit tobacco juice between his teeth and amble south along the boardwalk past the Isham Brothers and Mansur hardware store next door to the bank, then past McDermott’s millinery, Smith’s barbershop, Boothby’s drugstore, and Barndollar’s Dry Goods and Sundries store, where he turned the corner and I lost him.

I learned secondhand that Grat stepped over the white picket fence to the yard of a house owned by Mr. Benson of the Slosson store. Grat kicked at the storm door panel until Benson opened up, and the man was so terror-struck at seeing a Dalton that he later claimed Grat was Bob, and it’s been handed down that way ever since. He even invented two pearl-handled revolvers and swore the ruffian demanded a bottle of Austin Nichols Wild Turkey, a probability. Benson alibied pretty good, however, saying Slosson’s store hadn’t traded in whiskey since the Populists were elected, so Grat stayed thirsty, and he was fuming by the horses when four of the dangerous-looking Dalton gang finally returned to the Opera House.

Our horses were standing asleep at the hitching rail and Grat was watching a jet of tobacco juice squirm down the Opera House window glass. Grat said, “By morning this whole town’s gonna know we been here. So don’t count on no big surprise.”

Bob unwrapped his reins from the rail. “How will they know?”

Grat decided not to answer. He slipped his stirrup over his boot and jerked his horse around so hard getting on that the whites showed in its eyes.

Bob asked, “How?” again, and his thirty-one-year-old brother slumped in his saddle, smiling with brown teeth. Grat said, “I peed my name against a door.”