We crossed the plaza and our boots rasped on the brick and I could see the three plate glass windows of the C. M. Condon and Company bank and the porch-shaded glass of the smaller First National on Union Street between Rammel Brothers drugs and the Isham hardware store which sat just opposite the alley. The bank looked green and the wood was dark. Bob said, “I made a mistake, Em. It should be the other way around. You and I should take the Condon.”

But by then Grat had his hands down in his coat pockets and his rifle tilted down and Powers glanced from window to window in all the second-storey rooms, and when I turned and walked backwards I saw that Aleck McKenna was talking to Cyrus Lee about us and they were shading their eyes to stare. I almost lifted my gun.

Grat bent to spit a half-yard of tobacco juice; then he stomped up onto the porch of the Condon bank and jerked the closest of two pairs of doors as Bob and I ran across the bricks that were Union Street and ducked unnecessarily under the awning of the First National Bank. I held the screen door open and looked around. My brother turned the porcelain knob on the lettered door.

Charley Gump sat on the tailgate of his wagon with a toothpick and he soaked up what he’d seen—five men, five rifles, two banks—and when he noticed Broadwell and Powers lift blue bandanas over their noses inside the Condon bank, he limped down the sidewalk leaning big-eyed into the open stores, shouting, “By God, it’s true! It’s the Daltons! The Daltons are robbing the bank!”

The cry carried and women in bustles ran from the streets and dogs took up barking. McKenna walked up to his store and Cyrus Lee hustled down into Slosson’s to borrow a rifle and soon men were crouched behind windows staring out at us. I saw the beginnings of a commotion but I didn’t say anything. I slammed the door of the bank behind me, rattling the glass, and pulled down the shiny green curtains.

Three customers were already there: Deputy Sheriff Abe W. Knott, J. B. Brewster, the contractor, and C. L. Hollingsworth. They were big men in dark suits and Brewster had his hat off as he did arithmetic. He’d combed about six strands of black hair from one side of his head to the other. Knott had just cashed a four-dollar check.