The bartender reached for a beer pull and Newcomb slapped the pistol out of his holster and the gang brought our Colts up in every direction. We might have been farm machinery—we were that sudden and all-at-once.

Bob shouted, “Hands up! Everybody!”

“Bandidos!” one of the whores screamed.

The music stopped. The gambler Fancy Jack quickly rolled up his paper money and put it inside his cheek. The truly dangerous in the room just glared and slowly lifted their hands.

“You do not look much escared,” I yelled, “but I think you ought to be. I have filed the sear down on this machine and have in my hands a hair trigger. So don’t anybody move, understand? Or you’re likely to find a gape in your face you could fit a beer bottle through.”

Blackface Charley Bryant had two guns out—a purse pistol and a Peacemaker—and he kept turning around in the crowd. McElhanie and Newcomb scraped money off the tables and patted down the dealers for their wallets and money belts. My brother Bob was up on top of the bar, kicking hats off heads as he walked, smashing shot glasses and bottles into a shattering mirror. He pinched the folding money out from under the spring snaps in the register.

Little Newcomb took silver and gold from the dealer who’d bilked him, Fancy Jack, then as an afterthought cracked him hard across the mouth with his pistol. Blood and teeth spattered against the oil painting of a sundown on the wall. The dealer knelt on the floor. I could see he was feeling a lot of pain. He spit out a roll of bloody money.

Each of us in the gang had two red wool socks connected with strong twine. We draped these over our necks and the weight of the coins held them in place. We did not bother with jewelry, watches, or gems, or anything the prostitutes might have hidden on their persons. Within four minutes we were backing toward the doors. Bryant’s Texas spurs were the only noise. Bob said, “This will teach you hospitality to strangers.”

We sprang onto our horses and blasted out the stained-glass windows. I danced my horse around, firing haphazardly until McElhanie got hold of the lead rein on the pack mule. Then the five of us in the gang galloped off, guns blazing. Shutters banged open in the few houses and men leaned out and only a dozen gamblers ran into the street with guns in their hands. Hardly any shot at us.

We ran our horses into bad shape, ran until we could barely make out the lights of the town; then we risked a walk and counted the loot in our socks and smoked cheroots that Bryant was handing out. Our horses quivered as they cooled. Newcomb threw all his pennies away.