Booth had held the same opinion at the time, but he had still felt the need for caution. And now that they were back in their hideout, he was satisfied that they had gotten away with the assault, free and clear. He had invested a lot of time and sacrifice in setting up the robbery of the Society of Friends. He had joined the society, under the name of David Booth, gone to a lot of meetings, said a lot of amens, even volunteered to help with some of the crops. Now that it had paid off, he didn’t want anything to go wrong, just because of carelessness by any of them. They were probably right in thinking they had pulled off the perfect crime, even though there was no way of knowing if those few who were pushed off the cliff survived. He trusted the reasoning of his brother, and Jesse was of the opinion that they were free and clear. As for the massacre that took place on that hilltop, he had not foreseen the slaughter of the whole group of people. He had planned to take all the mules and leave the people on foot. The shooting had happened spontaneously, when Trip Dawson had suddenly pumped three shots into Brother Adams when Adams tried to save the money. Trip was always quick to use his gun, and maybe the death of all those people could have been avoided, as Booth had planned. Looking back on the incident, however, Booth decided it was better than his original plan, when he realized that it had ensured their getting away and leaving no witnesses. When the massacre started, there were people—men, women, children—running in every direction. Without thinking, he had reacted like the others, shooting to be sure no one escaped to report what was happening there. When all was said and done, things had worked even better than he expected. That mule they led back with them was carrying over thirty thousand dollars. He would not know the exact amount until he had a chance to count all of it. But that was a hell of a lot more than their average bank robbery yielded, with no risk of retaliation. To satisfy his impatient partners, he had counted out a hundred dollars to each man when they had stopped to camp the first night after the shooting. They seemed to have needed some evidence of the reward coming to them, so he gave them a little cash to hold.

Returning his thoughts to the day of his biggest robbery, Booth remembered announcing to his impatient men, “Yes, sir, I think we’ve all earned a little whiskey and a good supper. We’ll see what that Injun bitch of Grover Dean’s can cook up for five wealthy gentlemen.”