Pike Creek, Helena

‘This is the final score’ I told Pistol-Pete. And myself. I was tired from a decade of hoodwinking, robbing, and sticking up places. I’d put aside some money to retire on. I never wanted to be an outlaw, not that I’d really seen myself as one. But I’d never wanted to stay in this life until I was gunned down like a chump, by some hothead wanting a name for themselves. I was thirty-two, and it was time!

‘Well, if it isn’t the old, “this is my last job” speech?!’

‘Mock all you want Pete, I’ve said the day was coming and have done for a while. I’ve stuck around for your benefit, call me sentimental but you won’t quit and I’d been hoping one day you would.’

‘Ahhahha don’t let little old me hold you back. OR give you the excuse to keep doing what we do’ he says with a wry grin and wink.

Thing was I didn’t want any harm to come to him, and we’d been at it for so long I’d miss him, not the life. We were blood brothers. Few jobs back he’d caught a bullet in his left arm. I’d had to backtrack to find him. He was grey, blood flowing down his arm. I tore off his sleeve and tied it tight above the bullet wound. In the next town over, I gave a horse doctor half my take to fix him up. He mocked me afterwards:

‘Should’a shot the doc after he finished that last stitch.’

Classic Pete. Before we met, he’d been a hothead blasting his way out of situations. I’d told him killing wasn’t me, unless it was us or them, and even then only the law or military. Way I figured, they knew the risks when they signed up.

I was mainly raised by my grandpa. A tough old bastard. But the way where he wanted more for me, tough love kind of a thing. I remember one day he’d slapped me clean across the jaw, for stealing a tin of peaches from the local store in Helena. Next day he marched me down on foot, no horse as punishment, to tell the shop keeper what I’d done. Anyone who ridiculed him that day for making me walk, he told me I had to tell them why, so he didn’t lose face.

Once grandpa died, I drifted for years. Fell in with card shark’s, wasted money on enough alcohol and hookers to finish me. Held up post offices, train stations, saw idiots bleed out, other’s their heads blown off. Made me sober up, get my shit together. Grandpa wouldn’t have wanted that scoundrel life for me.

‘You’ve got to own your mistakes Leviticus, face up to them. If you don’t, you’ll be destined to repeat them, thinking everything in life is for taking. Actions carry consequences both good and bad!’

That was him through and through, without morale fibre he thought of you worse than a dog. That’s why he didn’t want to lose face that day, it wasn’t pride, it was embarrassment. Everyone knew and respected him in Helena, and he thought without that you were nothing. Being older now, I think he felt he’d messed up with my dad and didn’t want history repeating itself. While my grandpa was away fighting in the civil war, dad ran away from home, fell in with a bunch of scoundrels at 17. Tearing the place up summed up his life for the next decade. Later he knocked up a hooker in a brothel (my mum). I lived with her until she died of consumption when I was 10. It was an awkward existence living in a brothel. Always making myself scarce while mum worked, one time I didn’t. It still haunts me to this day what I walked in on. Dad would visit occasionally, when he needed to lie low. Few weeks later, he’d be gone again. He appeared in town one day, after mum had died. The Madame told him to take me with him. For the next year I witnessed all his hustling, robbing, and swindling. His crew were scary unsavoury people, they eventually told my dad I had no place being with them. That’s when he dumped me at grandpa’s, in Helena.

Grandpa helped show me there was more to life. It could be honest or at least morally you could try to live better. In a way that’s what encouraged me to stick with Pete for so long. I thought I could change him, or at least show him there was more to life.

‘You think you can change me, rub off on me??!’‘Fuck your self-righteous ass!!! You don’t know me, you NEVER will…or what makes me the way I am’

It was true, I didn’t know his life. There were the odd drunken ramblings, but not enough to know his life in any detail. What I did pick up, there was a lifetime of hurt and anger towards someone, or something. Most days we’d come to blows, over small things, which is common when two people spend so much time together. Like any relationship, man, woman, brothers, fathers, sons, they all have their breaking points. I could feel ours was coming. Did he resent me for wanting to get out? I’d make a life after this, I could read and write, he couldn’t. Or was it I’d said it often enough, but hadn’t followed through yet, and that annoyed him? Whatever it was, I meant it, this was the last one. But I knew he wouldn’t stop.

The score? Robbing the timber merchant’s couriers from the Hell Gate Trading Post near Missoula. The plan was simple, pulling it off required having balls the size of pumpkins. That was guaranteed, especially with Pete involved. I was the thinker and planner, him the risk taker going in headfirst. Admittedly I loved that about him. I was also jealous of it though, but it worked all these years. We’d work as a 2-man crew. Sometimes we’d pay a driver to wait nearby to help our escape, but it was only ever us two who did the grift. Pulling it off for a decade amazed me, so many times we found ourselves outgunned or thought if someone had called our bluff, we’d have done our last job right there, and it wouldn’t have been our call when it would have been. This time would be different, I’d arranged for a young kid to help us out. Rick Dawson who was twenty-one could handle himself, kept a cool head under pressure, and his pistol work was sharp. I thought he’d be someone who could carry on with Pete after this job was complete.

Pike Bend was the perfect area for the ambush. There the road dipped down into a gully with thicket and trees each side. Ironically the timber merchants hadn’t gotten there yet, but I’m sure they would in time. I’d noticed the timber trade rapidly spreading across the land, the last 20 year’s. Huge areas felled and left barren, it bothered me that people could so blatantly profit from nature. Especially with the arrival of the railroad just outside of town. We’d chop the thicket away and use it to block the road, leaving the only clear track down to a body of water four stagecoaches by three stagecoaches’ wide beside it. It was winter now so it was a frozen pond. We’d corral the horses onto it, tripping them on the suspended wire. On one side of the pond would be lanterns hidden in the thicket, each having a mirror angled near it to give the impression of more. Ricks job to slowly go around and light them all, to make it easier we had them in pairs. I figured if we rushed them onto the frozen pond fast enough, they’d never notice there was only three of us. I’d planned to hit them one winter’s night before the monthly drop off at the station. I knew they’d be sitting on a pile of cash and gold. I’d scoped it out every few months over the years, and like clockwork they still dropped it on the last Sunday of the month. That info I had bought few years back, from a black slave who worked in their office. Now it was time to use it.

‘You crazy son of a bitch, this might actually work’

He knew I hated that. It was too close to home to call me that. That was how he’d become now, the old reckless him bubbling up. ‘What you think Ricky boyyyy?!’ he said inquisitively but already dismissively of Rick’s reply.

‘Sounds good to me, know you’ve been at this a long time more than me. But you think the lanterns will fool them?’

I respected he trusted the plan but was still able to say what was the weakest element of it.

‘You little piece of shit, I ought’a shoot your dick off for doubting Levi here!’

Pete’s hand had already cocked his revolver.

‘Calm down, the kids got a right to say what he thinks. If he doesn’t then how can we expect him to keep his end up?’

That brought the tension down a notch, Pete gently removing his hand from his gun.

‘Just be as quick, we’ll stall them with chat while you light them, it will work if everyone sticks to their jobs. Let’s get going, we’ve 2 hours before they pass through the Bend’

We set out and got in position, an hour before they arrived. Eventually I could hear the faint ‘clip-clippity-clop’ of horse hooves galloping. The sound travelled far in the cold winter air.

‘This is it they’ll be here in a few minutes'

Five riders came galloping around the bend and down into the gully, picking up pace. In the faint light of the half-moon they noticed the road was blocked and broke right for the gap onto the frozen pond. A loud mixture of cursing, crashing, splashing, and sharp agonising screams like they were being stabbed, erupted. As Rick light the lanterns, we could see what happened, the weight of the horses plus their riders had caused them to crash through the ice. The water was deep, and up to the men’s shoulders. Their horses bolted in the commotion. We drew our guns and made ourselves known.

‘We don’t want any trouble as I’m sure you boys don’t either’ ‘Don’t try anything funny now, we have a few friends with lanterns over there just waiting to let rip if they so much see a twitch from any of you’ ‘Toss any guns you have over to our feet, and we’ll help you boys’

A smattering of thuds let us know they’d complied. I knew being in that icy water, they could barely raise a finger let alone a fist. I also knew Pete would gun them down the second they started thrashing towards us. Still couldn’t take anything for granted.

‘Kid grab the guns and get the horses from the ridge’

‘We’re here for the loot. Toss us the satchels from your backs containing the gold and money’

Some splashing and thrashing followed more dull thud on the pond’s edge let us know we were good.

‘C’mon... mister you… can’t leave.... us…. here, this water…. is ...iicce-cold’

I could hear it in his voice.

Rick appeared with the horses, we saddled up. As we pulled away, I gave Pete the nudge and he tossed them the rope.

‘Sons of bitches…IT’S NOT TIED TO ANYTHING…...!!!!’

I shoot Pete a cold hard glance

‘you never told me to tie it to anything?! HAHAHA’

His head almost rolling off his shoulders cackling as he galloped away.

That was definitely the last job for me. I knew when I caught up with him in Helena, I’d have to take care of something. Deep down I knew this wouldn’t be easy, it never is....