Rose(134)

By the time George and Salty had retreated the two hundred yards back toward the house, George was certain there was no other attacking force. It was just old McClendon, his four sons, and Silas. For some reason, nobody else from the clan was included. George and Salty took up their positions in the brush and waited. It wasn’t long before they were close enough for him to hear them talking.

“How do you plan on making him tell you where the gold’s hid?” the old man was asking Silas.

“You get your hands on that kid and his woman, and he’ll tell you anything.”

“I wouldn’t turn over no gold for no woman,” McClendon said, scoffing at such reasoning.

“Neither would I, but George Randolph isn’t like you or me. He thinks people are more important than gold.”

“Fool,” McClendon said.

“You sure there’s as much as you say?” one of the boys asked. “Don’t seem likely they coulda drug all that much from Virginia without nobody knowing.”

“There’s half a million, and they brought it with them. Where do you think they got all the gold they’ve been flashing about Austin?”

“I’m heading for New Orleans the minute I get my share,” one of the boys said. “I mean to have me a whole room full of women. And I won’t let them put on nothing but them black stockings.”

“I want one of them fancy houses chock full o’ servants to do anything I want.”

“Including jump in the bed with you?” another giggled.

“That, too,” his brother agreed.

“Can’t none of you spend that gold till we get our hands on it,” the patriarch declared. “You’d better be remembering what you’re supposed to do when we get to the house. Tell ’um again,” he directed Silas.

“We leave our horses at the corral,” Silas began. “George and his wife sleep behind the kitchen, Salty and the kid across the breezeway. Two of you circle around until you get—”

“It’s a little dark out for a pleasure ride, McClendon,” George called when they came abreast.

“I guess that accounts for you wandering so far off your land,” Salty called out from the other side of the trail.

Realizing they could be caught in a cross fire, the raiders involuntarily jerked on their reins and reached for their weapons. Their mounts responded by throwing up their heads, snorting, and dancing nervously about, turning one way and then the next. They had been riding in close formation, and the ensuing confusion made it impossible for the McClendons to do more than be a danger to each other.

“What do you want here?” George demanded. “You didn’t come in the middle of the night for a friendly visit.”

“We’ve come for the gold,” Silas replied.

“What’d you go and tell him that for?” old man McClendon hissed. “Now he’ll be on his guard.”

“We had to tell him sooner or later,” Silas replied. “You can’t hold a man up without telling him what you want.”

“Particularly when we don’t know where he’s got it hid,” one of the boys added.

“I don’t have much more than a hundred dollars left,” George said. “Why do you think the boys have gone to sell some of the herd?”

“I’m talking about that union   payroll,” Silas said.

“I don’t know anything about a payroll.”

“I mean the one your father stole.”

“You must be drunk, Silas,” George said. “Do you know what he’s talking about, Salty?”

“Your father captured a union   patrol that was supposed to be escorting a half-million-dollar army payroll,” Salty called back. “The money was never found. Your father said it was a decoy patrol, that the gold went some other way.”

“His father stole that gold,” Silas insisted. “George spent nearly a year in Virginia after the war. I figure he found it. The gold he’s been spending in town is part of it.”

“You figured wrong.”

“How would an ex-Confederate like you get his hands on gold?”

“From the sale of a small piece of land left us by an aunt,” George said. “You can check the court records if you like.”

“I don’t believe you. You brought that gold back and hid it. You don’t have to worry. We won’t take all of it.”

“How much would you take, Silas?”

“Half. You won’t get to keep any if we tell the Reconstruction people about it.”

“And once you get the first half, you won’t want to come back for the second half?”