Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

“Okay!”

So far so good, Neal thought.

The door eased open and a Colt. 45 dropped to the ground. Neal backed the horse up to give himself some room and pointed the gun at the door. The supervisor came out with his arms in the air. He looked at Neal on the horse and asked, “Which one are you, Butch or Sundance?”

“Get down on the ground, smart guy,” Neal ordered.

The guy grinned crookedly and let himself down slowly onto the road.

“Now you!” Neal yelled to the driver. The driver eased himself out from behind the wheel and dropped to the ground.

Craig jumped down and he and Randy went into the back of the armored car. They pulled five large white canvas bags out of the cash compartment and carried the sacks over behind the pines, where Billy, Craig, and Jory had brought the horses. They loaded the stacks of money into saddlebags.

“Hurry up!” Neal yelled.

They finished loading the horses, then walked them up through the pines and out onto the road above the lumber truck.

Neal walked over to the supervisor and gave him a little kick in the ribs. “Get up.”

“Take it easy.”

“I’m taking it easy,” Neal said. “Walk toward the lumber truck. You do anything else, I’ll put one in your back.”

“You won’t have to, son.” He started walking toward the truck. Dave came out, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him to the back side of the truck.

Randy and Cal ran back to their pickup and headed down to Ione. They’d take a roundabout route to Austin when they were sure they were in the clear.

“You boys like your boss?” Neal asked the guard and the driver.

They nodded.

“I have him as a hostage,” Neal said. “If I even see a plane, or a helicopter, or any member of the law enforcement community, I’ll leave him for the vultures. Now get up and get your coats out of the car.

He held the pistol on the two men as they got their coats and put them on. Then he lifted the pistol, shot the radio, and took the keys out of the ignition.

“Just to make sure,” he said. “Now don’t you boys get all-of-a-sudden stupid. No bank’s worth dying for.”

“You got that right,” said the guard.

Neal stepped to the side of the road and threw the keys over the edge.

“Start walking for Ione,” Neal said.

“Aw, come on!” the driver protested. “It’s freezing out here!”

“It’s a lot colder six feet under,” Neal answered.

The guard turned and started walking. The driver took a second to give Neal a dirty look and then started down the road after him.

“It’s been a pleasure robbing you!” Neal yelled. He jumped back on Midnight and rode back to the lumber truck. “Let’s get going!” he yelled.

The boys hopped into the two pickups they had waiting up the road and drove over the top of the hill as Neal, Craig, Jory, and Bill trotted behind. The hostage was tied and gagged in the back of the first truck. A few minutes’ hard driving got them to the base of the hill, back in Reese Valley.

Three big horse trailers were parked on the other side of the hill. The captured mustangs snorted and stamped in two of the trailers. The gang started to off-load their own horses from the back of the third.

Neal pointed to the hostage. “Untie him.”

Dave looked startled. “Neal, are you sure?”

“Well, he can’t ride like that, can he? Besides, he’s one of us.”

“What?”

“I said it was an inside job.”

Dave grinned as he hurried to untie the prisoner. “Neal, boy, damned if you ain’t something else…”

Damned if I ain’t, Dave boy.

“He can ride with me,” Neal said, pointing to the supervisor. “Help him up.”

Dave pushed the man onto the horse in back of Neal.

“We all ready?” Neal asked. Then he gave a signal and the men opened the trailers. The mustangs poured out and milled nervously in the snow, waiting for their leader.

He was a big young bay stallion, and he reared and kicked as Bekke led him away from his mares and young ones. The cowboys held the herd in check while Bekke pulled the stallion along until there was a space of a hundred feet between the stallion and his herd. The rest of the cowboys eased their horses into this space as Bekke held the stallion, who was trying to crush his handler’s head with his slashing hooves.

“Hold on tight,” Neal said to his passenger. He nodded to Dave, who gingerly slipped the rope off the stallion’s neck, then fired a pistol in the air. The stallion whinnied and reared, saw the way clear to the broad valley to the north, and took off. His mares and young ones followed at a gallop, while the cowboys in the middle hung on to their mounts and tried to stay ahead of the stampede, which was even now obliterating their tracks in the snow.

Midnight surged forward and both riders almost fell off before righting themselves.

“I told you to hang on!” Neal yelled.

“Did I ever tell you I hate you, Neal?”

“Many times, Graham! Many times!”

Joe Graham hung on to Neal’s waist as if it were a life preserver. This wasn’t far from reality; their horse was laboring under the double weight and losing ground. If either rider fell off he would be crushed by the stampeding mustangs before he could even get to his feet.

Graham closed his eyes.

Neal looked ahead and saw Dave chasing the stallion on, galloping right behind him and keeping him headed south. The stallion was trying to cut, turn around, and get back to his herd, but it was too soon for that. Neal could hear the hooves behind him, what people called a thundering herd. But it wasn’t like thunder, the sound was more like a heavy hail storm, like when the sky opens up and beats the earth with hard balls of ice. He risked turning his head and saw the mustangs pounding just behind him. He gripped his knees harder into the horse’s side and kicked his heels into the animal’s ribs. His left foot slipped out of the stirrup and he fell forward onto the side on Midnight’s neck. He could feel Graham’s one hand trying to grab his jacket and pull him back up, but Graham had no leverage and they were both slipping.

He gripped the reins tightly in his left hand as he tried to feel for the stirrup with his foot. He got a toehold, then grabbed the horse’s mane with his right hand and pulled himself back up.

And then they were just galloping, flying across the sagebrush with the north wind in their faces, and the horses kicking up snow and snorting and the cowboys gasping for breath. One long, beautiful ride on The High Lonely and then it was over. Craig, Jory, and Billy, their saddlebags full of the loot, cut to the east and trotted toward the Toiyabe Mountains, and Dave slowed to a canter and then stopped. The stallion turned, watched him for a wary minute, made a wide circle around the cowboys, and galloped back to his herd.

Neal watched the stallion gather his mares, his fillies, and his colts, snort greetings, and then lead them in a dash back to the south, back to the hard task of surviving winter.

Then Neal looked east and saw the cattle herd a mile in the distance. He watched the three riders cross in front of the herd, which would soon trample their tracks. The riders were headed for the creek. They’d ride their horses up the creek bed for about ten miles, then take them up into the hills where they could see the Hansen ranch. If everything was all right they’d come in at dusk.

The rest of them would join the cattle herd and make their way slowly down to the ranch.

If anyone was looking for armed robbers, they wouldn’t think to suspect a bunch of cowboys bringing in their cattle.

Vinnie Pond stamped down the road. He was not a happy man.

“I’m a driver,” he said, “not a walker.”