“Malika, I—”
But Linda decided she’d gotten too far ahead and came running back to show them a ruby-colored butterfly she’d found, that turned out to be a hummingbird moth, which generated a great deal of feminine excitement, so the moment was lost.
*
Adam showed upin camp the next afternoon.
His arrival meant the bank robbery was set to take place prior to sunrise the following morning.
Sunrise couldn’t come soon enough for Jayce.Cassidy had been very quiet after Malika’s not-so-subtle attempts to discourage him, but the speculative looks he shot Jayce said enough to make his sleep very restless.He wasn’t supposed to get out of this adventure alive, but he hadn’t counted on his death being literal.
Adam handed out weapons while Cassidy went over the details of the robbery.The weapons were custom-made to fit the period and loaded with paintballs.
“Adam goes in first and blows the safe with the nitroglycerin.You, me, and Joachim”—Joachim meaning Dave—“will enter the bank and bag up the money,” Cassidy said, proving he’d at least glanced at the script.
Adam had stored the nitroglycerin somewhere safe, in a location known only to him.Given the town’s track record for curiosity, and a willingness to experiment with things that either exploded, caught fire, or potentially maimed, Mavis had insisted the nitro be brought in at the last minute.
“You’re going to set off explosives inside the bank?”someone asked, proving the Mexicans hadn’t paid attention to the script in the least.“What about all that beautiful marble flooring?Won’t it be damaged?I bet it cost a fortune, too, and took hours of specialized labor to install, and the artisans who installed it gave up weekends with their families.I mean… that floor.It’s a work of art.”
The other Mexicans nodded agreement.Jayce began to suspect they’d tossed the script the moment they learned they had to play Mexicans.
“Those floors are worth a lot more than the bank notes in the safe,” Dave added hotly, which was true, because the bank notes were fake.
Cassidy’s money, however, was not.
And Cassidy knew it.“The town can rebuild the floor,” he said, dismissing the Mexicans’ concerns, proving while he might have read the script, he could not read a room.“Adam will ride in alone.”
On that, they were all in agreement.No one—including the fearless Butch Cassidy—wanted to ride with Adam, who’d be carrying the nitroglycerin, and whose reputation as Burning Scrub’s safety officer was shaky at best.
“You two”—Cassidy indicated the Mexicans in question—“will act as lookouts.And you,” he said to the third, “will hold our horses so we can make a quick getaway.I—”
Something enormous thrashed about in the woods, putting a stop to the conversation.Jayce reached for his rifle.Rabid grizzlies were rare, but not impossible, and since everything else had gone wrong with this adventure, it was best to be armed.
The research scientist stumbled into camp.
Everyone stared at him.He stared back.
He spotted Jayce and his face paled.
“Oh, uh… hey,” he said, backing up.“Thought I’d borrow some coffee, maybe a map or a hotspot for my GPS, but I see you’re all busy, so I’ll come back another time.”
He turned and ran.
“That little guy is going to get himself killed,” Dave said.
“He will if he trips over the rock where I stored the nitro,” Adam said.
Jayce replayed the scene through the scientist’s eyes and reviewed everything he might possibly have overheard.Seven men with weapons, sitting around a campfire deep in the mountains, plotting a bank robbery.
As if that wasn’t going to turn into a problem.
Adam dumped the coffee dregs in the bottom of his tin mug onto the ground.
“Come on, Joachim,” he said to Dave.“He’s getting too close to town.We’re going to relocate him again, and this time, we’ll make sure he doesn’t come back.There’s got to be Indians on the warpath somewhere in these mountains.Be a darned shame if he fell into their hands.”
Adam and the Mexicans left, leaving Cassidy and Sundance alone.
Jayce stared into his empty tin mug.He and Cassidy only had the bank robbery and Malika in common, and there wasn’t a whole lot left regarding either topic for them to discuss.It was going to be a long afternoon.
