The Reward

Winter’s coming, and that’s a fact. Couldn’t have been much after three when I left town this afternoon yet the daylight was all but gone when I arrived home. By the time I’d seen to the horse it was dark. Course the dang blasted rain don’t help but after the day I’ve had, I ain’t gonna grumble.

Remember a couple of weeks back when I got the drop on the McKenna gang and helped the sheriff put them in jail?  Well, I thought the sheriff was fooling when he called me into his office this morning and told me I had a reward coming. 

‘How much?’

‘A thousand for McKenna, five hundred apiece the rest.’

‘Holy shinbones!’

‘Here… take this authorization to the bank. They’re expecting you.’

‘Don’t half of this belong to you?’

‘I’m a serving officer of the law. Go on take it, you earned it.’

Well, I ain’t entirely without a conscience. I did feel a mite guilty about it. A rope’s waiting for McKenna and he’s sure got it coming but whichever way you look at it, it’s still blood money. Didn’t stop me hot footing it to the bank though. 

I never came out of a bank with so much money before, leastways not legally. Sure, the manager tried talking me into opening an account but I told the shifty cuss I wanted every last penny. Made sure I got it too. You can’t trust anyone these days and I didn’t take kindly to Mister Lassiter from the newspaper office buttonholing me in the street for a story. I told him to whistle up his elbow. The last thing I need is McKenna’s friends coming after me.

My head was in such a spin I didn’t even go for a drink. If I wasn’t patting my pockets to check the money was still there, I was looking over my shoulder, and when I stopped by at the new eating house, I couldn’t settle till I was sure I hadn’t been followed. 

Even then I sat with my back to wall, keeping an eye on the door whilst chewing my way through a hunk of boiled ham and cornbread. Other than filling my gut and calling at the liquor store for some whiskey, that’s about all I did; I just wanted to get on home.

Three thousand dollars sure is a lot of money. I could live on that for ten years… or two months if Housty finds out. Only she ain’t gonna find out ‘cause I’ve already stashed it. 

Hmm, how am I gonna explain six bottles of whiskey? Maybe I’d better tell her the truth… only I’ll tell her it was a thousand dollars. No, I’ll tell her it was two hundred… and I’ll give her half to keep her sweet. Yup, that’s what I’ll do, and she’ll be extra nice to me for my birthday this week.