The sound of a shot rolled down through the gulch, picked up resonance, then echoed back from the surrounding walls. Emile Taylor, who was holding a smoking pistol, turned to the others with a smile on his face. He had just broken a tossed whiskey bottle with his marksmanship.

"I'd like to see somebody else here who can do that," he snarled.

Emile was one of six men who had made a temporary camp in an arroyo that was about five miles west of the town of Chugwater.

"Emile, there ain't nobody said you wasn't good with a gun, so there is no need for you to be provin' yourself to us," Johnny said. Johnny was Emile's brother. "Anyhow, that don't really matter all that much."

"What do you mean, it don't matter?"

"Hopefully, we ain't goin' to be gettin' into no gunfights. The only thing we're goin' to do is ride into town, rob the bank, then hightail it out of there before anyone knows what hit them. And if we pull this off right, there won't be no shootin'."

"What if someone tries to shoot at us?" Emile asked.

"Then you can shoot. But I don't want no shootin' unless we absolutely have to."

Emile was about five feet four inches tall, with ash-blond hair and a hard face. Johnny was two inches taller, with darker hair. Johnny was missing the earlobe of his left ear, having had it bitten off in a fight the last time he was in prison. Although the two men were brothers, they didn't look anything alike until one happened to look into their eyes. Their eyes were exact duplicates: gray, flat, and soulless.

"After we do the job I think we ought to split up ... ever' man for hisself," Al Short said. "That way, if they put a posse together they won't know which one to follow."

"No, but they might choose to follow just one of us," Julius Jackson pointed out. "And whoever the one is they choose to follow is goin' to be in a heap of trouble."

"Besides which, if we do that, where at will we divide up the money amongst us?" Bart Evans asked.

"I don't know," Short said. "I didn't think about that."

Evans chuckled. "You didn't think about it? Hell, man, the money is what this all about. How can you not think about it?"

"What we ought to do is, once we leave town, just wait behind a rock and shoot 'em down," Clay Calhoun suggested.

"You mean you'd shoot them from ambush?" Emile asked. "That ain't a very sportin' thing to do."

"Hell yes. I ain't like you, Emile. I ain't tryin' to build myself no reputation. If someone is comin' after me, I don't need to kill the son of a bitch fair and square.... I just want to kill him."

"Clay has a point," Evans said. "The best way to handle a posse would be to set up an ambush. Besides which, most of 'em will be nothin' but store clerks and handy men anyway. Prob'ly ain't none of 'em ever used a gun more 'n once or twice in their life anyway, so even you faced 'em down there wouldn't be nothin' you could call sportin' about it."

"Well, then if we're goin' to do that—ambush 'em, I mean—maybe it would be better for us to all stick together," Jackson said.

"No," Short replied. "I still think it would be best if we split up. I think we'll have a better chance that way."

"All right," Calhoun said. "How about this? Instead of all of us separatin', what if we was to break into two groups? That way the posse will still have to make a choice as to who to follow. And if they decide to split and follow each group, it will cut their numbers in half, which means we would have a better chance."

"Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good idea," Short said.

"No need for any of that," Johnny said. "I've got an idea that will throw them off our trail, once and for all, so that we all get away clean. Only we're going to need different horses."

"What do you mean, we are going to need different horses?" Jackson asked. "We got horses already. We got good horses."

A big smile spread across Johnny's face. "Yeah," he said. "But these ain't the horses we're goin' to use when we hold up the bank. These horses ain't even goin' to get close to town."

"That don't make no sense to me a'tall," Evans said.

"Then let me explain it to you," Johnny said. "The way I got it planned out, we're goin' to steal us some horses from several different places. Then, just before we go into town to hold up the bank, we'll hobble our horses in some place out of the way, and when we go into town to rob the bank, we'll be ridin' the stolen horses."

"I don't understand," Jackson said. "Why would we take a chance on ridin' stoled horses when the ones we got is perfectly good? What if we have to leave town at a gallop? We won't know nothin' a'tall 'bout the mounts we'll be stealin'."

"All they have to do is get us into town and out again, and any healthy horse can do that," Johnny said. "Then when get to a place that we will have picked out, we'll dismount, take off our saddle and harness, then send the stolen horses on their way."

"Why would we do that?" Short asked. "I mean, if we go to all the trouble to steal 'em, why would we just turn 'em a' loose?"

"You said it yourself, Al. Like as not after we rob the bank, the marshal will be rounding up a posse," Johnny said.

"I reckon he will, but what does that have to do with stoled horses?"

"The posse will be trailin' us by followin' the tracks and such we leave when we ride away from the bank, right?"

"Yeah."

"All right, now follow me while I try to explain. When we turn them horses loose, where do you think they will go?" Johnny asked.

"Well, I reckon they would—" Short started. Then he stopped in midsentence as a huge smile spread across his face. "Son of a bitch! They'll more 'n likely go back wherever it was we stole 'em from."

"Yes," Johnny agreed. "And if we steal each horse from a different place, then the horses will lead the posse all over hell's half-acre. And while the posse is followin' them, we'll be takin' off on our own horses."

"Yeah!" Short said. "Yeah, that's real smart. Did you come up with that all by yourself?"

"Ha!" Emile said, hitting his fist in his hand. "I may be the best shot in the family, but there can't nobody say Johnny ain't the smartest. And that's why he is in charge."

"You need to get on into town now, little brother," Johnny said. "Look around, see what you can see. But don't get into no trouble."

"I'll have a drink for all you boys," Emile said as he started toward his horse. "One for each one of you."

"Just don't get drunk and foolish," Johnny cautioned.

Duff MacCallister's ranch, Sky Meadow, was fifteen miles south and slightly east of where Johnny Taylor and the others were plotting to hold up the Chugwater bank. Duff MacCallister had left Scotland four years earlier, and shortly after arriving in the United States he'd moved to Wyoming. Here, by homesteading and purchasing adjacent land, he'd started his ranch. Since that time, he had been exceptionally successful, and Sky Meadow now spread across some thirty thousand acres of prime range land lying between the Little Bear and Big Bear creeks.

Little and Big Bear creeks were year-round sources of water, and that, plus the good natural grazing land, had allowed Duff to try an experiment. The experiment had been to introduce Black Angus cattle. He'd been well familiar with the breed, for he had worked with them in Scotland. His experiment had been successful, and he...