He paused and looked at his hands on the shovel and then rested on it while he caught his breath. His chest heaved in and out, tightening and loosening a dry and cracked leather shoulder holster hidden beneath a sun-faded Carhartt coat.
He pulled his right hand off the shovel’s handle, flexing it back and forth a time or two. Creased and dry, his hands were getting older. He knew he was getting older too and that thought made him dig faster, as if he could fit more into the moments he had left in this life.
Course, its damn cold and the ground ain’t diggin’ well and what the hell did I expect? Why didn’t I plan this earlier-before snow flew?
Landry Minor cursed himself while he worked, drawing quick short breaths into his lungs that were as ice cold now as the reality of his crime.
Years later in crusty cafés, over coffee they often complained tasted a little like alley cat piss, people would sit across from each other and talk in hushed, knowing tones about the day the Cattleman’s Exchange Bank of Cheyenne was robbed on horseback.
Those men who never cried, with their sun-scarred faces would rub thick, scaling fingers over the tops of yellowing, porcelain cups and discuss, just how it came that some feller would plan such a crazy heist.
