The rust-stained leaflet said that dead or alive, the person of one R. Cutlass, gambler, desperado, and stage robber, would bring the capturer the sum of $5,000 reward in gold. An additional $1,000 would be paid the capturer for either of his henchmen alive, $500 dead. "How soon's it due?" the Kid asked. He brushed sweat from his forehead and from the inside band of his Stetson, and loosened each of his new Colts in their holsters. Cutlass didn't answer, but he pulled a gold watch from his pocket and studied it for a moment. He wondered what name the initials engraved inside its case stood for, gave the stem a twist and replaced it. "That's the best wan you ever get, eh boss?" "OK, Chico. You get started. And keep those guns where they belong until the Kid an' me draw ours, savvy? Last time you got that greasy trigger finger of yours in an itch an' we had t'go killin' t'get the stuff. Law in these parts ain't about to forget the racket of six-guns when they hear it, and I ain't of a mood for runnin' to hide again." * * * * * Cutlass crumpled the reward poster and threw it from him. It was getting so in the whole state of Texas you couldn't draw a breath but what the law heard you and came tossing lead. Some said a kid named Bonny got a kick out of seeing his pictures strewn all over the landscape. Maybe. But it made Cutlass boil inside. Gonzales was on his way back to the long bend in the road. Cutlass watched him detachedly as he turned his bronc loose, then sprawled full length and face down in the road so the Wells Fargo drivers couldn't miss him. The big splotch of red paint on the back of his shirt was visible even from where Cutlass and the Kid waited. The Kid shifted uneasily in his saddle. "Relax," Cutlass said. "Five minutes maybe. That ain't long to sweat." Five minutes for a Dallas to Fort Worth payroll shipment that was supposed to be worth a hundred thousand. Travelling just like any other stage, if you could believe Toady. So as not to draw attention: Just two drivers, a couple of rifles, and maybe two or three regular passengers. Hell. Gonzales and the Kid could have the hundred thousand. He had his pile. Robbin Cutlass couldn't remember where the rest of it had come from exactly--the watch with the initials that weren't his had puzzled him some. But he knew more by instinct than by memory how he'd got it, and that he had plenty more junk like it stashed in a bank safe-deposit box in--yeah, Abilene, what the hell was the matter with him. Sure, he had his pile. But it makes a man sore as hell when all the tin badges in Texas gang together just to hunt him down like a coyote and then hold up his hide for every gawk to hoot at. Who the hell did they think they were to give Robbin Cutlass any back-talk? When the Wells Fargo rig slowed up to have a look at Chico, noise or no noise, by God....