Chapter Twenty-Six

I brushed myselfoff as I got out of the SUV, but I still looked like I'd been doing hard labor in a dusty attic.

Ivy was occupied, so I sat at one of the computer terminals, looking up names of the outlaws we'd encountered. I'd done this at home and at KWMT, too, but the library had different resources.

Not much at all on the Virtanens, as Ivy had said. I segued to Laura Bullion and Ben Kilpatrick, confirming much of what I'd already seen. Also confirming an impression.

"Are you waiting for me, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, and thank you." I turned toward her as she sat in the empty spot beside me.

She smiled in protest. "I haven't done anything."

"Oh, yes, you did. You saved me from looking up Butch, Sundance, and Etta, again, and getting a headache."

"A headache?"

"A thousand contradictory stories, often stated flatly as fact."

She laughed, then covered her mouth in an instinctive reversion to the old Hush days of libraries. "I know. And they don't cite their sources or specify dates, so it's hard — impossible — to tell when they're contradicting each other or what's already been proven untrue."

She shook her head in commiseration, which I appreciated.

I wondered if Keefe and Sam had felt the same frustration. Or if they, like some of the writers of the online articles, picked a particular version of the story and went with it, not acknowledging pesky contradictions.

"Ivy, I know the person who shared Keefe's interests, especially in the Virtanens is Sam McCracken. Did they talk about going to Elk Rock Ranch?"

"Keefe mentioned Sam coming to his place a few times. In fact, he said Sam was coming—"

Her eyes widened.

On video I'd have made her say it herself. Now, I spared her. "Just before Keefe was killed."

"Yes," she said in a small voice. "But that doesn't mean—"

"Did you observe them together? In conversation, sharing notes—"

"They did share notes," she said eagerly, as if that proved murder was impossible between them. "And they'd sit together sometimes, so if I'd find something — anything — I'd bring it to both of them. That was a relief, because they often asked for the same material and it was awkward giving it to one first, though I always based it on who asked first and—"

Before she wound herself into an unbreakable knot, I jumped in with, "I wonder why they became so fascinated?" I already had a good idea for each, so I broadened it. "Why people are drawn to... well, thieves?"

I understood the allure of the Butch and Sundance characters from the movie. But that was a movie, not who the men had been in real life. After all they did steal things and I've never gotten the draw of thieves. Okay, Cary Grant in It Takes a Thief. But, c'mon, Cary Grant. Besides, he was reformed.

Even as a kid, I was not entranced with Robin Hood the way my brothers were. Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor was a stop-gap measure. You needed a more systemic solution. Granted, those take longer, and a free press is vital, which they didn't have in the Middle Ages. But, still, not my favorite movies.

Ivy tipped her head, considering my question seriously.

"It's seen as a period when the Wild in the Wild West was fading away and people — especially men — can get nostalgic about that. The idea that men were free to roam the west and not be connected to the markers of civilization, like churches and schools and such. In fact, they robbed two symbols of the taming of the west — banks and railroads."

I suspected that had more to do with the fact that that's where the money was, but I wouldn't argue.

"In this area, the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century was viewed as a far more major shift than moving from the Twentieth to the twenty-first was for us. Those outlaws started operating a few years before and most of them were dead by the end of the first decade of the new century.

"So, yes, some nostalgia. Seeing it as a more romantic period. For example, did you know the Wanted poster on Butch Cassidy for one of his robberies referred to him as a Highwayman? So did Wanted posters for Oscar Virtanen."

Okay, that was kind of cool.

"Highwaymen." She rolled the word around on her tongue "So much more appealing than bank robbers. One certainly wouldn't call the Al Capones and John Dillingers of the 1930s highwaymen. Far too dashing and romantic for them. Then, the emphasis was on how many people they'd killed — think of Bonnie and Clyde. But with Butch Cassidy's gang it was—" She paused. "It was mostly the amount of money they stole, which was considerable."

"You're thinking of Kid Curry as the exception, because he did kill around a dozen people."

"Yes, as a matter of fact I was. If you're interested, I can show you copies of those Wanted posters."

I was and she did.

The photo of Butch Cassidy was from his time in prison. The one for Oscar Virtanen had no photo, but instead a sketch. He could have been just about any young man of that era with regular features and no distinguishing marks. I thought I saw some indication of Butch Cassidy's personality in his photo, but there was none of Oscar's in the sketch.

"And here's a reward poster for Laura Bullion."

She was called away after that and I left, thinking about the posters.

Sure, highwayman was romantic — if you weren't on the opposite end of the holdup. But I was also struck that the reward for Laura Bullion was one-tenth of that offered on Butch and one-fifth of that offered on Oscar.

But no reward for Pearl.

That sent my thoughts down another trail.

Pearl was in on the two earlier robberies with him.

Why did she not accompany him on the last one?

Could she have been pregnant?

Sam said the secondary source about that now-lost article commented on the posse member's deep sympathy for the widow. Why such sympathy for a dead outlaw's wife? But if that young wife was also pregnant...

Speculation. Total speculation.

But as long as I was speculating, it also occurred to me that with the planning that had gone into the second robbery, with getting out of town on a train, then laying a false trail that they were going farther than they did, and getting clean away, perhaps there was other planning.

Like where to hide the loot if a posse was hot on his trail?

He'd gone north, toward where Pearl was, where their property was. Also toward a pre-designated spot?

So, if he did bury the proceeds, she would have known where it was. Were these men chasing something that — if it existed in the first place — most likely was removed by his accomplice, his wife not long after it was buried?

Would it matter to Keefe?

I got the idea that he wanted the connection, not the fortune. At least he wanted the connection more.

But Sam McCracken?

How would he react if someone pulled the treasure hunt rug out from under him?

I thought of what I'd read about the searchers for Forrest Fenn's treasure. A few went off the deep end — during the search and after it was declared over.

If Keefe told Sam he was the proven descendant of Oscar Virtanen...

Sam wouldn't care. Unless it affected finding the treasure.

It wasn't like Keefe would inherit the money even if he had been proven to be Oscar's descendant, since it was stolen.

So, was there anything that could have pushed Sam over the edge?