Read And the Hills Opened Up for Free Online

thunderstorm.”
    Roach Clayton was right—they did not seem to care about how much noise they made or who heard it.  That meant a heavy guard, Elwood decided.  An escort of either cocky young roosters, too certain their guns made them safe, or grizzled veterans, too hardened by time and experience to care much what happened to them now.  Either way, they’d put up one hell of a fight if fallen upon.  
    All right, then.  They’d do this Owen’s way, even if it meant him getting a swelled and prideful head.
    You could hear the clopping of hooves separate from the rattling wheels.  Clem Stubbs lifted his rifle and pointed toward the road with it.  Clem was stout and broad-shouldered, with an enormous red beard not unlike the burning bush once revealed to Moses.  What few teeth Clem still had in his jaw were yellow and worn, the last stubborn survivors of his mighty love of sweets.
    “What you think, El?  Should we give ‘em lead and set on them from behind?”
    Hayes shook his head.
    “No.  We’ll wait till they make the delivery and wander off to the saloon.  They won’t be as eager to come running to the aid of the Dennison man after spending a few hours drinking and whoring.”
    Roach Clayton dropped to one knee as if to pray.  He was a short, wiry man with round spectacles that gleamed at odd moments, catching you off guard.  He looked more fit to minding a hardware store than trail living, but he could outride any man and was startlingly handy with a camp knife. 
    “You think we can break the Dennison man?  He’ll be guarding that money chest with his life.  Those company men are like that.”
    “I’ll break him,” Johnny Miller said.  “Just get me in that room with him.”
    Elwood glanced at the young man.  Miller had joined up with them in Denver the month before, a rat-faced youngster who said he wanted to make some easy money and hurt somebody, and not necessarily in that order. 
    Roach said something else Elwood couldn’t hear.  The stagecoach was visible now, accompanied by two guards on horseback in front and two in back.  A lookout rode beside the driver, his rifle laid out across his lap.  The lookout’s eyes swept from one side of the road to the other, never quite resting on one spot as the coach jostled along.  He looked grizzled enough and so did the other guards, none of whom appeared younger than thirty.
    Hayes rubbed his jaw, wondering how exactly they’d finagle all this.  You had to take all the specifics into account when you were robbing a man or things could turn on you in a hurry.   
    The stagecoach and its escort disappeared around a bend in the mountain road, leaving a cloud of dust to slowly settle back on the stony ground.  They brought the horses out of the ravine and remounted.  Elwood brushed the dirt and pine needles from his pants, mindful of the need for respectable appearance as they approached town.  Even in a tiny spider hole like this you didn’t want to alarm anyone unduly, not before the silver was in your pocket and the wind at your back.
    Clem Stubbs rode up beside Hayes—the road was too narrow for more than two riders to get along comfortably.  It was a miracle a stagecoach could fit on such a poor stretch, regardless of its speed.
    “You satisfied with your handsomeness, Elwood?”
    “I am.”
    “A man should be tidy, if he’s going to rob a tidy sum.”
    Hayes smiled, letting his horse pick his way down the slanting road.  “I like that, Clem.  You figure that yourself?”
    “Yes, sir.  Right now, in my very own Christian mind.”
    “Mercy,” Elwood said, shaking his head.  “What wonders hath God wrought in His creation.”
    The road leveled out some.  Elwood kicked his horse to a trot and the other men trailing him followed suit.  Down below, you could make out a cloud of dust rising above the trees as the stagecoach rushed onward, heading toward a small town laid out on the valley floor.  The town, naught but a