Chapter 2

            For Levi Dobson, president of the First Zion Farmer’s Bank in Corinne, in the Utah Territory, regular habits were the mark of a successful banker.  In his opinion, no one in their right mind would entrust their funds to a fellow who kept late hours, or arrived late to appointments, or went fishing on business days, so he did none of these.  Instead he kept meticulous time on his pocket watch, prided himself on his punctuality, and opened the bank doors Monday through Friday without fail at nine o’clock precisely.  Farmers found cash hard to come by, Levi was fond of saying, so they liked to know that they could depend on the man who kept it for them.

            Because he trusted no one but himself to open the bank and the safe each day, he regarded it as his duty to stay healthy.  Therefore he dosed himself with cod liver oil each morning, kept himself out of drafts, and refused to touch his children if they showed the slightest sign of sniffles.  He bathed nightly, at great inconvenience to his wife, who had to heat the water to the proper temperature so Levi might avoid becoming chilled.  Every evening he would set out on his half-hour constitutional around the streets of Corinne while Teresa warmed his bath, returning at a quarter to nine to begin his ablutions.

            One evening in early October he set out as usual, but did not return on time.  Despite the earlier sunset of the autumn, Levi never varied his routine, so it was full dark when Teresa missed him.  She had grumbled somewhat while warming the bath water, which also was routine, but when the parlor clock sounded the quarter hour and Levi did not come through the door, she became alarmed.  She went out on the front porch of their home just off the main street, looking for some sign of her husband.  She heard instead shouts of “Fire!” and saw a ruddy glow silhouetting the Mercantile store, behind which stood the First Zion Farmer’s Bank.

            Levi, on exiting his house, had according to his custom turned down the main street toward the business district of Corinne.  He liked to stroll past the bank and check the door and shutters one last time before continuing his constitutional, perhaps greeting the few citizens still on the street but never stopping to chat, since that would delay him from the warm bath waiting at home.  In October, with the sun already below the horizon and the wind turning chill, no one remained to speak to in any case; Levi had the main street to himself.  He stepped to the front door of the bank and tugged at the stout handle, securely locked and unmolested.

            He turned away from the door and found himself confronted by two strangers, standing in the street just off the board sidewalk.  He had failed to hear them approach and at first did not notice the drawn revolvers each held, noting instead that they had pulled bandannas up to hide the lower parts of their faces.

            “Can I be of service to you, gentlemen?” Levi said, but even as he began, the men came up on either side of him and took hold of his arms.  Levi felt the pistols jab into his ribs and understood the situation all at once.

            “Shut up and open the door,” one of the men growled.

            “This is a robbery,” the other said, although Levi felt it was unnecessary to point this out.

            Since he kept the keys with him at all times, it was the work of only a moment to unlock the front door, and then the men shoved him inside and followed him in, turning to shut and bolt the door.  One of them struck a match and lit the kerosene lamp beside the door, keeping the flame low so no light would show through the gaps in the shutters.  In the dim glow, Levi saw the men were clad in the rough manner of cowboys.  One was thickset, the other taller and leaner, but nothing distinguished them in appearance except that they had removed the spurs from their boots, the better to steal up behind him at the bank door.  Whoever they were, they did not lack for wits.

            “What do you want with me?” he said, even though he knew perfectly well.  He hoped to hear more of their voices, for if they were locals he might recognize their speech.

            “Open the safe,” said the thicker man, still pitching his voice low as a growl.  Levi felt sure he did not know the man, which gave him some slight hope.  If the thieves were not local men, they might not know of his precautions against situations of this sort.  Everyone in town knew he kept a loaded shotgun behind the teller’s counter; fewer knew of the revolver in the vault.  Of course, during business hours armed guards stood watch, and lawmen patrolled the streets after the doors were closed, but guards and guns were poor defenses against men with nothing to lose, and Levi’s sense of duty would not allow him to rely on such.  Therefore he, and only he, knew of his preparations for the last ditch.

            He led the way through the small lobby to his office door, which he unlocked with the key from his ring.  The office beyond, like Levi himself, was neat as a pin, though austere.  Directly across the room, behind the desk, stood the vault door, an iron-bound appurtenance taller and broader than the front doors of most homes.  A specially-built lever secured the door to its iron frame, worn shiny from years of opening and closing every day, and the stout lock had but one key that never left Levi’s person.  The chamber it guarded was an iron cage like a jail cell, built inside the wooden walls so as to thwart anyone who might cut through the walls to circumvent the door.

            The thickset man grunted at the sight of the vault door, then gestured with his revolver and repeated, “Open ‘er up.”  Levi quickly complied, swinging wide the heavy door, but when he made as if to step inside the vault chamber, the lean man stopped him by clutching Levi’s collar and pulling him backward.

            “Keys,” said the thickset man, holding out his free hand.  Levi gave him the ring and the man holstered his pistol before stepping into the vault.  The chamber held a cabinet of many small drawers, where some customers stored personal valuables; two locked chests containing the effects of two miners who had died during the summer and whose estates were still being settled in the courts; and a shiny fireproof safe.  The thickset man ignored the cabinet and chests and instead flipped through the keys until he found the one that matched the safe.  He unlocked it and heaved open the door.  Inside, the safe was divided into smaller compartments much like a lady’s chifforobe or a stationmaster’s desk.  Down the right side were small pigeonholes for keeping documents separate, and a few shallow drawers for loose items.  Down the left were taller shelves, deep as the safe itself, and it was on these that the bank’s assets rested.

            “Bag,” said the thickset man, and the thin one let go of Levi’s collar long enough to pluck a sack from his belt and toss it to his partner, who made short work of pushing bundles of bills into it.  With that accomplished, he skipped over the documents and went directly to the drawers, pulling them open one by one and fishing out the jewels and baubles he found.  When he opened the third drawer down, he paused then turned to look back at Levi.

            “What’s this, mister?” he asked, and though Levi couldn’t see his face, he could hear amusement in the man’s voice.  “Was you worried about gettin’ robbed?”  He raised his right hand from the drawer, and in it he held the little revolver with the pearl grips.  Beside Levi, the thin man snorted through his bandanna.  The thick man shook his head, but made sure to stash the weapon in the bag with the rest of the take.  Still looking at Levi, he opened the fourth drawer and started to reach in.

            A sound like the slow tearing of a piece of paper came from within the safe and the thickset man leapt back, crying out, “Son of a bitch!”

            “What is it?” said the thin man, and stepped to his side to see what the matter was.

            His partner gestured into the open drawer.  “See for yourself,” he said.  “Damn near got my hand!”  He turned back toward Levi, drawing his revolver as he did, saying, “You son of a…”

            But Levi was not where he expected.  As soon as the thin bandit left his side, Levi was moving, grabbing the heavy iron door of the vault and swinging it closed.  He almost made it, but the thickset robber, seeing the shrinking gleam of light beyond the vault door, managed to snap off three shots before the door slammed home.  Levi felt the sting of one of the bullets along the side of his head, another in the meat of this left thigh and shouted in pain and fear, but he put his shoulder to the door and pushed with all his might.  The door rang against the frame; a moment later the two men inside the vault threw themselves against it and the impact drove Levi back a step, but the door failed to burst completely open.  While the men inside gathered themselves for a second attempt, Levi lurched forward and shot home the bolt, securing the iron door in its stout frame.  He couldn’t lock it without the keys, and those were inside the vault with the robbers, but that mattered very little.  There was neither latch nor knob on the inside of the door.

            Levi stood away from the vault door, gingerly, as if expecting the latch to pop open of its own accord.  A sharp, loud sound came from behind the door: a pistol shot, followed by incoherent and almost inaudible yelling.  It seemed the men had discovered that the door couldn’t be shot through.  Levi’s shoulders slumped in relief.  The vault would hold the men long enough for him to fetch some help.

            But when he turned away from the vault, limping on his injured leg, he discovered what had become of at least one of the bullets the thick man had fired--it had struck and shattered the oil lamp placed on the desk, which he now found engulfed in flames.

            Levi hobbled from the bank to raise the alarm, but that was already too late for the two men locked inside the vault.  The fire burned for hours, and though the people of Corinne turned out at once to battle the fire, it spread quickly among the dry wood-frame buildings, fanned by the cold autumn wind. 

* * * * *

            Three days later Cash and Tom sat their horses at the side of the street in Corinne, staring at the still-smoldering rubble of the bank.  Jagged black timbers rose from the pile of cinders and ash and here and there a metal fitting or a twisted doorknob shone dully.  In the center of it all stood the metal cage, askew on the charred, fallen floor joists.  The vault door, still shut, bore streaks of soot.  The safe gaped wide, empty of valuables.

“Damnation,” said Tom Mulvehill.

They turned and rode toward the center of town, looking for a saloon among the buildings that remained standing.  They still had the takings from the stage four days previous, and looked forward to spending some of it.