Three weeks later, three young men rode into Dodge. "Slim" (Jack), "Curly" (Bart), and Marcus were all twenty years old and murderous bank robbers. Marcus, the leader, who had hair so fair that it was almost colorless, allowed no one to call him anything but "Marcus." The last man who persisted in teasing him with "Whitey" still walked with a limp.
The three twenty-year-olds were the survivors of the recent botched robbery attempt at Mr. Botkin's bank. The end result was no money, the loss of two young gang members, Cookie and Shorty, and Marcus adding two more murders, the Sharps, to his accounting. The young man was only concerned with the loss of the money, but wouldn't mind avenging the deaths of his gang members to enhance his stature in the eyes of his remaining men.
Marcus led his two friends through the swinging doors of the Long Branch and skirted around the crowd for an out of the way table in the back.
"What are we doin' here Marcus?" asked Curly, whose wide-set eyes and thick brown curls belied his cut-throat nature.
"SSSH…hold it down!" Marcus hissed as he grabbed the young man's shirt. "Don't ya remember that trail bum we came across on the way here who told us that big Marshal hangs out in here?"
Slim nodded and looked at Curly. "That's right. Last thing he told us before we shot him and took his grub. Boy, did we surprise him! He thought we were harmless kids!" The skinny young man ran a slender hand through his long black hair and grinned, remembering the stunned look on the cowboy's face before he shot him.
Marcus leaned forward across the table, and the other two young men did too as he motioned for them to come closer.
"We are gonna rob that bank and this time we GET the money! But first we're gonna get rid of that big Marshal and his scruffy Deputy when they come in here later tonight. If they don't come in tonight, we'll keep showing up here until they do."
Slim and Curly grinned and nodded, always trusting in Marcus' superior mental processes, despite the loss of two of their gang during the last robbery attempt. Marcus had laid the blame totally on the U.S. Marshal, and somehow made it sound logical.
As they quietly sat in the back of the saloon, slowly sipping on one beer apiece, Marcus' sharp, cornflower blue eyes intently watched the big, craggy-faced bartender, the three young saloon girls wearing tight, low-cut dresses and bright makeup, and the other customers. His main interest was the swinging doors, waiting for a very tall, large man to come through.
Rita, the youngest saloon girl at nineteen, had been glancing towards the back table as she made her rounds laughing and drinking with cowboys and gamblers. From a distance, the fine, white-blond hair of the tallest one, who seemed in charge, swung like a silk curtain when he moved his head.
Sauntering closer, she put on her best alluring look and jutted out one shapely hip.
"Howdy cowboy! How about you joining me over at the bar for a REAL drink?" she purred, reaching out a hand to touch his soft-looking hair.
Quick as a striking snake, a ropey muscled arm shot out and his hand encircled her wrist with a viselike grip.
"OW! HEY! Let GO of me, ya…" The frown fell from her face as her deep brown eyes met his blue ones. She felt sharp, stunning fear as she looked into his soulless, beautiful eyes.
When Marcus allowed the frightened girl to finally pull her wrist free, he gave a slight smirk as Rita scampered away to the far corner of the bar where big Sam was. She rubbed her wrist in disbelief until gratefully accepting a timid young cowboy's polite offer of a drink.
Thirty minutes later, Marcus gave his two partners a humorless grin as the U.S. Marshal and his scruffy-looking Deputy pushed in through the swinging doors.
"Now all we need to do is be patient and wait for the place to empty out ," the young blond man instructed Slim and Curly. He smiled when he saw the sharp eyes of the big lawman automatically scan the room and pass over them. Three harmless young cowboys enjoying a beer.