The next day they mounted up and rode back toward town. Jeb couldn't believe his eyes when he exited the mine. The desert was even more flat and barren than it had been before the twister. The clusters of trees that had sparsely populated the horizon were all gone, completely razed by the brutal winds. Jeb steered the horse toward town and his office with mixed feelings. As he road he thought about what he'd heard said in the tunnel the day before, about how Betsy was carrying Herbert's child. He didn't know if that were true or not, and he didn't ask. He didn't want to know, was the bottom line. When he got back to the office he'd make up some kind of story about how the bandits were casing the mine for leftover gold. Or maybe the bandits were there trying to set up some kind of lair, or operating base that they could run raids out of. Jeb would have to think about it a little bit before he said anything, really feel out what Herbert knew before opening his mouth to fill him in on the bandits. If Herbert already knew that the bandits had planned on using Betsy as leverage against him this might be the wake up call that told Herbert he needed to get rid of Betsy. Jeb shook his head as he thought about it.
“What are you thinking about?” Betsy asked from behind him on the saddle.
“Nothing much,” Jeb said. He turned his head around to look at her and then froze in terror.
He'd made a terrible mistake. When they'd exited the mine Jeb had assumed that all of the bandits from the day before had been wiped out by the twister since the destruction in front of them was so complete. But he saw now that that was wrong. A group of about fifty bandits formed a line behind them on the horizon and readied to pursue, like a vast net trying to snag a bird out of the air.
“Well shit,” Jeb said. “Just when you think that things have worked out like they should.” Jeb spurred his horse to a gallop. He hoped the poor beast could make it to town before the bandits caught up to them. He'd been riding the animal hard the last two days, and there would come a point when it would just give out and tumble to the ground, sending Jeb and Betsy end over end onto the desert.
“Where did they all come form?” Betsy asked. “There weren't as many yesterday.”
“I'm not sure what's going on, anymore,” Jeb said. And he was being truthful. With this many bandits about something much bigger, maybe even something organized, was going on with them. “All I know is we need to make it to town or we aren't going to make it at all.”
The horse underneath them made it all the way to the town's outskirts before it started to stumble. Twisting his neck again Jeb checked behind them to find the bandits were falling back form their pursuit. Just as he had expected, the idea of riding into town on line and with arms in the open wasn't something the bandits were very keen on. Right now they didn't want the people of Black Hawk County to be very aware of their existence. Jeb knew just as the bandits did that most peoples' reaction to robbers and bushwhackers was to form a posse and hang them. That was the only real way to deal with them if there wasn't a presence of law that deterred them; and although he was a decent sheriff, there was only one of him. He would be needing a posse if he wanted to do anything real to the bandits.
The rest of the way to his office Jeb didn't bring the horse's pace above a trot. Jeb hoped that he hadn't caused any permanent damage to the horse; they were hardy animals but sometimes when their limits were pushed too far they never really came back from them. Jeb thought back over all of the horses he'd owned, and several came to mind that he'd really pushed hard that were never the same horse again. He didn't want to think he'd done that to this horse because it had always been a faithful beast, even if Jeb was sentimental enough to give it a name. It wasn't that it didn't deserve a name, it's just that things in Jeb life seemed to die or disappear without warning so he reckoned getting attached to his horse was a bad idea.
By the time they made it to his office it was dusk. Without saying anything Jeb tied the horse off and made his way into the office with Betsy in tow. Everything was just as he'd left it. The pile of papers, the empty jail cells, everything.
“What are you going to tell the, errr,” Betsy hesitated. “The authorities. Not that you aren't one of them, but you know what I mean.”
“I haven't thought that far ahead yet,” Jeb said. “For right now all I know is that I'm going to change clothes and go to bed. You are welcome to join me if you want. I have some womens' clothes you could try on and wear if they fit. Having a small jail here means I need to keep such things on hand.”
They both changed quickly and slipped into the small bed that Jeb had in his office. He closed his eyes knowing the next day would be a flurry of phone calls and explaining what happened. But the next day was not today, so Jeb closed his eyes and slept soundly with Betsy at his side. He dreamed of riding his horse across the plains at the Battle of Los Hills.