Cerveza para los Bandidos Una Más

Story by Sumit Vohra.

San Lázaro held its fiesta on the last night of the harvest, and the whole town went. That was the point.

Golden fireworks bursting over a border town and its adobe church

Five men lay flat on the roof of the feed store with bandanas up and hat brims down. Below them the street ran with lanterns and music. Across it stood the Harlan Mining Company payroll wagon, waiting for morning, guarded by two men with shotguns and a jug they thought nobody had seen.

The oldest had drawn the plan in chalk on a roof tile. He never drew a gun; he drew plans. The youngest kept touching his holster, the way the young do. One of them was eating an orange, because he was always eating something. One kept trying to whistle and never could. And the last one counted everything. He counted the guards twice, the lanterns twice and the steps to the wagon twice, and nodded.

Five masked men flat on a rooftop above the payroll wagon, a plan drawn in chalk on a tile

At the first rocket, they went.

A rocket bursts overhead as five shadows drop toward the wagon

It went beautifully. The guards and the jug were asleep before the second rocket. The strongbox came off the wagon like it wanted to leave. Five horses, one box, gone into the hills before the third.

Five riders gallop into moonlit hills with a strongbox, fireworks behind them

It went too beautifully. The oldest felt it the whole ride.

In an arroyo under the moon they pried the lid. Inside was sand. Nothing but sand, and a folded note in a fine hand: Bandits struck again.

An open strongbox in a moonlit arroyo, full of gray sand, a folded note on top

The youngest swore. The one who was always eating stopped eating.

The one who counted did not swear. He let the sand run through his fingers, and then he counted what was wrong.

The one who counts lets gray sand run through his fingers while the others lean in

The sand was gray and sharp, not the yellow dust of the road. It was tailings, rock crushed at a mine, and only one mine in San Lázaro had a tailings pile.

The lock had not been forced. It had been opened with a key, cleanly, and locked again. Only one man had that key.

Mr. Harlan had emptied his own payroll before it ever left the office. He filled the box with his own tailings and waited for bandits to take the blame. His miners would go another month unpaid, and he would tell them to thank the bandidos.

The oldest looked at the moon and did arithmetic. The fireworks finale came at midnight. Harlan lit the big rocket on the church steps himself every year, so everyone could see him do it. His house on the hill would be empty.

Mr. Harlan on the church steps lighting a giant rocket for the crowd

"His safe," said the oldest.

"Tonight?" said the youngest.

"Tonight," said the one who couldn't whistle, and very nearly did.

The safe in Harlan's study was old and loud. The one who could not whistle knelt beside it with his ear to the steel and his eyes on the window. He only turned the dial when a rocket burst, so the boom swallowed every click.

A bandit kneels at an old iron safe, ear to the steel, fireworks bursting in the window

It was the loudest finale San Lázaro ever had. The door swung open on the last rocket.

At dawn the town found the payroll stacked on the church steps, every envelope with a miner's name on it, every one full.

Harlan stood on those same steps in his nightshirt and screamed for the bandits to be hanged. Nobody looked up from counting their pay.

Miners take pay envelopes from the church steps while Harlan shouts in his nightshirt

That night the cantina was full. Five bandanas hung on a peg by the door, and five men nobody recognized sat at a table nobody bothered. They ordered five beers. The barkeep brought six, and set the last one down in the middle of the table with a look that said he had not miscounted.