[i]The money.[/i]

He had to go back for the money.

For what would not be the last time in many, many days, Taylor R. Jackson's thoughts once again returned to the pounds and pounds of gold stashed in that cave back in New Mexico. Ten thousand dollars lifted from stagecoaches, homesteads and banks from all across Arizona and California. Ten thousand dollars was the worth of his life. And all because of that one tip that goddamned snake of a Mexican fed them, gold magnate Karl Jorgensen would ensure that this chase was not going to let up until either him or all of the gang were dead.

Some of the gang said they were going to hole up in a ranch in Kansas. Yet a couple more said that they were headed up north in Dakota, probably rob some miners on the way there. And now here he was in this godforsaken town, gambling away what was left of his life's work to a darkie, a redskin, and a couple of dandies probably from up north. This was it. He was living the life. On an ordinary day he and his gang would have this entire saloon quaking in fear and spilling the contents of their wallets all over the floorboards. Now he was hiding like a rat in this ballsack of a town with his face splashed all over wanted posters from here to Phoenix. Granted, they weren't very good impressions, but he paid a boy a couple of cents to take down the most accurate ones plastered in the town square.

What was he doing here? Waiting? Planning? He felt aimless. He was lost. Why did he want to go it alone? An extra gun or two, while conspicuous, would have been useful in the case a bounty hunter or a Pinkerton showed up on his trail.

But well, it was only a few dollars. After one last round, he'd go up to his room and hit the sack. 

"Your loss, mister," he muttered, taking the two cards the well-dressed man dealt to him.