The Bank Job

Circa 1850

“I hear you need a good teamster,” John Shelley said as he walked into the stable that doubled as an office.

“Yeah,” Bill Deane replied. “Do you have experience with horses?”

“Yes sir,” John said. “I was raised on a farm. I’ve handled two and four horse teams. What do you have in mind?”

“I need someone to help me do a bank job.”

“A what?” John said. 

“A bank job,” Bill replied. 

“Sorry, sir,” John said, turning to leave. “But I don’t do anything illegal.” 

“Hold on,” Bill replied with a chuckle. “It’s a delivery job. My company has been hired to deliver a big cast iron safe from the train station to the basement of that new bank downtown. It’ll be the bank’s main security for money and other valuables.

“We need a four-horse team to lower the safe down a special ramp we’ve had made. You said you have experience with four horse teams?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” John said. “If you have the team, I can do the job.” 

“A portion of the bank building’s foundation has been removed for us to deliver the safe. Crews will be standing by to restore the foundation and replace the soil once the safe is in place.”

“Looks routine,” John said.

Early on the morning of the delivery, John drove the four-horse team to pick up the big safe and bring it to the site on a low-slung heavy-duty wagon. A crew helped unload it at the top of the ramp and secure it to the horses’ harness with specially designed heavy-duty leather straps. John guided the horses as they began to lower the safe slowly down the ramp to the basement. 

All went well … at first.  

The safe was part way down the ramp when Shelley heard a loud ‘crack’. At first, he thought it was a gun shot. The straps holding the harness to the huge metal safe had broken. The safe began rolling down the ramp on its big iron wheels, gaining momentum as it went. No one dared try to stop it. The safe was moving at a brisk pace upon arriving at the cement floor. It went barreling across the room, the intended location, and crashed through a sturdy brick wall beyond, where it stopped. 

Startled workers rushed down the ramp, through the basement opening and approached the scene, preparing to survey the carnage. There, amid clouds of dust they found the safe, by some miracle still upright.  

It had crashed into the studio apartment of the recently appointed bank clerk. And there it stood, towering over the foot of a large double bed occupied by the bank clerk and a young woman, clutching bed sheets to her chest. The crew quietly turned and left the basement. They never learning her name. 

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 James Osborne is the author of five books including the Amazon #1 bestseller about ISIS and al Qaeda, THE ULTIMATE THREAT . His short stories have been published in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary and professional journals, as well as in a collection, ENCOUNTERS WITH LIFE.

Osborne’s varied career includes investigative journalist, college teacher, army officer, vice president of a Fortune 500 company, business owner, and writer/editor.