Smiler knew her and we were welcome. The feed of beans and salt pork was spread for us. She locked the door and, while we ate, this most unusual woman estimated the value of our loot, spread out on one end of the oilcloth-covered kitchen table where we sat.

Salt Chunk Mary put no acids on the watches, nor pried into the works. She hefted the yellow ones with a practiced hand and glanced but once at the white ones.

I surveyed her as I ate. She was about forty years of age, hard-faced and heavy-handed. Her hair was the color of a sunburned brick, and her small blue eyes glinted like ice under a March sun. She could say “no” quicker than any woman I ever knew, and none of them ever meant “yes.”

She went into the adjoining room and returned with a roll of bills. “Four hundred dollars, Smiler.”

“Good! Give us small bills, Mary.”

He divided the money equally between us and we got up to go.