Ransom (13 page)

They had to—

Dick's right foot encountered a . . . something. A root, a rock, perhaps something else. It did not matter. What did matter was that he tripped. He lost his balance and flailed about in an attempt to regain it.

The shotgun suddenly was in his right hand only.

He clung tight to it so as not to drop it and not be able to find it again in the darkness.

His right hand clamped tight into a fist to maintain control over the lovely, custom-made shotgun.

The hammers on the gun were already cocked. It was something he had not wanted to risk forgetting at the last instant.

His right hand closed tight.

On the triggers.

The explosion and fiery blast lit up the woods for a dozen feet in any direction and both charges of heavy buckshot crashed into the tree branches high overhead while Dick felt as if his arm had been broken by the heavy recoil.

Over by the fire the three men leaped to their feet and turned to see.

Dick scrambled with shaky fingers to break the action of the shotgun, extract the spent shells, and fumble fresh ones into the chambers.

 

Louise Taylor

Loozy was frightened, lying tied hand and foot at the back of some rotten old cave. It was even worse now that she was alone. The man had taken Mama away. He left her hands tied just like Loozy's were but untied her feet and led her outside. That had been . . . she did not really know how long ago. It seemed a very long time.

She could not hear anything and there was nothing to see, nothing but gray rock and the edges of the burlap sacking that she was lying on.

Her nose was running, but she could not reach up to wipe it. She could have turned her head and rubbed her face on the burlap, but that was filthy and smelled sour and she did not want to touch it, much less wipe her face on it.

When she heard footsteps coming into the cave, Loozy tensed and tried to pretend that she was sleeping.

She heard the man's voice. “Lie back down.” And she felt Mama lying down close behind her.

She could feel Mama jerking a little. Like she had hiccups. Or like she was sobbing but quietly, trying to keep Loozy from knowing that she was crying.

Thinking about that made Loozy cry again too. But quietly in the hope that Mama would not notice.

When she was sure she had her crying under control, in a soft voice she asked, “Where did you go, Mama? What did he make you do?”

“He just took me outside for a little while.”

“But what did you do?”

“It doesn't matter.” Mama was crying again. Loozy could hear it in her voice. “It doesn't matter, sweetheart. Try to rest now.”

“When will we go home, Mama?”

“When Papa Hahn pays the ransom for us, honey.”

“Will it be soon? I want to go home now, Mama.” Her tears had dried on her face. She could feel them there. She wanted to wipe her face. Wipe her nose. Scratch the places that itched. She wanted to go home!

“I know, sweetie. I know you do.”

She felt Mama take a deep breath.

“So do I.”

She felt Mama shift over tight against her back, which was as close to a hug as they could manage lying there on the thin burlap pad with their hands and their feet tied.

“So do I,” Mama whispered.

A few minutes later she felt Mama move and then in a cheerful voice say, “Do you know what you should do? You should think of happy things. Think about good things. Think about . . . do you remember when you asked if you could have a kitten? I'll bet you do. I'll bet you remember that. Well, think about the kitten you would like to have. Think about what color it would be and what you would like to name it. Think an entire make-believe kitten.”

“Why?” Loozy asked sullenly. “I can't have one. Dick doesn't like cats.”

“I will make you a promise, dear. When we get home again you can have your kitten.”

“Really? Promise?”

“Pinky swear,” Mama said.

Loozy tried to concentrate on a kitten—her kitten, her exact kitten, all soft and furry and purring like Andrea Hemple's cat did when she cuddled and petted it—but it
was not easy. Her nose was still running and the burlap smelled just awful and her wrists hurt where the cord was cutting into them and she wanted to go home!

She started to cry again.

Chapter 13

The three men were seated close around their fire, talking and cooking something on dingle sticks held over the coals, scratching and spitting and laughing together. Until Richard Hahn's shotgun fired. Then the man with his back toward John Taylor jumped so hard he fell over backward, fortunately away from the fire or he would have rolled right into it. The two who were slumped round-shouldered with their hats pulled down over their eyes leaped to their feet and threw their hands into the air in surrender.

“Jesus . . . what!”

“Don't shoot. My God, don't shoot.”

Taylor dashed forward. Then dropped the muzzle of his shotgun toward the ground. “Lenny. Bob. What the hell are you boys doing out here?”

“John? Is that you?”

Taylor approached the fire, embarrassment writ large on his features. He turned and motioned for Hahn to come out. “It's all right. These are friends of mine.”

“We're up here hoping to find an elk,” one of the three said.

“Meat hunting? What, the XY can't afford to feed its hands nowadays?” Taylor said.

The tallest of the three shook his head. “We feed good, as you oughta know from all the times you've worked with us. No, elk meat is mighty good an' we won't let any
of it go to waste, but what we're really looking for is an extra-fine rack. There's a new fraternal outfit in the valley called the Elk's Lodge. They'd like a really good set of antlers to hang.” The man grinned. “Which is what we're doing here. Now what about you?”

Taylor glanced at Hahn before he answered. They were not supposed to say anything about the kidnapping on pain of death. Jessica's and Loozy's death. “This is kind of s'posed to be a secret, fellas. What with a new outfit coming into the valley. We're, uh, looking for fresh graze where a man might run a few head of beeves.”

“Not up here, I'd think,” one of the hunters said. “You should know that, John. You been in this country long enough to know your way around.”

“Yeah, I suppose, but we won't know for certain sure 'til we've looked everything over.” He straightened and smiled. “Fellas, let me introduce Dick here. Dick, these no-account wastrels are . . .”

* * *

Taylor pulled a tin cup out of the pack on the horse he was leading. He squatted by the fire and helped himself to a splash of coffee from the battered pot already boiling there. He looked across the fire and grinned. “Randy, I know good an' well you got to have a last name. It's just that I never heard it.”

The cowboy known as Randy said, “Smith. I answer to Smith. To a bunch of other names too if you'd rather.”

Taylor nodded and raised the cup to his lips, careful to keep them from touching the hot metal. He blew on the steaming coffee and said, “That works for me.”

Billy Frake pulled out the makings for a cigarette. He
asked Hahn, “You in the cow business, mister? Forgive me for askin' but you don't look much like a cowboy.”

“I'm more in the financing end of things,” Hahn said.

“You're a buyer, then?” Tony Francotti said.

“Not exactly,” Hahn said with a smile, “but on that order of things.”

Francotti nodded as if that explained everything and reached for Billy's makings without bothering to ask. But then the two had worked together for years and were long accustomed to each other's habits.

“What about you, John? Are you working for this gentleman?” Randy Smith asked.

“Oh, you know me, boys. I'm just a day hire.”

“You got shotguns, I see. What're you hunting with them up this high?”

Taylor shrugged. “Nothing as handsome as you boys are after. Dick here was thinking we might run into some grouse. Or he might take some rabbits or squirrels for the pot.” He grinned. “Thinking of pots, what d'you have in there for supper? We got some beef that has to be et before it goes rotten.”

“Beans,” Billy said. “We got beans.”

“So what say we throw in our slabs of beef to go along with your beans?” He turned to Hahn and said, “How's about you bring out all that good beef? The five of us can eat it before it gets bad.”

Hahn started to speak, then thought better of whatever he had been about to say. A protest, Taylor suspected, on account of that beef being very expensive cuts of tender meat. But they really were soon to turn green. Instead of selfishly complaining, Hahn stood and went to his packs to bring out the meat.

* * *

Taylor lay under his soogan staring up at the stars, what of them he could see through the branches of the pines that surrounded them. Someone on the other side of the dying coals was snoring and one of the other boys was smacking his lips. He might or might not have been awake when he did it. The air smelled of wood smoke and pine sap. And something a little more pungent after one of the waddies passed wind, but he was accustomed to that sort of thing. It came with being among men in a rough land.

Hahn had spread his blankets close to Taylor's bed. The man seemed to feel awkward amongst these boys who Taylor knew so well and was so comfortable with. And the truth was, Taylor thought, Hahn was far out of his celluloid collar and necktie way of living. Up here the man was the proverbial babe in the woods.

Oh God. Why did he have to go and think about that? Loozy really was a baby in the woods. Somewhere. Being held somewhere against her will and her mother's.

Where were they now, damn it? How far from this lonely campsite? Were they safe? Had those sons of bitches harmed them?

John Taylor was not a man much given to violence. But if anyone had hurt Jess or Loozy either one . . .

Oh God, he thought. He moaned aloud and rolled over, but there was no comfort to be found.

 

Jessica Taylor

Jess tried to muffle the sounds of her sobbing and the tremors of her shaking. She did not want to frighten Loozy even more than the child already was. Certainly she would never tell Loozy what that awful man had done to her out there, but she could not help crying and wishing for . . . for what?

For rescue? No one could possibly find them out here so far from civilization.

For ransom? Dick and she did not have the kind of money the man was demanding and he would not break the trust of the bank to obtain it. That, she feared, was not so much a matter of integrity as that he would not risk a prison term for having stolen the investment funds.

Jessica surprised herself with that thought. Did she have so little confidence in Dick as to think he would put his own welfare above that of herself and Louise?

The truth was that she was not sure. That in itself was something of an indictment.

And no one else knew they were up here. There was no one else to bring them succor.

The man told her what he had written in his note to Dick. Told her and then laughed at his own cleverness, for there was no gang. No one watched down there in Thom's Valley. No one knew other than the man and Dick.

Jessica trembled. And nearly jumped out of her skin when the man came to the back of the adit—that was
what the man called it, not a tunnel but an adit—and lay down beside her.

She thought the son of a bitch was going to attack her again, right there beside Loozy where the child could hear and even feel the terrible things he did to her, but all he did in fact was to lie down and press himself tight against her spoonlike so she was sandwiched between Loozy and him.

It was bad enough that he put his arm over her and slid his hand inside her bodice so he could fondle her, his hand painfully rough on tender flesh, but the other would have been worse.

Mercifully soon he began to snore, the noise of it close behind her ear.

Jess squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried to will herself into the peaceful freedom of sleep, but that release would not come to her.

Chapter 14

Tony Francotti apologetically said, “I'm real sorry, John, but we don't have anything to spare. We brought just enough for five days and we been out four already.”

“That's all right. We understand.” Taylor reached for the coffeepot and helped himself to a swallow or two.

“If we had extra we'd sure give it to you, though.”

“I know that, Tony. Don't give it a thought.” He smiled and raised his cup to blow on the dark brew it held.

“You boys are running short, are you?” Randy Smith asked.

“Ayuh. A little bit.” The truth was that Dick Hahn hadn't known road apples from apple pie when it came to laying in supplies for a trek into the mountains. Most of the things he had bought, like the fresh beef, was already going bad and would have to be thrown away. The ready-made biscuits were reduced to crumbs. Taylor did not want to embarrass the man by saying so, though. They had the jerky he had bought at Nate's hog ranch back by the waterfall but not much else.

“You could go down to Embry's store,” Billy Frake suggested.

“Embry's?” Taylor asked, his eyebrows rising. “Don't reckon I know it.”

“It's in the next drainage over,” Billy said, waving vaguely toward the southwest.

“Closer than Nate Dollar's place?” Taylor asked.

“I'd say so, yes, and with lots more to choose from. Plenty cheaper too,” Billy told them.

Taylor grunted. “Reckon this Embry fella has bacon? I got me a hankering for some bacon.”

Tony laughed. “Bacon and beans, that's what a cowhand lives on.”

“Ain't that the truth?” Billy said. “As for Embry's, he's for sure got bacon. I've never bought of it to judge the quality, but I've seen slabs of cured bacon hanging in the rafters, so I know it's there.”