John Fitzgerald (17 page)

   
"No trouble, Mamma!" I yelled.
"I've got Cal Roberts hogtied!"

   
My shouting must have awakened Frankie.
"John!" he shouted. "The bad mans is gone!"

   
Uncle Mark, Papa, Mamma, and Aunt Bertha
came running into the barn. They stopped and stared at Cal Roberts hanging from
the rafter upside down.

   
"Well, I'll be double-damned!"
Uncle Mark said, and it was the first time I'd ever heard him swear.

   
"Please hurry, Uncle Mark," I
said. "I need the lariat to get up to the loft to get Frankie."

   
My uncle removed a pair of handcuffs from
his belt. "Just put your hands behind your back, Roberts," he
ordered, "or I'll leave you hanging there until you do."

Cal Roberts put
his hands behind his back. Uncle Mark snapped the handcuffs on the outlaw's
wrists. Then my uncle picked up the revolver and bowie knife.

   
"All right, John," he said.
"Back up Dusty and let him down."

   
I grabbed
Dusty's
mane and backed him up until Roberts was lying on the ground. Uncle Mark
removed the noose from his ankles and told him to stand up. He pointed the
outlaw's revolver at his back.

   
"I'll lock him up in jail," Uncle
Mark said, "and then I'm coming back. I want to hear how a nine-year-old
boy captured the most dangerous outlaw and gunslinger I have ever known."

   
"Are you all right, son?" Papa
asked, as Uncle Mark marched Cal Roberts off to jail.

   
"Papa!"
Frankie shouted from the loft, as he recognized the voice.

   
"I'm just dandy," I said.
"But Frankie is still tied up. I let me get him and then I'll tell you all
about it."

   
I got up to the loft the same way I had
before, with Mamma calling for me to be careful all the way. I untied Frankie
and rubbed his wrists and hands. Then I made him grip my hands to prove the
circulation was restored and he had the strength to hold on before I let him
get on my back. I tossed the rope ladder over the edge of the loft and climbed
down.

   
When we reached the ground, Papa, Mamma,
and Aunt Bertha made a fuss over Frankie and then we all went into j the house.
While Mamma gave Frankie a bath and put him I into a clean nightgown and robe,
I told Papa and Aunt Bertha I what had happened. Then Mamma came back into the
parlor I carrying Frankie in her arms. She sat down in her maple I rocker,
holding him in her lap. I had to tell Mamma about my capture of Cal Roberts. I
had no sooner finished than Uncle Mark arrived, which meant I had to tell it
for the third time. Then my uncle paid me a compliment that I didn't deserve.

   
"I don't believe," he said,
speaking to Papa, "that Tom is your only son with a great brain."

   
"I know I haven't a great brain like
Tom," I said. "But I'm satisfied with my own little brain. I prayed
for a miracle and it happened when the swinging light chain gave me the idea of
how to get up to the loft. Then I put my little brain to work and it worked
just peachy dandy."

   
Papa looked at Frankie, who had gone to sleep
on Mamma's lap with a contented smile on his face. "Mark had me about
convinced his plan was the only possible way to save Frankie's life when
Brownie came scratching and barking at the front door."

   
"I was right about Cal Roberts and the
boy," Uncle Mark said. "Roberts knows he will be hung for killing
those two prison guards. I asked him when I locked him up in jail what he had
intended to do with Frankie. He said he had nothing to lose now by telling the
truth. He intended to kill Frankie as soon as he was sure he wasn't being
followed by a posse."

   
"Just what would Frankie's chances
have been with your plan?" I asked.

"I didn't
admit this to your father," Uncle Mark said, but hitting a moving target
as small as a revolver while shooting at a downward angle would have been about
a hundred-to-one shot. But I figured one chance in a hundred to save the boy
was better than no chance at all."

   
Uncle Mark got to his feet and walked over
to me. "I'd better get going," he said. "But before I go, John,
I want to thank you. And the state of Utah is going to thank you also. There is
a five-hundred-dollar reward for the capture of Cal Roberts."

   
I hadn't even thought about a reward.
"I did it for Frankie, not for any reward," I said.

   
"You risked your life and earned the
reward," Uncle Mark said. "There isn't a doubt in my mind that Cal
Roberts would have killed you if he had woken up while you were in the loft or
if his revolver hadn't fallen out oŁ his holster."

   
I hadn't thought about the danger then and
I couldn't think about it now. "Boy, oh, boy," I said. "Five
hundred dollars makes Tom and his great brain look like a piker."

   
"It will go a long way toward paying
for your education," Uncle Mark said.

   
"Education?"
I asked. I felt my heart drop all the way down to the soles of my shoes.

   
"Wipe that disappointed look off your
face, J.D.," Papa said, smiling. "Your mother and I have no intention
of using the reward money for your education. We are paying to send your
brothers to the Catholic Academy and we will pay to send you and Frankie when
the time comes. But five hundred dollars is just too much money for a boy your
age to have to spend. We will put the money in the bank and give it to you with
the interest when you are eighteen."

   
What Papa said didn't quite wipe the
disappointed look off my face. "Boy, oh, boy, that is a long time
away," I said. "Can't I have any of it now?"

   
Mamma was rocking Frankie in her arms.
"Why do you need more than your allowance now?" she asked.

   
"Well, for one thing," I said,
"to buy new tires and • new sprocket for Tom's bike."

"That you
can have," Papa said.

   
"And I figure I'm old enough to have a
bike of my own," I said. "I want to buy a bike for me and a tricycle
for Frankie."

"That you
can also have," Papa said, smiling.

   
It just goes to prove what a fellow can get
out of life by being himself.
Me
and my little brain,
with God's help, had saved Frankie's life.
Me
and my
little brain had put a dangerous outlaw and killer behind bars. Me and my
little brain had made me the richest kid in Utah and got me a new bike. But
best of all, me and my little brain had got me a younger brother who thought I
was just about the greatest in the world.