Ransom (18 page)

Taylor had dropped to kneel beside the dead man. “I'm checking his pockets and I'm taking his guns, that's what I'm doing. Do you want his rifle or the pistol? You take one; I'll keep the other.” He thought about swapping his hat for Randy's. Randy's was newer and in better shape, but there was something about the idea of wearing the man's hat, with his sweat on the liner and the brim shaped to suit a dead man. That just did not sit well with him. He left the hat where it was. And he left the man's money in his pockets too. He would hate to have to think of himself as a thief. Taking the guns was only good sense, but taking money would feel like stealing.

“You can't . . . that is . . .” Hahn was clearly unhappy with the idea of taking anything at all.

“The son of a bitch is dead, Dick, and there's no law here to turn him over to. He for damned sure can't get any more use outta them guns and maybe we can. Now let me set them aside and we can drag him over to that cutbank yonder. We'll spill some dirt down on him an' let it go at that. Then if you don't mind you can hike up-canyon an' fetch our horses while I go look for his. We'll just add it to our string.”

“Shouldn't we find someone to report this to?”

Taylor shook his head. “That's all the way down to town. It would take days, Dick. Maybe longer. Don't forget, every minute that goes by, Jessica and Loozy are in the hands of that gang o' kidnappers an' God knows
what's happening to them. No, sir, we can't delay any longer'n we have to. Any reports that get done will have t' be after this is over an' we can go home. And if it comes to be that, we don't make it home again, well, then it won't matter anyhow.”

“You're right, of course.” Hahn hesitated, then went on, “I'll go find our horses and bring them down.”

“I'll meet you . . . uh . . . not here. Not by all this blood. Down by that bend in the gulch. Now grab this fella's feet, will you? The quicker we get him covered up, the quicker we can get after them kidnappers again.”

 

Jessica Taylor

Jessica wiped her nose on the hem of her dress. That would have been unthinkable just a few short days ago. Now it was . . . unimportant. As so very much was, it seemed. Loozy was important. Staying alive was important. When she thought about it, there was not very much more that was.

A bath. Now, that would be deeply, thoroughly, completely enjoyable. Would it be truly important? Probably not. But if they lived through this horrid experience, she intended to draw a bath and soak in it until she wrinkled up and looked like a prune.

Not that she expected ever to feel clean again. Not after that man, that awful man. He was crude and he hurt her and there was no water to spare for bathing. The water that came seeping out of the rock was icy cold and there was not enough of it to bathe in. The best she could do was to take a bit of cloth torn from her petticoat and sponge herself off. That was far from making her feel really clean. She wanted to take a scrub brush to all the places where he touched her.

Jessie began to cry again. She had thought her tears all used up. but it seemed that was something there was no end to.

Loozy came out of the cave—or whatever the miserable place was if it was not actually a cave—and said, “He says we should bring up some more wood and collect some water.”

Jessica stood. She wiped her face with her palms and tried to dry her eyes. She made no attempt to hide the fact of her tears from Loozy. At this point those were far from being secret. Instead she sniffed and snuffled a little and managed a shaky smile for her daughter. “Look at the bright side. It gets us outside and away from him for a spell.”

Loozy smiled. Too brightly perhaps, but then she was trying her best to put a good face on things also.

“Ready?”

The little girl nodded.

“Do you know that I love you?”

She nodded again.

“That's my girl. Now get the water bucket, please. We'll set it underneath that seep so it will be filling while we go down for the wood. And be careful on this ledge. It wouldn't do for either of us to fall.” But it would be wonderful if the man took a tumble, Jess considered. Might it be possible to, well, to somehow arrange such a thing?

She startled herself with the thought and immediately rejected it.

But it kept coming back, circling at the fringes of her consciousness.

Then with despair another thought came to her. If they did somehow manage to rid themselves of the man, whatever would they do after that? They did not know where they were or how to find their way home from here. If something happened to the man, awful though he was, she and Loozy would be even worse off than they were now.

“Are you coming, Mama?” Loozy was standing at the top of the path giving her a questioning look.

Jessica returned a weak smile. “Right behind you, baby.”

Chapter 20

“Anything?”

Taylor looked up at Dick Hahn, who was in the saddle while Taylor knelt beside an island of sandy dirt in an expanse of gravel. Taylor shook his head. “I'm afraid not.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I said I saw something, damn it. I didn't say it was them. Hell, now that I look close I'm not even sure this was made by a horse. Could have been an elk. Could have been almost anything. It's only a scrape, not a print.”

Hahn folded his hands over his saddle horn and leaned forward. His expression was pained and fearful. “What are we going to do? We have to find them, John. We just have to.”

“I tell you true, Dick, I'm getting to the point of thinking we should go back down an' tell the sheriff. Maybe get a posse out after them.”

“But the men who are watching to see if there is a posse,” Hahn said. “What about them? The kidnappers said they would kill the girls if I tell anyone. It's bad enough that I told you. They would be sure to see if the sheriff swore in a posse.”

Hahn straightened up and his eyes went wide. “Good Lord, man. One of the watchers could show up and ride with a posse and we would never know it. He could lead us all astray while his friends murder Jessica and Loozy.”

“Aye, that's what worries me too, damn it.”

“So what do we do now?”

“The only thing I can think of, Dick, is that you an' me go back to the last place we knew for sure we were onto their tracks. We'll start over from there.”

“I don't even remember where that would be,” Hahn groaned.

“Don't worry.” John Taylor stood and gathered his reins before swinging up onto his horse's back. “I do.”

* * *

Hahn nudged his horse up beside Taylor's. “Do you want to stop at the store?” he asked. He could see the roof about three-quarters of a mile ahead.

Taylor shook his head. “There's no need. We have all the food and things that we need. Besides, for all we know he might be the one who put that guy on our trail. I wouldn't trust Embry to have a second shot at us.”

“Surely he wouldn't . . .”

“I didn't mean that t' be taken literally, Dick. I meant a second chance to set somebody after us. I don't think the fat man would have the nerve to do it himself, but we know he had dealings with that horse thief we met there. Fact is that I just wouldn't trust him.”

“Yet you trusted that man at the . . . what did you call it? The hog ranch. You know. In that beautiful glen by the waterfall.”

“Difference is that I know Nate. Know him well enough to have an idea how far we could trust him. Embry I don't know beans about an' what little I do know isn't very good what with him buying those stolen horses. If it's all the same to you, we'll ride on by Embry's store and head back up into the mountains.”

“How far to where you lost their tracks?” Hahn asked.

“This afternoon. We'll get there this afternoon. It's going to be slow going after that, though.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Taylor said patiently, “that is where we lost the tracks. If they'd been easy to pick up from there, we wouldn't have lost them, would we?”

“Oh, I . . . see what you mean.”

The packhorse Hahn was trailing swung its head aside and nipped one of the animals Taylor was leading. The two snorted and kicked and got the third led horse upset. Taylor spurred his horse ahead, dragging the led horses with him and putting a stop to the brawl before it became too serious. Hahn dropped back behind the animal they had claimed from the dead man and stayed there.

* * *

John Taylor stood in his stirrups and swiveled to look over his shoulder, right hand tight on the rein and left hand resting on his cantle. “Shit,” he grumbled.

“Is there something wrong?” Hahn asked.

Taylor motioned him forward and said, “We got weather coming in, damn it.”

“I brought a slicker. Surely you did too,” Hahn said.

“It ain't the idea of getting wet that bothers me. I've rode in the wet pretty much all my life. What worries me is that if there's a hard rain it could cover over some of the tracks the kidnappers left.”

Hahn's face drained of color. His whiskers, unshaven for several days now, stood out in hard contrast to the sun-reddened ruddiness of his skin. “Jessie,” he whispered. “She could be lost to me.”

“We could go back to town,” Taylor said. “The note said
you had two weeks to put the ransom together. We could wait for the next note an' try to negotiate with them. See if they'd take what you got, what's yours to offer. I . . . I'd kick in whatever I could. It wouldn't be much. The rent money that I've saved up. That's about all I got. You could . . . I'd give it to you if it would do any good.”

Hahn's eyes met Taylor's and held there for a moment; then he said, “I take that kindly, John. Very kindly indeed.”

“Do you want to go back, then?”

“Now? No. Not yet anyway. We still have time. I say we should keep looking just as long as we can. We'll go back to Thom's Valley only if we absolutely must. If that's all right with you.”

Taylor nodded and looked again at the sky where a line of low-hanging dark cloud was advancing. “Come along, then, Dick. Let's see can we find a place to hole up for tonight.”

“Back at Embry's?”

“No,” Taylor said with an emphatic shake of his head. “We aren't backtracking any more'n we have to. For now I got to think. Got to work out in my mind where these sons of bitches are going.” His expression was grim. “An' how we can catch up to them before they hurt the girls.”

“Whatever you think, John. I'm with you. I would feel comfortable negotiating with the gang, but out here . . . you've heard the expression ‘babe in the woods'?” He grinned. “Well, out here it fits.”

“Come on, then. Let's find a place to hole up before that storm gets here.”

 

Ervin Ederle

Erv chewed the end of a twig until it was flat and used it to scrub his teeth. He had nearly all of his teeth left, a fact that he was proud of. When he was done cleaning his teeth, he tossed the twig into the fire burning just outside the mouth of the adit, rocked back on his heels, and sighed.

Tomorrow, he was thinking, tomorrow he might go down the mountain a little distance and see if he could find a deer or maybe an elk. Fresh liver would be a treat.

He stood, stepped out onto the ledge they were on, and unbuttoned his trousers. While he urinated over the edge, he stared down at the tops of some black cloud that had swirled in. Likely it was raining down there. Up on the ledge it had gotten colder thanks to the moisture in the air that made the rock walls clammy. If the rain crawled up this high, it would turn to snow and make the footing treacherous.

Erv finished his business, tucked himself in, and buttoned his fly. He would be wanting the woman again later, but it was too cold to do anything with her outside. Better to send the kid out instead. Or let the kid watch; he didn't care.

He pulled his calendar stick out of his pocket and counted off the days since he had taken his hostages. He had time before he started down to get his ransom. If nothing else he needed to make sure the husband and the whatever the hell the little one was had plenty of time
to quit screwing around looking for him and get back to town. He wanted to make sure they had the ransom money ready and waiting for him.

Lordy, how much would it be? Several thousand. Surely there would be that much. Five thousand? Ten? He was eager to find out. But not foolhardy. Not Ervin Ederle. Never foolhardy.

He pondered again on what he should do with the woman and the kid when he went down to get the ransom.

It would be good to be able to display them alive and well as an inducement for the two pilgrims to turn over the money.

But it would not be necessary. He was fairly sure about that. He could just collect first and promise them delivery afterward.

And of course once he rode away from Thom's Valley with all that cash in his saddle pockets, he would have no use for the woman and the kid one way or the other.

He was not going to take them with him to Mexico. He had decided that firm as firm could be. The woman was too prissy and she was sure to be teaching the kid to be the same way. So no, that was definitely out.

The question now was whether he should take them with him when he went down to the town. On the one hand, it would push things in his favor if he could show them before he collected his money. On the other, it would be a risk. They might be seen. Might somehow get away from him down there where they would know where they were and know they could find their way home on their own.

No, he decided now, they would have to remain up here when he left. He chuckled. He pretty much had to leave them here. After all, he had already sold their horses.

He pondered a little longer, then grunted. Dead, he thought. It would be better to leave them dead. If he tied them up they would just lie there and slowly starve to death, as he damned sure was not going to come all the way back up here once he got the banker's money.