Ransom (20 page)

The cup gradually filled and she took a drink, the water so cold it took her breath away and made her teeth hurt. She drank again, then held the cup against the rock once more to refill it. When the cup was full she carried it back to the adit.

“Here, Mama.” She handed the cup to her mother, then dropped to a seat on the cold stone floor.

“Thank you, baby.” Her mother set the metal cup over a tiny fire to heat.

“Are you making coffee? Can I have some?”

“I'm not making coffee and you are much too young anyway.”

“Mama!”

“I mean it. No coffee for you, young lady. Not until you are eighteen years old.”

“That isn't fair.”

“Possibly sixteen. We'll talk about that when the time comes. Which is not now.” She moved the cup aside, added a little dry wood, and put the cup back in place.

“Do you think the man will . . . you know.”

“Kill us? No, sweetie. Your daddy Dick will come pay
the ransom the man wants and he will let us go.” She smiled. “You'll see. We will be fine.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, baby. I promise.”

Loozy suspected her mother was just trying to comfort her. But that was all right. It was good to be comforted. “I wonder if Daddy knows,” she said. “I bet he's looking for us if he does know.”

“You mean Daddy John? Yes, I'm sure he would be looking for us if he knows.”

“If you aren't making coffee, what do you want with that water?”

Jessica stuck a finger into the cup to check the temperature, then said, “I need to wash myself. Be a good girl now if you please. Go outside and watch the path. If you see the man coming back, run and let me know. Will you do that for me, please?” Jessica picked up the cup of now warm water, turned her back, and lifted the hem of her dress.

Loozy went out onto the ledge and watched the trail below, shivering as a rising breeze sent the cold biting deep into her very bones.

For no reason she could think of she began to cry.

Chapter 23

“That is one helluva lousy footpath,” Taylor said, eyeing the rock spill that had come down from higher up on the mountainside. “One false step an' you could go down. Be crushed by the rocks that'd come down with you.” He turned to Dick Hahn and grinned. “But if those sons of bitches could make it, then so can we.”

Hahn nervously looked ahead along the track they intended to take. “Right,” he said uncertainly, as if to reassure himself more than to agree with Taylor. “Right. If they can, we can. And if the girls are over there, well, that's where we want to go.”

Taylor hunkered down with his elbows on his knees and stared out across the expanse of loose scree, his brow knitted in thought. Finally he stood. “All right, Dick, here's what I think we need to do. I'll go over first an' show you how it's done.

“I think it's best to turn the horses loose an' let them pick their own way. I'll take the lead ropes off the packhorse and Randy Smith's horse so if one of them falls it won't take the others with it. And I'll get behind them until we're across. That way if one o' them spooks, it won't be runnin' into me and taking me down with it. You understand?”

Hahn nodded. “That makes sense.”

“You wait here until we're across onto solid ground again; then you start your animals over. Mind you untie the lead rope on your packhorse. Don't worry about
trying to lead them. They'll naturally want to come over to where the other horses are. Will be by then, that is. They'll want to join up with the others. All you got to do, Dick, is get them started on the path; then you hang back and follow along. Be careful about that, though. You could slip on those loose rocks an' fall just as easy as a horse could.”

“Right.”

“You want a swallow o' that coffee before we try this?”

“Yes, I . . . I think that would be a good idea.”

Taylor smiled and clasped Hahn's shoulder. “Don't be worrying about it. Careful does it, but if those kidnappers could take God knows how many horses across there, then so can we.”

“You don't mind if I pray a little about that, do you?” Hahn said, feigning lightness but meaning every word of it.

“Hell, Dick, I think that'd be a good idea. Now let's have us a bit o' coffee and put everything back in the packs. Oh, and something else I just now thought. You and me probably oughta carry our guns with us so if a saddle horse does go down we won't be out here naked. We might have a hard time of it trying to take down a kidnap gang and us with nothing to shoot.”

* * *

Exhibiting more confidence than he really felt, Taylor led the brown over to the start of the treacherous path. He pulled Hahn's shotgun from the pouch that hung from his saddle, then unfastened the lead rope from his saddle horn. He gave the brown a swat on the rump to get it moving.

He untied the reins of the spare animal from the pack frame and let first one and then the other of those horses follow along behind the brown as they were by now well accustomed to doing. Neither horse hesitated.

“See, Dick? Dead easy.”

“If it's all the same with you, I'd just as soon you didn't use that word right now.”

“And, uh, which word would that be?”

Hahn smiled. “Dead.”

That got a laugh out of Taylor, who started off behind the horse that had belonged to the would-be robber.

Dick Hahn led his paint forward. He stood indecisively for a moment, worrying over whether he should carry the rifle or his own fine shotgun. The shotgun, he concluded. It was worth more than a hundred fifty dollars while the common-as-grass rifle could be had for a pittance, so he left the rifle on his saddle and pulled the engraved and inlaid shotgun from its scabbard.

The paint was indeed eager to follow the others. All he had to do to get it moving was turn it loose.

The packhorse brushed past him and was out onto the spill of loose rock before he had time to unfasten it from the paint. If one of them fell, they both would go down.

Silently grumbling about forgetting that instruction, Dick Hahn followed close behind the butt of the packhorse.

Too close, as it turned out.

Once they were well out onto the talus, the pack animal became annoyed. It lashed out with both hind legs.

Hahn quickly ducked away. And lost his footing.

He fell, sliding down the mountainside and bringing tons of rock down with him. “Help! Help me, John.”

 

Ervin Ederle

Ederle leaned back against the wall, unmindful of the cold that seeped from the stone directly into his bones. He was thinking of warmth. The warmth of yellow sun and brown women.

He would get at least two of them, he decided now, looking at the fancy bitch and her whelp. Two little Mexican girls to keep him comfortable. Two at all times. And if he got tired of one or they started giving him any lip, why, he could replace them just as easy as—he glanced around him and smiled—easy as falling off a mountain.

That life would happen just as soon as he collected his ransom.

And that would happen in just a few more days.

It would soon be time to head back down to Thom's Valley and slip another note to the banker fellow. Time for him to pay up. For nothing, of course, but he would not know that until it was too late.

By now the little bastard and his friend—who the devil would have thought that the woman was married to somebody else?—should be back down there getting the ransom money together.

Those two were motivated. Yes, sir, they damn sure were. They wanted the woman and girl back. They didn't know that was not going to happen.

Erv chuckled a little at that thought. He touched the gutta-percha grips of his revolver. He would be kind, he thought. He would shoot them while they slept. The
woman first, then the kid. But not yet. He still had uses for the woman, and having the kid gave him control over the woman. It all worked out quite nicely.

Erv yawned and let the woman and her kid slide out of mind. He thought instead about what he would do with all that money, beyond the Mex women and the beer, that is. He might travel a little. See the ocean, even.

He had never seen the ocean and supposed it was like Lake Tahoe, which was the biggest lake he ever saw, except even bigger. He imagined it rimmed with high rock walls, blue and cold and sparkling where the sun struck it. He could sit up on one of those big old rocks and have his Mex girls fetch bottles of cerveza all day and half the night. Every day and every night. Now, wasn't that something to think about!

Erv smiled and scratched himself, not at all caring if the woman or the kid saw where he was scratching. They really did not matter. Both of them would be dead in just a few more days.

Chapter 24

“Help! Help me, John.”

Taylor turned and watched with horror as Dick Hahn slid down on a cascade of rock and billowing dust, finally coming to a precarious halt well down the mountainside.

“Hang on, Dick. Don't move. Whatever you do, don't move no more.”

He needed . . . damn, he needed rope. Lots of rope. All he had was an old maguey lariat that he used as a picket rope for the horses. That and . . . what? Damn it!

“Hang on.”

“I am not going anywhere,” Hahn shouted back.

“Can you . . . is there solid purchase where you stopped?”

“I'm afraid to move enough to find out.”

“Did you bust anything?”

He could see Hahn shake his head. “I don't think so.”

“Don't move now, Dick. We'll get you up.”

Somehow, Taylor thought to himself.

But he had no idea how that would be.

* * *

Hahn looked like he was a long way down there, certainly too far down for the picket rope to reach him. Taylor gathered up Hahn's horses and tied them close to his own, then began looking for a way to extend the reach of that old lariat.

The packs. Of course. The lashings that held the packs in place. Those would help. And the dead man's saddle had a picket rope and an iron picket pin hanging off the pommel. That would do. He would put that so the metal pin was at the tip end of whatever he put together. That would give it weight to get it down to Hahn and be something Dick could grab on to once it got there.

Sure. They could do it. He began stripping the packs and tying everything together.

* * *

“Can you reach it?” It had taken three tries, but now he had pretty much gotten the hang of getting the makeshift line all the way down to Hahn. This time the line had fallen only a few feet to the left of the little man.

“Yeah.” He reached. Stretched. Then he smiled. “Yeah, I've got it.”

“Hold on to the picket pin, Dick. It should take your weight.”

“Should? Did you say it should hold me?” His voice sounded like it came from far away.

“If I'm wrong about that, you're welcome to sock me one,” Taylor shouted back.

“Thank you ever so much.”

“Any time. D'you have hold of the picket pin now?”

“Yes, I do.”

“All right, then. I'm not sure how far I trust this assortment of ropes and cords and such, so you climb as best you can while I pull from up here. Give me a second, though. I need to get myself braced so's I don't slide down there next to you.”

Taylor set his feet and leaned back so he was more
lying against the slope of the mountain than he was standing upright. He took a firm hold on the rope and a deep breath to go with it, then started pulling. “Now, Dick. Now.”

 

Jessica Taylor

A pang of sudden fear . . . no, more like terror . . . clutched at Jessica's throat and tightened like iron bands around her heart. The way the man was looking at her was one thing, but the way he glowered at Loozy was worse.

Anything he did to her, well, she was a grown-up. She could accept it. But Loozy . . . Jessica would spend her last drop of blood to save her daughter. The terrible thing was that she was beginning to believe she would have to do exactly that. And that she might fail even so.

She knew something was going on with the man, the ugly, disgusting, evil man. He was even rougher than before. He treated her now like something to be used and then discarded.

How many times had she seen a man smile with pleasure as he shoved a plug of fresh tobacco into his jaw only to spit it out once the juices were gone? Now Jess knew what it felt like to be that soggy lump. Or so she told herself.

This man did not even admit to any pleasure when he chose to exercise his control over his captive. He just did as he wished and then turned away without so much as a softening of his facial expressions.

And this was the man who held Loozy's well-being in his hands.

She felt something warm press against her side. She looked down to see Loozy's sweet curls. Jess extended her arm over Loozy's shoulders and pulled the child close.

“Why are you crying, Mama?”

“Am I? I didn't realize.” She forced a smile. “There. Is that better?”

Louise buried her face against her mother's breast and she too began to weep.

Chapter 25

Dick Hahn's legs were trembling so bad he had to sit down. But not until he reached safe, solid ground. “That was . . . unpleasant.”

“Yeah, you looked kinda uncomfortable down there.”

“I was. Thank you for saving my life.”

“It wasn't that big a deal.”

“Oh yes, it was.”

Taylor shrugged and said, “You lost your fancy shotgun.”

Hahn blinked. “I suppose I did, didn't I? Funny. Until you mentioned it I didn't even notice.” He stood, walked very carefully over to the edge of the rocky avalanche chute, and peered down the mountainside. “I don't see it, do you?”

“No, an' if I did it wouldn't make no difference. Dunno about you but I wouldn't go down there after it if the damn thing was made of solid gold.” He grinned. “‘Cept in that case I might come back with some serious hoists and stuff.”