Ransom (21 page)

Hahn shivered. “It isn't worth a man's life, I can tell you that. Not yours, nor mine, either one.”

“Looka here now, it's near on to dark. Whyn't we find us a good place to lay out our blankets? I'll start a fire and get us some coffee brewing. You set there and get your legs back under you. We'll go to looking again in the morning.” Taylor's grin flashed again. “In the meantime,
hand me that picket rope. If you're done using it, that is.”

Hahn looked startled. He dropped his gaze to his hands, which continued to clutch at the iron picket pin from Randy's saddle. “I didn't realize . . . Here.” He thrust the pin out toward Taylor and stared blankly into the darkening sky.

* * *

Dick Hahn squeezed his eyes tight shut and slowly shook his head back and forth. “I'm frightened, John. What if we don't find them? What am I to do? I can't pay all that ransom. I can't destroy an entire town. But what if the kidnappers won't accept my savings and go on their way?”

“If you're going to speculate, Dick, try to think about what if we find out where the kidnappers are holding them. Think about what if we get them safely back.” He smiled and reached out to touch Hahn's shoulder, gently rocking him back and forth. “Hell, man, then I can go back to hating your rotten guts. We'd be just like nothing happened.”

Hahn opened his eyes and looked at him. “I wouldn't blame you if you did, John. You really love them. I understand that now that they have been taken from me too.”

“Yeah, Dick. An' I accept that you really love the both o' them too.”

“You already know that I'm sorry about all of this. Hurting you, I mean. But . . . there are some things that fact does not change. I won't willingly send them back to you.”

“No, I reckon you wouldn't. No more'n I'd send them to you.”

Hahn gave him a small, sad smile. “Hell of a mess, isn't it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, damn it, it is.”

“Pour me a little more of that coffee, would you?”

* * *

Taylor grunted as he stood. “Too much coffee,” he said. “Now I gotta take a piss. An' I just went a few minutes ago.”

“Then move along, big man. I don't want you to splash any of it on me.”

“There was a time . . .”

Hahn laughed. “Yes, I know. You would have loved a chance to do exactly that.”

“No more, though, Dick. Not no more.” Taylor stepped well away from the fire, stood with his legs wide, and opened his fly. He started urinating and idly lifted his eyes toward the dark bulk of the mountain looming above them.

“Jesus!” he yelped.

Hahn leaped to his feet. “What? What is it?”

“I found them, Dick. I think I've found them.”

“Wha—”

“Up there,” Taylor said, pointing and practically aquiver with excitement. “See there?”

“I see a bright star,” Hahn said.

“No, damn it, you don't. That dark patch is mountain, not cloud, and the bright speck is the reflection off a fire, not a star. I'd swear to it. That has to be them, Dick. That has to be where the kidnappers are holed up with Jess and Loozy.”

“Oh my gosh. We . . . get your saddle, John, we'll—”

“No, we won't,” Taylor interrupted. “We know where to go, more or less, but not until daybreak. You damn near died today falling down that rock slide. Don't take a second shot at it by trying to run up there in the dark.”

“You're right. I know you're right. But . . . don't expect me to get any sleep tonight.”

“Me too, damn it. Me too.”

* * *

Taylor rolled over onto an elbow. He began chuckling.

“What the devil are you laughing about, John?” Hahn asked, his head under his blankets to keep the night chill off.

“It just now occurred t' me, Dick, that I think this is the day I'm s'posed to be in court answering that summons you sent.”

“Oh, good Lord.” Hahn sat up, his blanket falling away. “I completely forgot about that.”

“So had I 'til just now. I suppose I'm in contempt now.”

“I . . . I . . . I'm sorry, John. I'll straighten it out when we get back down.”

“If you feel like it,” Taylor said. He lay back down. “Go on now, Dick. Try and get some sleep. You might need it tomorrow.”

“Good night, John. Again.”

 

Ervin Ederle

Erv sat up and shook his head back and forth to clear the sleep from his brain. The woman and the kid were still sleeping, never mind that it was cold in the back of the adit. The fire had gone out and there was no more wood or dung to build it up again. He would have to send the two females down the mountain to collect some more dry blowdown or some old horse apples.

No, he thought with a chuckle, he would send just the kid down to collect the makings for a fire. The woman could stay up here and give him a little morning loving.

He stood and stretched, then walked out to the edge of the ledge. He spat over the side, unbuttoned his fly, and took a leak, then stood for a moment looking at an eagle that was soaring overhead.

Soaring free. That was how he would feel once he had that ransom money in hand and could head for Mexico. Free for life. And a mighty good life it would be too. Beer and women and the world at his feet. He smiled, thinking about it, thinking about all he could look forward to.

Maybe today he should head back down there to demand the ransom money from the little banker fellow. Why wait? Unless the little bastard was still wandering around looking for his woman . . . no, that big man's woman but in the little one's bed, and wasn't that something? . . . down at Phil's place where he had no business being.

It would serve them right, both of them, when they
found out they paid all that money for nothing because by then the woman and the girl would be dead.

Erv knew that was something he would have to do. For his own safety he had to shoot them. If he did not and they identified him . . . if someone came after him, whether with the law or just with a gun . . . no, for his own safety and his own peace of mind, they had to go.

But the truth was that it was something he did not look forward to. He had never killed a woman before, much less a little girl. That was serious. Just about as serious as it could get.

Now that he was close to the time of having to do it, he was getting a little nervous about it.

But, damn it, it had to be done. Had to.

He almost wished he still had his gang so he could order someone else to do the actual shooting. It would almost be worth splitting the ransom so he could give that order and not have to pull the trigger himself.

Erv sighed. A man does what he has to do and that is all there is to it. He does what he must.

The eagle had gone out of sight, around to the other side of the mountain. Erv walked back inside the open mouth of the adit. He was cold and they needed something to start a fire with. It was time to wake the woman and the kid.

Chapter 26

“How much farther?” Hahn stopped, leaned over, and rested his hands on his knees. He sucked at the thin air as if he could not get enough of it. “I'm . . . I'm light-headed. Almost dizzy,” he puffed.

“It's the elevation,” Taylor told him. “They say you get used to it if you stay up this high long enough. Personally I wouldn't know. An' don't want to stay here long enough to find out.”

“They have to be close now, don't they?” He straightened up and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Taylor looked up the slope and said, “We're just about to the tree line. I figure that fire last night must've been above that, otherwise the light would've been blocked by the trees. And there aren't too many trees higher than where we are now.”

Taylor was staring up toward the mountaintop. He brought his attention back down when Hahn said, “John.”

“Mmm?”

“Over there, John. I see something. I don't think it's another elk.”

Taylor rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes against the glare of the still rising sun. “Hot damn!”

“What is it? Is it an elk?”

“That's a horse, Dick.” His expression darkened and he added, “It's only one horse. Where are all the others?”

“They might have gone down to town to deliver another note,” Hahn suggested.

“So why would they leave just one horse up here? And why wouldn't we have passed them on our way up?”

“Just one of them stayed behind to watch over Jessie and Louise? I mean, it's just a guess but . . .” He shrugged his shoulders.

Taylor scratched his face. The accumulation of beard there was itching. “That would be a break for us if it's true.” He stopped climbing and reined across the slope toward the brown horse cropping grass in a copse of fir trees. “Damn,” he said.

“What's wrong?” Hahn asked.

“That horse. I've seen it before.”

“That one?”

“That's right. It belongs to that big fella . . . I don't remember his name . . . the one we saw down at Embry's place.”

“Ederle,” Hahn said. “His name is Ederle. Erv, I think.” His lips pulled into a thin line and he said, “He's the bastard who stole my money. I'd bet on that.” He grunted. “I'm not likely to forget that man.” Hahn turned his head and spat. “Bastard!”

“He's also the one who claimed he saw six men and two women riding southwest, but there was no kind of trail left by any such a crowd, not that I could see. I'm thinking that he lied about that and took your purse. Bastard was having fun with us.”

“But the girls,” Hahn said. “Where are the girls?”

“If he's left his horse down here . . . and we saw fire up above timberline . . . they can't be far, Dick. I think we should ought to picket our animals an' walk up from here.”

Hahn went back to the side of the paint horse and pulled the rifle from his saddle scabbard.

* * *

“I don't see anything,” Dick Hahn said. They were standing on a faint trail that led beneath a long, narrow ledge. A trickle of snowmelt darkened the rock at one end of the ledge.

“I don't neither,” Taylor said, “but I thought I heard something up there. The scrape of a shoe on the rock or . . . hell, I don't know. It might've been nothing but my imagination.”

Hahn's expression was frozen in place. “Jessie and Loozy might be up there, John. I'm going to go look. You stand guard down here, please. Just in case, you know, somebody pops up and tries to shoot me or something.”

Taylor nodded and quietly checked the loads in his shotgun. He knew the gun held fresh shells, but he wanted to double-check anyway. He draped his thumb over the twin hammers and said, “Go ahead, then, Dick. I'll keep watch from down here.”

“Could I have that pistol, please? There are only five cartridges in the rifle.”

“Do you want the gunbelt too?”

“Yes, please.”

Taylor unbuckled the belt and handed over the revolver and holster he had taken from the dead robber who tried to kill them in the dead-end canyon, then held the rifle so Hahn would have his hands free to strap the gun belt around his lean hips. The revolver drooped almost to his knees, but the belt would not tighten any farther than he already had it.

Taylor smiled and said, “You look like something on the cover of one of those dime novels.”

“I feel silly but I would rather be silly than dead. Just in case. You know.”

“Yeah. I know. Go on now.” Taylor resumed his hold on the shotgun in his big hands.

Hahn turned and began climbing toward the ledge above.

* * *

Bits of gravel skittered down the mountainside, dislodged by Hahn as he climbed what looked like a nearly vertical path from the trail below to the ledge above. Taylor heard their fall but paid no attention. His eyes were riveted on Dick Hahn's back.

It occurred to him that he did not know how wide the spread of buckshot would be if someone did show himself on the ledge and Taylor be forced to shoot him. Might Hahn be shot too. In the back. And wouldn't that be horribly convenient for a coroner's inquest to consider, Hahn being his rival for Jessica's affections and Taylor being the one who shot the man in the back? He could just imagine how a prosecutor might view that nasty circumstance.

“Be careful, Dick,” he called but no louder, he hoped, than would reach Hahn's ears. If one of the kidnappers, the man Ederle, for instance, indeed was up there, Taylor did not want to tip him to their presence below.

Taylor was rapt in thoughts and worries to the point that he was distracted.

His attention was brought fully back by the dull, almost hollow sound of a gunshot.

And Dick Hahn came tumbling back down to land in a heap at John Taylor's feet.

 

Ervin Ederle

Erv stood, straightened his back, and then stamped his feet a few times to get the circulation moving in his legs. That was something he had noticed in the past year or two. He tended to cramp sometimes and he did not have as much strength in his legs as he used to. That was another good reason why he needed to retire to Mexico.

But whiskey helped. It surely did. He took another small pull on one of the bottles he had brought back from Phil Embry's store. Good. Phil put together trade whiskey that was almost as smooth as the bonded stuff. He took another sip and set the bottle aside. It would not pay to drink too much here. Not when he had so much at stake in those two females. They were the currency his future would be bought with.

He heard voices murmuring. The woman and kid he supposed. Except . . .

He glanced toward the back of the adit where the two were huddled up against the wall covered to the gills with some of the old coal sacks.

They were not talking, he saw. The kid even seemed to be dozing. So who in the hell was doing that talking? Surely he wasn't hearing things.