Ransom (22 page)

Frowning, Erv eased out into the sunlight and over toward the lip of the ledge.

He could definitely hear voices now. Male voices. He was sure of it.

He pulled his pistol out of its leather pouch and slowly,
very slowly, inched farther out onto the ledge, out toward where they had pretty much worn a path from all the wood carrying and hauling of the supplies he had brought back from Phil's place.

Jesus! He saw the top of a hat come into view. A black derby hat like the little banker wore. Madre de Dios!

Erv brought up his revolver, thumbed the hammer, and snapped a shot off at the little bastard before he had time to think about it. Or to let more of the banker show above the rim so Erv would have more of a target to shoot at.

The banker disappeared in an instant and Erv heard a frightened yelp. Good. That must have been a hit. Now where was the big fellow so Erv could kill him too?

Chapter 27

Taylor threw the shotgun to his shoulder and pointed it toward the rim of the ledge fifteen or twenty feet above. There was no target there to fire at . . . which was just as well because when he brought the gun down he realized he had forgotten to cock the hammers.

He shuddered and knelt beside Hahn. “Are you okay, Dick? Where were you hit?”

Hahn sat up, rubbed his face, and wiggled his shoulders. “I think I am, actually. All right, I mean. I wasn't hit. God, John, I did hear the bullet go past. It was that close. It sounded like the world's biggest bumblebee. I mean . . . zip . . . and it was gone. Just like that.”

“You look awfully pale.”

“Did you see the guy who shot at me?”

Taylor shook his head. “No. I just heard the gunshot and saw you tumble down here. Are you sure you aren't hurt?”

“My leg and right hip hurt a little where I fell on them, but nothing is broken. I'm all right. Really. Do you think we can get a look at him? Or a shot, maybe?”

Again Taylor had to shake his head no. “He's up on that ledge where we can't see, much less get a shot at him. And we can't back off far enough to get a look up there. We can go down the mountain but not out to the side here. That's what it would take to get a better angle of view.”

“What about the girls? You can't see them?”

“Haven't seen nor heard them. Truth is, we might be
barking up the wrong tree here. That fella up there is a thief. We know that. Hell, he stole your purse the other day. Maybe he thinks we've come after him because of that. Maybe he doesn't have anything to do with the kidnapping.”

Hahn tried to stand, winced at the pain on his right side but managed to get upright. He felt a little better once he was standing again. He reached down for the rifle he had dropped when he fell and examined it to make sure it was all right. “So how do we find out?”

Taylor thought about the question for a moment, then took a deep breath and bellowed as loudly as he could, “Jessica! Loozy! Are you there?”

“Papa?” a shrill voice answered quickly, followed by the sound of flesh striking flesh and a cry of sudden pain.

“I guess that answers that,” Dick Hahn said, his expression a mixture of determination, fear, and hatred. Determination to end this. Fear of how it might end. Hatred for the man who held his beloved Jessica. “What do we do now?”

“We can't charge up there after them. The guy would just shoot us as we come into his view. That would make it easy for him,” Taylor said.

“Give me a minute,” Hahn said. “Let me think about this.”

Taylor stood holding the shotgun and peering up toward the ledge where Jessica and Louse were being held. He felt more helpless now than he had when he read the note about the kidnapping.

* * *

Dick Hahn moved back from the relatively sheltered spot against the slope of the mountain. He swallowed his
nervousness as best he was able, paused for a moment more, then shouted, “You up there. Ederle? We've come to pay the ransom.”

There was no immediate response, so he tried again. “We brought your money, Ederle.”

The big man's gravelly voice came back, “How much?”

“Everything I could get hold of,” Hahn shouted.

“Toss it up here. If I think it's enough I'll send the hostages down.”

“We don't trust you. You robbed us once. How do we know you won't cheat us now?”

“You got no damn choice. Not if you want this woman and the kid,” Ederle responded.

“Let me think about it,” Hahn answered. He stepped close to the mountainside again.

“How much do you have with you?” Taylor asked.

Hahn looked worried when he said, “About four hundred sixty dollars. It is all . . . Jess and I are doing well enough, but we haven't saved so very much. We've mostly spent what I bring in.”

“Give me a hundred,” Taylor said. “Biggest bills you have. A single hundred if you have it.”

Hahn reached inside his trousers and produced a thin sheaf of paper money. He selected a pair of fifties and handed them to John Taylor. Taylor stuffed the bills into his pocket and began running downhill toward their horses.

* * *

“For a minute there I was worried you weren't coming back,” Hahn said as Taylor came laboring up the hill, puffing and gasping for breath in the high, thin air.

“Had to . . . get . . . this stuff.” Taylor knelt and selected a fist-sized rock from the ground. He took Hahn's money out of one pocket and from another produced a pair of horseshoe nails. From that same pocket he withdrew a greasy piece of cloth that he used to clean tack and other items.

He used the horseshoe nails to pin the two fifty-dollar bills to the cloth, then wrapped the cloth around the rock and tied the opposing ends together. “There,” he said with a grunt when he was done. He stepped back again, looking up at the ledge where Ederle was holding Jessica and Loozy.

“You up there, Ederle?” he shouted.

“What do you want?”

“Here. Here's a show of good faith.” He tossed the small, heavy bundle onto the ledge.

There was only silence from the kidnapper.

 

Ervin Ederle

Erv's lips drew back into a wicked grin when he saw the pale cloth come sailing over the rim to land on the ledge. Too close to the edge, though. He was not sure of the angles involved; one of them might be able to see him if he rushed forward to grab the cloth and whatever it contained. That might be what they wanted. Maybe they were trying to get him out there so they could get a clear shot at him. Erv turned his head.

The woman and the girl were huddled close to the mouth of the adit now. They had heard everything that was going on.

“Kid,” he growled. “Get out there and get that thing.”

“Me?” The kid looked frightened. So did her mother, for that matter.

“Hell yes, you,” Erv growled. “Go on now. And don't forget, I got your mama here. Now step out there an' get me that whatever-it-is.”

Louise looked at her mother for direction, then reluctantly stood. She walked past the ashes of their fire ring and out onto the ledge where he wanted her to go. She stood looking down—at her father probably or the banker—and for a moment he thought she was going to try to get down there to them.

Erv would have shot the little bitch if she tried to do that. Instead she only bent over, picked up the rock, and brought it back to him.

He accepted the bundle from her and motioned for her to go back to her mother, which she very quickly did.

He untied the knots in the cloth and removed the rock, tossing it aside. He spread the cloth open and smiled when he saw the pair of crisp fifty-dollar goldbacks.

Erv did not know where the little bastard had kept his stash of currency or he could have gotten it that night down at Phil's place. Not that it mattered now. It would be his, all of it, as soon as they agreed to the transfer.

And then . . . then he supposed the sensible thing would be to shoot them all, the men and the females too.

He carefully unpinned the notes from the cloth and tucked them into his pocket, then flipped open the loading gate on his revolver. He needed the weapon to be fully loaded.

Chapter 28

John Taylor almost cried with relief when he saw the top of Loozy's sweet head and even got a glimpse of her face when she came close to the rim of the ledge to pick up the ante in this game.

“Ederle,” he called out after a minute or two. “There's plenty more of those fifties. You can have them.”

“Send them up. Then I'll send the woman and kid down.”

Taylor waited a moment before he spoke again, then said, “Look'a here, Ederle. Say, d'you mind if I ask you something?”

“What's that?”

“What is your first name? Embry told us but I've forgot.”

“What's it matter to you?”

“It doesn't matter really but I'd rather call you that if you don't mind. I'm trying to be friendly. What is it?”

“You can call me Erv. It's short for Ervin.”

“All right, Erv, thanks. Erv, I think we can work this out so that we both of us get what we want. It's clear enough what that would be. Me and Dick here want Jessica and Louise back. We want you to turn them over to us like you said in that note. How you divide the money up between you and the other guys is up to you. Since they aren't here I suppose you could even take all the money and skeedaddle. Of course that's up t' you. It's only an idea.”

Ederle laughed, the sound reaching Taylor and Hahn below. “I fooled you assholes, didn't I? There's no gang. Nobody was watching you. I just said that to keep you in line. I'm not so dumb, see. I had you jumping through my hoops and you didn't even know it.”

“That's right, Erv. You did fool us. So all this money will be yours anyway. There isn't anybody you have to split it with.”

“How much money are we talking about?” Ederle called.

“A lot, Erv. It's a little over twenty thousand and we have it right here.” He looked at Hahn and gave the little man an apologetic shrug. Hahn nodded back, his expression grim.

“More than twenty, you say? How much more?”

“It's actually twenty-one thousand five hundred sixty dollars,” Taylor said, pulling the number out of the thin mountain air.

“That's a lot of money. Is it in gold?”

“No, it's all currency. Lighter to carry, you know. And smaller. Easier to hide, which you already found out or you would have taken it the night you got Dick's purse.”

“Where is it now?”

“It's in a pair o' saddlebags. What I'm thinking, Erv, is that we can put the saddlebags down in plain sight so we can't snatch them back at the last second. Then you send the girls down, see. We take them but leave the saddlebags. You can keep an eye on them while we take the girls and ride away. Everybody gets what he wants, Erv, and nobody gets hurt. How does that sound to you?”

“Let me think about it,” Ederle called down from the ledge.

“It's a good offer, Erv. Lot of money. You can have it all, Erv. More than twenty thousand.” He hoped the
bastard didn't want to hear the total again because he had forgotten how much he claimed was there.

Taylor stepped over close to the mountainside next to Dick Hahn and whispered, “How'd I do?”

“I didn't know how well you can lie,” Hahn whispered back. “You almost convinced me, and I know how much we have here.”

“Cross your fingers, Dick, an' hope the son of a bitch goes for it.”

* * *

“Here's the deal,” Ederle called down to them. “I don't trust you not to shoot me once you have the woman, so I want you to leave your guns where they are. Lay them on the path there. In plain sight, mind. Then you walk away and I send them down to you. You take them, see, and you leave.”

“We could do that,” Hahn yelled. “Anything you say, Mr. Ederle.”

“Mister, is it now?”

“Yes, of course. We'll put the saddlebags wherever you want them. Someplace you can see that we don't grab them back and try to get away. We won't cheat you, Mr. Ederle. All we want is to get Jessica and Loozy back. No tricks. We'll do whatever you want.”

“You'll leave your guns behind?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I want you to put the saddlebags, um, do you see that white rock with the green stuff growing on it?”

“The lichen, you mean? Yes, I see it.”

“One of you put the saddlebags there. Right on top where I can keep an eye on it. There's really twenty-one thousand in those bags?”

“I guarantee it,” Hahn replied. “You have my word on it.”

Ederle laughed. “What I got is your woman on it. Any tricks and she's dead. You know that, don't you?”

“We know that, Mr. Ederle.”

“What about the other one?”

“I understand it too, Erv,” Taylor shouted.

“Get the saddlebags, then. Leave your guns where they are. I don't want you going down there armed.”

“This will take a few minutes,” Taylor said. “I have to go all the way down to the horses.”

“Hell, I ain't in no hurry. I've waited up here this long, haven't I? A few more minutes won't matter.”

“All right. All right. I'm going.” Taylor leaned the shotgun up against the mountain slope. Dick Hahn quickly set the rifle there in its place and picked up the much more familiar shotgun that Taylor had borrowed from him. He felt better with it in his hands.

Hahn looked worried. Taylor gripped the smaller man's shoulder and lightly squeezed. Then he turned away and started down the mountain as quickly as he safely could.

* * *

Taylor emerged from the trees and came huffing and puffing his way back up the mountainside with a pair of bulky saddlebags draped over his left shoulder. His hands were free and he wore no gun belt. That was still sagging around Dick Hahn's narrow waist.

He could see Erv Ederle standing near the rim of the ledge, watching closely to make sure there were no tricks. Ederle held a revolver in his hand.