Ransom (15 page)

“How can we help?” Embry asked. He sounded like he meant it.

“I'm just asking have you seen a bunch of men traveling with a woman and a little girl? Yellow hair, the both of them. And scared. They'd both be scared, I know that for certain sure. Have you seen anything of them?”

“Not me,” Embry said. He looked at his customer and said, “What about you, Erv? You see any such crowd?”

“Sorry,” Erv Ederle said with a shake of his head. He gave John Taylor a sad smile. “Wish I could help you.”

 

Ervin Ederle

Erv stepped down from his saddle and looked around. There were a handful of horses, most of them pretty scruffy, standing hipshot in the corral. Not enough of them to suggest a posse might be inside Embry's place. That was the only thing he was worried about. And that only mildly. There was nothing about him that would connect him with the kidnapping even if there was a baker's dozen of lawmen inside there.

He unsaddled all three of his horses and hung the saddles on fence rails, then turned the horses in so they could get to hay and water. After they were taken care of he went inside, his saliva running in anticipation of Phil's whiskey. If there was one thing Phil Embry did well, it was to mix up a fine whiskey out of raw alcohol and . . . something. Phil never let on what it was he used to make his drinks. Probably that was just as well. There are some things a man might not want to know.

Once inside he tipped his hat back and ambled over to the counter where Phil was doing something or other out of sight beneath the planks.

Phil greeted him with a smile. “Hello, Erv.”

“Hello your own self, Phil. How you been?” Ederle reached into a large apothecary jar on the counter and fetched out a peppermint stick. He pushed the whole thing into his mouth and crunched the confection between his teeth.

“Middling. What can I do for you, Erv?”

Erv looked around. There was an Indian poking around the stacks of goods for sale and over on one side there were a pair of men hunched over bowls of food. The big one looked mildly familiar. He could not get a good look at the smaller of the two. Phil did not seem worried, so neither did Erv. He was confident that Embry would have tipped him off if the strangers were law dogs.

“The thing is, Phil, I'm broke. I got fourteen cents in my kick and I need some eatables. I got something going up in the high country and I need food to carry me through.”

“I don't give credit. You know that, Erv.” He smiled and added, “And you can pay me a penny now for that candy you just ate.” The smile was there, but there was no doubt that he meant it too. Ederle reached into his poke and paid Phil his penny.

“Thanks.” Embry dropped the penny into a metal box beneath the counter. “Now then, what were you saying?”

“I'm not asking for credit, Phil. I got trading material. I got two good horses complete with their riggings that I can swap you for the supplies I need.”

“These horses, do you happen to have bills of sale for them?”

Erv grinned and shook his head. “Not exactly. But I could make one up if you got pen and paper.” His grin got wider. “Anyway, these should be entirely safe so long as you sell them south.” He laughed. “You might have a problem was you to take them up to, say, Thom's Valley.”

“I don't have any customers from there,” Phil said, “not as a regular sort of thing.”

“Then we can do a little business?” Erv asked. He needed those supplies. If, that is, he kept the woman and the kid in case the husband needed some bona fides. If Phil would not make the trade, he would just have to kill
the both of them and hope the husband would not balk when it came time to pay up.

“You know me, Erv. You know we can work a deal. Would you like a drink?” As if there was any question about that.

* * *

Erv was hunched over his whiskey—it was as good as he remembered—when the big fellow from the table came over. The little one turned and Erv got a look at him. Damned if it wasn't the banker whose wife and kid he had stashed up in that old adit.

Except . . . the big man got to saying how the woman was his wife that was kidnapped. Which made no sense. Erv had watched her. Watched her come and go. Watched the husband too. Or who he thought was her husband except now this man was saying she was his.

Surely he hadn't snatched the wrong woman. Had he?

So anyway, these two were out hunting for her and the kid. Not that there was a chance in hell of them finding them. Not where Erv had put the two of them.

And what did he care whose woman she really was? Just so long as they paid the ransom. That was the important thing. The only important thing.

Once he worked that out, Erv felt better about the situation. Just so long as these two paid him his ransom. Which he would arrange back in Thom's Valley in a couple weeks from now. Somehow. He hadn't quite worked out the details yet when it came to collecting his money. But he would. He surely would.

“Phil, give these gentlemen drinks, would you? Put them on my account.”

The big one was standing right square beside him. The fellow looked at him and said, “Thank you, mister. That's mighty kind o' you.”

“My pleasure,” Erv said. And he did mean that sincerely. He was smiling when he raised his cup for another swallow of Phil's good liquor. Yes, sir, the cat did get the canary.

Chapter 16

Taylor woke with a splitting headache and cotton mouth. Rather foul-tasting cotton at that. Like it had been pulled out of the sludge in Grandma's outhouse before being stuffed into his mouth.

He sat up on the side of the bunk in Phil Embry's back room, winced at the intrusion of light, and managed to look around. Hahn was snoring two bunks down. They were alone in the room although he seemed to remember there being someone else there the previous evening. Or morning. It had been past being merely late by the time they gave up the drinking and sought their blankets.

The blowout last night, Taylor knew, was simply a reaction to the tensions of looking for a bunch of kidnappers. And, much more, the fear both men felt for Jessica and Louise.

Both men, Taylor conceded. Dick Hahn genuinely cared for his wife and daughter. That thought was repugnant but inescapable. Whatever John Taylor might think of the little man, he did really care about Jess and Loozy.

He stood, yawning, and shuffled over to the bunk where Hahn was still sound asleep.

Reaching down, he nudged Hahn in the ribs and received a snort in return, so Taylor nudged him again. That did little, so the next step was to shake him. Taylor was considering finding some water to splash on his face when Hahn finally opened his eyes.

“Leave me be,” he grumbled.

“If you want but I'm going after them.”

“So what else is new?”

“You don't remember?”

“What I remember is that I want to sleep some more,” Hahn complained.

“Go ahead an' sleep if you want, but I'm gonna follow up on what that fella told us last night.”

“Fellow? What the hell fellow are you talking about now?”

“The big guy who bought us drinks. Don't you remember him?”

“Yes. Sort of. What does he have to do with anything?”

“He said he saw a bunch that might be the men we're looking for. Six men, he said, an' two women. He said they were bundled up and he took them to be Indian squaws, but there were the two of them along with a hard-looking group of men.”

Hahn shot upright on the side of his bunk. “Why didn't you say so? Damn, man, it's well past daybreak. What are we doing here now?” He grabbed his shirt and headed for the outhouse.

* * *

“Shit!”

Taylor looked up. Hahn did not normally use language like that.

“Some bastard has stolen my purse.”

“All of it?”

“Everything I had in that little purse. That isn't all I have with me, thank goodness.” Hahn reached inside the crotch of his drawers and pulled out another soft leather
purse fastened closed at the neck with a drawstring. He grinned. “Something only Jessica would find.”

Taylor quickly looked down and fussed with the boot he was in the process of putting on.

“I . . . I'm sorry,” Hahn quickly said. “I didn't mean . . .”

“Yeah, sure,” Taylor said, still without looking at the man again. “Are you ready? We still have to get those eatables we came after.”

Hahn said nothing but followed Taylor out into the store where Embry was perched on a stool watching an Indian woman and a boy of eight or nine who were examining the merchandise.

Dick Hahn approached the counter, still stuffing his shirttail into his trousers. “That man who was here last night. The big fellow. Do you know him?” he asked.

Embry nodded.

“I think he stole my purse.”

The storekeeper threw his head back and laughed. Once he finally got over his fit of chuckles he shook his head, wiped his eyes, and said, “That sounds like Erv all right.”

“What?”

Embry chuckled a little more. “Erv is a thief, no doubt about it. Goodhearted fellow but the man is a thief.”

“You could have warned us,” Hahn snapped.

Embry's amusement vanished as if it had never been. He stared at Hahn for a moment, then said, “If you aren't man enough to see to your own self, I'd be wanting nothing to do with you. Now . . . you got business here? State it. If not, clear out. You've overstayed your welcome.”

Taylor took Hahn by the elbow and pulled him away. “Go check on our horses. Make sure they haven't ‘strayed' along with that fellow.”

Hahn sent decidedly sour looks first toward John Taylor
and then toward Phil Embry. But he did leave, slamming the door on his way outside.

Taylor looked at Embry and shrugged. “Sorry 'bout that.”

“The little fella doesn't get out much, does he?”

Taylor grinned and said, “We could use some stuff.”

“If I have it. What's more, if it's you doing the buying I won't even raise the prices on you.”

“Thank you, sir. Now I figure we'll be needing a half bushel of spotted beans. Couple slabs of bacon. Quart of molasses. Two of coffee, ready ground if you've got it. And say . . . are those leather britches I see in that basket?”

“You mean those dried string beans? Yes, sir, they are.”

“Better let me have a peck o' them too. Oh, and candles. How about lucifers? You got any of those sulfur-tipped matches?”

“Sure.”

“Some of those too, then. Two, make it three boxes. And paraffin. I'll want to coat the boxes o' matches so they don't get wet and go bad.”

“Anything else?”

“Probably but I won't think of the rest of it until we're half a day gone.”

“That's the way I always am about such things,” Embry agreed. “Always come up with my best arguments too after the lamp is blown out and everybody gone home.”

“That's called human nature,” Taylor said. “Anyway, get that stuff together, would you, please. I'll go outside and check on my . . .” He stopped there, not quite knowing how he should refer to Dick Hahn. The wife-stealing son of a bitch was damn sure not his friend. Companion, he supposed would cover it. Companion, then. “I'll be right back.”

* * *

Taylor's head was splitting and he was sure Hahn's would be too, but that did not stop the little man. Hahn hurried out to the corral and started saddling. He was done almost as quickly as Taylor finished their shopping, collected money from Hahn to pay for it, carried it outside and loaded it into the packs, and saw to his own horse. And as soon as he was done he went out of the gate and sat on top of the paint horse impatiently drumming his fingertips on the rawhide covering on his saddle horn well while Taylor rode the brown's morning jumps out of the animal and could join him.

“Are you finally ready?” Hahn demanded.

“Waiting on you,” Taylor shot back at him. Lord, he should know better than to drink that much.

 

Jessica Taylor

“Put that wood on the fire.” Jessica sighed. “This won't last long, so I'll go down and break up some of the fallen wood. I saw some below the path. It should be dry enough.”

“Don't be gone long, Mama.” Loozy sounded frightened. But then she had every reason to be. Jess was scared half to death herself, almost as much since the man left as when he was there. She half hoped something would happen to him and he would never come back, half hoped that he would return because she and Loozy were lost up here. They would never find their way back home on their own. Or live long enough out here in the mountains even if they knew where they were going. But she did not dare show any of her fear to her daughter. Not if she could help it anyway. Jess sighed again and took a deep breath.

She stooped and kissed Loozy on the forehead. “I won't be long, baby.”

It was barely daylight and already Jessica's eyes burned with fatigue. She had spent much of the night fearfully waiting for the man to return. It had been late, probably close to morning, when she finally fell asleep. She was fairly sure Louise had had the same difficulty.

“Have you seen an ax or anything like that, baby?”

“There's a saw over there.” Loozy pointed toward a dusty keg, behind which was the handle portion of a rusted Swedish bow saw. However rusted, it would do.
Jessica pulled it out from behind the keg and took it with her outside into the chilly morning air. She stretched and looked toward the east. On any other morning, she realized, this would have seemed an absolutely glorious daybreak with the yellows and golds and purples streaking the sky. She shivered and picked her way down to the path they had come up and then farther down the rock-strewn slope.

She reached a tangle of what John probably would have called a blowdown. She remembered something similar when he had taken her on a ride once. They rented horses and took a picnic basket and rode into the foothills. He took her to a little babbling stream and laid out the picnic there and they . . . Jessica blushed when she thought about that day with John. She shook off the memory, pushed a stray wisp of hair behind her ear, and set about industriously sawing at the deadwood of the blowdown.