Ransom (2 page)

Better yet, there was Jessie. There was always Jessie. In his mind and in his heart, there was Jessie.

Hahn was a happy man as he walked down Hardesty toward the comforts of his office.

* * *

“. . . seventy-five, eighty-five,” Swofford mumbled, counting aloud as he slowly plucked coins out of his cashbox and placed them carefully on John Taylor's palm. “Ninety-five and a dollar. Exactly as agreed, right?”

“Yes, sir, and I thank you for the work. If there is anything else you need . . .”

“When there is you will hear from me, John. You do good work.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.” Taylor smiled and added, “Don't be shy about telling your friends.” He dropped the day's pay into his pocket and backed away a pace or two, then turned and stepped out of the farm supply. He folded his apron, laid it over the long, shallow toolbox and carried it the four blocks to his shack on the edge of Thom's Valley.

He set the toolbox down on the kitchen table that took up most of the available floor space in the main room. Taylor yawned, stretched, and gave some thought to making himself supper.

That was a poor prospect. He had never been a good cook to begin with and had been away from the house all day long, so cooking a meal would involve starting a fresh fire and letting the stove top heat so he could put together a barely palatable meal. Bacon and beans were just about the extent of Taylor's abilities and neither particularly appealed to him this evening.

He thought about the fine suppers Jessie used to have
waiting for him. She was able to make this hovel seem a gracious home and the plainest of meals seem a feast.

But that was then.

John went out onto the porch to wash, then back inside for a clean shirt—the cleanest he could find anyway—and outside again.

He had money in his pocket and Joe Finnegan at Frenchie's Place served a fine free lunch. Or if a man wanted something more substantial than cheese, crackers, and pickles, Finnegan would provide a huge bowl of chili and a beer for fifteen cents. Chili sounded pretty good. Certainly more interesting than his own cooking would be.

John took a twenty-five-cent piece from his pocket and dropped it into the tobacco can on a shelf behind the stove. Rent money. He tried to have it ready when it came due. Usually did too. Jessie always had. She was meticulous when it came to money.

Jessie was good about other things as well. Life had been better when she was home. All of it. Lord, he did miss her. Missed the merry sounds of their daughter too.

He stuffed his shirttail into his britches, set his hat at a jaunty angle, and ventured out into the street ready for an evening of beer and billiards with the town bachelors. John had gotten away from all that back when he was married.

But then, damn it, he was still married, wasn't he? Not living together was not the same thing as not married.

She was still his. She always would be. He would never let her go. Never!

John pushed through the batwings at Frenchie's and surrounded himself with the bright, yeasty scent of beer and the masculine odors of tobacco smoke and sweat.

* * *

At the first of five chimes, Dick Hahn glanced at his wall-mounted Vienna Regulator clock, then at his pocket watch to verify that they had the same time. He pushed back from his desk and stood, buttoned the lower buttons on his suit coat, and stepped to the hat tree to retrieve his derby. By the time the fifth and final chime rang, Hahn was outside on the rickety landing—he really needed to have the steps on the side of Walker's Dry Goods reinforced—and on his way home.

Home was less than a quarter mile away, a modest bungalow with a covered porch across the front and a separate laundry in back. It was not the gracious, southern-style mansion he intended to build for Jessie someday, but it would do for the time being.

The scent of roasting meat filled his nostrils the moment he walked in the door. Little Louise, “Loozy,” ran to take his hat. He handed it over and bent to claim a kiss from the child, then went into the kitchen and gave Jessica a considerably more impassioned greeting.

Jessie fluffed her hair, straightened her collar, and set a potholder aside. She looked, he thought, pretty as a picture. “How was your day, dear?”

“Fine. You know. Business.” Dick removed his coat and hung it on the hat rack one arm below his bowler. He took a smoking jacket off a companion arm of the rack and put it on. Not that he smoked, but he liked the feel of the satin cuffs and collar, liked the idea too of being a gentleman taking leisure in his own warm domain.

“Was there nothing interesting?”

Dick thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, not really. You?”

Jessie's eyes sparkled and her nose wrinkled with merriment. “As a matter of fact, dear, your wife has been invited to join the Trent Street Auxiliary.” The ladies of the auxiliary were the cream of Thom's Valley's society. An invitation from them meant that Jessie and Dick were already overcoming their not-quite-yet marital status. The whole town knew about it. It delighted Dick that Jessie was not being penalized because of it.

“Well, well, well.” He pulled her close and gave her a congratulatory kiss. And then another.

Jessie pushed herself away, her eyes cutting toward the parlor where Loozy was bent over a slate, copying letters in a flowing cursive script, penmanship being a highly regarded skill in Miss Semple's English classes. “Later,” she whispered. She gave Dick a quick hug, glanced again to make sure Loozy was not paying attention to her elders, and gave Dick a much more intimate touch before she turned back to her oven. In a louder voice she said, “Dinner will be on the table in a moment. Why don't you get Loozy and the two of you wash up?”

Dick pumped water for Loozy and then she returned the favor for him, right there in the kitchen. An indoor pump was regarded as the height of modernity if not fashion, and Jessie proudly showed off her kitchen sink pump at every opportunity. Dick had had it installed just for her. He liked to indulge her.

Jessie had their supper on the table by the time Dick and Loozy were ready to sit down, roast beef and smoothly mashed potatoes and the usual trimmings. He knew it would taste as good as it smelled. Jessie was an excellent cook and kept an immaculate house.

The time would come, though, he thought, when they had servants to do the cooking and the serving and the washing-up afterward. But that time was not yet. Quite.

Dick Hahn was a very satisfied fellow when he picked up his napkin, shook it out, and tucked it into his shirt collar.

* * *

John felt a light touch on his elbow. Beer in hand, he turned to see a middle-aged man with a graying beard and bright, lively eyes. “Hello, Anse. Buy you a beer?”

“Thanks, but you know good and well I don't drink.”

Taylor laughed. “Of course I do. Why else do you think I felt safe to offer.”

“One of these days I just might take you up on such an offer,” Anse Edwards warned. “But not now.” He became serious for a moment. “I haven't had a beer in eleven years.”

John nodded and set his own beer on the bar. He had not known Anse in those days, but he understood that the friendly rancher had been something of a rake in his younger days. He stopped drinking and hell-raising when his boy was born and had not taken a drink since. “If you won't let me buy you one, what can I do for you, Anse?”

“I came in looking for you, John.”

“For me? Uh-oh. Is something wrong?” He retrieved his mug and took a swallow of the crisp, heady beer.

“No, not at all,” Edwards said. “I was wondering if you'll be free to do some work at my place in a couple days. It's only for one day's work, though.”

“Two days from now? Sure. What is it you need, Anse?”

“I need a mugger to help me brand some cows. I bought forty head from Wallace Brandell. They'll be delivered tomorrow. Wallace and his boys will drive them over.

I don't want them standing in my pen too long. Better if they get out to find their own grass, but I want them branded before I turn them out.

“Bobby can work the gate and keep the irons hot for me, but I can't very well rope them out of the pen and throw them too. Big as you are, John, you're probably the best man in this whole valley when it comes to mugging cattle. Can you do it?”

“Sure. When do you want me there?”

“Well, you see, that's another thing. This might go slow, so I'd like to get at it as early as possible. I was thinking maybe you could come out to the place, like, tomorrow night. Beatrice will give you your supper and I'll pay you extra for the time. That way we can get started at can-see and work on through 'til the job is done. Or until it's complete can't-see if we really have trouble with them.”

“Are these some of Wallace's range cows?”

Edwards nodded. “They are. Mostly fours and fives. Still with good breeding years ahead of them, but they sure as hell aren't anybody's tame barnyard cattle. Even you, big as you are, might could have trouble getting them off their feet.”

John Taylor, six feet three and powerfully built, said, “Big has nothing to do with it, Anse. It's all in the leverage, that and knowing how to do it. But all right. I know how to knock a cow down. I can hold 'em while you and the boy do the branding.” He chuckled. “Besides, I've et your lady's cooking before. I'd be proud to sit at her table any time. Tell you what. I have a couple hours of work to do for Will Renfro tomorrow. I'll get that done in the morning and ride out to your place in the afternoon. In case you might need help penning them. Anyway, I'll be needing a way to get out there. I'll have to ask you to pay for the rent of a horse.”

“You go ahead and get one. I'll reimburse you for the cost.”

John grunted. “Two days like that, it'll cost a dollar.”

“That's all right. A dollar for the horse and, say, two for your time. Would that be all right?”

“You have yourself a hired man, Anse.”

“Fine. Tomorrow evening, then.”

“I'll be there.” John grinned. “Sure I can't buy that beer for you, Anse?”

“If I was to come home drunk this evening, Beatrice would have my ears pinned to the gatepost before dawn.”

“Mind if I have another?”

“Let me buy you one,” Edwards offered.

John grinned down at the smaller man. “That, sir, is an offer you won't hear me refuse.” He reached for the beer already in hand and tossed it down, then rapped the mug on the counter to call for a refill.

* * *

“Someone is at the door, dear. Can you get it? I'm in the middle of something.”

Dick Hahn stood and took a moment to button his suit coat before stepping out into the parlor and then to the front door. He had heard the rap on the door as well as Jessie did but waited for her to respond in the hope that he would not have to get up.

Hahn pulled the door open and smiled. “Good evening, Anselma. Come in.”

“Is the little one ready, senor?”

“Yes, of course, but you will stay here with her, won't you?”

“Mrs. Hahn said it will be all right if I take her with me
to my place. She can play with my children. But do not worry. I will watch over her with care, senor. She will be good . . . I mean . . . fine; she will be fine.”

“Mrs. Hahn said that, Anselma?”

“Sí, senor, she said.” Anselma bobbed her head nervously. Probably afraid he was going to refuse her the job of watching Loozy for the evening, he thought.

“If Jessie said it, then I suppose it's all right.” Dick stepped back from the doorway.

The Mexican woman came inside, her posture diffident.

“Wait here. I'll get Loozy.” Instead of Louise responding to the babysitter, though, it was Jessica who appeared in the parlor first. Dick went back into the kitchen to sneak a sip of Kentucky corn nerve tonic before they had to leave. Randall Bonner's dinner parties were always bone-dry thanks to Bonner's wife, Abigail, and the contract bridge the Bonners played at their soirees were just as dry. Confusing too, as the rules were too close to whist. Dick constantly got the two mixed up, which led to disastrous play. That was a mistake Jessie never made. But then she cared about the play while Dick did not. The Hahns had to stay in the Bonners' good graces, though, if Dick expected to get ahead. As for Jessie, she was delighted simply to be in the same social company as the bank president and his wife.

Jessie finished giving Anselma her list of instructions, then went to fetch Loozy, who would have been more than content to simply stay in her room by herself with a book or a doll for company.

The child came scampering into the kitchen, rose on tiptoe, and gave Dick a rather wet kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Dick.”

“Good night, sweetie.”

“Have fun,” she said.

“You too.”

Loozy's response was a sigh and a sour face. But she went dutifully off to be collected for her version of an evening out. She did not like playing with Anselma's children, as they did not speak English and she had no Spanish.

Dick marched into the parlor behind her, arriving in time to see the front door pulled shut and Jessica facing it.

“Lovely,” he announced.

“Do you like it?” she asked, turning and holding the skirts of her gown out for display. The gown was a medium blue with white trim and a neckline that was just short of being revealing.

“Love it.” He meant that. It looked good on her. Virtually anything looked good on Jessica, though. “Is it new?”

She nodded. “I picked it up this afternoon. Had it made especially for this party. Do you mind?” She twirled around so he could enjoy the view from all sides.

“Do I ever mind indulging you?” He wrapped Jessica into his arms and held her close, her breath warm and pleasant on the side of his neck. “Hmm,” he said, “do you think we'd be too, too late if we, um . . .”