“Is this the Doolittle place, Sheriff?” he asked as he came up to Rasmussen.
“Yeah,” Rasmussen replied in a bleak, flinty voice. “I left two deputies here to stand guard, just in case. One of them is lying dead behind the house, drilled through the heart.”
John Henry went cold inside, and the feeling had nothing to do with his gunshot wound. “What about the judge and his family?”
“Gone. And there’s a puddle of blood on the floor at the foot of the stairs.”
John Henry sighed. “But there are no bodies in the house?”
“No. Whoever got in there took the judge and his wife and niece with them.”
“You know it had to be Garrett. His gang is big enough to split it into two forces. One bunch came rampaging into town to draw everybody’s attention while the others came here and grabbed the judge and his family.”
“You’re bound to be right,” Rasmussen said with a nod. “Nobody else would do such a thing. I hope all that blood in there doesn’t mean one of them was killed.”
“I’ll bet it came from one of the outlaws. Lottie would want Doolittle and the women to be taken alive, so she can make the judge suffer. I reckon making him watch while Mrs. Doolittle and Clarissa are tortured would be worse for him than being killed.”
“A hell of a lot worse,” Rasmussen rumbled. “You really think the woman would do something like that?”
“I know she would,” John Henry replied without hesitation. “She gave orders the men were not to kill me. She wanted me brought back alive so she could use the bowie knife on me, more than likely. And she hates Doolittle a lot more than she hates me.”
Wearily, Rasmussen scrubbed a hand over his face. He sighed. “They’ll keep the prisoners alive for a while, then. We can go after them.”
“It won’t do any good. You can’t get to the Silver Skull with a posse. The place is too well defended.” John Henry paused to think. “But I may know a way—”
“Sheriff! Sheriff Rasmussen!” The shout came from a man who was running toward them.
Both lawmen swung around, guns at the ready.
“Hold on!” Rasmussen snapped a second later. “That’s one of my deputies, Vince Fremont.”
The man hurried up to them and stopped, panting a little. “Sheriff, somebody’s comin’. We heard a horse gallopin’ toward town.”
“Well, for God’s sake, let’s go see who it is,” Rasmussen said irritably. Even though the violence had broken out less than half an hour earlier, it already seemed like it had been a long, hard night.
Once again, John Henry had to lag behind as the sheriff and Deputy Fremont ran back toward the square. He halfway expected to hear more shots, but there were only excited shouts.
By the time he reached the square, Fremont and another deputy were helping a rider from the back of a lathered horse. It was an awkward process, and enough light came from the windows of nearby buildings for John Henry to see why. The rider’s wrists were tied together behind his back.
A hood made from a flour sack was over his head, completely concealing his features. Something about the man’s stocky build struck John Henry as familiar. He wasn’t really surprised when Rasmussen jerked the hood off and revealed the pale face of Deputy Carl Baird.
The deputy was alive. Nick Mallette would be glad to hear that, John Henry thought.
Baird looked like he had been through the wringer. His face was swollen and bruised and streaked with dried blood from the beatings he had endured at the hands of the outlaws. In addition to the hood that had covered his head, he had a gag in his mouth, tied in place with a bandanna.
“Help him sit down, damn it,” Rasmussen ordered. “Cut him loose and get that gag out of his mouth.”
The deputies easied Baird to a sitting position on the steps leading up to the porch of the hardware store. One of them produced a clasp knife and used it to cut the rope around Baird’s wrists. When the rope came free, Baird’s shoulders sagged forward and he groaned softly. His muscles probably hurt like blazes.
Fremont untied the knot in the bandanna and threw it aside, then pried the wad of cloth from between Baird’s jaws.
Rasmussen knelt in front of Baird. “Are you all right, Carl? Did Garrett turn you loose and send you here like this?”
John Henry knew that had to be what had happened. And he was sure that Garrett wouldn’t have done such a thing without a good reason, more than likely because Lottie Dalmas had ordered him to. He sensed Lottie’s hand in this.
Baird didn’t reply to the sheriff’s questions. He groaned again and made a choked, incoherent sound.
“What’s wrong, Carl?” Rasmussen went on. “Why don’t you answer me?”
“I don’t think he can, Sheriff,” John Henry said as a chilling realization came to him.
Rasmussen glanced at him and snapped, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Check Deputy Baird’s mouth,” John Henry suggested. “I think there’s a good chance you’ll find that they’ve cut out his tongue.”
Chapter Twenty-four
A horrified Rasmussen sent one of the deputies to find Dr. Harmon, and when the physician got there he quickly confirmed the gruesome diagnosis. “It actually looks like someone did a fairly skillful job of removing the tongue. Whoever did this has a deft touch with a blade.”
“Lottie Dalmas.” John Henry had no doubt about that.
Harmon rested a hand on Baird’s shoulder. “I really need to get this man back to my office. I’d like to perform a more extensive examination and take steps to see that he has a successful recovery.”
“A man doesn’t recover from losing his tongue!” Rasmussen burst out. Obviously, he was barely able to contain the fury he felt over his deputy’s mutilation. “He’ll never be able to talk again!”
“No, but he’ll be able to do everything else if he lives, and that’s what I want to make certain of,” Harmon said.
The sheriff grimaced and nodded. “Of course, Doc. Sorry I almost lost my temper. I just can’t believe that anybody would do such a thing. Those damned people!”
He squeezed Baird’s other shoulder. “We’ll get ’em, Carl. I promise they’ll pay for this and everything else they’ve done. You’ve got my word on that.”
Rasmussen lifted his hand, but Baird reached up to take hold of his sleeve. He made noises again, with a note of urgency this time.
“What is it?” Rasmussen asked.
Baird reached inside his vest pocket with trembling fingers and drew out a folded piece of paper. He held it out to Rasmussen.
The sheriff looked at the paper almost like it was a coiled rattlesnake, ready to strike. “They sent this with you? It’s a message for us?”
Baird nodded mutely.
Rasmussen took the paper. “Do you know what it says?”
Baird shook his head.
“We’ll see about it,” Rasmussen told him. “Right now, you go on with Doc Harmon and don’t worry about anything except getting better. We’ll take care of those damned outlaws.”
Baird gave John Henry a walleyed look.
“Don’t worry about him, either,” Rasmussen said. “Turns out he’s on our side after all.”
“And I’m sorry about walloping you in the head, Deputy,” John Henry said. “I tried not to put too big a dent in your skull.”
Baird rolled his eyes.
“Help him down to the doctor’s house,” Rasmussen ordered Fremont. “Sixkiller, you come with me.”
“The doc already read me the riot act about how I’m supposed to be resting.”
“Well, it’s a little late for that, ain’t it?”
Even under the grim circumstances, John Henry had to smile a little.
The two lawmen walked up the block to the town square and the courthouse. They went up the steps and down the hall to the sheriff’s office, where Rasmussen nodded John Henry into the leather armchair and sank wearily into the chair behind his desk.
He drop
ped the folded piece of paper on the desk in front of him and glared at it. “There’s a part of me doesn’t want to open that and read it because I know whatever it has to say, it won’t be anything good.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that, Sheriff, but as loco and poison mean as Lottie Dalmas is, I don’t think she does much of anything without a reason. One that makes sense to her, anyway.”
“I know, I know.” Rasmussen picked up the paper. Slowly, he unfolded it, squinted at the words printed on it, and cleared his throat.
He began to read. “‘We have Judge Doolittle and his wife and niece. They have been sentenced to death, and this sentence will be carried out at sunrise two mornings from now unless you bring the following men to me before then. Alvin Newton. Caleb Chandler. Jed Montayne. Fred Barnes—”
Rasmussen stopped reading and looked up at John Henry. “These are all the men who served on that jury. The ones who are still alive, anyway.”
“She’s decided not to take her time about it,” John Henry said. “She wants to wipe out everybody at once and avenge Henry Garrett that way.”
“She’s crazy!”
“Nobody’s going to argue with you about that, Sheriff. What else does the note say?”
Rasmussen looked at the paper again. “She claims they’ll let Mildred Doolittle and Clarissa go if those other men are turned over to her. There are directions to her place, where they’re supposed to be brought.” He cleared his throat again. “And there’s an eleventh man she wants turned over along with them. Me.”
“You arrested Henry Garrett.”
Rasmussen let the paper fall on the desk. “Yeah, but it’s like he said the morning they hanged him. Me catching him was just pure dumb luck on my part. His horse stepped in a hole and went down. Otherwise he would’ve got away from me.”
The two of them were quiet for a moment. Then John Henry said, “Obviously, Miss Dalmas plans to kill all of you, including the judge.”
“You reckon she’d keep her word and let the two women go?”
“I think it’s impossible to predict what she’ll do. But she wants to hurt Doolittle as much as she can, so I think it’s a pretty good bet she intends to kill Clarissa and Mrs. Doolittle, too.”
“If there’s even a chance she’ll let them go, we’ve got to take it. I’ll get in touch with all these fellas—”
“And do what? Ask them to turn themselves over to a crazy woman and a bunch of outlaws so they can be murdered?”
Rasmussen’s fist came down hard on the desk. “By God, we have to do something!”
“We’ll do something, and I’ve got an idea where we should start.”
“Where’s that?”
“Let’s go downstairs.”
* * *
Nick Mallette was awake, sitting on the bunk in his cell with his elbows resting on his thighs and his hands clasped together in front of him as he leaned forward. John Henry saw him in the faint light from the lamp at the top of the stairs and thought the gambler looked almost like he was expecting something.
Mallette lifted his head at the sound of their footsteps as they came down the stairs and approached the cell. He came to his feet and moved over to grip the bars as he recognized his visitors. “What’s happened, John? I heard a bunch of shooting.”
“That was Garrett and his bunch paying a call on the town. They kidnapped Judge Doolittle and his wife and niece.”
“Damn it! Is there no limit to what they’ll do?”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” John Henry drawled. “They also cut out Carl Baird’s tongue and sent him into town with a message saying they’ll kill the judge and his family unless the rest of those jury members are turned over to them, along with the sheriff here.”
“Carl . . .” Mallette said in a hollow voice. “They cut out . . . Good Lord!”
“They’ll pay for it,” Rasmussen said heavily. “That won’t give Carl the ability to speak again, but they’ll pay for it.”
Mallette looked at John Henry again. “How are you doing, John? I haven’t seen you since we got back to town.”
“I’m all right. Doc says I’m healing up faster than I’ve got any right to. That’s good, because I’ve got a plan for dealing with Lottie and Garrett and the rest of them.”
Rasmussen frowned. “You haven’t told me anything about a plan.”
“That’s because Nick here has a part in it,” John Henry said with a nod toward the prisoner. “I figured it made sense to tell both of you at the same time.”
Rasmussen and Mallette looked surprised.
The sheriff said, “You’d better not have any ideas about turning this killer loose again. I can’t do that, not with those Missouri deputies still in town.”
“What some Missouri deputies don’t know won’t hurt ’em. Nick can get back into that ranch house without getting killed, and we’re going to need an inside man.”
“Wait a minute,” Mallette said. “What do you mean they won’t kill me?”
“They don’t know you’re anything but what you seemed to be, a convicted murderer on the run. They’re convinced that you and I weren’t working together.”
“That’s because we weren’t. You lied to me about who you really are, remember?”
“That’s true,” John Henry admitted. “And I feel a mite bad about it, Nick, I really do.”
Mallette looked like he didn’t know whether to believe John Henry or not. Finally he sighed. “All right, go on. What’s this plan of yours?”
Rasmussen opened his mouth to say something, but he clamped it shut before any words came out. He gave John Henry a curt nod, indicating that he should continue.
“There’s no way you can take a posse up that trail without most of you getting massacred, Sheriff. There’s a deep ravine on the other side of the ranch, and you can’t get horses across there. But I’m pretty sure that ravine is also a back door that leads right into the place.”
For the next few minutes, he told them about how Sven Gunderson had attacked him while he was patrolling the rim and both of them had wound up at the bottom of the ravine, Gunderson fatally.
When John Henry mentioned the cave, Rasmussen snorted. “There aren’t any caves in Kansas. At least not any that I ever heard about.”
“Well, you’re wrong about that, Sheriff. I’ve been in this one. I’m convinced that it connects up with the ranch house. If it didn’t, somebody wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of hacking those handholds into the opposite wall of the ravine in that particular spot. It’s an escape route.”
Rasmussen rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. After a moment, he said, “Suppose you’re right. Are you saying we can take men through that cave and get the drop on those damn outlaws at the ranch?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“You said they patrol the rim night and day.”
“That’s true, but if we can get a force into the ravine several miles away, they can hike down to the cave during the night without being seen. They’ll just have to be mighty quiet.”
Rasmussen wasn’t convinced. “Maybe. Where does Mallette come in?”
“I was sort of wondering that, too,” the gambler said.
“Nick, you’ll go back to the ranch tomorrow. Tell Lottie and Garrett that I killed the three men who were with you, but I was wounded again and you spent the past few days trying to hunt me down. You finally found me, but I had already died from my wounds and the scavengers had been at me. That’ll explain why you didn’t bring my body back with you.”
Mallette shook his head. “They’re not going to believe that.”
“They will when you give them my badge and identification papers. That’ll explain why I double-crossed them when they tried to ambush Montayne.”
Mallette narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. “I’ve been a gambler for a long time, John. That sounds to me like I’ll be playing mighty long odds.”
John Henry nodded. “I won’t lie to you. It’ll be d
angerous. But I believe you can do it, Nick. I have faith in you.”
Rasmussen frowned again. “I haven’t agreed to let him out yet. If I do, I’ll have to slip him out so nobody knows about it, especially those deputies from Kansas City.”
“You can handle that, Sheriff,” John Henry told him. “Nick, if we can get you into the house, you can find the prisoners and make sure they stay safe when all hell breaks loose. And if you can find where the tunnel comes out and get them there so we can take them back to safety before the shooting starts, so much the better.”
Mallette grunted. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“Just what needs to be done.”
The gambler had another question. “And who’s going to lead this rescue party? You keep talking like you’re going to do it, but you can’t. You’re injured.”
Rasmussen agreed. “That’s right. Ain’t no way Doc Harmon is gonna agree to let you go traipsing across the prairie, crawling through caves, and shooting it out with a bunch of outlaws and a crazy woman.”
“I don’t plan on asking the doc’s permission,” John Henry said. “I’ve got to go along, since I’m the only one who knows where that cave is. I’ll just bandage up these bullet holes nice and tight. . . .”
Rasmussen just sighed and shook his head “I’m starting to wonder if the two of us are really the crazy ones, Sixkiller.”
“Make it three,” Mallette said. “I’m in.”
Chapter Twenty-five
By the time they got back to the ranch, the two female prisoners had finally stopped screaming and crying, although not before their carrying on had gotten on Simon Garrett’s nerves quite a bit. Lottie had given orders for them not to be gagged unless it was absolutely necessary.
She’d wanted them to be able to give in to their terror and wail about it.
Finally, Mrs. Doolittle and her niece had fallen silent except for the occasional whimper.
That wasn’t true of the judge. Once Ephraim Doolittle had regained consciousness, he had cursed and threatened and yelled questions at his captors and hadn’t stopped even though he was belly-down over a saddle. Garrett wasn’t sure where he got the breath for it.
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