by Duane Boehm
Sarah dropped into a chair and read the note, looking up at Ethan when she was done. “What kind of person would do this and why?” she asked in a voice so pitiful that Ethan had to steel himself not to cry.
“I don’t know. I can’t think right now. It just gets all jumbled up in my head. Can you ride to town to tell the sheriff? I will go back and try to find some tracks. We’ll run out of daylight if we wait for the sheriff to get back from town,” Ethan said.
Sarah stood and put her arms around Ethan, resting her head against his chest. “What are we going to do if you can’t find him? He’s just a little boy,” she said and started to cry.
“I don’t know, Sarah, I really don’t. I’ll saddle a horse for you. We have to get busy. There’s no time to waste,” he said as he stroked her head and kissed her.
Looking up at her husband, Sarah said, “Ethan, find my baby.”
∞
As the sun started to set in the west, Hank Sligo lit one the torches he had left in the cave when scouting things out the previous day. Legend had it that the first time a white man had explored the cave, he had found six pair of moccasins lined up together. No one ever came up with a good explanation for the moccasins being left there, but the name stuck. Pieces of pottery were still lying around along with some markings on the walls. Some people claimed that the cavern was haunted by an Indian ghost. It had a fresh water supply where a spring trickled out of the cave wall and made a pool before running deeper into the cave. Frank had once told him that some men had followed the stream a mile in and the cave still kept on going, but they had had enough exploring and headed back out. The area with the pool was like a great room that made a right turn from the entrance, allowing a fire without fear of being spotted from the mouth and yet close enough that it would draw out the smoke.
After throwing Benjamin over his shoulder, Hank carried him to the great room where he had stacked the woodpile and started a fire. He dropped him to his feet before cutting the biddings off the boy’s hands and feet. “If you so much as touch that hood to scratch your nose I’m going to shoot you. Just sit still,” Hank warned.
“Why did you take me?” Benjamin asked.
“We are holding you for a ransom. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes, sir, but my pa ain’t got no money.”
Sligo chuckled. “He has land and cattle, and can turn that into money.”
“Why are you doing this?” Benjamin asked again.
“Just hush, boy. If you do what you are told, everything will be fine. You’ll get to go home and we will get the money. In case you are wondering, you are in a cave. I have to go to the mouth of it and wait. You just sit still. If you go in deeper, nobody will ever find you and you will die, and if you try to sneak out, I will shoot you, so just sit,” Sligo said as he pushed Benjamin down onto his rear before walking away.
Sligo waited impatiently at the cave entrance, watching Jasper and Walter finally ride up in the moonlight. “Glad to see you boys could make it,” he said sarcastically.
“Frank made us go the long way, avoiding the roads to get here. It’s no picnic in the dark,” Jasper said.
“The kid is inside. I don’t have him tied up right now and you can take the hood off him. It won’t matter that he sees you. You all will be long gone when this is over with. Tie him up when you go to sleep,” Sligo said.
“Frank laid it all out for us,” Walter said.
“Just make sure you don’t mention any of our names. All you have to do is babysit and keep an eye on him. And you better feed him tonight, too. He hasn’t had anything all day,” Hank said.
Jasper giggled. “We’re going to be rich.”
“Yes, we are. So don’t screw it up. Take your horses in the cave and get your supplies unloaded so that I can get headed back with the packhorse. There’s a pool of water in there,” Sligo said.
“When are you coming back?” Jasper asked.
“I don’t know yet, so don’t get trigger happy if you hear me coming. No fires during the day. I don’t want smoke billowing out of the mouth like an Indian sending up smoke signals. In the morning, make sure that there are no tracks outside and then keep your asses in there,” Sligo said.
∞
Ethan searched the area around the spot that he had found Benjamin’s books and pail until it became too dark to see. He had started the search frantically scurrying about looking for something obvious until calming down and methodically covering the area. During his search, he came to the realization that the kidnapping was well planned and that he would not be able to track them. He could feel the bile rising up into his throat at the thought that he had no idea in the world where to look for his son. As he stood there worrying about Benjamin, Sarah and Sheriff Fuller rode up.
“Did you find anything, Ethan?” Sheriff Fuller asked in a solemn tone.
“No, somebody planned this out well. The ground is so rocky around here that there is no way to find tracks,” Ethan said.
“In all my years of sheriffing, I’ve dealt with about everything that you can think of, but never a kidnapping. I’ll get a search party up tomorrow and we’ll scour the whole damn countryside,” he said.
“That’s a lot of territory to cover. Whoever did this will have a good hiding place,” Ethan said.
Sarah sat on her horse with her hands covering her face. “What are we going to do, Ethan?” she asked.
“I’ve been thinking that I need to go talk to Mr. Holden and tell him that we cannot buy his place and then go to the bank and see if they will let us mortgage our place. With everything paid for, I pray that they will go along with it,” Ethan said.
“This is really happening, isn’t it?” Sarah said.
“Why would anybody single out us?” Ethan said as much to himself as the others.
Chapter 20
Ethan and Sarah spent the evening sitting at the kitchen table trying to talk their anxieties away, and holding hands while praying. They discussed the kidnapping until they were merely repeating themselves and when the mantle clock chimed twelve times, they decided it best to try to surrender to sleep. The endeavor proved largely useless as they slept fitfully, waking each other up with their tossing and turning. They gladly arose at the first sign of dawn.
Neither Ethan nor Sarah had an appetite for breakfast, preferring black coffee in hopes of washing away their exhaustion. Both had dark circles under their eyes and their faces were puffy from lack of sleep. Sarah could not sit still, jumping up every few minutes and pacing before returning and sitting back down at the table.
“I better head over to see Mr. Holden and tell him what happened and then head to the bank. We need to know if they will lend us the money,” Ethan said.
“What are we going to do if they refuse?” Sarah asked.
“Our land and cattle are worth a lot more than five thousand dollars. I think they will go along with it. It would be bad for business to turn us down.”
“He’s just a little boy, Ethan. Imagine what he must be going through. He must be so scared.”
“I know, Hon. I thought about that all night, but he’s brave and he’s smart. We have to have faith in Benjamin too,” he said.
“All the miscarriages were bad, but they were nothing compared to this,” she said and started crying.
Ethan tried to hug Sarahr from behind the best that he could with her sitting with her head down on the table. “We have to have faith that the Lord will get us through this and return Benjamin to us,” he whispered in her ear.
“I know, but it’s not fair. We’ve lost enough children,” she said.
“I’ve got to go. I’m going to find the sheriff after I go to the bank and help him with the search. I hate to leave you here all alone, but we don’t have much choice.”
“I’ll be fine. Find my boy, Ethan.”
As Ethan rode to see Mr. Holden, he wished that Gideon were around. Sarah and he had both gotten accustomed to his company and missed him. He doub
ted that Gideon would have been able to do anything more than was being done, but it would have been nice for them to have him to lean on. Ethan felt sure that Gideon would have left no stone unturned in trying to find Benjamin
Mr. Holden was sitting on his porch when he arrived. “Sit down and smoke a pipe with me, Ethan. Do we have a closing date yet?” he said.
Ethan climbed off his horse and sat down beside the old man. “Mr. Holden, something terrible has happened. Somebody has kidnapped Benjamin and is holding him for ransom. I won’t be able to buy your place. I’m going to have to mortgage everything I own to pay them,” he said.
“Those lowdown sons of a bitching bastards,” Mr. Holden said as he hopped up and started walking back and forth on the porch.
The outburst was the first time that Ethan had ever heard his neighbor swear. He was afraid that the old man was so worked up that he would have a stroke. “Calm down, Mr. Holden. We don’t need you getting sick over this. Sheriff Fuller is looking for them now.”
“This happened because you were going to buy this place,” Mr. Holden said.
Ethan looked at his neighbor as if he were speaking in tongues. The idea of land being behind the kidnapping had not occurred to him. “Oh, surely nobody around here would steal my son over land,” he said.
“Ethan, I know you are a preacher and look for the good in people, but don’t think for a minute that some of the ranchers around here are not upset over you buying my place. The timing sure seems peculiar. Never underestimate the depths to which a greedy man will stoop.”
“Mr. Holden, are you sure about me backing out on you?”
“Why of course, my boy. You have to do what is best for your family. I’ll just take the damn place off the market until the sheriff gets to the bottom of this. I can ranch another year if need be,” Mr. Holden said as he held out his hand to shake with Ethan.
“Thank you, Mr. Holden. I have to get to town. God bless you,” Ethan said before riding away.
Ethan pondered whether Mr. Holden could be onto something or if it probably was an old man’s imagination running wild. He knew that one of his own weaknesses was a penchant for being naïve, but he had a hard time suspecting his fellow ranchers. Some of them were not particularly nice men, but none that he knew of was considered a criminal either.
He constantly scanned the horizon in all directions hoping to see something out of place, but things looked the same as they always did. The snow was retreating up the mountains a little every time he checked and the wildflowers were in full bloom. He wondered where in all that vastness was his son.
A meeting with Mr. Druthers at the bank was never an enjoyable experience. The little bald man was devoid of any sense of humor or personal skills. He would peer out over the top of his spectacles with his thin–lipped mouth clenched so tightly that it looked more like a crack in his face. The banker seemed to enjoy that he held a customer’s fate in his hands. “What can I do for you today, Mr. Oakes?” he asked.
“I don’t know if you have heard about what happened to my son or not,” Ethan began.
“Yes, yes, of course. It was all the talk of the town this morning when word got out that Sheriff Fuller was recruiting a search party. I am very sorry for you and your family,” Mr. Druthers said.
Ethan played with his hat in his hands, working his fingers around the brim. “I talked to Mr. Holden today and he released me from our sales agreement. So I won’t be needing a loan for that, but I need to mortgage our place to raise the five thousand dollar ransom.”
“So you want to mortgage your four hundred and ninety–five acres and your cattle herd. Loaning you the money on the new acquisition was one thing, because you would still have all the other to fall back on, but loaning you money against your entire operation would leave you no reserves if we would have a harsh winter that decimated your herd or the bottom fell out of beef prices. It would leave the bank quite vulnerable,” Mr. Druthers said.
“Mr. Druthers, we are talking about my son here, not some whimsy I just came up with.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I am not unsympathetic to your plight, but I am charged with safeguarding the bank’s resources,” the banker said.
“I am as safe of a risk as any man around and you know it. True, we could have a bad winter or prices could bottom out, but they would have to be extreme to prevent me from making payments on a ten year note,” Ethan said.
“True, true. I just need some time to think about this,” Mr. Druthers said.
Ethan slammed his palm down on the banker’s desk. “I don’t have time. I have to have five thousand dollars in twenty–dollar gold pieces by Saturday. How long do you think this bank will last after word gets out that my son died because you would not loan me the money? I would bet people will start pulling their money out the Monday after my sermon on the evils of banks.”
Mr. Druthers peered at Ethan over his glasses and scratched his nose. “A succinct point, Mr. Oakes. When do you need the money?”
“Before noon Saturday.”
“Very well. I will have to make sure that I procure enough gold pieces. Meet me here at nine in the morning Saturday and I will have it ready. You can sign the papers then. Good day and I hope they find your son,” Mr. Druthers said.
“Thank you,” Ethan said before leaving.
Ethan walked out of the bank wanting to hit something. He wondered if the banker realized how close he had come to getting the snot beaten out of him. Bankers were one notch above outlaws in his book. The main difference was that their robbing was legal and nobody got shot.
He looked around for the sheriff and learned that he had already headed out to start the search. The sheriff had rounded up some volunteers first thing that morning, sending them out to the ranches for additional help. He was having everybody convene at the spot Benjamin had been kidnapped. With his business finished, Ethan climbed up on Pie to head out to help them.
∞
Sarah was sitting out on the porch getting some fresh air. After Ethan left, nerves had gotten the better of her and she had been vomiting since then. She was near hysterical worrying about Benjamin, trying to imagine what he was going through and whether he was still alive. Her imagination had gotten the better of her as she let her mind drift to dark thoughts where she assumed the worst.
The three miscarriages had been hard. They had left her barely motivated to get out of bed and with so little appetite that she became painfully thin. She questioned her faith, her ability to bear children, and her fitness as a wife. Each time she managed to snap out of it in a couple of months time, but after the third loss, she gave up on ever having children. When she realized that she was pregnant with Benjamin, she did not allow herself the joy of being an expectant mother until she made it to the fourth month. By then she was showing and knew that this baby had the will to live. It had been a wonderful time for her and Ethan. To now have somebody cruelly snatch that joy away was worse than anything she could imagine.
Sarah could see someone coming in a lope and new instantly that the rider was Abby from the skirt billowing on each side. Abby rode up into the yard and jumped off the horse like a man. She marched towards Sarah and gave her a hug as Sarah stood to greet her.
“Sarah, I am so sorry that this has happened. I am here for you for whatever you need and Marcus is out helping with the search. Do you have any news?” Abby said while still embracing Sarah.
“No, nothing new. Ethan went to talk to the bank and then help with the search,” Sarah said as they sat down on the swing.
“I can’t believe this is happening in our little community. What kind of people takes a child?”
“I don’t know, Abby. I’ve been wondering if kidnapping Benjamin was random or we were targeted. Did we do something to cause this?” Sarah said and started crying.
Abby took Sarah’s hand. “If you were targeted, it wasn’t that you did anything wrong, but because they want to ruin you.”
“Do you think this hap
pened because we were going to buy the Holden place?”
“I don’t know. Some of these ranchers are son of a bitches, but I don’t know that they would stoop to this. I don’t think even Frank DeVille is mean enough or has enough guts for kidnapping,” Abby said.
“I feel so helpless. My poor baby is out there all by himself and he must be scared out of his mind. And God knows what they might be doing to him,” Sarah said.
Abby feared that they would never see Benjamin alive again, but she was not about to dash Sarah’s hopes. “I think that they will take care of him. They want money and to get away with it. The law will be looking for them a lot harder if they do harm to Benjamin.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m so worried that I can’t think straight.”
“Maybe the search party will find them today,” Abby said, trying to stay positive.
“I don’t know. Ethan looked last night until dark at the spot that they took him and couldn’t find any tracks. They knew how to cover themselves and this is an awfully big place to search.”
“Gideon knows how to track. That’s what he was doing when he was shot, wasn’t it?” Abby asked.
“Abby, Gideon left last Thursday,” Sarah said. She could see that her words caught Abby off–guard and upset her even as she tried to hide it. It would be easy to judge her for being married and having feelings for another man, but she understood that there had never been the usual closure and that his reappearance had reopened wounds that had been festering for years. In her mind, Abby was just human.
“That figures. Never around when you need him,” Abby said.
“He’d be here if he knew about it and you know it,” Sarah said a little defensively.
Sarah’s words gave Abby an epiphany. “If they don’t have any success today, I’m going to find Gideon,” she said.
Sarah looked at her in surprise. “Abigail, what could Gideon do that the sheriff or Ethan and the rest of the men could not? And how in the world do you think you could find him?” she asked.