That was more than enough for my grandfather, right there, and he opened his mouth to say so. However, the lieutenant proceeded, if—and this was a possibility, alas, that Mr. Ordway must surely have considered—if all that was ever found was the kidnapper: two thousand. This was a very fair offer. He couldn’t hope to do better than that. Not and get a man with real experience.
What did he mean, my grandfather asked, face the possibility that all that might ever be found was the kidnapper? What did he mean by that?
“Well,” said Lieutenant Loftus, cocking his head to one side and slowly shaking it, “it’s six months, Mr. Ordway. They panic, you know. Lose their heads. A child is a pretty large and loud piece of evidence to have on you. Lots of bother, too, for a man. And even when they really intend to return them unharmed, they sometimes get frightened at the last minute of a trap. I don’t mean to alarm you. You’ve surely thought of all this yourself. In your case let us hope for the best. But let us be prepared for the worst. For even if you’ve been paying the fellow off regularly, it’s no guarantee, I’m afraid, that he has kept his share of the bargain. Big Ben Alancaster paid out more than eleven thousand dollars to Frankie Thorpe, but when we tracked Frankie down … Well,” he sighed, “I won’t go into the details. You no doubt recall the case.”
My grandfather shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “What happened?”
“Don’t recall the Alancaster case!” exclaimed Lieutenant Loftus. “Why it was headline news every day for months! The search for little Benny Alancaster, sole heir to Alancaster Starch and Bluing? Then pardon me, I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“Tell me,” said my grandfather.
Lieutenant Loftus fetched a sigh. “Well,” he said, “we found him, all right, poor little devil—right where he’d been all the time. It was Frankie himself led us to the spot, behind a prize American Beauty in Mr. Alancaster’s rose garden. It took six of us to hold the poor old man back. But Frankie got his neck stretched, and so will our friend Will Vinson. How much, if you don’t mind saying, has he worked you for up to now, Mr. Ordway, in round numbers? More than you care to remember, eh? Well, small guarantee that it is, I’m afraid, sir, you’d better keep on paying until we catch him.”
When first he realized that the man thought Will was holding Ned for ransom, my grandfather breathed again. Then at once he began to worry. Never having been able to comprehend why a man like Will with children of his own should want his boy, he found it all too easy now to believe that gain should have been Will’s motive. The fact that he had never received any ransom note did not comfort him. Possibly at the last minute, out of fear of being traced through it, Will had not dared send it. Then to get the child off his hands he had … Or perhaps he had sent it and it had gone astray in the mails. And then Will had gone to the spot where he had directed the money to be left, and had found nothing there, and then had waited until the deadline he had set, and then, just as he had threatened in his note to do, he had …
All that my grandfather could gasp out was, “I’ve never paid him a cent.”
“Never paid him a cent!” Lieutenant Loftus echoed. “In six months’ time?” Lieutenant Loftus had seen many contemptible sights in his career, but now he needed all his protective coloring to hide the contempt he felt for a man rich enough to have his son kidnapped being too tight-fisted to pay—no matter how little hope it held out of ever seeing him again—to get him back. Nevertheless he said, “Well, don’t repent yourself, Mr. Ordway. Frankly, my experience has been that it doesn’t matter much in cases like this whether you pay or don’t pay, and that’s the very same advice I gave to Mr. Oscar Hastings. He too refused to pay, and in case you may have forgotten, he was much criticized for it at the time. There were even editorials against him in the newspapers. But Oscar Hastings was not the heartless monster he was made out to be. He cried like a baby when poor little Oscar Jr. was brought up out of that well. I was there and I can vouch for it. It wasn’t the money. What did a few thousand dollars more or less mean to a man like Oscar Hastings? He’d have gladly spent any amount if he had believed it would bring the boy back. And he was proved right. At Pete Fernandez’s trial it was established that Oscar Hastings, Jr., had been beyond all hope of recall before the ink on the ransom note was dry. No, sir, I’ve raised three. All grown and married now, of course; but if one of mine had ever been kidnapped, instead of paying the rascal that took him I’d have spent the money bringing him to justice.”
At last the man’s deadly tongue fell silent. Then my grandfather launched into a long and desperately pitched defense of the man who had stolen his child. Lieutenant Loftus had heard a lot, but this flabbergasted him. My grandfather said Will Vinson was no ordinary kidnapper. He hadn’t done it for money. He and Mrs. Vinson were fond of the boy, loved him like one of their own, better than any of their own, had almost raised him during that first year following his poor mamma’s death. How probably they believed they were rescuing the child from a stepmother and from a father who didn’t love him as much as they did. How he had never received any ransom demands from Will. Not in six whole months. How he was not a rich man by any manner of means but just a poor farmer and his son not the heir to anything but eighty acres of not very good cotton land, and how Will Vinson, his next-door neighbor, knew how he lived and what he was worth and that you couldn’t get blood out of a turnip. And so on, until he succeeded in convincing himself, but not Lieutenant Loftus. About midway through this harangue Lieutenant Loftus began to perceive that here was a man who not only would drive some desperate poor devil of a kidnapper to strangle his son sooner than buy him back, but that he was working around to haggling with him over his fee, when out of fatherly feeling he had made him a rock-bottom price. He said, drily, “Sir, I bid you good day. And I wish you luck in finding your man on your own. If you should change your mind and decide that I can be of service to you, here’s my card.”
My grandfather succeeded in whitewashing over the picture that this man had drawn upon his mind, but it was always coming through and requiring another coat. It was an image of Ned lying dead and buried in a secret unmarked grave far from his mother’s side, or possibly someplace on Will Vinson’s farm back home, beneath that very soil that he himself had worked. In trying to efface it he was to become Will Vinson’s passionate apologist. He reviewed his memories of Will, dwelling with fond gratitude upon the decent and kindhearted actions he had known the man to perform, exaggerating them, in the end even inventing some. The jealousy he had begun to feel of Will’s love for his son shriveled in the chill of his dread, and he strove now to recall every evidence of Will’s partiality for the boy. Whenever people to whom he told his story on his subsequent travels sought to commiserate with him by attacking Will, he would amaze, mystify, and would frequently disgust them by seeming almost to excuse his enemy. Search on he did, of course, and by day believed that the sun shone somewhere on Ned. But as soon as the lights were out and he lay himself down in another strange bed, his heart rose on tiptoe to await the small mangled ghost that walked nightly in his dreams.
The second respondent to his plea was not the preacher but the other man. Mr. Lindsay Conroy was no retired private investigator—far too conspicuous a man for that; but neither was he the openhearted farmer whom my grandfather had imagined coming compassionately to his aid. Mr. Lindsay Conroy was nobody’s father. He smelled of spending too much time in barber’s chairs to suit my grandfather’s taste: a waft of bay rum and quinine tonic, scented soapsuds, talcum powder. The hand he proffered was boneless and moist and cool as a curd, tender as a mushroom. He seated himself without waiting to be asked, and said:
“I take it, sir, that you have never heard of Lindsay Conroy?”
“Well, since you ask me, frankly, no,” said my grandfather.
Instead of displeasing him, this answer seemed to satisfy Mr. Conroy exactly. “In your walk of life you wouldn’t,” he said. “My work is done behind the scenes. Mr. Ordway, in the absence
of any third party to do the honors, you will have to overlook a certain immodesty on my part. I say it who shouldn’t, perhaps, but I say no more than any man would say for me who knows the political facts of life in this state. I, Mr. Ordway, have been called ‘The King Maker of the Lone Star State.’” He paused to let that sink in, then continued, “I have manageered the election campaigns of some of the biggest officeholders in this state. You are looking at the man who made the Honorable Boyd Ramsey what he is today. In Boyd I saw the senator beneath the hayseed—and I want you to know, in the beginning I was the only one that could see it! Friends said to me at the time I was grooming him, ‘Lin, you have put your money on a plug in this race.’ I said to them, ‘You don’t want a sprinter on a muddy track.’ Boyd was pure Bull Durham. None of that ready-rolled look about him that is sure political death with the voters in South Bootstrap, Texas. Et his black-eyed peas with his knife. Could milk a farmer’s cow for him while talking him out of his vote. I mean milk that hussy! Kept his hand in. Still does. I’m real proud of Boyd. But as the poet says, full many a rose is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air, et cetera. Boyd’s got both feet in the trough up there in Washington today; but if he was here he’d tell you hisself that he would be still currycombing cockleburrs out of a mule’s tail right today if it wasn’t for Lin Conroy. Wellsir, those are my credentials, and now I’ll come to a head and tell you why I’m here. Sam (you don’t mind if I call you Sam? I have the feeling you and me are going to get to know one another real close), Sam, I have got an entry in this race for lieutenant governor, but I’ll tell you candid, I don’t believe I’m going to vote for him myself. If you will stand, why I’ll scratch him at the post. Sam, boy, you can win in a landslide—with a little coaching from me. Wait. Wait. Don’t interrupt me now. I was there and heard you speak today. I felt the pulse of that crowd. You had them eating out of your hand. They was buzzing about you all through the following speeches. In fact, it got to the point that one of the last speakers had to begin his talk with, ‘Well, folks, I ain’t had none of my kids napped, but…’ Now wait. Wait. I know what you’re fixing to say. It’s already October. Primaries are long past. Election time is almost upon us. There’s no time left for filing. Never mind. Leave all that to me. Now Hoyt Crittenden had got the governorship sewed up this time around. But the race for lieutenant governor is wide open. And as anybody in the know will tell you, the lieutenant-governorship had got it over the top spot coming and going. The pickings are damn near as fat, and the risks are one hell of a lot less. You’re not near as much in the public eye. You ask the average voter, hell, he don’t even know who the lieutenant governor is, much less what he’s up to. So what do you say, Sam? Take the word of an old handicapper, you are a dark horse if I ever saw one. A political Cinderella. A shoo-in. What do you say, boy?”
“I say,” said my grandfather. But what he had been about to say was never known. Suddenly blenching, Mr. Conroy breathed, “Sam. Mr. Ordway. You are a Democrat, ain’t you?” Then, “Damn me, though, if I don’t believe we could get you elected on the other ticket! What an angle! Father searching for his little son far and wide over this broad and beautiful great state of ours, seeking the help of his fellow Texans and fellow fathers in locating his little lost son and heir. It’s got everything! Everything! And if you should find the boy! After statewide efforts of public law enforcement officers have failed, father singlehandedly locates stolen son. Shoots kidnapper. Touching scene of reunion. We’ll carry the boy around with us, stumping the state. We’ll hire us a band and play ‘The Eyes of Texas Are upon You’ and ‘Mighty Lak a Rose.’” He stopped, held up his hand, and broke into wavering song:
“Cutest little fella everybody knows.
Don’ know what to call him but he’s mighty lak a rose.
Lookin at his daddy with eyes so shiny blue,
Makes you think that he-e-ebm am comin close to you.
Sam, not one man in Texas will cast his vote against you. He couldn’t, not and live with hisself afterwards.”
“Mr. Conroy,” said my grandfather.
“Lin to you,” said Mr. Conroy.
“Mr. Conroy, I don’t know the first thing about politics, but—”
Mr. Conroy threw back his head and snorted. “Whew!” he cried. “Kiss me on the neck, Gus, my mouth is full of snuff! Boy, you are the greatest natural-born vote getter I ever struck across. You are a nugget in the raw, Sammy, boy. It needs a little rubbing up, but you have got it, in the bone. In the bone. Somebody had to show you what to do with that thing between your legs, didn’t they, but it was hanging there all the while. Sam, you just get up there and give them that speech you gave today, about looking for your little boy and how maybe you wasn’t always the daddy you ought to been but you’ll be a better one if—that is, when—you get him back, and not to worry about Will Vinson, and I’ll follow you and let them know that if they can’t help you find your boy they can write your name in on the ballot. Meanwhile if it’s campaign costs you’re worried about, don’t give it a thought. One fund-raising rally, just one, right here in Paris, and if we don’t fill all the hats that John B. Stetson has got, then I’ll eat every one of them, without mustard.”
Mr. Conroy could hardly believe it when my grandfather said he was really not interested in a career in politics, and he laughed uproariously when my grandfather said he didn’t really believe that the voters of Texas would elect a man to high office whose only qualification for the job was that he had had his child stolen from him. Mr. Conroy tried persuasion. He pointed out that as a candidate stumping the state he would be making expenses in his search for his boy, and maybe something over. That as it was now, being a farmer, he was able to look for him only during his off season—through the winter and part of the spring and fall; but if he was elected lieutenant governor, think of the free time he would have! My grandfather, however, did not choose to run.
“Well, I can promise you this,” said Mr. Conroy as he put on his hat to go, “now that you’ve given them the idea some other s.o.b. is sure to do it if you don’t.”
“Mr. Ordway? Teague. Reverend Dorsey Teague of the First Baptist—”
“Come in, Reverend. Sorry to keep you waiting so long.”
Reverend Teague lowered himself into an armchair without waiting to be asked, leaned back, placed his fingertips together, and said, “Baptist yourself, by chance, Mr. Ordway?”
“No, ’fraid not. Metho—”
“Live and let live, I say,” said Reverend Teague. “There is more than one pathway to heaven. We Baptists think we are on the shortcut, but even those that take you round by Laura’s house all get you there in the end. However, my boy, you may be grateful that the one church in Ben Franklin, Texas, is Baptist.”
“I may? How is that, Reverend?”
“Well, excuse me, I am getting ahead of myself. Ah, my son, this is a terrible thing that has befallen you.” And he took from his pocket, unfolded, and waved in the air a copy of my grandfather’s handbill. “May I offer you,” he asked, “a few words of spiritual counsel?”
Oh, dear, thought my grandfather. And he must have looked it, too, for Reverend Teague protested, “Now don’t suppose I’m going to give you a sermon about how you ought to regard this as a blessing from God. Had it been a case of outright death, why that is what I would have done. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom. And so on and so forth. But it was not the Lord that took your boy, and he isn’t in heaven, he’s in Texas. No, sir, I don’t know how you Methodists feel, but I just don’t believe that the Lord chooses to work through such agents as this Will Vinson, myself. No, what I want to say is this, you are an injured man, an angry man. But we must forgive our enemies. As a man of peace it is my duty to tell you that. We must turn the other cheek. Vengeance is mine—you remember who said that, Mr. Ordway?”
“I don’t know about turning the other cheek,” said my grandfa
ther. “I’m no saint. But I will tell you something, Reverend, that I wouldn’t tell just any man. I’m not aiming to kill Will Vinson. No, I mean it. I can’t say I don’t bear him a grudge. Thinking about it sometimes I get so mad I say to myself I could kill him. But that is only a manner of speaking. He has sure inconvenienced me and I can’t promise not to give him a good thrashing, or” (feeling his fresh bruises) “try my level best, if I ever do catch up with him. But more than that. … Well, what I’m after is to get my boy back. I’m not a very bloody-minded man, I’m afraid, and even if I was, let me tell you it’s not so easy as people seem to think to hate a man who has wronged you through love of your child. It’s a very mixed-up feeling.”
“Son,” said Reverend Teague, “you have set my mind at rest. Now I can tell you what I have come for. I mentioned the little hamlet of Ben Franklin, Texas. Not familiar with the place, I venture to say. A small community, some twenty miles south of here. General store. Four-grade schoolhouse. One church—Baptist—mine, as I mentioned earlier. A small congregation. A quiet spot, Ben Franklin. There a man might settle down and be lost to the world, far from the maddening crowd and cities’ strife. Needless to say, no one ever does. The Winstons are the first new people to settle in Ben Franklin in—oh, I don’t know how long. In all the fifteen-odd years that I’ve been riding this circuit. However, I can see by your look, sir, that you wish I would stop maundering and get down to business.”
“No, no, Reverend! Perish the thought!”
“Bear with me if I seem to be running on about some little one-horse town and folks you never saw.”
“Not at all. Not at all. I’ll just ask you to excuse me while I open this bottle of Mercurochrome and dab some on this bite on my leg.”
Reverend Teague vented a low whistle and, leaning forward in his chair, said, “Christamighty! That looks nasty. He wasn’t mad, I hope.”
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