Lincoln's Ransom

by Tim Champlin

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Janice Kinealy heard the roar of the shotgun a block away and knew she was too late. She staggered to a running stop and leaned against the wall of a building in the darkness, her knees weak. Oh, no! Oh, my God, please don’t let it be so. She felt as if her heart had exploded.

  The gunshot had at last gotten her sense of direction untangled. Now that it didn’t matter. Refusing to buckle under to her worst fears, she pushed away from the wall and started on uncertain legs toward the source of the blast. It still took her several minutes to find the jail in the darkness of the unfamiliar streets, but at last she spotted faint lamplight printing the pattern of a barred window on the darkness.

  Through the window she saw no one in the office and was surprised to find the door unlocked. With one hand on her Derringer in the pocket of her cloak, she crept quietly inside. The lamplight was coming from the hallway that led to the cells in the rear. She heard the mumble of a man’s voice and started toward the sound. But then she paused and proceeded carefully in order to see before being seen.

  A man stood in one of the cells with his back to her, examining the side of Sterling Packard’s head. Packard appeared unhurt, and a rush of relief flooded through her. She cocked the .32 Derringer in her pocket and moved silently into the hallway, coming up to the open cell door. She took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart and drew the pistol. “Set that lamp down easy and back away into the corner.”

  McNeil gave a start and turned around. The nickel-plated Derringer glinted in the lamplight. He gingerly put the lamp on the floor and stepped away to his right, hands at shoulder height.

  “Sterling, are you hurt?”

  “I’m O K.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  Being careful not to get between them, Packard stepped over to McNeil and lifted his revolver from its holster. “Sorry about this, but tell Durkee I couldn’t sit around his jail waiting for someone to kill me.”

  When McNeil didn’t respond, Janice said in her soft dialect: “Don’t be embarrassed. You can tell your boss that two or three big men with rifles came up behind you in the dark. You didn’t know it was a woman who got the drop on you with a little gun. You never saw me.” In truth, her face was still hidden in the shadow of the deep hood.

  “I’ll leave your gun in the office,” Packard told him.

  “Over there,” Janice said, gesturing with the shiny Derringer toward the ruined bunk.

  McNeil moved obediently to the back of the cell. Packard picked up the lamp, and the two of them backed out. Swinging the cell door shut, Packard turned the key that was still in the lock. “You’ll be all right until morning.” Packard started toward the office, then paused. “Oh, I wouldn’t do a lot of hollering if I were you. Whoever it was who just tried to kill me might hear you and decide to come back and finish the job.” He closed the interconnecting door behind them.

  Leaving the ring of keys and McNeil’s gun on the desk, Packard retrieved his gun belt that was hanging on a wall peg.

  Janice watched him with a great sense of relief. “Let’s get out of here in case somebody else might have heard those shots and gets curious.” She turned down the wick and snuffed the lamplight, then eased the door open a crack and looked out. “It’s clear. Come on,” she whispered.

  Taking his hand, she led him in a run down the street for a block and then took a right turn and went another block before stopping. They were both panting.

  “I’ve got...a horse tied...in the alley back here.”

  “A horse?”

  “Let’s...get off the street and I’ll explain”

  They walked a few more yards, and she guided him into an alleyway between two brick buildings. She heard the snuffling and the clicking of iron horseshoes on cobblestone and knew her horse was still where she’d left him. “Easy, there,” she said, patting the animal’s neck, and taking advantage of the pause to allow her breathing to steady down.

  A thin wedge of light from a gas street lamp angled a short way into the dark alley, allowing just enough illumination for them to see each other.

  “Thank you,” Packard said, reaching to pull her into his arms. But she stiffened slightly, so he released her, stepping back. She offered no explanation, so after a moment he said: “I don’t know where you came from, but you showed up at the right time.”

  “No, I showed up just a little late,” she replied. “I was trying to get there before Rip Hughes shot you.”

  “That was Hughes?”

  “Thank God he missed.”

  “If I’d been lying down on the bunk, he wouldn’t have. I thought Hughes would’ve been satisfied just to have me out of the way.”

  “He has Jim convinced you betrayed us.”

  “What do you think?” Packard asked.

  “Let’s not play guessing games,” she replied. “I think it’s time you told me what you’re up to.”

  “First, tell me what happened after I left,” he countered.

  She recognized his ploy to force the subject away from himself, but replied: “Jim figured you’d head back to town and maybe bring the law, so the three of them carried the coffin off into the hills and hid it.” She chuckled softly. “He had to threaten McGuinn and Hughes before they’d go near the body. Of course, Jim didn’t see what we saw....” Her voice trailed off.

  “Do you believe that was a supernatural vision?”

  “I don’t know what it was. We all saw something.”

  “The ghost of Lincoln,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” she replied slowly. “But there are things in this world that can’t be explained.”

  “Where did they hide the coffin?”

  “Just caved in an undercut dirt bank to cover it up, then scattered a lot of dead leaves around. Scuffed out our tracks. He made me lead the way with the lantern. We did so much twisting and turning in the dark, I doubt I could find the place again in the daylight.”

  “Where’d you get this horse?” he asked.

  “Jim found a saddle and bridle for the other dun and rode into town early yesterday morning. He got his message at Western Union and sent a reply. He rented three saddle horses from a livery and led them back to the house. Also brought us some bread and ham and tinned tomatoes. I was about to starve,” she added irrelevantly. “Then Jim said we should leave the buckboard and split up to be less conspicuous. He sent Hughes and me back to town to see if we could find out anything about you. Then he and McGuinn rode off north to Nebraska City. That’s where he’s supposed to receive his next message by telegraph. The governor has agreed to pay the ransom, by the way...all two hundred thousand dollars of it, and he’s releasing Ben Boyd from prison.”

  “How’s the ransom to be paid?”

  “I don’t know. Jim isn’t telling us until it happens.”

  “He doesn’t trust anyone, does he?”

  “Hughes and I are supposed to take a riverboat and join him and McGuinn in Nebraska City tomorrow.”

  “So Big Jim thinks I’m a traitor and sent Hughes to kill me. I’m surprised you came along.”

  “He didn’t send Rip to kill you, but only to find out where you’d gone and to see if he could keep you out of the way. Jim made me go along because he didn’t believe what I told him about Hughes. Jim thought I was just trying to protect you.” She hesitated, then continued: “As you probably guessed, things aren’t going well with us, but Jim’s got too much on his mind right now to deal with our personal relationship. Anyway, Hughes and I rented two rooms for the night at the Inter-Ocean Hotel near the dépôt. We found out from the afternoon paper that you were in jail.” She pulled a folded newspaper from her deep, side pocket, and it crinkled as she thrust it into his hand. “I suspected Hughes still wanted to hurt you, so I faked a sick spell when he went to supper, then followed and saw him buy a shotgun. I was back in my room by the time he returned.”

  She stopped suddenly as the sound of voices reached them. She and Packard fl
attened themselves silently against the wall in the dark as two men, obviously drunk and arguing loudly, shuffled past the opening to the alley and passed on down the street.

  Janice realized Packard had a protective arm around her but didn’t move away as she continued. “Hughes slipped out in the middle of the night and got his horse. I wasn’t sure where he was going, but, by the time I saddled up to follow, he was already out of sight. I guessed he was headed to the jail, so I left my horse here and tried to head him off on foot and stop him. But, somehow, I got all turned around in the dark and couldn’t find the jail in time.” She paused. “Now you know the whole story. It’s time you told me the truth about yourself.”

  She wasn’t ready for what he said next. “Janice, will you come away with me?”

  There was a long silence as she wrestled with her emotions. Finally she said: “Wait and ask me that question when all this is over.”

  As she paused for a reaction, he surprised her again. “I’m a federal agent working for the Secret Service.”

  The flat statement fell like a lead weight between them. As the silence deepened, she felt she had to force herself to respond. “Ah, I thought it was something like that.” Her own voice sounded dull, resigned. “So I guess I should have left you in jail. Are you going to arrest me now?” She felt drained, defeated.

  “No, of course not. I may lose my job over it, but I’m going to get you out of this some way.”

  “What if I don’t want out of it?” she asked, a hardness edging into her voice.

  “That’s up to you, but the others will be caught. I’ll do all I can for you, even to letting you get away, or taking you away myself, if you want to come with me.”

  “I’ve never been so deceived by anyone before,” she replied. “You knew I cared for you, but you lied. You were kissing me, pretending to be someone else, lying about being a grave-robber, and about everything else you told me. You were just using me, stringing me along so you could get at my husband.”

  The hurt in her voice and the truth of her words apparently stunned him.

  She felt her voice almost break into a sob as she said bitterly: “Maybe Hughes should have shot you.” She immediately wanted to take the words back, but her throat was closed.

  “But I’m telling you the truth now,” he said haltingly. “I could have continued to lie and pretend to be a member of this gang, but I really care for you. It’s tearing me apart to say this, but you’ve got to come over to my side now, if you want to keep from spending the next several years of your life in prison.”

  “Trusting you to save me from the legal system is too much of a gamble,” she replied, getting herself under control. “I’m sure you’d try, but it would be mostly out of your hands.”

  His silence told her she was right. “So, what are you going to do now?” he asked.

  “I don’t have a lot of choices. I was never a quitter, so I’m going to see this through to the end. No telling where Hughes is. I don’t want to risk seeing him again, so I’m not returning to the hotel. I’ll just mount up and ride north to Nebraska City and meet Jim. On the way, I’ll figure out what to tell him about you and Hughes.”

  She turned to fumble for the reins that fastened her horse to the downspout.

  “So you’re going to give me away,” he said, almost to himself.

  “No. But I think it would be better for all of us if you just got on the next train back to Springfield or Chicago or somewhere. By the time you notify all your bosses about this, maybe Jim and I will have collected the ransom and be beyond reach.” She swung her cloak back and mounted.

  “Don’t our feelings for each other mean anything?” he asked, with what sounded like desperation. “If you ride out of here now, I might never see you again.”

  She steeled herself against the rush of emotion she felt and replied simply: “They meant a lot to me. But, like I once told you about my becoming a nurse, life often gets in the way of dreams.” She pulled her horse’s head around. “Good bye, Sterling. You’re the best man I’ve ever really loved.”

  She galloped her horse out of the alley and up the street, turning left at the next block and heading for the river road, running her horse as if the speed and physical exercise could rid her of all her conflicting feelings.

  A few minutes later it began to rain, and Janice was grateful for her horse’s instinctive ability to keep to the broad, flat river road, even in darkness with no moon or stars, because her eyes were so brimming with tears that she could not have guided him.

  In those blackest hours before dawn the exterior façade she presented to the world seemed to crack, and through that crack she saw nothing ahead but advancing age, lonely self-loathing as she sat in a stone prison cell, hair cut short, dressed in a scratchy woolen shift, hands sore and cracked from work, praying for death to release her. Everything seemed to be slipping away — her husband, Packard, the materially comfortable life she had enjoyed since girlhood. Except for a few isolated attempts at salving her conscience by donating some of her illegal wealth to charitable causes, she had lived mostly for herself, indulging her every whim, from a personal masseuse to the finest jewelry. In retrospect, it had been an essentially dishonest, purposeless, vain existence which had done no one any good, including herself. Nearly every man she met was attracted to her beauty, and she had used this to tease and tempt them — at times, a very dangerous game. It was cold comfort that she had never actually been unfaithful to her husband physically, but in every other way, yes.

  Now she had no friends or family left for trust or comfort. In the misery of that wet, lonely night, the piper was about to present his bill, and she found herself spiritually bankrupt. Then the dam broke, and tears came in a flood as great, wrenching sobs racked her body. Her horse slowed and finally stopped altogether in the middle of the road, its head drooping as the rain drummed steadily on beast and rider.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As Janice kicked her mount and went galloping down the street, Packard listened to the drumming of the hoofs, receding into the night. He stood numbly in the dark alley, wondering if he would ever see her again. Nothing can slow time like suffering or fear. The rest of that night dragged like a flat-sided wheel.

  When he finally wandered out of the alley and, with a considerable effort, thrust the events of the last hours to the back of his mind, he was able to take stock of his present situation. On the debit side, he was dirty, grubby, unshaven, had only the clothes on his back, and was stiff and sore from head to foot. Adding to that, the pain of rejection and loss was burning a hole in his heart.

  On the credit side of the ledger, he had gotten just enough sleep and food in jail partially to refuel his depleted reserves of physical strength and stamina. He had about seventy dollars in greenbacks in his pocket, his gun and a full cartridge belt, and, thanks to Janice, was out of jail and free to do whatever he wanted.

  The downtown area was dark and quiet, so he guessed it had to be much later than midnight. If the saloons were still open, they were out of earshot. There was no sign of moon or stars, so he knew the sky was again overcast with the dull pall of November. But, when he came out from behind a warehouse, the breeze was out of the south, and the temperature had actually warmed. Welcoming the change after days of frigid weather, he breathed deeply, smelling rain on the warm, moist air.

  He slipped along quietly next to the buildings, moving instinctively toward the river. As he walked, his senses were alert to any sound or movement, but, except for the occasional wharf rat darting across in front of him, the streets were deserted.

  What should be his next move? Maybe he’d buy or rent a horse and follow Janice up the river road to Nebraska City, some ninety miles to the north. Because of the jail break, putting St. Joe behind him in a hurry had taken on a great attraction. Durkee and his men would now think he was a criminal for sure. And what about Rip Hughes? Would Packard turn a corner any minute and suddenly come upon him with his shotgun in hand? Did
Hughes know his double charge of buckshot had missed? Or had he just fired blindly down into the bunk and then vanished into the dark, assuming Packard could not have survived? What would Hughes do when he returned to his hotel and found Janice gone? But maybe he wouldn’t check her room this late at night, thinking she was asleep. Or had he even gone back to his hotel?

  Perhaps Packard should rent a horse to ride up into the Loess Hills and search for the hidden lead casket near the Hanrahan mansion. But what good would that do, if the governor was already in the process of paying the ransom? Presumably Kinealy was going to reveal the hiding place of the body to the authorities anyway as soon as he was paid off and his engraver, Ben Boyd, was safely out of Joliet prison. Janice and he had left each other with numerous options.

  Then he thought of her suggestion that he just board a train and go home. How simple. But, for some reason he didn’t understand, Washburn wanted him arrested. Should he just go back to face whatever awaited him? He could report what he knew, and leave it up to someone else to finish the job of catching and arresting Kinealy and his two men. But, even as the temptation to back off tumbled through his head, he experienced a sense of incompleteness. I was never a quitter, Janice had just described herself. Could he be any less?

  So, in spite of his logical side urging him to get out of town under cover of darkness and be thankful for surviving intact, he knew the determined, stubborn side of him was going to win out. By the time the lanterns of two moored stern-wheelers came into view along the river, he’d made up his mind to go after Kinealy, McGuinn, and Hughes. There was no logic to the decision; it was based on a gut feeling that he couldn’t have defined. Perhaps it had something to do with wanting to get in out of the steady rain that had begun to fall, wetting his hair and soaking through his jacket. And the boats were handy. Not only that, but a riverboat presented the cheapest, quickest, and most comfortable way to reach Nebraska City.