“Far from town?” prodded Sayle.
“Not far at all,” said Keane. “A couple miles at most.” He went on to describe the deserted shack in greater detail while, in their camp at the edge of town, Toby Munce and his co-conspirators discussed yet another means of liquidating the very-much-alive Jim Rand. Brother Phoebus was convinced that the time had come for harsher methods.
“Poisonin’ him—that was a fool notion,” he asserted, as he squatted by the fire and spooned up a mouthful of jack-rabbit stew. “Killin’ him with a knife—that was a real fine idea...”
“Only it didn’t work,” Toby tartly reminded him. “Shuddup,” growled Phoebus.
“It didn’t work,” jeered Toby, “because you fell offa that balcony and…”
“You through eatin’, sister Fiona?” enquired Phoebus. “All right. You’re closer to him than me—so you hit him.”
“Darlin’ Toby,” frowned Fiona, “you better hush your mouth while brother Phoebus is figurin’, else I’m gonna have to bust your jaw.” She eyed her brother expectantly. “You got another idea?”
“Best idea I had yet,” mumbled Phoebus. “Dynamite.”
“Dynamite?” blinked Toby, recoiling.
“It’s sudden and it’s sure,” declared Phoebus. “You’ll hear of men that got healthy again after they was shot or stabbed, but did you ever hear of any man recoverin’ from gettin’ blowed up by dynamite?’’
“Well …”. frowned Toby.
“Dynamite is for sure,” said Phoebus. “Dynamite is somethin’ you can count on, because whatever it does is real permanent.”
“We got dynamite,’’ Fiona cheerfully remembered.
“Uh huh,” grunted Phoebus. “Plenty in the wagon.”
“Well—how…?” Toby began again.
“I figure to fix a bad surprise for that Rand feller,” said Phoebus. “Gonna stash a few sticks in a canister, punch a hole in the lid and run a fuse through. That’s neater, you know what I mean? Well—neater—till she goes off and blows Mr. Rand sky-high.”
“So—uh—when are we gonna do it?” asked Toby.
“No need to hustle,” shrugged Phoebus. “Not now that I’ve figured out a sure-fire way o’ gettin’ this chore finished. We’ll just bide our time, keep an eye on him, wait for just the right moment—and then—boom!”
“Boom!” repeated Fiona, giggling.
A short time after Nora’s small pupils had departed that afternoon, Chet Moberley emerged from the mesquite and made for the side door of the schoolhouse. This end of Brackett Road was almost deserted at the time; nobody observed the heavy-set man sidling up to that door, opening it, slipping inside. Nora was unaware of his presence until he addressed her from just inside the doorway. She was
seated on the dais by the blackboard, replacing text books in her satchel.
“’Scuse me, Miss Nora. I don’t want to cause you no alarm, but...”
“What is it?” As yet she was undismayed. It wasn’t the first time that a townman had entered the school without knocking; usually they came to enquire the whereabouts of their young ones As this man stepped up to the dais, she realized she had never seen him before. “If it’s about one of my pupils .
“I’m real sorry, ma’am,” said Moberley. “It’s about Jim Rand. He had an accident—got hurt bad…”
“Oh, no!” She couldn’t conceal her alarm, as she rose to her feet. “Where—how…?”
“This way,” he offered. “I’ll show you the place.”
And she had reached the side door, with the heavy-set stranger close behind her, before it occurred to her to ask his name. She paused and was beginning to turn, when the cruel blow plunged her into oblivion; Moberley had sent his fist slamming to that region of her head directly above her right ear. She slumped into his arms.
He nudged the door open, whistled softly. Dusang came striding across the yard, casting covert glances to right and left.
“Nobody around,” he grinned, upon reaching the doorway.
From under his coat he produced a folded grain sack. Moberley, meanwhile, was applying a gag and tying Nora’s hands behind her. When they again crossed the yard, they were toting the now-filled sack between them, and thus was Nora Fenton transported away from the town limits; she traveled draped across a saddle, incapable of helping herself, unable to cry out.
Riding the west trail, Moberley and Dusang passed only one group of locals, a quartet of farmhands en route to Pringle in a wagon. They moved on westward and, while checking the ropes securing the sack to the third horse, Moberley muttered,
“Keep your eyes peeled for that landmark.”
“It’s dead ahead,” announced Dusang. “I couldn’t miss it, Chet. Never in a million years.”
The rock reared its twenty-five feet of bulk to the right of a bend of the trail, standing alone and, thanks to its grotesque shape, easily identified. Locals referred to it as Slocum’s Rock. Jase Keane and his new allies identified it by its unique structure; from a distance it appeared as a large “S.”
By the left side of the bend, where the spruce and aspen grew thick, the kidnappers paused to listen for sounds of approaching riders. All was quiet. They crossed the trail, rode past the rock and into a stand of cottonwood. Beyond the cottonwoods, a few moments later, they sighted the ramshackle dwelling situated dead center of a barren 100 square yards.
“Jase sure thinks of everything, don’t he?” chuckled Moberley, as they rode toward the shack. “Rand’ll be wide open and gunless, so Jase can please himself just how and when he cuts him down. From the porch, maybe, with a rifle. Or he might wait for Rand to reach the house, and then let him have it up close with a six-gun.”
“A sure-thing killin’,” mused Dusang. “No risk at all.”
“You can’t blame a feller like Jase for wantin’ to protect himself,” insisted Moberley.
“Who’s blamin’ him?” shrugged Dusang.
Behind the shack stood what had once been a stout, weatherproof barn. That structure was now as decrepit as the main building, but Keane insisted that the horses be hidden in there. To have turned their animals into the old pole corral would have meant advertising that the house was re-occupied.
“Gettin’ late now, Jase.” remarked Moberley, by way of greeting.
Unceremoniously, he toted the sack to the porch, while Dusang led the horses around back to the barn. Keane lit a cigar and stood aside to permit Moberley to tote his burden into the shack.
“Any trouble?” he demanded.
“Not one little bit,” chuckled Moberley. “Tell you one thing about this school ma’am, Jase. She ain’t the smartest female I ever run into. She’s stupid—I mean real stupid.”
And that scathing assessment of her intelligence was the first speech Nora heard, immediately after regaining consciousness. She was dumped face-down on an evil smelling bunk, after Moberley had torn the sack away. Disheveled, helpless and terrified, she lay huddled there, while Keane quietly warned Moberley and Sayle.
“From now on, no names. I think she’s awake.”
“Whatever you say,” shrugged Moberley. “Meantime, who writes the note to her old man?”
“And who delivers it?” asked Sayle.
“There’ll be no note,” drawled Keane. “As soon as it’s full dark, I’ll ride back to Pringle and wait for my chance. The sawbones’ll get a message—but not on paper.”
She lay rigid now, her mind in turmoil. Who were these men—and what did they want? She fought back the urge to scream through her gag, as their conversation continued.
“I’ve been thinkin’,” said Moberley. “We stand to collect from that certain party you spoke of, but it ain’t what I’d call a fortune. Now, as long as we’re gonna force Rand to come to us, why couldn’t he be our money-carrier? The doc...”
“The doc would pay anything for the safe return of his ever-lovin’ daughter.” Keane nodded knowingly. “Yeah. I already thought of it. Too good a chance to miss, I’d say.�
��
“Well, how much...?” began Sayle.
“It’s a two-bit burg,” shrugged Keane. “I don’t see how he could scare up more than three thousand.”
“That’s better than nothin’,” asserted Moberley.
“Why, sure,” chuckled Sayle. “We got a right to make expenses, eh fellers?”
Jim had dined at a downtown restaurant. When Doc Fenton located him, it was some forty-five minutes later, and he was seated on the law office steps, quietly conversing with the marshal and savoring the cooling night breeze. Benito was perched on the porch-rail, strumming his guitar. Abe Fenton squatted in a caneback chair, smoking.
The medico paused by the steps. Greetings were exchanged, and then,
“Mamie and I half-expected you’d have supper with us,” Doc told Jim.
“Nora half-invited me,” countered Jim. “But that was just before Bissell came along. I think—for a while—it’d be better for Nora if she didn’t see me. The sight of me is apt to remind her of what happened.”
“It shook her, and that’s putting it mild,” fretted Doc. “You don’t need to worry about Nora,” opined the marshal. “She don’t scare easy.”
“You’re her uncle—not her father, Abe,” said Doc. “I know her better than you. She’s a fine girl, but she does scare easy...”
“Typical female trait,” suggested Jim.
“Well—I don’t know.” Doc shook his head sadly. “You take her mother for instance. Mamie’s got strong nerves and a lot of courage. But Nora—poor Nora...” He shook his head again, then asked Jim, “By the way, where did you and Nora have supper? Not at Walt’s place, I bet.”
He traded grins with his brother, who cheerfully announced,
“That dinin’ room smells just fine again.”
“Maybe so, but I took no chances,” said Jim. “We had our supper at a place called Ma Wilson’s.”
“You could do a sight worse,” yawned the marshal, settling lower in his chair. “Ma cooks the best chicken supper in the whole durn territory.”
“Just Benito and I,” Jim thought to tell Doc. “Nora wasn’t with us.”
“She wasn’t?” blinked Doc.
“I haven’t seen her since lunchtime,” said Jim.
“Well, damn it all…” began Doc.
“What’s up, Matt?” demanded his brother.
“It’s not like Nora to stay away so long,” frowned Doc. “Mamie looks for her around four o’clock at the latest.”
“You haven’t seen her at all?” When the medico shook his head, his brother rose up out of his chair and trudged to the steps. “She’s likely visitin’ with Moss Finney’s daughter, or maybe across town at the Lamberts. No call for you to fret, Doc, but we’ll go take a look for her, if it’ll make you feel any easier.”
“We’ll lend a hand,” Jim abruptly decided.
For some fifteen minutes or so, the four men moved along various sections of Main Street, querying passers-by and winning negative answers. The medico and his badge-toting brother began checking on the many close friends of the young schoolteacher, still to no avail.
It was Doc who received Jason Keane’s message, and the ultimatum was delivery by word of mouth, and violently. He was traversing one of Pringle’s dimly-lit back alleys, using it as a short-cut to the home of one of Nora’s friends, when the killer accosted him. So pre-occupied was he that he was unaware of being followed, until Keane loomed up behind him and grasped his shoulder. He was spun around and, with scant regard for his advanced years, shoved face-first against a wall. Keane’s hard left hand pressed him against the wall, and the gun muzzle rammed into his back was an extra inducement for him to hold still.
The voice whispering in his ear was harsh and raspy. In a few terse and frightening sentences, Keane delivered his ultimatum. He then repeated all the main points and made Doc do likewise, but softly. Then,
“That’s fine,” he breathed. “Do just like I say, and the little lady don’t get hurt.”
“You mean to kill Jim Rand!” panted Doc. “You’ll butcher him, you...!”
“Shuddup!” snarled Keane. “All you got to do is pass the word to Rand—understand? And don’t forget the dinero.”
“How am I gonna get my hands on three thousand dollars between now and sunrise?” fretted Doc.
“That’s your problem, mister,” chuckled Keane.
The barrel of his Colt rose and fell. With his hat rammed over his ears by the impact, the medico grunted once, buckled at the knees and flopped to the ground. He was coming to his senses, groaning curses, when Keane scuttled out of the alley, and that was how Keane wanted it. On purpose, he had struck Doc only hard enough to render him temporarily inactive.
As he ran along a side alley toward the brush wherein his horse awaited him, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the man he had undertaken to liquidate. Big Jim was striding past the mouth of the alley, answering the shouted summons of the marshal. For a moment, Keane was tempted to empty his holster and snap a shot at that towering albeit slightly blurred target. He resisted the temptation for practical reasons, and out of his deep-rooted concern for his own welfare. If his first shot missed, he might well become the quarry rather than the hunter. In dealing with Bissell, the big man had already proven himself to be a deadly adversary.
When Jim and the Mex caught up with the Fenton brothers, they were still in the back alley. Doc was on his feet, but mumbling incoherently in response to the urgent queries voiced by his kinsman. Jim and Benito arrived in time to hear the medico’s first intelligible words.
“Get me home. Mamie better hear it too.”
He sat in the kitchen a short time later, holding a sodden towel to his aching head and sipping hot coffee spiked with brandy. Mamie, doggedly calm in this time of crisis, waited patiently for her husband to repeat the kidnappers’ ultimatum. The Mex sat quiet. Abe Fenton paced back and forth like a caged animal. Jim stood with his back to the closed kitchen door and rolled yet another cigarette.
“Plain enough what they want,” muttered Doc. “Two things. Money—and Jim. Jim has to deliver the cash—and himself—to the place they’ve nominated. If we make our own search for Nora...”
“They’ve threatened to kill her.” Mamie heaved a sigh, bowed her head. “Naturally they’d say that.”
‘The hell of it is,” scowled the marshal, “we daren’t take a chance that they won’t go through with it.” He stopped pacing, paused by the chair where his brother sat. “Where will they be waitin’?”
“He described the place,” said Doc. “He spoke of a crazy-shaped rock, a rock that looks like a letter ‘S.’ Well, we know what that means.”
“Slocum’s Rock,” mused the marshal.
“From there,” said Doc, “Jim will be taken to...”
He shrugged helplessly, “wherever they’re holding Nora.”
“Jim, we haven’t the right to ask this of you.” It took a great deal of moral courage on Mamie Fenton’s part to stress this fact. “Matt thinks you’re being ordered out to your death, and I agree. It’s—it’s an obvious ruse.”
“Yeah,” grunted the marshal. “Any fool can see that.”
“What’s the alternative?” Jim grinned wryly, came across to pat Doc’s shoulder and to slip a brawny arm about Mamie’s waist. “Am I supposed to pretend I haven’t heard?
“You know I have to do what they ask.”
“Then—you’ll go?” she frowned.
“I’ll do exactly what they’ve demanded,” said Jim. “I’ll ride out to that bend in the west trail right after sun-up—unarmed—and with the money in my saddlebag. That’s it. That’s the way it has to be, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”
The Fentons lapsed into a grim silence, during which Benito unobtrusively made his exit. When Jim broke the silence by declaring his intention of returning to the hotel, the harassed Doc Fenton sadly remarked,
“All this time I’ve begged you to stay out of your saddle, and now I have t
o contradict myself.”
“Sure, Doc,” said Jim. “But don’t worry about it.”
“How do I find the words,” wondered Doc, “to thank a man who’d sacrifice himself—-for my daughter’s sake?”
“Maybe I won’t be sacrificing myself,” shrugged Jim. “It’s never too late to strike back. There’s always a chance I’ll get to turn the tables on ’em —after they’ve set Nora free.”
“You could be right,” mumbled the marshal, but he sounded dubious.
“You should rest, Matt,” said Mamie.
“No...” The medico was struggling to his feet with his brother’s assistance. “I’ll have to go find the manager of the bank. Between now and dawn I’ll be mighty busy—scaring up that ransom money...”
“You’re worth that much—and a heap more,” opined his brother.
“My patients don’t always pay in cash,” sighed Doc. “And I doubt if these kidnappers would accept a side of beef or a sack of flour in lieu of dollars.”
A short time later, a profoundly impressed Benito Espina entered the room he shared with the big man and watched him tugging off his boots, flopping down on his bed.
“Just like this, Amigo Jim?” he challenged. “You will sleep—knowing that you might die mañana?”
“Being bone-tired and brain-weary when I reached Slocum’s Rock,” said Jim, “Isn’t gonna help me any. I need sleep. I might as well have it.”
“You will be unarmed—at the mercy of these women-stealers,” frowned Benito. “This you know for sure—and yet you will sleep.” He moved closer to Jim’s bed, gazed wistfully at the holstered Colt hung from the bedpost. “You should have some kind of weapon.”
“If they find a gun on me,” said Jim, “they’re bound to put a bullet in my head—and kill the señorita while they’re about it. They have nothing to gain by showing mercy.”
“And you, my Amigo Jim, are a dead man for sure,” countered Benito, “if you have not one little—how you call it—ace up your sleeve?”
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