by Rita Hestand
Frankie stared at his mother and handed her a hankie. "I liked him too, Ma."
Anna grabbed Frankie and hugged him.
"Oh Frankie, they killed the deputy…they killed Davy."
"Ma, I'm gonna get you in the house, and I’m going for help." Frankie told her.
"Frankie, it's too dangerous."
"I got to Ma. Maybe they can catch up to them." Frankie told her.
"All right son. Go to the Abernathy's house and tell him what has happened. Tell him about Davy, and tell him not to shoot Les."
"I will Ma, don't worry. Let's get you back in the house now." Frankie pushed her. She was still crying.
"Davy wasn't very old…"
"I know Ma. Don't think on it now. We gotta worry about Les."
She tried to smile. Frankie was always trying to make her feel better.
"If it's too dark by the time you get there, just stay until morning I'll be all right." She told him.
"No Ma, I'm coming back tonight. They might come back here."
Anna shook her head. "No, I don't want you out late. Just stay there."
"Ma, ain't I helped you when you needed me?"
"Sure you have, son."
"Then let me now! Where you go, I go. What happens to you, happens to me."
"Okay, Frankie. Okay."
"I'll be back. I'm gonna lock the back door, you lock the front one when I leave, and don't let nobody but me or Mr. Abernathy in, you hear?"
"Yes Frankie, I hear." She smiled. "I love you!"
"I love you too Ma. Now don't worry, I'll be back before you know it."
She nodded, and when he left she locked the door.
But as she sat alone in her kitchen she realized just how alone she was and it scared her. She was so worried about Les now. More than she cared to admit.
Chapter Fifteen
Frankie was out of breath when he reached the Abernathy's. He paused by the fence to rest a minute and catch his breath. The Abernathy farm was a good five miles away from his place. He'd run and jumped all the way. He'd stumbled a time or two and thought he might have twisted his ankle at one point. All he could think about was getting back to his Ma. She was so upset about everything.
He was happy he'd been able to get a gun to Les. At least he got Junior. But that Colby was sure cold blooded, he hoped Les would be alright. He'd seen confusion in his mother's eyes. She didn't know who to believe, but Frankie trusted Les. They'd become good friends and he believed in him.
He raised his head from the fence post and climbed over the fence now.
Todd Abernathy was at the water well when he ran up. Frankie went to school with Todd, they even walked together to school.
Frankie bent over trying to get his breath once more. He couldn't hardly talk he was so out of breath. He'd climbed fences, jumped creeks and ran for miles. His face had turned almost purple.
"Frankie, is that you?" Todd squinted to see through the dark.
"Yeah Todd, go get your Pa." Frankie shouted breathlessly, "I gotta catch my breath."
"Somethin' wrong?" Todd asked coming closer.
"Don't ask me stupid questions, just go get you Pa!"
"Okay, I'm goin'." Todd ran in the house hollering for his Pa. Mr. Abernathy grabbed his gun from the door and ran outside to find Frankie still trying to catch his breath. He looked at him and turned to Todd.
"Bring him some water son." Mr. Abernathy said when he saw Frankie bent over.
"What's wrong, boy? Just take it easy now. Drink a little of this, you'll feel better."
Mr. Abernathy handed him a scoop of water.
Frankie took it and sipped it down. He turned the scoop over his head to cool himself down.
He took a deep breath and looked up into Mr. Abernathy's serious face. "You gotta help. Some men came up to our house yesterday." He grabbed a breath…"bank robbers. They killed Davy the deputy, and Mr. Harvey and Les had to ride out with them…"
"Bank robbers! Who's Les?"
"Yes sir, hurry, you got to get the Sheriff and chase them." Frankie told them. "Les is a friend. He saved me and Ma from getting killed. They'll kill him. You gotta help him."
"Alright son, fetch my horse Todd. You want to spend the night Frankie?" Mr. Abernathy asked him.
"No…I got to get back to Ma. She's alone." Frankie told him. "They might come back."
"Did they say that?"
"Yes sir, they said they might come back and kill us, if they didn't find the money."
Cissy came out and saw Frankie, "What's wrong with him Pa?"
"Nothin' child. Get your mother out here now."
Cissy ran back in the house crying for her mother.
Mrs. Abernathy came out to see what was going on.
"Kate, you and the kids take Frankie home and stay with Mrs. Prescott. She's had some trouble over to her place."
"All right, Cissy, go get your brother and let's go."
Kate Abernathy was a no nonsense woman, she never asked silly, useless questions. She knew her husband well enough that when he told her to do something, she did it. Frankie smiled at how fast she acted. "Come on Frankie get in the wagon and we'll go see your Ma."
Frankie jumped in as the kids crowded around him, but it was hard for Frankie to tell them everything.
"Thanks Mr. Abernathy," Frankie yelled. Mr. Abernathy was already galloping away.
"Be careful," Kate called to her husband.
He nodded and was off.
When Kate pulled the wagon up to the house, they saw the deputy's body laying on the ground. His horse stood unhobbled beside him. Davy's eyes were still open, staring without seeing. Mrs. Abernathy grabbed her mouth and shouted at the kids. "For heaven's sake. You kids go on and get to the house now." She told Cissy and Toby, the youngest. "Todd you and Frankie come here, we've got to move this body…We can't leave it lay out here. I can't manage it alone."
Frankie and Todd looked at each other then obeyed her. She knew they were scared to touch the body, but it had to be done.
They lifted the body, Frankie and Todd grabbing the feet and her grabbing the hands and drug it to the other side of the barn and she spotted Junior's body just a ways away. She covered her mouth again, her eyes widening. "Mercy, what has happened here? I'll swan. You sure your mother is all right?"
Frankie ran for the house.
When Todd stood there staring at Junior's body, Kate reacted quickly.
"We'll leave him here until the men get here. They'll take care of the buryin'. Let's get up to the house now." She told him in a dead calm voice.
Todd had never seen a dead body before and he stared for a minute longer. Frankie had already gone in the house looking for his mother.
Kate and Todd ran to the house.
Anna had stirred up a batch of cookies after Frankie left to take her mind off the killing. She was still very red eyed when Kate Abernathy walked in.
"Land sakes girl, you've had yourself some trouble, haven't you?" Kate said checking on the cookies and pulling them out of the oven as though she knew exactly why Anna was doing this. The kids started to reach for them and Kate tapped them with a spatula. "They're hot, now wait 'til the cool off some. It won't be long, sit yourself down on the floor there and wait."
She made a pot of coffee and still hadn't asked Anna what happened. But from the look on Anna's face, she knew there would be a story to tell. Anna got some sweet milk and poured them all a glass. The four of them sat on the floor with a plate of warm cookies beside them and their milk.
When Kate finally sat down she looked into Anna's red eyes. "Now, you tell me what has happened, hon, as best you can?"
Anna sighed heavily. "Where to start."
"From the beginning. I knew something was up when you missed church on Sunday and then when Todd came in from school and said Frankie wasn't in school today, I knew there was something going on over here. I told Mr. Abernathy that. We were thinkin' of comin' over anyway."
Anna smiled now as t
he kids took a cookie and sat in the floor talking and eating.
"It all started when Frankie found Les Harper in the barn with a bullet in his leg." Anna began. She told her the whole story and Mrs. Abernathy grabbed her mouth when she told about the killings.
"You found him in the barn, and he'd been shot?" Todd repeated.
Frankie nodded. "Sure did. Bleedin' all over the place too."
"Land sakes, were you scared out of your mind?" Cissy asked.
"Yes, a little" Frankie admitted.
"So, do you believe this Les Harper. Do you think he is a ranger?" Kate asked Anna.
"Yes, I'm almost sure of that."
"And they've gone to get the money?"
"I guess. A fella by the name of Bird was supposed to show up, but he never did. They were planning on robbing the bank in town. Bird was supposed to be checking it out. But Les figured Bird took off with the money himself. Les supposedly hid the money before he came here. So they were all going after it. Only he said Bird knew where it was. There's only two of them, and this Bird, where ever he might be. But they are killers, I tell you."
"Well, rest assured, John has gone for the Sheriff and they'll find them. It's a wonder you and Frankie weren't killed."
"Les told them if they harmed us, he'd never tell them where the money was." Anna repeated.
"Oh my, do you think they'll kill him?"
"I don't know. He's pretty smart." Anna told her. "I don't know if he really hid it, or if he gave the money to the authorities."
"They don't know he's a ranger?"
"No, thank God for that."
"I can't get over it, Mr. Harvey and Davy bein' dead though. I mean…Davy was just a kid. He was good at his job, but he was just a kid. And Mr. Harvey was such a nice person." Kate was saying, shaking her head sadly. "I can't believe he's dead."
"Davy had gone looking for Mr. Harvey, after they killed him. He couldn't find him. I don't know where they were when he done it. I thought a lot of both of them…" Anna found herself crying again. "Neither of them deserved that."
"Don't you fret, they'll catch up to them." Kate told her.
"I just hope it's in time." Anna cried. "Les is in a lot of trouble. And if they don't get that money, they'll kill him for sure."
Chapter Sixteen
Les led them a good fifteen miles away from Anna's place. He wanted to make sure she was in no danger.
He'd thought out a plan ahead of time. When he was escaping the robbery. The money was safe, but he'd set up a way to escape this moment, he only hoped it worked.
"So where's the money Harper?" Swanson asked as they stopped to rest the horses. The horses had worked up a lot of foam. Swanson pushed back his sweat rimmed hat and pulled off his bandana to dry the sweat around his neck.
Les eyed them carefully. He glanced around the country side, it looked much different than the night he had ridden through here. "About five miles down the road."
"Did you bury it?"
Les nearly laughed. "No, I dumped it down a dried up well." Les told them.
Swanson eyed him carefully. "A dried up well. What'd you do that fer. It better be there, Les. Anybody could take it from there."
"Relax will ya? A well is deeper than a place to bury it would be. They wouldn't be able to see it, even if they looked down in it. It was abandoned, and dried up no one would look for it there. And it will be there unless Bird has gone after it." Les told them.
"How would Bird have known what you did with it?" Colby asked eyeing Les with more than a little suspicion.
Les glanced at Colby a minute. He turned his head, as though they should know all the answers. "You know Bird as well as I do. He didn't trust anyone. Least of all me, 'cause I hadn't been with you fellas as long. That was a good name for him too, 'cause he birddogged me all the time. I nearly quit you because of it. I mean, if you can't trust a person, why let them in on a deal? Anyway, he followed behind me when the posse took after us. I knew he'd follow me because he wanted to keep his eyes on the money. He saw me dump it in that old well. I'd have probably buried it, but there wasn't time, I was hit in the leg and the posse was after us too and it was storming if you remember."
Both of them nodded and looked at each other. "That's true, we took cover in an old line shack that night."
"When I spotted that old well I thought it the perfect place to put it. Bird was there, he saw me do it. I looked at him, and he nodded and rode off. I wasn't sure where he was going from there, but I took off in another direction, to confuse the posse that was on our tails. And to keep them from figuring out where it was, I brushed my tracks away from the well. So when we ride up on it, look and see if there is any tracks around there. If there is, you can bet they belong to Bird. He's the only other person that knew where it was." Les explained. "We were quite a ways ahead of the posse then so I had a easy enough time to clear my tracks. I knew if it led up to the well, they might get curious."
Swanson and Colby stared at one another.
"You figure he double crossed us?" Swanson finally asked him.
"I honestly don't know. I didn't know Bird as well as you fellas did. I never liked Bird much, he was too quick on the trigger for my liking. I'm as game as anyone for robbing stages or banks, but when it comes to killing, I usually back off. If caught stealing isn't half as bad as murder. If the money isn't there, you damned right he did." Les replied.
"You sure killed Junior pretty easy, to be so squeamish about killin'." Swanson recollected.
"I don't take kindly to anyone pulling a gun on me. If I'm cornered, I'll fight. I just don't kill for the fun of it."
Colby nodded. "Bird was always fast on the gun. I mean I remember him killin' several of the stage drivers and he really didn't have to. They'd given up their guns. And that posse like to ate us alive."
"If the four of you found me, and he left, doesn't that strike you as odd. You said he wanted to quit after he done a couple of jobs. Right" Les looked at Swanson now for approval.
"Yeah, that's what he said." Swanson confidence in Bird was wilting now, Les saw the doubt in his eyes, heard it in his voice.
"Well, if he took all the money, he could quit then. And…we always checked out the banks together. So why would he volunteer to do it alone? There's a lot of holes in his story. Now either the posse caught up to him with the money, and took him in, or maybe they killed him, or, maybe, just maybe he got away with it all."
Les had them thinking and scratching their heads. So far his plan was working well. He'd already created doubt in their minds.
"It is funny that he never showed up. But he could have run into that posse when he left us, that's true. Or he could be dead. But if he's got that money…"
"What I want to know is, how'd you find me? I did my best to cover my tracks when I headed for that barn. That and the storm itself should have destroyed my tracks."
Swanson smiled, "Bird doubled back to find us, and led us to where he last saw you, then we just spread out and hunted for you. We talked to a few people and when we stumbled on Mr. Harvey, well, he was anxious to tell us all about you, Les. I think he was sweet on that crippled lady and upset that you were staying there. Why'd you stay so long Les?"
"My leg for one, and…I guess I kind of liked her too. She sure could cook. Haven't had groceries like that since I was home. And she's not bad to look at either."
"Where is home for you, Les, you never did say?" Swanson looked at him.
"My daddy was a guard at the Huntsville prison when it opened. That's where I grew up."
Colby laughed, "Damn, they didn't see you comin' did they?"
"So this Mr. Harvey had reason to be jealous, huh?" Swanson seemed interested in Les's story.
"Maybe. One thing I don't get though," Les pushed his hat back and scratched his chin.
"What's that?"
"Once you found me, why didn't you all come on in and get me? And why did Bird tell you he was checking out another bank? Eighty thousand dolla
rs is hard enough to hide. Any more, we'd need a wagon to haul it. Didn't you even suspicion him leaving like that? After all, he was the only one that seen where I put it."
"We didn't know that. We saw him take off from the bank but we didn't know you was in front of him." Swanson thought on that a minute. "He said he'd meet us there, after he checked the bank out. We didn't think it'd take too long. It never dawned on us. I guess over the years we got too comfortable with Bird. Not many people liked him, and the ones that didn't usually ended up dead."
"Yeah, I kinda figured that. I wasn't sure about my own hide when he followed me like that. After all, I had all the money."
"Listen we were lucky to have all that information about the Union payroll coming in, from that Corporal Dobbs."
Les stared at Swanson. "But just blankly holding up another bank, and so soon, that don't even make good sense. The plan was to hide it and lay low a while, then get it, split and plan another one. When you plan a holdup like that, you don't send everyone in blindly. But we didn't have any inside information on that other bank. We don't even know if they had a big payroll or not. We all talked about it, don't you remember?"
Colby nodded, "He's right. That was the plan. And one person checking out the bank…that don't make a lot of sense either. I don't know why we didn't see through that ourselves, Swanson."
They sat there in the middle of a grove, talking about it, while still mounted. "Let's go see if the money is still there, now!" Swanson frowned. "Harper, if you are right, we're gonna have some ridin' to do."
"I know!" Les nodded. "You gotta think though, he could have been caught getting the money. Or they might have killed him dead, he might have shot it out with them. We need to look around the place and see what we can come up with. Hopefully, it's still there. But if it isn't…we risked our necks for nothing."
Les knew that last statement would have them thinking on his side for a change.
"He's right," Swanson muttered.
"Let's ride." Colby whipped his horse with his hand. Les could see Colby was getting antsy about the whole situation.
By the time they reached the well, it was pitch dark, and the moon wasn't out.