by Tim Champlin
“I reckon that’s a good one,” Huck said.
Tom was satisfied as well. “I guess now the onliest thing we can do is trust in Providence to . . .”
He was interrupted when Smealey entered the room and handed each of them two small strips of some kind of smoked meat.
Tom gnawed on it hungrily.
Saying nothing, Smealey dipped a gourdful of water from the small bucket he carried. He handed a drink to each of the boys in turn.
Then he left the room.
Tom finished the dried meat and almost immediately began to feel better.
A few minutes later, Gus Weir entered, holding a Colt pistol, and Tom’s stomach dropped.
“Stand up. We’re moving out.”
The boys struggled clumsily to their feet.
Tom took another look at the man. He seemed to have changed. Then he saw Weir was wearing a false beard, glued on to match his black mustache. He had also altered the shape of his nose. Tom had seen enough amateur theatrical productions to recognize a putty nose. This one was considerably wider than the original.
The two horses were saddled and a canvas sack of gold coins was stuffed into one large pocket of each saddlebag while the other sides were filled with the small ham and other food items, utensils, and Weir’s makeup for various disguises.
Huck was mounted on one horse and Weir took the reins and led the animal. Smealey rode the other horse and Tom was directed to take the reins and lead the horse, following along behind the others.
“Don’t make no sudden moves,” Smealey said. “I have my gun in my hand.”
They started out through the tall weeds toward the far side of the clearing. There was no road or even a wagon track.
An hour later, they halted for ten minutes and everyone rested while the horses drank from a swampy pond and the humans drank from canteens. Then the riders and walkers switched places; Tom rode and Huck walked. At first Tom thought this a curious arrangement, but then realized if both he and Huck were astride at the same time, they might make a break for it.
Tom noted they were moving south. This way he knew would eventually take them to the Missouri River. He occupied his mind trying to figure out how far it was. But this quickly grew to be a tiresome and futile exercise.
So he switched and began to think of Becky. It warmed him to picture her as safe, though scuffed and bedraggled from her several-day ordeal. He wondered if she had had the gumption to take the yawl by herself and row down the river. Surely, she had seen the chance and taken his shouted advice. Being rather small and not hardened to physical labor, handling a boat of that size alone would have been a daunting chore. And she likely had to wait out the storm first. Even he and Huck would not have attempted it in the blackness and violence of that thunderstorm.
Keeping his mind occupied as they slogged along through thick forest and over patches of swampy ground, Tom whiled away the next several hours. Alternately riding and walking, he mentally escaped and the time went by much faster.
Sunset found them in a thinning stand of timber and in sight of a settlement some distance ahead. None of them had had anything to eat since morning, but Tom was more thirsty than hungry.
“That’d be St. Charles,” Weir said as they halted the horses. “Scout around for a good dry spot to camp and we’ll start a fire and cook some grub.” He dismounted. “I’ll fix you up with a white wig and some green glasses before we hit town in the morning.”
The days in mid-June were long and it was only dusk when Smealey and Weir finished cooking the meal over the campfire. They shared a good bit of it with Tom and Huck.
Smealey unsaddled the horses and hobbled them on a nearby patch of grass to graze and roll.
Tom guessed his stomach had shrunk, but he ate until he was full—mostly food from their own yawl, he noted.
“We’ll use up most of this food tonight,” Weir told Smealey. “Maybe save a little for tomorrow, in case. We won’t be needin’ it after that. And we don’t want to be totin’ anything extra.”
He spoke in front of the boys, who were eating with their hands still shackled. The iron bracelets were chaffing Tom’s wrists raw, but he said nothing, sometimes pulling one sleeve and then the other down far enough to stuff under the metal rings.
“What’s the plan from here?” Smealey asked.
Weir motioned for him to move away from the fire into the nearby woods, out of earshot.
Their low conversation didn’t carry to Tom, who continued to fork up the ham and beans, apparently paying no attention to his captors. But he was all ears. To no avail, it turned out. The men were cautious and whatever plans they were making, the boys would know soon enough.
Two hours later, the fire was dying down, the horses were on a picket line strung between two trees, and Smealey was standing first watch. Weir lay under a blanket, his head on one of the saddles.
Smealey didn’t look happy about performing sentry duty after a long day of traveling, but made no complaint. It was obvious to Tom who the boss was here.
Fatigued and pleasantly stuffed with decent food, he prepared to stretch out on the grass with an old quilt.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
By Monday morning, Becky, Jim, and Zane were rested and thoroughly bored with sitting around their camp near the boat. Although Zane said he still thought it a bad idea for a black man, a white blond girl, and a part-Chinese boy to be seen together in town, Jim was adamant that he should accompany them.
“I be yo slave, if anybody axe,” Jim said.
Zane laughed. “I pretended to be Becky’s servant the other day,” he said. “Seemed to work okay.” Both he and Jim had lost their hats in the storm, and needed some kind of head covering. Becky also wanted a wide-brimmed stylish straw hat she’d noticed in the mercantile.
To keep anyone from stealing the yawl, Jim suggested they hide both pairs of oars in the underbrush in the woods. They stowed their camp gear under a tangle of fallen tree limbs in the same area, taking only the canteens with them. Jim made sure the widow’s Baby Dragoon was loaded, capped, and in his side pocket in case of trouble, or an extreme emergency. They planned to be as unobtrusive as possible.
After buying their hats, Zane asked the clerk directions to the sheriff’s office.
“I don’t know about the county sheriff,” the young man told them, “but the police station is down that street two blocks and turn right. About a block north.”
“What we gonna tell ’em, Zane?” Jim seemed nervous about facing the uniformed lawmen.
“We’ll say what happened, and see if they can send word to the St. Louis police or Judge Thatcher or Sheriff Stiles.” He was feeling frustrated that there was no telephone system with wires, or, better yet, cell phones with towers or satellites.
Zane led them in the front door, trying to look businesslike and confident. “We need to tell someone about a kidnapping,” Zane said to the desk sergeant drawing himself up to his full five foot, five inches.
“Oh, do you, now?” He looked Zane up and down. The sergeant had a young face, but was completely bald except for a fringe around the ears. Bushy dark eyebrows gave him a look of authority. “I’ll fetch the captain.”
The three were ushered into another room where a middle-aged policeman, looking uncomfortably warm in a trim blue uniform, motioned them to chairs around a table.
“I’m Captain Shawnfield. What’s this about a kidnapping?”
Zane told the story from the beginning, being as brief as possible. Then Becky added what she knew about the kidnappers and what they looked like.
The captain called in a clerk to take notes, then continued. “I’ve heard of Judge Thatcher. So you’re his daughter?”
“Yes, sir.” Becky, in her new clothes, sat with her broad-brimmed Panama hat on her lap, managing to look like a proper young lady in spite of her sunburned, mosquito-bitten face and arms.
“Hmm . . . So you were freed and two other hostages taken? Are these men
demanding more ransom for the two boys?”
“No, sir. At least I don’t think so.” She continued to relate what she’d overheard about Smealey’s desire for revenge.
The captain had read about the boys finding the treasure two years before. “I was relieved to hear about Injun Joe’s death,” he remarked. “He caused no end of trouble up and down the river.”
Shawnfield questioned her closely about the looks and mannerisms of the two men, and what else she might have overheard of their plans.
“The one who’s a slave hunter is named Gus Weir, and the other man was called Chigger Smealey.”
The clerk was taking rapid notes.
“Can you send a telegraph message to the St. Louis police and ask them to notify Judge Thatcher?” Zane asked. “He thinks Becky is still a prisoner.”
“I’d like to, son,” the captain said, rubbing his freshly shaved chin. “There’s a telegraph hookup between Washington City and St. Louis, but no telegraph here yet. I’ll have to send word down on a steamboat. I’d advise you to go yourselves but there’s a terrible outbreak of cholera in St. Louis right now. It’s taken several thousand people in that city in the past few months, and is even now spreading upriver and out onto the overland trails toward California.”
Zane groaned inwardly, glancing at Jim, who was sitting silently nearby. The black man showed no expression, as if he’d been used to hearing bad news all his life.
Zane didn’t rightly know what cholera was, since he’d never heard it spoken of in his time, but didn’t want to show his ignorance by asking. If it was killing people at that rate, it must be bad.
“I’ll have all the men I can spare on the lookout for these two men and the two boys,” Captain Shawnfield said. “It’s a long shot they’ll turn up here, knowing the law is after them. But you never know. In normal times, we could do a pretty thorough job of scouring this city, but these aren’t normal times. You may have noticed there are several thousand more people here now than we can easily accommodate. Everybody mad for gold and crowding aboard every boat that’ll float to head upriver.”
“We understand,” Zane said.
“I’d advise you three to go on back to St. Petersburg, and we’ll spread the word about these kidnappers. The abandoned house you mentioned is the old Wellsley plantation a few miles north in a bend of the river. I’ll send a couple men up there to see if they can pick up a trail. If they were hiding out there, I feel sure they’re not there now; they could have left by boat with no trail.”
“They had two horses,” Becky pointed out. “They wouldn’t leave them behind.”
The captain rose and opened the door for them. “If you like, I can have one of my men give you directions to the steamboat ticket office. You shouldn’t have any trouble booking passage the other way.”
“We’ll find it, captain,” Zane said. “Thank you for your time and help.”
The three of them departed.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” Becky sniffed when they were walking back toward the waterfront. “Patting us on the head like nice doggies and telling us to go home.”
“Well, you could hardly expect any more from them,” Zane said, both irritated at her and frustrated at finding themselves at a dead end.
They ambled back into the downtown area, their spirits sagging.
Jim walked a few paces behind the two young people, head down befitting his role as a slave.
The streets were crowded with pedestrians, everyone seemingly in a hurry. Many were carrying grips or traveling bags, some trundling trunks on two-wheeled carts. Wagons of merchandise were loading and unloading at warehouses near the river. Commerce seemed to be booming. Even this early in the day, saloons were open and doing a good business.
Zane paused two blocks from the river and stepped back out of the way of the crush of pedestrians who were clumping along the boardwalk.
“Well, what do you want to do?” he asked Becky, including Jim in the question. “Shall we sell the yawl and go home?”
Becky frowned, staring off distractedly at the bustling crowds on the streets.
Zane saw her blue eyes suddenly focus on something and follow it along the street. As he turned to see what she was looking at, she brushed past him and darted out into the dusty street, dodging a buggy whose driver had to pull up his horse, cussing. Becky dashed up to a horseman, grabbed the bridle of his mount, and shouted, “Where’d you get this horse?”
The girl has gone crazy, Zane thought. The pressure’s made her mind snap.
Watching for an opening in the passing traffic, he nimbly bounded out to her.
“What’re you doing? Leave that man alone!” He grabbed her arm. “Sorry, mister,” he said to the startled rider who was trying to regain control of his plunging animal.
“I know this horse!” Becky hissed in Zane’s ear. “Smealey rode it.”
“What?” Zane looked at the animal.
“See that white blaze on its forehead?”
Zane looked. He recalled the judge mentioning it when describing the abduction.
“I had plenty of time to notice little details while they had me,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “A lopsided diamond. This is the one.”
“Is this your horse?” Zane asked the bearded rider. “My girlfriend has an eye for good horseflesh. She’s excited by beautiful animals like this.”
Becky still had a grip on the bridle, and the rider was calming his startled mount, who was still fiddle-footing.
“What’re you kids doing, anyway?” He sounded a little more than irritated. “This horse? Sure it’s mine. Just bought him down at the livery.”
“What livery? Where?” Becky demanded.
“We want one like him,” Zane added, trying to give some reason for her impulsive action.
“It’s called Horton’s Feed and Livery down at the end of this street—about three blocks west.”
“Thanks a lot, mister. Sorry for the inconvenience.” Zane pulled Becky away and they skipped past a lumbering beer wagon to the safety of the boardwalk. Glaring at them, the rider moved on.
“Did you hear that?” Zane asked Jim, who was watching them from the shade of a doorway awning.
“Soun’s like we best axe at de livery,” Jim said.
Becky wanted to run all the way, but Zane restrained her. “We don’t want to attract any attention,” he told her. “Walk fast. We’ll make it there soon enough.”
They still arrived somewhat out of breath, and Zane sought out the proprietor, a fat man in overalls who ambled up, chewing on a broom straw.
Becky took a deep breath and asked the man if he remembered selling a horse today and described the sorrel with the triangular white blaze on its forehead.
“Sure do. A gelding. Sound animal, but I think he’s been worked hard the past few days. I hardly had time to rub him down and feed him before this gent comes in and wants a horse, quick. He couldn’t buy a boat ticket and decided he was gonna start off for Californy to . . .”
“Never mind the man who bought him,” Zane interrupted. “Who did you buy him from?”
“Well, I bought two horses this morning, that sorrel bein’ one. Two men and two boys came in here . . .”
“See! What’d I tell you?” Becky jabbed Zane in the ribs.
“Be quiet!” Zane turned back to the livery owner. “Can you tell me their names or what they looked like?”
The fat man frowned. “These animals ain’t stole, are they? Maybe that’s why I didn’t have to pay much for ’em. They showed me a bill o’ sale that looked genuine.”
“As far as we know they’re not stolen,” Zane said. “We’re only interested in who sold them and what they looked like.”
“Wal, one had a full beard, black hair, and long nose. The other, as I recollect, wore green glasses and had long white hair.”
“Did you notice the boys?”
“Nooo . . . They was about your age, I’d guess, kinda lean and sunburnt, hair hadn’
t seen no comb or scissors for a spell.”
“Did the boys say anything to you? Did they speak at all?”
“Don’t recollect them saying nothin’. I took advantage of the low asking price for those animals, paid the two men, and they hightailed it like they was in a hurry.”
“What time was that?” Zane asked.
“Hmm . . . Early. Maybe four hours ago. Not long after sunup.” He looked at them with curiosity. “These folks friends o’ yourn?”
“Yeah,” Zane said quickly before Becky could reply. “We was supposed to meet ’em here in St. Charles and take off upriver for the gold fields, but I’m afraid they might have taken a boat ahead of us.”
“What names did they give you?” Becky asked.
“Let me think . . . The one with the full beard—his name was Ordway. I believe the other one called himself Phillips. Or, maybe ’twas the other way ’round. Not sure. I thought you knew them.”
“These men have a checkered past and sometimes operate under different names. No sense makin’ themselves too available to the local law, if you know what I mean,” Zane lied quickly. He was becoming more adept at this. “They ain’t good friends of ours—only someone we plan to travel with—share expenses, you know.”
“If they give you a bill of sale, was there a name on it?” Zane asked.
“Yeah, they gimme a paper.” He led the way into a cubby at the end of a row of stalls and fumbled around in a cigar box on the homemade desk.
“Here . . . Now that’s curious . . .” he remarked, glancing at the document as he held it out for Becky and Zane to see. “When these horses was bought, the name of the buyer was Gus Weir. Well, I can’t be responsible for any o’ that shiftin’ of identities and false names. I’m an honest businessman . . .”
Before he finished speaking, the three were out the door.
CHAPTER 18
* * *
As soon as they were twenty yards from the stable, Zane huddled with the other two. “They’ve been here and sold the horses, so wherever they went, they have about a four-hour head start on us.”