Venom of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Who has Thad?” Smoke asked. “And who shot Sam?”

  “After they rode away, they left this note.” She handed Smoke the piece of paper the riders had left behind.

  If you want to see your boy alive again, come to the Del Rey Hotel in Mule Gap, Wyoming, with fifteen thousand dollars. You have one week from today to raise the money. You will be contacted at the hotel and told where to deliver the money and pick up your boy. Come alone.

  Leaving the restaurant, Smoke and Pearlie accompanied Sara Sue back to Dr. Urban’s office. Sam Condon was lying on the bed, naked from the waist up. His trousers were pulled as low as they could go, while still preserving some modesty. A large bandage covered the lower right side of his abdomen.

  “How is he doing?” Smoke asked.

  “He hasn’t awakened yet from the anesthetic, but right now that is the best thing for him. The less he moves around, the better off he will be,” Dr. Urban said. “The bullet was low . . . too low to hit anything vital. I got it out. Now all we have to worry about is infection.”

  “Do you think that will be a problem?” Smoke asked.

  “Mrs. Condon did a good job of getting him here quickly. We’ve got a really good start on it, so I think we’ll be able to hold it back.”

  Sara Sue told Smoke and Pearlie about the three men who’d ridden in and snatched Thad. “I can get the fifteen thousand dollars, but to tell the truth, I’m a little frightened to go meet them by myself. When I found out you were in town at the restaurant, I came to see you to ask if—”

  Smoke held out his hand. “There is no need for you to ask anything, Sara Sue. You know I will go with you.”

  “I am a little worried, though. The note said tell nobody. If they saw us together, I wouldn’t want to take any chances on them doing anything to harm Thad.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. Thad is worth money to them only as long as he is alive and well.”

  “I pray that you are right. That he is still alive and unhurt,” Sara Sue said.

  “Prayer is always good,” Smoke replied.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  French Creek Canyon

  “Get down, boy,”

  “Tied up like this, you’ll have to help me down,” Thad replied.

  “Help ’im down, Sanders.”

  Sanders, the rider with whom Thad had ridden double for the entire morning, dismounted first then reached up to help Thad down from the horse. The boy examined his surroundings. Two cabins were backed up against French Creek. The larger of the two looked fairly well-kept and appeared to have been recently painted. The smaller one was constructed of wide weather-grayed planking.

  A fourth man came out of the larger house.

  “Any trouble while we were gone, Whitman?” Keefer asked.

  “No, they have been calm as a passel of puppies. This is the one you was talkin’ about?” Whitman asked, staring at Thad. “The one whose papa raises registered bulls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s bigger ’n the others,” Whitman said. “Hope he don’t give us no trouble.”

  “He ain’t goin’ to give us no trouble, are you, boy?” Keefer asked as one of the men loosened the rope that was wrapped around Thad.

  “Now I know Keefer, Sanders, and Whitman,” Thad said. He looked at the fourth man. “What’s your name?”

  “What’s it to you, what my name is?”

  “I want to know your name because you’re the one that shot Pa. And if he dies, I plan to kill you.”

  Sanders laughed. “Damn, Reece! How does it feel to have a fourteen-year-old after you?”

  “Yeah, I’m only fourteen,” Thad said. “But how old do you have to be to kill someone? I’ll remember your name, Reece.”

  Reece walked up to Thad and slapped him hard. Thad retaliated by kicking Reece in the groin. Reece doubled over with pain as the others laughed.

  “Why, you little shit!’ Reece said when he straightened up again. He pulled his pistol then brought it down hard on Thad’s head.

  Thad went down.

  “Here, Reece! Don’t be damagin’ the merchandise!” Keefer said, dismounting and hurrying over as Sanders knelt down to examine Thad. “If you’ve killed this boy you’ve just pissed away fifteen thousand dollars, and the chief ain’t goin’ to like that. He ain’t goin’ to like it at all.”

  “I ain’t puttin’ up with no mouthin’-off from a kid. He needs to learn how to respect his elders,” Reece said.

  “He’s alive. He’s just knocked out, is all,” Sanders said, rising up from his quick examination.

  “It’s a good thing for you, Reece, that he is alive,” Keefer said. “Get ’im inside with the others.”

  Whitman and Sanders picked Thad up then carried him into the smaller of the two cabins where they dropped him on the floor. Thad had regained consciousness, but barely, and was aware only of the sensation of being moved. When he was dropped on the floor, his head spun so that the only thing he could do, for the moment, was lie there.

  “Are you all right?”

  Thad opened his eyes and saw the face of a young girl hovering over him. He wasn’t sure if he was actually seeing her or if it was some sort of an illusion brought on by the blow to his head.

  “Are you all right?” the girl asked again.

  Thad reached up to put his hand on her face, and she pulled away from his touch.

  “You’re real,” he said.

  “What?” the girl responded. “Yes, of course I’m real.”

  Thad sat up and his head began to spin so that he wasn’t sure he could even sit there. He put his hand to his head, then winced in pain when his hand found the lump. “Wow, they must have hit me a lick.”

  “Yes, we were watching through the window. We saw Reece hit you.”

  “We?”

  “There are five of us here,” the girl said.

  Looking around, Thad saw not only the young girl who was talking to him, but four others—another girl and three boys. A quick appraisal of them suggested that he might be the oldest one in the room. He wasn’t sure about the girl who had just questioned him, though. She might be older than he was.

  “How old are you?” Thad asked.

  “What?” the girl responded, surprised by the question. She laughed. “You are hit on the head, dropped in here nearly as much dead as you are alive, but do you ask my name or where or what this place is? No, you ask me how old I am. Lord have mercy, that blow to your head must have made you daft.”

  “How old are you?” he asked again.

  “I’m fourteen. Why?”

  “When will you be fifteen?”

  “Not until November.”

  Thad smiled. “I’ll be fifteen in August. That makes me older.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, the girl laughed. “You are a strange boy. We are all prisoners, and the only thing you are worried about is who is the oldest.”

  “Someone has to make plans,” Thad said. “And it is obvious that the best person to make the plans would be the one who is the oldest.”

  “Make plans for what?” the girl asked.

  “Escape,” Thad replied in a single clipped word.

  “Escape?”

  “Yeah, I don’t plan to stay here, and I’ll take anyone with me who wants to go. You’re right. I didn’t ask you your name. What is it?”

  “My name is Lorena.”

  “Lorena?” Thad said. “Really? Your name is Lorena?”

  “Yes. Is there something wrong with my name?” the girl asked, a little piqued by his response to her name.

  “No, nothing at all. I think it’s great!” He began to sing. “‘The sun’s low down the sky, Lorena, the frost gleams where the flowers have been.’”

  “Yes!” Lorena said, laughing. “Mama said that is how I got my name. She used to listen to people singing that song and—” She stopped in midsentence. Her eyes welled with tears and they began sliding down her cheeks. “I’m afraid I may never
see Mama again.”

  “Yes, you will,” Thad said. “We all will.” He looked at the other girl and three boys. Not one of them had spoken since he arrived. “My name is Thad. I’ve met Lorena. What are your names?”

  “My name is Marilyn Grant,” the other girl said.

  “How old are you, Marilyn?”

  “I’m twelve.”

  Two boys were Travis Calhoun, who was thirteen, and Burt Rowe, who was eleven.

  “And who are you?” Thad asked the smallest, who had not yet spoken.

  “Wee.”

  “We? No, just you. The others have told me their names.”

  Lorena laughed. “Wee is his name. Actually, it’s Eddie, but his mama and daddy started calling him Wee because he is so small.”

  Thad smiled and stuck out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Wee.”

  Smiling back at Thad, Wee took his hand.

  “We are sort of like brothers and sisters here,” Lorena said. “That’s how it has to be since we are all in the same boat.”

  “How long have you been here?” Thad asked.

  Burt Rowe had been there the longest—six weeks. Next came Travis, then Marilyn Grant, then Lorena and Wee.

  “Wee and I were taken together,” Lorena said. “I was watching over him for his parents.” She grew quiet, then her eyes welled with tears again. “I certainly wasn’t doing a very good job of it, though, or those men wouldn’t have taken us.”

  “Why do you say that?” Thad asked. “Was there really anything you could have done to prevent it?”

  “No, but—”

  “There are no buts to it. I wasn’t able to keep them from getting me. How were you supposed to be able to stop them from getting you and Wee?”

  “There wasn’t any way,” Lorena admitted.

  “Then don’t say you weren’t doing a very good job.”

  “I want to go home,” Wee said. “I want my mama.” Tears slid down his cheeks, but he wasn’t weeping aloud.

  “You’ll go home again, Wee. Marilyn, Travis, Burt, you will, too. I’ll tell the four of you the same thing I told Lorena. You will see your ma and pa again.”

  “How?” Travis asked. “I know that the men who took us are asking for a whole lot of money. I don’t think Pop even has that much money.”

  “If we all stick together and pay attention to what’s going on around us, we’ll find some way to get out of here, and it won’t cost any of our folks anything. I promise you,” Thad said.

  He had thought they were only dealing with four men, but he learned from Lorena that there were more.

  “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone but the four who stay here all the time. Keefer is the leader of the ones here, but I know there’s someone else who is in charge of all of them because I’ve heard them talk about him. But I’ve never heard the name,” Lorena said.

  “Why did Reece hit you in the head with a pistol?” Travis asked. “I don’t think any of the rest of us were hit.”

  “It may be because I kicked him in the—” Because he didn’t want to say the word in front of the two girls, Thad altered his sentence. “Uh, it was because I told him I was going to kill him.”

  Marilyn gasped. “You don’t really mean that, do you?”

  “Reece shot my pa. If I find out that Pa is dead, then, yes, I do mean it. I’ll kill Reece.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Travis asked. “He’s got a gun. All of them have guns. We don’t.”

  “I haven’t figured out yet how I’ll do it.” A determined expression showed on Thad’s face as he responded to the question Travis had put to him. “But I will find a way.”

  “Here comes Sanders.” Burt had been looking through the window.

  “What do you suppose he wants?” Travis asked.

  “It looks like he’s bringin’ us our dinner,” Burt answered.

  “Good. All I had for breakfast was a biscuit, and I’m hungry,” Thad said.

  “After you eat, you’ll still be hungry,” Travis said. “Believe me.”

  Travis was right. The “meal” consisted of a bowl of soup, though the soup was little more than hot water with a few globules of fat from the meat that had been its base but was missing from what was being served. There were also a few vegetables, small pieces of potato, and some cabbage.

  “Is this what they serve every meal?” Thad asked, looking at his bowl in dismay.

  “No,” Travis said. “Sometimes it’s worse.”

  “Do you really plan to try and escape?” Marilyn asked as the six ate their lunch.

  “Yes, but not just me,” Thad said. “Like I said, I plan for all of us to escape.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Travis asked.

  “Simple. We’ll just slip out the door in the middle of the night. They can’t keep an eye on us twenty-four hours a day.”

  Travis shook his head. “There’s only one door to this cabin, and they keep it locked, day and night. And as you can see, the window is too little for anyone but Wee to get through. Even with him, it would be a tight squeeze.”

  “I’ll find some way,” Thad said determinedly.

  “We can’t all of us escape. Even if we managed to get out of the house some way, Wee is too young. He wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rest of us.”

  “Yes, I would,” Wee insisted. “I can run fast.”

  “It probably wouldn’t be running as much as it would be staying out of sight,” Thad said.

  Wee smiled. “I’m real good at playing hide-’n-seek. Sometimes me ’n Lorena used to play hide-’n-seek, ’n I can hide real good, can’t I, Lorena?”

  “Yes, honey, you are very good at hide-’n-seek,” Lorena said, smiling at the boy.

  “Can you keep real quiet when you have to?” Thad asked.

  “Uh-huh. All I have to do is put a lock on my lips,” Wee said, and the two girls chuckled.

  “Don’t worry,” Thad said to the others. “When we go, Wee goes with us, and he won’t be a problem.”

  “When are we going to go?” Burt asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to study things for a while until I can figure out the best thing to do. Do they ever let us out of the house?”

  “Only to use the privy,” Travis said. “They come unlock the door in the middle of the morning and in the middle of the afternoon so we can use the privy, but they only let us out one at a time.”

  “Except for the girls,” Lorena said. “We always go together so one of us can be outside to let the others know it’s being used.”

  “And all the time we’re using the privy, whoever it was that unlocked the door for us is standing on the front porch, waiting for us to all get back in the cabin,” Burt said.

  “It’s sort of creepy,” Lorena said.

  “Yes, it is,” Marilyn agreed. “I don’t like the way Reece looks at us.”

  “Me, neither,” Lorena said. “The way he looks at us makes my skin crawl.”

  “You won’t have to worry about how he looks at you much longer,” Thad promised.

  “Why do you say that? Are you coming up with a plan?” Lorena asked.

  “Not yet. But I will.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Big Rock

  Five days after Sara Sue took Sam to the doctor, Dr. Urban declared that the immediate danger was over and Sam could go home.

  “I intend to do more than just go home,” Sam said. “I want you to wrap me up good and tight. I’m going after my son.”

  “You do, and you’ll more than likely be dead within a week,” Dr. Urban replied. “You need rest, and you need to drink a lot of beef broth to restore your blood.”

  Smoke had come to town with Sara Sue to help her take Sam back home. Smoke actually had a fine, well-sprung carriage which he very rarely used, but it was perfect for giving Sam a gentle ride back to Wiregrass Ranch. Once there, with Pearlie on one side and Smoke on the other, they were able to help Sam
walk into his house.

  “You rest easy, Sam. I’ll go after Thad,” Smoke promised.

  “I appreciate that, but I want you to deliver the bull to Mr. Harris.”

  “I intend to do both,” Smoke said. “The note said for Sara Sue to come alone. I’ll be with her, but I’ll have the cover of delivering the bull.”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. That might work. Smoke, please, bring my son back.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get him safely home to you.”

  “Thank you, Smoke. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

  * * *

  “Is Mr. Condon actually going to pay those bastards?” Pearlie asked as they drove back to Sugarloaf. “I hate to see him have to do that.”

  “I feel the same way,” Smoke replied. “But right now the most important thing to Sam and Sara Sue is the safe return of their son, and I agree with them. Thad’s safety is the number one priority. So the first thing I intend to do is to get young Thad back alive and unharmed. If that means paying the ransom, we’ll do that. After that, will be time to deal with the kidnappers.”

  “When do we start?” Pearlie asked.

  “We’ll start in a few days by delivering the bull to Jim Harris.”

  * * *

  Three days later Smoke and Pearlie returned to Wiregrass. They were glad to see that Sam was able to move around on his own, though he had to do so very slowly and be careful not to open up the wound.

  “When will you be going up to Mule Gap, Sara Sue?” Smoke asked.

  “I’ll ride into town tomorrow morning and take the coach up,” she replied.

  “All right. We’ll see you there.”

  Smoke and Pearlie went out into the corral to get Yankee Star.

  “That’s him, Seven,” Smoke said to his horse. “Go get him and bring him to me.”

  Smoke and Pearlie leaned against the corral fence and watched as Seven moved through the half-dozen cows until he reached the bull. Moving first to one side of the bull, then the other, Seven herded Yankee Star back to the corral gate and held him there as Smoke dropped the lead rope over the cow’s head.