Moving in a crouch, Pate was on his way before Rankin finished his sentence.
They gave him a few minutes to get in place, then slowly approached the shack. “Hello the house,” the marshal called out.
“That you, Doozy?”
“Nope, this is Marshal Dodge Rankin from Aberdene. I’ve come for the boy and to place you under arrest. Step outside with your hands raised and you can avoid getting hurt.”
There was a moment’s silence, then a shot from the window. “Get on back,” Alvin yelled, “or I’ll have to shoot the kid, which I don’t want to do.”
Clay was on his feet, his pistol drawn. “I’m going,” he said as he rushed toward the house.
“Don’t be shooting blind,” the marshal said as he followed. “Don’t want the boy getting hurt.” Another wild shot came from the shack.
“We got the advantage that he can’t see us,” Rankin said, “so let’s do this quick.”
Clay burst through the door and saw Lonnie, tied to a chair. Standing behind him, a gun pointed at the youth’s head, was his captor.
“You boys come a step closer, and I’m gonna do what I promised not to,” Alvin said. He was nervous, the gun shaking in his hand. “Where’s Doozy? He was supposed to be here.”
“If you don’t want to get killed where you stand,” Clay said, “you’ll holster your gun and put this to an end.”
“Doozy told me he’d be here.” It sounded as if he was crying.
“He ain’t right in the head,” Rankin whispered. “Be careful what you do.”
Terrified, Lonnie called out to Breckenridge, and Alvin delivered a hard slap to the back of his head. Rankin grabbed Clay’s arm to prevent him from rushing forward.
There was a loud noise as Jonesy burst through the back door, raced across the room, and flung himself at the surprised Alvin, knocking him to the floor. Lonnie’s chair toppled as Breckenridge and Rankin rushed to apprehend his abductor. Alvin, dazed and lying on his back, pointed his pistol at the oncoming men. “No,” Lonnie yelled.
Then the room filled with smoke as a shot was fired. The gun fell from Alvin’s hand and his eyes widened, then slowly closed. Back on his feet, Jonesy fired a second shot to make sure he was dead. Then he rushed to Lonnie and began freeing him from his bindings.
Both were in tears as they embraced. “You okay, son?” Pate asked. All Lonnie could do was nod.
“Come on, let’s go home.”
Rankin and Breckenridge were smiling. As they walked into the night, a breeze rustled in the trees and the rush of water in the nearby Brazos could be heard. Somewhere, an owl hooted.
Clay turned and looked back toward the shack. Through the doorway he could see Alvin’s body lying on the floor. “What are we going to do about him?”
“Not my concern,” Rankin said. “This ain’t my jurisdiction.”
* * *
* * *
PATRICIA WAS ALREADY halfway down the pathway as they approached the ranch house. Running just behind her was Madge. The men had ridden straight through, stopping only to occasionally give the horses a rest and a drink of water. They were exhausted but all smiles.
The women almost pulled Lonnie from his horse. They didn’t know whether to hug or kiss him first. “How I’ve been praying for this,” Patricia said. She and Madge were both crying.
“I’m all right,” Lonnie assured the women. “Just a little hungry.”
Everyone was laughing as they stepped onto the porch. “We’re going to fix you boys a breakfast like you’ve never seen before,” Patricia said. She had turned her affection from Lonnie to her weary husband. “I don’t know what all you had to do to bring Lonnie home,” she said, “but I’m so proud. Of all of you.”
Only then did she notice that Marshal Rankin wasn’t with them.
“He had some business to tend to at the Fort Worth jail,” Jonesy explained. “He’ll be along shortly. He was a mighty big help to us.”
“I’ll have him a pie baked by the time he returns,” she said. “Maybe two.”
Clay led the horses to the barn with Madge close at his side. He removed the saddles and filled buckets of oats as she talked nonstop. He’d never seen his wife so giddy. “I about worried myself sick while you were gone,” she said. “It’s a relief to have my husband back safe.”
He knew to what she was referring. “I hope you’ve not worried yourself on that matter,” he said. “I’m now the only husband you’ve got. Or gonna have from now on.”
She put her arms around him and kissed him. “This,” she said, “is a glorious day if I ever saw one.”
In the kitchen, the men marveled at a table filled with eggs, bacon, redeye gravy, biscuits, and two huge stacks of flapjacks. Patricia couldn’t take her eyes off of Lonnie as he filled his plate for a second time. “Once you’ve had your fill,” she said, “I want you to get cleaned up, then sleep for two solid days.”
“What about school?” he said.
“It’ll still be there after you’re properly rested.”
“Before I take a bath,” he said as he got up from the table, “I’d like to go check on Maizy.”
It was almost dark when Marshal Rankin arrived at the ranch. He, too, received a hero’s welcome from the women. Patricia insisted he come in and have some supper.
“The boy’s already gone to bed, or he’d be thanking you again,” Jonesy said.
“Sometimes things just have a way of working out,” Clay said as he handed the marshal a bottle of beer.
“Not everything,” Rankin said. “When I went to the jail to check on our friends, they wasn’t there. Somehow they managed to escape, I was told.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
BEN BAGGETT LAUGHED when he saw Doozy’s condition as he was returned to the jail cell. “Looks like you fell off a building,” he said as a deputy helped the semiconscious prisoner onto a bunk.
“Maybe so,” Doozy said, “but I didn’t tell them nothing.”
“Where’s your ignorant brother and the boy?”
“Honest to God, Mr. Baggett, I ain’t got the faintest,” he said before passing out.
By late in the evening, the adjacent cell was crowded with drunks, cursing, vomiting, and soiling themselves. A couple attempted to fight but quickly realized they had no room and passed out instead. The stench was overwhelming.
During a lull in the noise, Baggett called out to the young jailer working the late-night shift. Reluctantly, he approached the cell.
“Back in the safe at my hotel,” Baggett said, “there’s a duffel bag belonging to me that’s filled with money. What would be your price to unlock this door and set us free? You could claim a jailbreak somehow occurred. And honest truth is, we haven’t done anything to deserve being here in the first place. And as you can see plain as day, my friend here is in bad need of a doctor.”
The deputy turned to walk away from the overwhelming odor.
“You can name your price,” Baggett said, “and you’re welcome to accompany us to the hotel to see I’m being truthful and that we won’t just run away.”
An hour later, they were riding out of Hell’s Half Acre. Doozy was hurting and could barely stay on his horse, but Baggett urged him on. The bottle of whiskey he’d brought along helped to dull the pain.
Baggett despised the man riding alongside him and didn’t trust him, but at the moment, he had no better option. He wasn’t going to attempt the journey he had in mind alone.
* * *
* * *
JONESY ARRIVED AT Clay’s farm to find his neighbor sitting on the porch, petting Sarge. Feeling rested but restless, he’d ridden over to report that Lonnie was doing fine and planning to return to school in the next day or so.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” Clay said. “Baggett ain’t gonna find any peace until he gets that money back. He’s
plumb obsessed. And now that he knows it’s somewhere out in Tascosa, he’s probably going to head there. . . .”
“And Eli might find himself in harm’s way,” Pate said.
Clay scratched behind Sarge’s ears. “The women ain’t gonna be happy to hear it,” he said, “but I’m thinking we got one more trip we need to make.”
* * *
* * *
ELI RAYBURN SQUINTED into the sunlight, attempting to count the number of Tascosa residents in attendance at Cyrus Broder’s funeral. There weren’t many. Jennie’s father had died in his sleep two nights earlier, and she hadn’t even realized it until she returned home from work at the mercantile to find him still in bed and the goats not tended.
Well-wishers passed along condolences, then whispered among themselves how sad it was that Cyrus had passed before his eighty-six-year-old father. They also quietly wondered how Jennie could keep the farm going while also running the mercantile for her grandpa. Asa Broder would likely have to come out of retirement and return to minding the store. But for how long?
Several men in the community, including Rayburn, had already volunteered to help on the farm, but there was some question how long it could continue without a full-time caretaker. “I don’t know anything about raising goats,” Eli said, “but I’m available to do whatever I can.”
* * *
* * *
ELI AND PAUL Price were walking toward the livery, eager to get out of the sun. “How many funerals you guess you’ve attended here?” Price asked.
Rayburn thought for a moment. “Way too many,” he finally said. “One of these days I’ll look up and there won’t be nobody but me left.” As they moved closer to the barn, Eli saw two horses he didn’t recognize. “Looks like I got company,” he said as Price turned to head back to the laundry.
He did recognize the voice he heard as he stepped into the darkened building. “Howdy, Mr. Rayburn,” Ben Baggett said.
When his eyes adjusted, Eli saw that there was another man with Baggett whom he’d never seen before. His nose was misshapen, and there were bruises on the side of his face.
“You needing something?”
“Just come for a visit,” Baggett said. “We might be wanting to rent a couple of your tents and have you tend our horses.”
“That’ll be seventy-five cents a day,” Rayburn said. “A dollar if you want oats in addition to hay for your animals.”
“While we’re here, we also hope to get some questions answered,” Baggett said. There was a menacing tone to his voice.
Rayburn was feeling uneasy. “If I got answers,” he said, “I’ll give them.”
“I know you’ll recall that Top Wilson, God rest his miserable soul, stole a sizable sum of money belonging to me. Money I ain’t yet been able to recover,” Baggett said. “Now, recently I was told that it’s hidden somewhere here in Tascosa. Got any knowledge of that?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“Well, let me put it this way. If you were me, where would you begin looking?”
Eli shrugged. “I got no idea, Mr. Baggett.”
“I see. Well, I’d much appreciate your thinking on it. Meanwhile, if you’ll show us to our tent and feed our horses, I’d be obliged.” As he stood to leave, he asked, “Think that fellow who runs the laundry is down at his place?”
“I ain’t sure.”
“And that pretty Broder gal, Jennie. She’s still working up at the mercantile, I assume.”
“Not today,” Eli said. “She just buried her daddy a while ago.”
“I’m right sorry to hear that,” Baggett said. “Right sorry indeed.”
Price was hanging bedsheets out to dry when Baggett and Doozy approached. “If you’re needing bathwater heated, it’ll be a few minutes. I gotta get these things hung out,” he said.
“Baths can wait another day or two,” Baggett said. “We were just talking with Eli up at the livery, and he said you might know the answer to a question I’ve got.” He went through the same scenario about the money that he’d done with Rayburn.
“First I’ve heard of it,” Price said. “Top Wilson, huh? From what I been told, he was a real bad sort.”
“No doubt about that.”
Baggett and Doozy were turning to leave when Price said, “It was me who found his horse, you know.”
“Where was that?”
Price pointed toward the south. “He’d left it tied up down in a gulley. All saddled and ready.”
“And what happened to the horse?”
“I took it up to the livery and gave it to Eli.”
When they were settled in the tent, Baggett told Doozy to find a pick and shovel. “Steal them from the mercantile if it isn’t open. I want you to go down to that gulley and do some digging.”
Doozy nodded as he slowly chewed a piece of jerky. Each bite was painful. He still hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived in Tascosa.
“While you’re tending to that, I’m going to have another conversation with my friend Eli,” Baggett said.
* * *
* * *
CLAY HAD BEEN right. Madge and Patricia weren’t at all happy about their leaving. Nor was Lonnie.
“My guess is we’ll be needing to bring presents and maybe wave a white flag when we make our return this time,” Jonesy said.
Despite the urgency both were feeling, they rested their horses along the way. Sitting in front of a small campfire, waiting for coffee to boil, they talked about what they would encounter once they reached Tascosa.
“I regret telling him his money was hidden there,” Clay said, “but what’s done is done.”
As he poked at the fire, he gnashed his teeth. “This foolishness has got to end. It’s way past time for Ben Baggett to be out of my life. Yours as well. He’s been a troublesome thorn since even before I met him, luring my brother into his outlaw ways. To my thinking he’s at least partially to blame for Cal being killed. The harm the man’s done people ought not to be tolerated. My worry now is for Eli’s safety. He’s a fine man, but he ain’t one who can put up a fight against the likes of Baggett.”
“He ain’t violent, but he’ll use good sense,” Jonesy said. “You know, I never considered myself a violent person either, but if I had my way, Baggett would already be dead, and I’d be home, digging postholes, mending fences, and eating my wife’s cooking.”
“Soon,” Clay replied.
* * *
* * *
DOOZY HAD BEEN searching in the gulley all day without success. He was bathed in sweat, and his muscles ached. “Nothing here but rocks and snakes,” he said when Baggett arrived.
Ben slapped his hat against his thigh and cursed. “They ain’t gonna make this easy,” he said. “Come on, your work here’s done. I got something for you to help me with up at the livery.”
Rayburn was burning a pile of soiled hay when they approached.
“Seems you didn’t tell me all you knew when we last spoke,” Baggett said.
“Not sure what you’re referring to.”
“What did you do with Wilson’s horse and saddle when Price brought it to you?”
“I recall selling the saddle sometime back,” Rayburn said. He didn’t mention the irony of it being Baggett who bought it after he’d come to town riding bareback. “The horse is out in the corral.”
“Was there saddlebags?”
Eli struggled to maintain his composure. He slowly raked embers from the fire, then said, “Yep, I seem to remember there was. All I found in them was a half-full tin of coffee makings.”
“You’re lying,” Baggett yelled. “My money was in them bags, wasn’t it?”
“Not that I seen.”
Baggett nodded to Doozy, who grabbed the rake from Rayburn and swung it at his head. “I don’t want him dead, but see he gets a good beating. Maybe then he
’ll be inclined to tell me what I want to hear.”
* * *
* * *
WHEN, AFTER A four-day ride, they reached Tascosa, Breckenridge and Pate rode directly to the livery. Inside, they found Paul Price sitting in the dirt with Rayburn’s head in his lap. There was a bucket of water at his side and he was attempting to wash away the blood that covered Eli’s face.
“I came to deliver his laundry,” Price said, “and found him like this. He looks beat half to death.”
Clay knelt and tried to determine how badly his friend was hurt. One of Eli’s eyes was swollen shut, and there was a bleeding gash behind one ear. It appeared an arm might have been broken. The fact that blood oozed from his mouth was a warning sign that there might be internal injuries. Broken ribs, probably.
The interior of the livery was strewn with tools, and the contents of Rayburn’s desk were scattered. Doors of the stalls stood open, and the oat barrel had been turned upside down.
Livid, Clay slammed his fist against the wall. “We should have gotten here sooner. They’re looking for the money.”
“Doesn’t appear Eli told them where it’s at,” Jonesy said.
At the sound of his name, Rayburn moaned.
“Eli, it’s me, Clay. Jonesy’s here with me. We’re going to see you get cared for.”
Price was already on his way home to summon his wife and her basket of medical supplies.
Rayburn attempted a faint smile at Breckenridge, then mouthed a single word before slipping into unconsciousness. “Baggett,” he said.
“Where you think he’s gone?” Jonesy said.
“I’ll first check the cemetery,” Clay said, “though I doubt he’ll be there. You stay here and see after Eli, and I’ll go take a look at the tents and the mercantile.”
“Make sure Jennie’s okay,” Pate said.
Clay found her slowly emerging from the storeroom when he entered. When she saw him, she ran to the front of the store and threw her arms around him.
The Breckenridge Boys Page 20