Showdown

Chapter Ten

Prine found road apples but no horses in the timber behind the farmhouse. He poked the apples with a stick. Fresh—not over three, four hours old. No posse would have put up in the timber here. That meant Tolan and Rooney had been here. But where were they now? And was Cassie all right? Had something happened and they had to flee?

Again, he thought of all the ways kidnappings went wrong sometimes.

He crouched and began his run across the grassy expanse between timber and farmhouse.

Despite the cool night, he was sweating hard by the time he reached the door. Nerves, mostly, and he knew it.

No trouble getting in. In fact, the damned back door nearly fell off its rusted hinges when he opened up. It also squawked like a parrot. It was a good thing he didn't give a damn about making noise.

The stench of the interior gagged him for a moment. Every kind of animal, large and small, that God had ever created had used this deserted place as a toilet. And some of them had died in here, of disease or nocturnal battles. Rain had stenched the wood, too; it smelled—there was no other way to say it—of the grave.

The house: kitchen, dining room, living area. Gutted by time, animals, and most likely hoboes since it wasn't too far from the tracks. For the 'boes this would be like dying and going straight to heaven. A roof over your head every night, even if it was leaky, was hard to beat.

The varieties of feces beneath his boots were hard as bullets. He crunched and crushed and cracked them as he went about searching for the trapdoor that would take him to the root cellar.

He moved through moonlit shadow, kicking aside newspapers, animal shit, odds and ends of the clothing as he searched for the outline of the trapdoor. Once, he thought he heard something below him, but he couldn't be sure.

He returned to the kitchen. That seemed the most logical place for the trapdoor. The farm wife doing a lot of her canning work up here and then carrying it down the ladder to the root cellar.

He got down on all fours and began moving his gloved hands quickly over every inch of kitchen floor. But nothing.

He did the same thing in the dining room and the living room. But again, nothing.

He was just about to walk back to the kitchen when he saw the closet off the dining room. He hadn't looked in there. But when he thought about it, he remembered that some of the early settlers constructed root cellar–like places where they could hole up during Indian attacks. Such places were dangerous. They made the white folk prisoners in a very real way. And if the Indians decided to set fire to the house, the people in the cellar could die from smoke. But when you were outnumbered, as was so often the case—just as the blue uniforms would soon enough outnumber the Indians—a cellar like that was better than standing in the middle of your living room.

In the closet, he found the trapdoor.

Lantern light flickered around the edges where it didn't close flush. Somebody must be down there.

He shoved the barrel of his Winchester down the opening and said, "This is Tom Prine and I'm a deputy sheriff. If anybody's down there, come to the ladder with your hands up. And right now."

"Oh, Tom!"

The voice was unmistakable. And, moments later, the woman was standing at the bottom of the ladder, looking up at him.

"C'mon up, Cassie," Prine said. "I'm taking you home."

"But Tom—"

"C'mon up, Cassie. I want to get you outside before they come back."

She wore a white blouse and brown butternuts that were covered with dirt. Her blonde hair was mussed, but not so mussed that, even under these conditions, she'd lost her beauty. Her face, dirt-streaked, was still radiant.

He wasted no time when she emerged from the cellar, her lantern in hand. Beneath her the opening was dark.

He took her hand and guided her through the back half of the house to the sweet smell of the night and the bloom of moonlight on the entire landscape.

Only then did he relax enough to ask all the obvious questions.

"Did they hurt you?"

"No."

"Did they—touch you in any way?"

"No."

"Did they threaten to kill you?"

She didn't look right, didn't look as if she'd been under the frightening strain that went along with being held for ransom. She looked . . . uneasy—as if there were something she needed to tell him but couldn't quite form the words.

"Tom, listen," she said, taking his hand, jolting him with the thrill he'd experienced a few other times with her. "I have to tell you something and trust you to keep it secret."

My Lord, what was she going to tell him? He was perplexed and half afraid to hear it.

"This kidnapping, Tom. It was my idea. I set the whole thing up myself."

When he still hadn't spoken a full minute later, she once more took his hand and said, "Aren't you going to say anything, Tom?"

But there was nothing to say. And this time there was no thrill in holding her hand at all.

"I ever tell you how pretty you are?" the old miner said to Lucy.

"I seem to remember you saying somethin' like that a few times, Clem."

"I hate seein' you, because when I do I wanna be young again. And Lord knows that ain't gonna happen."

"You need to hold still, Clem. I need to check your heart."

"How come you ain't got one of them new ones?"

"Hospital can't afford it. They gave me the old-fashioned kind." Clem referred to the part-wood stethoscope she used. "Now, be quiet or I'll have to get tough with you."

He grinned toothlessly. "That'll be the day."

She checked his pulse, his heart rate, his temperature. Then she spent ten minutes trying to clean up the cabin. Clem could live in a latrine—which he came darned close to doing—and it wouldn't bother him. He'd had one glass window, but that was smashed; rain poured through the roof; and the dirt floor hadn't been worked on in years. His food was usually about to turn deadly by the time she threw it out, and his clothes were stiff with dirt. He had an ancient tomcat who was just as unwholesome as he was. The thing was so scabbed up, scarred up, cut up that she assumed it went out and fought mountain lions at night. And probably kicked the hell out of them.

She was just checking to see if the bread she'd brought Clem last time had started to turn green anywhere when he said, "You don't look happy tonight, Lucy. And I'll bet it's that darned boyfriend of yours."

The bread would do for a while yet. Not that it would matter to Clem Randall. She set it down on the small, cluttered, wobbly table where he seemed to pile everything—a simianlike man of no more than five-two and one hundred twenty pounds who moved with an elbow-cocked swagger that reminded her of a twelve-year-old pretending he was a gunfighter.

She came over and said, "He's just confused is all, Clem. Don't call him my 'darned' boyfriend, all right?"

His dark eyes gleamed. In the lamplight they looked like glass. "You're loyal after he broke your heart. You're a true-blue gal, Lucy. I'll say that for you."

She went over and sat next to him in the rocking chair by the kerosene stove. The fumes had darkened the walls years before. "I think he may be in trouble, Clem."

"Eh? What kind of trouble?"

"I'd better not say. He tried to explain it to me, but he was nervous. His voice had a tremble in it. He sounded sort of scared. I'm afraid for him, Clem, I really am. He's got these dreams—"

"What sort of dreams, youngster?"

"Oh, you know, the usual thing. Money and being somebody important and all that."

He had a crone's laugh, old Clem, almost a cackle. "Well, now, I'll tell you somethin', Lucy. If men didn't have dreams like that they'd never accomplish anything. They'd sit around on their lazy backsides and let somebody else do all the work. You think I woulda mined all them years if I didn't have a dream like that? I can't fault him for that, Lucy. And you shouldn't, either."

"I don't. It's just . . ."

"Just what?"

"Well, when you're a lawman you have certain temptations . . ."

He stared at her, not speaking for a time. "Maybe usin' his badge in a way he shouldn't ought to, you mean."

"Yes."

"I can see where it'd be temptin', have to say that. A lawman has a better chance of gettin' away with a crime than somebody like me does, that's for sure."

She checked her watch. She needed to be getting on home. She stood up. "Thanks for listening to me, Clem. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anybody anything I said."

That high-pitched crone's laugh again. "You don't have to worry about me, youngster. Nobody ever comes out to see me anyway, 'ceptin' you and this old Pawnee fella I've known since I came out here. And all he wants to talk about is who's gonna get my cabin when I die. I guess he thinks since he spent so much time puttin' up with me, it's his by squatter's rights."

She kissed him on the forehead. The sticky forehead. Someday she planned to drop him into a tub of water and work on him head to toe with soap and a scrub brush until she raised welts.

"G'night, Clem."

"G'night, Lucy. You say a prayer for me and I'll say a prayer for you. How's that?"

She smiled. "I couldn't ask for better than that."

"I'm getting cold," Cassie said.

Prine had moved away from her, perched himself on a small boulder near the timber. He rolled himself a cigarette.

"Aren't you going to say anything, Tom?"

"What am I supposed to say?"

"That you understand. That you don't think I'm just a foolish little rich girl. That you don't hate me. The only reason I did this was so that my brother would notice me. Maybe value me a little. I didn't do this for selfish reasons."

He got his cigarette going and thought for a moment. There was no sense hurting her feelings. She was doing a good job of that herself. She was trying to justify a stupid, reckless act and having a hard time doing it.

The romance of her was gone. When he looked at her there in the moonlight, she didn't even look so pretty anymore. Just dirt-smeared and sort of pathetic. No allure at all in standing near an outhouse that had been turned on its side and an ancient wagon with only three wheels.

"You wanted Richard's attention," he said. "You got it. And I feel sorry for him. He damned near came undone this afternoon. Judging by what I saw today, I'd say he loves you a lot more than you think he does."

She walked up and down to keep warm. "You're seeing it from the outside. You're not seeing how he orders me around and never takes me seriously and makes up these stupid rules. I'm an adult, and he doesn't seem to understand that. I just wanted to teach him a lesson, scare him a little. Maybe he'll appreciate me now."

He couldn't resist. "Do you have any idea how much turmoil you've caused today? How worried people are? I don't think an adult would do anything like that."

"Oh, fine, now you sound just like Richard. So high and mighty all the time. Why don't you just leave?"

"Not without you."

"Well, for your information, I'm not going anywhere. Tolan and Rooney are coming back. They're my partners in this, remember?"

"How'd you meet those two, anyway?"

"Tolan came to the church basement one afternoon. He was looking for a winter coat. I'd had this idea for some time. I think he has a little crush on me. He kept coming back. One day I told him about the idea. We're friends, sort of."

"Some friends, Cassie. These are dangerous men. Ruthless."

"They haven't hurt me, have they?"

He flipped his cigarette into the darkness, watched as it struck a tree, disintegrated into a dozen stars. "You're coming back with me. Now."

"You're not my boss."

"Looks like somebody needs to be." He sounded, and felt, disgusted. He was tired of her whining, tired of her dramatics. "Let's get going."

The Colt came from the front of her butternuts. Tucked behind her blouse. "Head back to town, Tom. Now. You keep my secret and I'll see that you get the reward. That's more than somebody like you'll see in the next thirty years if you're lucky."

The scorn for workingmen was clear in her "somebody like you" remark. He'd been around rich people enough to know that many of them divided the world into two groups—peers and everybody else. And "everybody else" fell into the category of servants. Even if you weren't in livery, they used you anyway. Sometimes they paid you; other times they forced you to do it free. But one way or the other, you did their bidding. And sometimes you didn't even know about it.

"I need you to drop your Colt and your Winchester, Tom."

"Do you know what the hell you're doing?"

"I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't want you coming back here threatening Tolan and Rooney. They just went to have a few beers. But they'll be here soon. I've got my cash payment ready for them. I don't want anything to go wrong here. So I'm taking your guns. You head back and sit on the outskirts of town. I'll meet you there. I've got a horse in the barn over there. Then we can ride into town together and I'll tell everybody you rescued me."

He hadn't complied with her request for his guns. She reminded him of this by stepping close to him and bringing the barrel of the Colt down hard across his cheek. She was capable of much more force than he realized.

"Your guns, Tom."

He would've fought back, but what was the point? As much as he despised her now, he despised himself even more. Going against all his principles to make it appear that he'd "rescued" her so that he could get the reward and maybe her hand. He was just as foolish, just as selfish, just as mercenary as she was. A good lawman would've broken up the "kidnapping" before it happened.

The sharp wind was beginning to freeze his nose and give him an earache. He just wanted away from here, away from her. If only he could get away from himself, too.

"Don't bother with the reward," he said. "Just ride back to town and tell everybody you got yourself free."

"I'm going to pretend I don't know who kidnapped me. I want you to go along with that, too." An ironic smile. "I'm a lot smarter than you thought, aren't I?"

"Not smarter," he said. "Just more foolish. And I'm even more foolish than you are."

He dropped Winchester and Colt on the ground. "I want my guns back. You know where I live."

"You'll have them tonight."

He climbed up on his horse, weary, addled, sorrowful. Not until now did he realize his true nature. He was a con, a grifter, just like so many of the men he'd arrested over the years.

He swung his horse westward and, without saying anything, headed back to town.