Ransom (23 page)

“What's the idea?” roared the boss, now thoroughly mystified. “What ya gettin' at?”

“Oh, I was just thinkin' of a little exercise,” said Rannie nonchalantly. “Feel a little stiff myself after that long trek yesterday, don't you? I thought ef you were a good wrestler, we might have a round or two. Or boxing? Only of course we haven't any gloves.”

The boss frowned deeply.

“You better get in yer box, young feller, an' stay there till I tell ya different, ur ya'll have a kinda exercise ya ain't useta, and I'm tellin' ya.”

With that the boss went out and locked the door, and Rannie was left to his own meditations.

He felt better than the night before. His spirits were better also. He had got away with kidding the boss, he might get away with more. At least he was sure the boss hadn't known how near the surface were tears while he was grinning. And what was more, he hadn't had to write any letter home as yet. The next task was to discover a way to get out, if there was such a way, though his reason told him that as long as those two bullies guarded his way with two smokeless, noiseless guns, there was little chance.

He took the first opportunity when he heard the boss step out the door to climb up as high as he could toward the window. There were only a few chinks where there was a foothold, and it was a slow task, because the chains about his ankles clinked noisily. He did not want to get caught in the act. He did not know what might be the consequences. Also, it would ruin his attitude of indifference to be found looking out the window, or trying to. So presently he gave it up and dropped like a cat to the floor again.

An awful feeling of being trapped came over him. In prison, that was what he was. How long could he keep it up?

He began to feel around in the tattered pockets of his suit to find a stray pencil or scrap of paper, anything to occupy the time, but there was nothing. It was terrible to be shut up in the contracted dimness when outside the sun must be shining. He knew that by the color of the yellow beam that struck down across the wall from the little high window.

He lay on his back with his shackled hands impatiently picking at the rough blanket, his eyes wandering along the lines of his log walls. If he only had something to do, he felt he could stand it better. As it was, he could only lie there and think of home and Dad. But this awful inaction was getting to him. He was afraid he wasn't going to be able to keep up this brave front before his captors much longer, yet he knew he must.

Suddenly his eyes focused on a little place between the logs where the crack was filled with something, a little gray line, it seemed. In the dim light he could scarcely tell. It was way up at the very edge of the roof where it joined to the side wall, and it was so in shadow that he thought his eyes were deceiving him. He lay for some time watching it. He had reached the stage when he couldn't bear to find out that it wasn't anything. He wanted to just keep up the delusion that it was something besides just wall and crack. Even if it was only a folded paper, it would be interesting to get it and unfold it. If it was a bit of folded newspaper put there to keep the wind from coming through the crack, it might have something in it he could read. If only he had some of the magazines and mystery tales he had left on his closet shelf at school! He wouldn't mind reading them over again. Just anything to read would be so good.

He managed to get through the day at last, sleeping a good deal and climbing up to his window now and then when the boss was snoring or away from the place for a little while. He tried applying his eye to a crack here or there, but it was so little he could see from any of them, a twig perhaps, or a tossing cone or the branch of a pine. Once he worked for a long time trying to catch with a bent nail he found on the floor a needle of pine that rubbed the log wall. It was a game just to see if he could hook a brown pine needle and draw it inside between the logs. It would be a little touch with the outside world. But once when he thought he almost had it, the nail slipped through and fell away from his grasp and the needle waved on outside. Then he fell back, despairing, on his cot and finally fell asleep. So passed another day in captivity.

Before dawn the next morning, Bud returned. He heard the two men whispering in gruff voices outside his door. He could see a crack of light under the door. He could smell the coffee heating. And presently his door was unlocked and the two men came in. Bud bore a plate of food and looked sleepy and discontented. But about them both was a determined look that made Rannie's heart sink.

T
he men urged the food upon Rannie and offered a second cup of the vile coffee, but Rannie refused. Then the boss spoke.

“Well, young feller,” he said with a false softness in his voice, “we've come now ta get ya ta write that there letter I was speakin' about.”

Rannie sat up and grinned affably, although his heart was beating wildly. He felt that yesterday's inaction had made him weak and flabby. He wondered if he had the strength to carry on. But he grinned.

“Oh, sure!” he said nonchalantly. “Bring on the stationery. Gotta good pen? I like stubs, if you know what I mean.”

Bud brought a piece of pine board, a much-crumpled sheet of paper, and a government envelope. He drew up a wooden box from the other room for a table and set thereon a small bottle of ink and a cheap, wooden-handled pen.

“Okay,” said Rannie, scrutinizing the point of the pen. “Now, what do ya want said?”

“The letter's ta yer dad, see?” said the boss, narrowing his gaze and watching Rannie's face for a quiver or flicker of eagerness. But Rannie's face was immovable.

“Aw, gee!” said Rannie regretfully. “I shouldn't like ta write ta him just now. He'd be coming right up here after me an' I wanna see this thing out.”

“No fear o' that!” growled the boss. “The letter's goin' ta be mailed several hundred miles from this here mountain.”

“Great stuff! Still, I wouldn't want ta write anything that would worry him, o' course.”

“This here will make him glad,” said the boss grimly, “because it'll give him hope you're comin' home. Now first set down that yer well an' bein' treated right.”

Rannie frowned.

“This letter from you ur me?” he asked, biting the pen handle meditatively.

“From you, o' course,” said the boss firmly.

“Okay with me!”

Rannie wrote rapidly:

His pen paused, and the two men watched him and studied what he had written.

“Now tell 'im everything'll be all right if he'll just obey orders herein contained.”

Here Rannie paused again and looked up at the two men standing in the light of the flickering candle, which Bud held high over Rannie's shoulder.

“What are those orders?” Rannie asked the question casually, his pen poised in the air, a speculative look on his face.

“Why, just about the ransom, how much money, all in small bills, an' where it's ta be put.”

“Aw, gee! That's too bad,” said Rannie, leaning back from his rude desk and looking engagingly up at his two scowling captors. “I can't ask Dad about money! I'm sorry, but I really can't. He's awful generous when he's flush, but just now he's about broke, an' 'twould only make him feel bad. He couldn't pay any ransom money.”

“Here, what'r ya givin' us? Ya can't put anythin' like that over on us!” said the boss, getting out his ugly gun threateningly. “You write what I tell ya, ur I'll blow ya inta the air, see?”

“That's awright,” said Rannie quickly. “P'raps it's better that way, anyhow. You see, I'm kinda in bad everywhere just now. Got expelled from school an' come home ta find my dad about ta be bankrupt an' the house ta be sold 'n' everything. Guess if I fade outta the picture it'll make it easier all round.”

The two men looked at one another, aghast for an instant, fear and frustration in that glance. Rannie saw it and drew a deep breath. Perhaps if they realized his father wasn't rich anymore they might lay off him, he thought. But he had not long hope. The boss fairly roared at him.

“You needn't think you can put that over on us. You're a kid, all righty. I'll hand ya that. But we got our eyeteeth cut yestiday. Doncha think we looked up your old man and found out what he was worth afore we started on all this? You little liar. Take up that pen an' write what I say. Hear?”

“There!” said Rannie, throwing down the pen. “I've written all I can. If you don't like it, you can do what you want with me.”

He threw himself down listlessly on the cot behind him, and his chains clacked dismally.

The two men picked up the paper and read, Bud peering over the boss's shoulder with a dour look in his eyes.

The boss frowned deeply, cursed as he read, and then stood, reading it again.

“That'll be all right,” he said in an undertone. “I'll fix it. Maybe even better.”

They went out and bolted the door carefully. Rannie lay still upon the cot and tried to think, but all he could think of was his father's face when he told him he couldn't send that fifty-thousand-dollar check to the college. All he could remember was the night he and Chrissie had sat on the big leather couch in Dad's room with his arms around them both. All he could see was a vision of his own little crib beside the big bed, and the big tree and the side yard with a mother standing there to protect him from a mad dog. Somebody to protect him and love him! Undreamed-of wonder! And what would she feel now for him if she could know?

Well, he was on his own. He must face it alone. He mustn't even let his dad know how to save him, because his dad couldn't afford it and he'd think he had to.

How long he lay there he didn't know. There was talking in a low tone out in the other room, now and then an angry rumble, with louder references to one they called Spike and what he would think. Spike was coming, it appeared, sometime soon. What would Spike be like? Could he work anything with him or wouldn't he see him at all? Rannie was fed up with crooks, he decided. He was ready to pass out of the picture quick and be done with it, even down there deep in the green waters with a bullet through his brain, but to lie here and do nothing all day was deadly. To do nothing but think!

It was then that a beam of the afternoon sun struggled through and shot into the gloomy place for an instant and flung a double reflection across the place at which he had been looking so long and cherishing a thought of something sticking out between the logs. His eyes turned to it, and there surely was something gray, about six inches long and a quarter of an inch thick, lying neatly along the edge under the roof, just a line of gray.

Well, if it was a hallucination, he must get it out of his thoughts. He would disillusion himself.

So he moved cautiously. The men seemed to be outside in front of the cabin and could not hear him there so well. Moving carefully to keep his chains from clinking, he reached the wall and slowly, carefully, found footing, a step at a time, pausing each step as he climbed, lest his captors should hear him. There were few holdings between these logs. It was not an easy place to climb, and the beam of light was already shifting, but he made it at last; his hand touched the gray line, grasped it, and found it real. It was some sort of little book or pamphlet. He ran his hand over the ledge before he lifted it to see if there was anything else there and found a hard sharp instrument. Excitedly he drew it forth, almost dropped it, but recovered his grasp and looked at it, his breath coming hard.

It was a broken, rusty bit of file. He was so excited that he almost forgot the book. But he managed to steady his nerve and satisfy himself that there was nothing else in the crack or as far as he could reach along the edge. Slipping the file into his pocket and holding the tiny booklet in his teeth, he descended slowly, cautiously.

And just in time. The men were coming back into the cabin. He could hear them talking now, almost deferentially. And there was another voice with them. It must be Spike! Back on his cot with his booty, he guiltily hid the file in the depth of a crack between the logs behind his cot. It would never be found there, and it might be wonderful to have in case there came a chance to use it.

Then, without stopping to look at the book beyond deciphering the single word “John,” he stuffed it into another crack just below the level of what would have been his pillow if he had one. It was too dark now to read the book even if he dared, and he might be interrupted at any moment, so he hid his treasures and lay trembling with excitement. At least, if he had to stay there another day, he had something to look forward to besides interminable hours of just thinking about what a rotten failure he had been.

Sometime after candlelight a supper was prepared. He heard them going about with bustle, opening cans, and a savory odor of frying ham greeted his hungry senses. Then to his surprise, he was brought out to share in the meal, given a box to sit on, and introduced to Spike, who sat at the head of the crude table.

Spike was a gentleman with frank, fearlessly ruthless eyes. He looked at Rannie pleasantly, greeted him as an equal, and spoke to him man to man. In spite of his natural intuition, Rannie warmed to him. There was a charm about the man, distinction in a way. It was easy to see why men obeyed him. Was this one of the gang leaders of the underworld? Rannie's quick judgment, aided by his ever-ready imagination, made pretty good guesses and kept his caution in control. His schoolboy code had been when in a doubtful situation, keep still and let the other fellow do the talking. Rannie kept to that now. He listened intently and drew several shrewd conclusions from the general talk going on at the table. He noticed the deference the boss and Bud paid to Spike. He stowed away several veiled allusions for careful thought afterward, and rightly judged that he was out here eating with the rest that he might be sized up and worked upon.