CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SATURDAYS IN FORT Worth were day-and-night carnivals. For cattle drivers and stockyard workers, it was payday. Buyers and sellers came to town to hammer out high-dollar deals at the same time petty thieves and two-bit cardsharps practiced their shady crafts. In the saloons and gambling houses, it was standing room only around the clock. And in the streets, fights and gunplay were commonplace. It was difficult to know whether it was greed or alcohol that lit the fuse to such bawdy behavior. Probably both.
It was because of the throngs that arrived and mingled in Hell’s Half Acre on the weekend that Ben Baggett had picked it for the meeting with the men who had his money. On Saturday, he had learned, most people become faceless, self-absorbed, or just too drunk to pay attention. A meeting to arrange an exchange of money for a kidnapped young boy was no more likely to be noticed than some poker player cursing another for hiding an ace up his sleeve.
Of all the saloons in town, the Longhorn would be the rowdiest.
“Being as I’m the only one your man doesn’t know,” said Rankin as they reached the city, “I think it best we split up. I know the Longhorn from visits in my younger days, so I’ll arrive early and locate me a good place from which to view your sit-down. Whether it goes off as planned or not, I still might be able to follow our man back to the location where Lonnie’s being held.”
Clay was the least optimistic about success. “I’m afraid if he doesn’t see cash in a canvas bag, he ain’t going to be inclined to hear anything else we’ve got to say.”
“That’s why I’m thinking following him might wind up being our best bet,” the marshal said. “Could even be good if he gets mad and storms off.”
SINCE THE ARRIVAL of the boy, Baggett’s mood had changed constantly. One minute he was excited, the next wary and impatient, then angry over having to babysit. Rather than sleep, he repeatedly played out the Saturday meeting. First, he’d considered sending the brothers while he remained with the boy. But since he didn’t completely trust Doozy and Alvin, despite the fact they’d done everything he’d instructed them to do, he felt it best he attend the meeting himself. One of them could babysit while the other would provide him protection and stand by to signal that the money had been received and it was okay to release the youngster.
Alvin could stay with the kid and Doozy could accompany him to the Longhorn. He was sure there would be two waiting for them—the boy’s new pa, whose name he couldn’t recall, and his friend Clay Breckenridge.
The only detail he’d not completely worked out was how to distance himself from them after he got the money. If he had more men, he could simply order them done away with, but there wasn’t time to put a plan like that in motion. Maybe Doozy could occupy them for a time by suggesting his brother would harm the boy if they chose to become aggressive.
Hopefully, the men coming to town had no interest in violence and would just do whatever was necessary to see the boy returned safely. He’d tried to get a reading on them from Lonnie without much success.
“I want you to know I’m sorry to mix you up in this,” he said. “This business is none of your doing. But your new pa’s got something of mine I want returned. That’s how simple it is. So if whoever shows up Saturday wants only to take you home safe, everything’s gonna be fine.”
He’d finally removed the bandanna that covered Lonnie’s eyes and mouth after the youngster had nodded a promise to remain quiet. With a pistol in one hand, he used the other to hand the boy a glass of water. “I’d be interested to hear what you think they’re going to do when we have our meeting.”
Lonnie was still afraid, but during the time he’d been tied to the chair, he’d become increasingly angry and worried about what might happen to the people he hoped were coming to rescue him.
When he was able to adjust to the light, he saw Baggett for the first time. He was smiling, showing teeth that were yellow and crooked.
“What I’m wondering,” Baggett said, “is whether your thieving friends have the good sense to see to this matter peacefully. You got any thoughts?”
Lonnie glared. “They’re not thieves,” he said. “They’re good, honest people who weren’t looking for any trouble until you and those other men came along. I suspect now they’re pretty mad about all this.”
“You saying I’m gonna have to kill them to get what’s mine?”
“If there’s any killing done,” Lonnie defiantly answered, “it’ll most likely be you who gets killed.”
Baggett got to his feet and slapped Lonnie hard across the face, sending him and the chair tumbling to the floor. “Boy, I can’t tell you how glad I’ll be to be shed of you,” he said.
MARSHAL RANKIN ARRIVED at the Longhorn well ahead of Clay and Jonesy and found himself a place along a balcony rail. The saloon was filled and noisy. He let his eyes roam the floor below, not knowing whom he was looking for since he’d never seen Baggett or the men who had abducted Lonnie.
He watched as Breckenridge and Pate finally entered and stood briefly in the doorway. It was exactly three o’clock. It was Rankin who first saw a man near the back of the room stand and wave a hand.
When they saw him, Clay and Jonesy began elbowing their way in his direction.
As they reached the table, Baggett motioned for them to sit. As he did, a man neither recognized moved to stand behind Baggett. He had a hand on his holster.
“Just wanted to make things even,” Baggett said.
“Is my boy okay?” Jonesy said.
“I don’t see you boys carrying anything with you,” Baggett replied.
“We’ve got a good reason for that,” Clay said. “We ain’t got your money with us, but we know where it is. You ain’t given us much time to put our hands on it. But if you return the boy, we’ll gladly see you get it.”
Baggett cursed. “Where is it?”
“It’s back at Tascosa, where we came by it in the first place. We found it by chance after your man Wilson was killed. Here’s the offer we’ve come to make. You give us the boy and I’ll ride with you out to Tascosa, and show you where it’s hidden. You can bind me and take my weapon. That sound fair?”
The proposition took Baggett by surprise. He was silent for a moment as his bodyguard shifted from one foot to another. “I done made myself a promise never to go back out to that part of the world,” he finally said.
“Well, that’s where your money is.”
“Tell me where you hid it.”
“Be happy to, if you bring us the boy, unharmed.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’m gonna kill you dead in a way you ain’t never imagined,” Clay said.
Doozy nervously put his hand on the handle of his pistol. This wasn’t going the way it was supposed to, he thought to himself.
As the men talked, Rankin had made his way down the stairs and through the crowd to stand behind Doozy. He moved his face to the back of the bodyguard’s neck and whispered, “Slowly take your hand away from your holster. Loud as it is in here, I doubt many would even hear if I was to shoot you right now. Those who do probably won’t much care.”
When he became aware of what was going on behind him, Baggett reached for his own pistol. Before he could raise and point it, Jonesy said, “You want to be real careful. There’s two just like it pointed at you under the table.”
Baggett cursed again and laid his face on his arm and pounded his fist against the table. “Nothing’s working out the way it’s supposed to,” he said.
“Give us your gun,” Clay said, “and tell us where Lonnie is.”
Baggett raised his head and glared, not moving.
“This doesn’t have to be hard,” Clay said.
“I can walk you to where he is,” Baggett finally said, slowly getting to his feet. “Will I still get my money?”
Jonesy laughed. “We ain’t even decided yet if we’re going to allow you to keep living.”
IN THE STREET, they made their way through the crowd. Baggett and Doozy walked in front with Clay and Jonesy close behind, poking gun barrels in their backs. At one point they had to step over a cowboy lying drunk on the sidewalk, laughing at something only he knew was funny.
“This is it,” Baggett said. It was a shabby-looking two-story hotel that didn’t seem to have a front entrance. They walked into an alley and up a rickety stairway.
“Keeping my boy in a place like this ought to be reason alone for putting a bullet in your ugly face,” Jonesy said.
They reached the door to room eight.
Marshal Rankin, who had said nothing since they’d left the saloon, cocked his Peacemaker and signaled everyone to get behind him. Gun pointed, he shouldered his way through the doorway, the others close behind.
All they found was an empty room. The only evidence that anyone had previously been there was a chair that had been turned over, an unmade bed, Baggett’s half bottle of whiskey on a table, and a few of his clothes hanging in a wardrobe whose door was off its hinges.
THEY WERE HERE, I swear,” Baggett said, sweat beading across his brow. “I left your boy in the care of Doozy’s half-wit brother. No more than an hour ago.”
Doozy was also sweating as the marshal turned to him. “Where did he take him?”
“I got no idea,” Doozy said before Jonesy hit him in the temple with the barrel of his pistol. “He’s crazy. No telling where they went.”