Ransom by Frank Roderus Page A

you are no help at all, just running us around in circles to no purpose.” Dick Hahn lowered his voice and cursed under his breath.
    â€œIs complaining all you’re good for?” Taylor snarled.
    â€œI may complain, but unlike you I get things done,” Hahn snapped back at him.
    â€œAll right, so tell me. How would you have gone about finding the spy? What would you have done to him if you did find him? If there’s an idiot here, Hahn, you’re him. Bribe the spy? You think you can buy people. Is that the way you lured Jessie away from home? Did you buy her off with fancy clothes and fancier promises? You get things done? Just what d’you think you’ve gotten done? Jessie and Loozy are missing, they’re in danger, maybe even dead by now, and all you can do is whine. I just wish you’d shut your damn mouth while I try an’ work out this trail.”
    â€œYou haven’t done so well at it so far, damn you. And don’t you ever say they might be dead. Don’t you ever say that.”
    â€œUnlike you, Hahn, I’ll say whatever is true and I’ll say it any time I please. Now if you think you can do better at taking us to them, go ahead and try.”
    â€œYou know I can’t track anyth—”
    â€œThen shut the hell up so’s I can pay attention.” Taylor bumped the brown forward, anger clouding his concentration. “Shut the hell up,” he threw back over his shoulder.
    Hahn hurried to catch up.
    * * *
    â€œCan’t we go a little farther this evening?” Hahn asked.
    â€œNo,” Taylor said, his tone curt and unfriendly. He unfastened his cinch strap and dragged his saddle off the brown horse, dropped it onto the ground, and went back to pull the pack from the led horse.
    Hahn stepped down and stood for a few minutes as if expecting John Taylor to help him unburden his animals, then realized that was not going to happen. Awkwardly and in silence he set about taking care of them himself. By the time he was done, Taylor had a small fire burning, coffee set on it waiting to boil, and a thick chunk of bacon beginning to sizzle.
    Dick Hahn chose a spot across the fire from Taylor and sat, the earth hard and uncomfortable beneath him. “God, I hope they’re all right.”
    â€œYeah. Me too,” Taylor said in a tight, almost inaudible voice.
    * * *
    Taylor craned his neck, searching the sky from horizon to horizon. He had been doing it off and on since sunrise.
    â€œWhat is it that you keep looking for up there? If the gang left any tracks, they’d be on the ground,” Hahn said. “I may not know much but at least I know that.”
    â€œRain,” Taylor told him, bringing his attention back to earth. “I’m looking for rain.”
    â€œGod forbid,” Hahn said. “It’s bad enough the way the temperatures are so cold up here in the hills. We don’t need rain too.”
    â€œMatter o’ fact we do need rain. That would soften the ground enough that I might see some proper tracks. Asit is the ground’s so hard the best I can hope to find is a scrape here an’ there, an overturned rock or trampled brush, all the sort o’ thing that could be done by an elk or a deer as easy as a horse. Rain might could muss your hair, city boy, an’ get your britches wet, but it’d sure help me look for the bastards as has my wife an’ little girl.”
    â€œMy woman, not yours, Taylor.”
    â€œDon’t push your luck with me, Hahn. You’re the one as needs me up here. Only reason you’re along with me is the money. You have the money to buy them off with when we find them. But I’m the one as can maybe find them. Don’t you be forgetting that.”
    Hahn turned his face away and pretended to be examining the gravel underfoot.
    Â 
    Ervin Ederle
    He was in a very good mood. Things were going well. The woman and her kid were acting right. He smiled