Lincoln's Ransom Read online

  As Kinealy slowed the team to turn onto the Valley Road, Packard twisted in his seat to look back and could see flashes as gunfire was exchanged.

  Kinealy took a quick glance and laughed out loud. “Silly bastards! Must be shooting at each other.” He turned forward once more. “Hyah!” He snapped the reins, and the team lunged into a gallop. Through the scattered trees of Oak Ridge Cemetery flashing past, Packard saw several more yellow darts of flame as the cracking of pistol fire receded behind them.

  Packard’s heart sank, and he was forced to pay attention to staying on the pitching seat as the wagon bounced over some frozen ruts The sturdy Studebaker wagon was nearly new and built to take the pounding of hard usage. He had picked it out himself in St. Louis, while Rip Hughes was selecting and buying the team of horses from a farmer some forty miles from here.

  The moon was silvering the deserted road ahead. Packard glanced sideways at Kinealy, wondering why he was driving them toward town. But he held his tongue and squinted against the cold wind that was whipping tears from his eyes. Since he had never expected the theft to reach this point, Packard had paid little attention to the details of what was planned after the body-snatchers left the cemetery. Now he found himself spinning down the road with three gang members and the corpse of Abraham Lincoln while all six lawmen were yelling and bouncing slugs off the stone monument and probably ventilating each other back there in the night. It was enough to make a grown man cry.

  Chapter Six

  The plan had gone awry. Icy wind swept the fog from Packard’s stunned mind, and it became clear that his only chance of survival now was to continue playing the rôle of grave-robber. He hugged the lightweight wool coat around himself, vaguely conscious of his freezing, gloveless fingers as the team thundered along, stretching the distance between them and Oak Ridge Cemetery.

  About a mile farther, when they were halfway to town, Kinealy reined the team to a trot, and then to a walk. As the wagon rounded a bend in the deserted road, a square of yellow light appeared ahead, pouring out of an open barn door. The structure loomed up in the moonlight, slowly materializing into a large livery stable. Kinealy guided the team off the road and reined up behind the building.

  “Stay here,” Kinealy said to the two in the back of the wagon. He set the brake, looped the reins, and jumped down. Packard followed. He slid the big door open a crack on its rollers, and they went inside. A man who had apparently heard them drive up was looking out the open front door.

  “We’re back here,” Kinealy said.

  The man jumped and turned around. “Gawd! You scared me. What’re you coming in the back way for?” He stretched and rubbed the back of his neck as if he’d been asleep.

  “I need a load of hay,” Big Jim said, ignoring the question. “We’ll just fork it into my wagon,” he added as the man started to say something.

  “How much you gonna need?” the man asked, glancing at them. “I could throw down a few sheaves from the loft.”

  “Good. Make it enough to fill my wagon,” Kinealy said. “How much?”

  “That’d be about three dollars.”

  Big Jim didn’t haggle about the price. He just handed over a five-dollar gold piece. “Don’t bother about the change,” he waved as the man fumbled in a pocket of his overalls. “Just get the hay. We’re in a hurry.”

  The man took the lantern from its peg on a post and began carefully to ascend the wooden slats of a vertical ladder.

  Just as they started toward the rear door, a figure rose up out of an empty stall. “What’s all the noise?”

  Kinealy jumped back, hand on his gun, and Packard felt a cold chill go up his back.

  “Nothin’. Go on back to sleep,” the liveryman said, pausing on the ladder and holding the lantern aloft.

  The apparition moved closer. Straw was stuck to the matted hair and goatee, and his dark eyes glared at them in the light. Some drunk sleeping it off, Packard thought, recovering his composure.

  The hairy, wild-eyed man, rising from the depths of the stall, stepped out to block their way to the door. “Why do you prowl the night?” his deep voice demanded. “Vice and corruption walk in darkness. Good deeds are done by the light of day.”

  “Boston Corbett!” Packard gasped.

  “Who?” Kinealy asked, glancing between the two of them.

  “Never mind,” Packard said, brushing past the short preacher. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Hey, you, get away from that wagon!” Kinealy lunged at Corbett who had followed them out the door.

  “Put on the armor of light!” Corbett croaked as he dodged away from Kinealy and snatched at the canvas in the back of the wagon.

  Before McGuinn or Mullins could stop him, Corbett had yanked off the end of the cover.

  “A coffin! Whose mortal clay is this that should be resting safely in the earth?” His fierce eyes glared at them in the light from the partially open door. “Fear him who can kill the soul as well as the body!” he cried.

  “Get the hell out of here!” Kinealy yelled.

  “Coming down!” the liveryman called from the open door of the loft above.

  They jumped back as three bundles whumped onto the ground between them. He kicked out several more, then withdrew from sight.

  “McGuinn! Mullins! Get those sheaves into the wagon and busted open. Make sure it looks like we’re hauling nothing but a big load of hay,” Kinealy said. “Packard, do something about that idiot!” He gestured at Corbett, who was still roaming around the wagon, rattling like a cup of dice.

  “Death comes like a thief in the night!” the wild-eyed one intoned. “But no man is buried at night.” His face bore a crafty look as if he had just discovered some secret.

  McGuinn and Mullins ignored him as they tore at the hay, throwing it in piles over and around the coffin.

  “Ah, ha!” Corbett rasped, waving his arms and pointing an accusing finger. “You’re not burying this body. You’re hiding it. You stole it! You’re going to sell it for filthy lucre. Spawn of evil! Grave-robbers! Desecrating the temple of the Holy Spirit!”

  “I said, get rid of him!” Kinealy grated.

  “Don’t mind him. He’s crazy,” Packard said, not really knowing what to do.

  Kinealy looked across the wagon at the short, stocky evangelizer who was staying out of reach.

  “Ghouls! Sons of Satan! Judases!” he raved. Then in an eerie, almost wailing, tone that sent a chill up Packard’s back: “Whooose body is this? Whooose flesh and bones will not be allowed to return to dust as the Lord intended?” He skipped nimbly away as McGuinn jumped out of the wagon and went after him. “Almighty God, in His Gargantuan wrath, will smite you like the Philistines!”

  “What’s a Gargantuan wrath?” Mullins wanted to know.

  Packard finished sliding the barn door shut so the liveryman would not hear this tirade and guess what they were about. Even though Corbett was trying to shout, his overused voice was emitting only a hoarse croak.

  “Forget him,” Packard said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We can’t leave him,” Kinealy said.

  “What?” Packard couldn’t believe he’d heard right.

  “He thinks we’re grave-robbers. If we leave him, he’ll tell that liveryman what he saw, and the law will be on our trail as soon as those men from the cemetery, whoever they are, get back to town.”

  Before Packard could answer, he heard a thunk on the far side of the wagon like someone thumping a ripe watermelon. McGuinn came around the tailgate, rubbing his big knuckles. “I took care of him, boss.”

  “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “Naw. He’ll just be in the land o’ nod for a spell.”

  “Good. Throw him in the wagon.” Kinealy leaped up onto the driver’s seat with a nimbleness that belied his size. Packard scrambled up after him, while the others were lifting the limp form of Corbett into the back.

  “Hyah!” Kinealy popped the reins over the backs of the team, and th
e wagon started with a jerk.

  “Hold up. Wait for me!” Mullins yelled, running and grabbing for the back of the wagon. McGuinn put out a meaty hand and yanked him with a quick heave over the tailboard and headfirst into the hay.

  Kinealy seemed to know the terrain well. Apparently he had scouted the route thoroughly in advance because he shortly turned off onto a side road through a thick stand of timber and whipped the team to a gallop. They thundered along for a time between two black walls of trees, the moonshine silvering the frosty road ahead of them. Packard had no idea what hour it was, but it felt late — like a long time since darkness had closed down about five-thirty. When Packard tried to calculate the time, he figured it was probably between nine and ten. This team of Morgans, as good as it was, couldn’t run, flat out and pulling this load, for thirty miles. And that’s how far Kinealy said they had to go to arrive at the water stop ahead of the midnight express.

  Packard was suddenly aware of a scuffling in back and twisted around to see McGuinn kneeling astride a struggling Corbett. As he looked on, McGuinn shrugged out of his coat, yanked off his galluses, and proceeded to lash the lunatic’s arms to his sides while Corbett yelled and called down heavenly thunderbolts on their heads. But there was no one else to hear, and shortly even this ceased as McGuinn gagged him with a bandanna.

  The patch of trees thinned out, and they came into rolling pasture land. The single-track road curved to the right, and suddenly they were back on the main road again, headed toward Springfield.

  “Where you going?” Packard yelled over at Kinealy.

  “Back to my saloon to get the crate.”

  “What?”

  “The crate to hide the coffin in when we put it on the train.”

  In all the confusion, Packard had completely forgotten about the shipping crate. His heart began to beat faster. Town meant lots of people, and maybe a chance for him to slip away. But he determined to try the straightforward approach first.

  “Good!” Packard yelled back at him. “My part of this job is done. Just drop me at the edge of town, and I’ll disappear. When you get my share of the ransom, you know how to contact me at my post office box in Chicago.”

  Kinealy whipped the reins over the team to keep them running, and then looked across at Packard for several seconds before replying. His expression wasn’t readable because of the deep shadow of his hat brim.

  “Your job ain’t over yet. Not till we get this body hidden on the other end at Saint Joe. So don’t go getting any ideas about taking off early.” He turned his attention back to driving.

  So much for the up-front approach.

  They drove right through town, past swarms of people on the streets. All the stores and saloons seemed to be open, and everyone was in a festive mood while they awaited the first election returns from the East to come in over the telegraph. Packard’s heart was in his mouth most of the time, knowing what a cargo they were carrying under that pile of hay. But, by the time Kinealy turned the team into the alley behind his saloon, he had a grip on his nerves once more.

  Kinealy jumped down, unlocked the back door, and went inside. In a few seconds, a match flared, and he reappeared at the door, lighted lamp in hand.

  “O K, let’s get this thing unloaded. We’ll transfer it inside.”

  Mullins took the lamp and held it high, throwing light over the steaming backs of the black horses and the pile of tawny hay in the wagon. Corbett still lay, kicking and grunting, in the wagon bed. But with arms bound to his sides and a gag in his mouth, his struggles had subsided considerably.

  “Mullins, I didn’t mean for you to light up the world!” Kinealy gritted through his teeth. “Set that lamp down inside and keep an eye on both ends of the alley. We’ve got enough moonlight to see by.”

  The three of them slid the casket out the open tailgate and struggled to fit the heavy load through the narrow door. Packard could have sworn he felt something shift inside as they tilted the coffin. Maybe the lead liner didn’t fit snugly, or it was the body itself sliding around. He tried not to think of it.

  They finally thumped the coffin onto the floor inside the storeroom. Kinealy dragged a stout wooden packing case from a dim corner. Small slats were nailed to the corners for handles.

  McGuinn looked at the coffin, and then at the crate. “Boss, this thing’ll be so heavy once we get it into that crate, it may be too much for all of us to lift.”

  He and Kinealy were the stoutest of the quartet. If they thought it would be too heavy, Packard wasn’t about to disagree.

  “All we have to do is lift it into the wagon bed out in the alley and then slide it off at the freight dépôt,” Kinealy replied. “Then it’s up to the railroad people.”

  “Until we get to Saint Joe.” McGuinn said. “How about we just dump this here cedar coffin as long as we got the packing box? Lighten it up some for the horses, too. They have a long ways to run with this load.”

  Kinealy considered for a few moments, rubbing a hand over his mouth and jaw under his thick mustache. “Maybe you’re right. What about it, Packard? Think it’ll work better that way? You’re the expert.”

  Packard nodded sagely. “Probably so, although it’s the lead that causes it to be so heavy.” He tried to sound as if he hadn’t just stated the obvious.

  “Let’s do it, then,” Big Jim decided. He grabbed the lamp and held it close to the polished cedar lid. “We need a screwdriver.” He handed Packard the lamp and rummaged around in a drawer until he came up with a big screwdriver.

  In a matter of minutes, he had the screws out and the lid off. A lead coffin in the approximate outline of a body rested inside. In a jiffy they lifted it out by four metal handles and placed it in the packing crate.

  “Fits pretty good,” Kinealy grunted. “Stuff some of that hay in around it for padding.” He consulted his watch, holding it toward the light. “Hurry up. It’s already a little after ten.”

  They all pitched in to help. Packard felt the same sense of urgency, even though he wasn’t one of them. He was armed, but knew the time wasn’t right to attempt an arrest by himself. A slip-up could well cost his life, although he knew coney men weren’t usually killers. Even a successful arrest would ruin a well-planned undercover operation because the whole aim of the Secret Service was to get them for printing or passing bogus currency. On the other hand, if they couldn’t nail Kinealy and his gang for counterfeiting, Packard’s boss would settle for any conviction that might put them in prison for a few years. He would have to wait until the ransom demand was made to charge them with extortion. So, as long as the plan to stop the body-snatching had failed, Packard would go along with the gang for a time to see what developed. And, deep down, his decision was influenced by a desire to see Janice Kinealy again before the trap was sprung. He took a deep breath to calm himself. It looked as if he had a mountain lion by the tail and couldn’t let go.

  “What’s wrong? You got a bellyache?” Kinealy’s question was directed at McGuinn who was pressing his right hand to his stomach.

  “Naw. Just holding up my pants. Popped a button off when I squatted to lift that coffin,” the boxer replied.

  “Mullins, make sure that lunatic is still in the wagon,” Kinealy said, snatching up a hammer.

  Mullins disappeared into the alley.

  “McGuinn, forget about your pants for a minute and hold that lid on the crate while I nail it down,” Kinealy ordered.

  But, before he could swing the hammer, they were startled by — Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! — from the front of the building. They all jumped at the noise and looked at each other with sudden alarm.

  “The front door,” Packard breathed, his heart beginning to race.

  In spite of all their plans, maybe this operation was coming to an end, here and now.

  Chapter Seven

  “Open up, Kinealy!” came a deep voice from out front.

  The door rattled under several sets of fists.

  “Yeah. Let’s have a drink!�
��

  “I can see your light. I know you’re in there. Why the hell are you closed on election day?”

  The pounding became insistent. “Open the damn’ door!”

  “You’ve got a lot of thirsty customers out here. You got something against making money?”

  Kinealy’s eyes went wide, and his face ghastly pale in the lamplight. For the first time since this caper began, Packard saw the master of the coney men lose his composure. He opened his mouth a time or two, as if he couldn’t catch his breath, but then managed to whisper: “Just a bunch o’ drunks looking for a good time. Stay quiet. They’ll give up and go away in a few minutes.”

  But the men outside weren’t so easily discouraged. After some more banging and yelling, their voices subsided, and Packard could hear them talking and arguing among themselves. Then there was a terrific crash of splintering wood, and the voices were suddenly louder, closer.

  “Why the hell’d you shove me for, Bill?” a voice complained. “Now look what you’ve gone and done. His door’s busted.”

  “Well, as long as we’re in, hunt up Kinealy and let’s get those beer taps working.”

  “Beer, hell! Where’s the champagne?” another man yelled.

  “Big Jim! Show yourself, man! You’ve got some customers.”

  “Does he sleep upstairs?”

  The door to the main saloon was standing ajar. Kinealy finally seemed to gather himself to face the situation. “Can’t let anyone come back here. I have to go in there and stall them.” He turned to Packard and McGuinn and said in a low voice: “Get this crate outside into the wagon. I’ll join you as quick as I can.”

  “How long should we wait, boss?” McGuinn asked.

  “Until I get there!” Kinealy snapped. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  As they talked, they heard voices and glasses clinking as the customers helped themselves. Light flooded through the open door a few feet away, when somebody lighted the coal-oil chandelier in the main saloon.