Train From Marietta by Dorothy Garlock

put against the door, but the only items in the room were the bunk and an old cast-iron stove that had been used for heating. There wasn’t even a chair to sit on.
    She stood up and made her way back to the window. She’d already tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge; they’d probably nailed it down from the outside. If she tried to break the glass, they’d certainly hear her. She only had one choice.
    Wait.
    Hayden entered the cabin carrying a bucket of twigs and a few small pieces of wood. He opened the door of the firebox in the cookstove and shoved some of the dry sticks inside. He grabbed an old newspaper from the table, wadded it up, and shoved it into the box, then struck a stick match and lit it. After adjusting the damper, he kicked shut the firebox door.
    “I ain’t never seen no fire done like that,” Squirrelly said. “That thing gonna get hot enough to melt butter?”
    Hayden shot him a look of disgust and went back outside. He returned with an armload of cut wood, opened the firebox, and shoved it onto the burning sticks.
    “Say, that there’s pretty slick. You act like you know what you’re doing.”
    Hayden grunted and turned away. He pulled a can of beans off the shelf above the stove.
    “How ya gonna open that?”
    “Shut up,” Hayden snarled. “I’m about sick a your mouth.”
    “I want to see it if you open it with your teeth.” Squirrelly almost choked on his laughter. It was fun to irritate the ugly bastard.
    Hayden turned his back on him.
    A rap on the window glass caught Squirrelly’s attention. Eddy stood in front of the cabin, an unhappy look on his face. He jerked his head, signaling the other man to join him.
    “What’s got you in such a snit?” Squirrelly asked after he’d stepped out of the cabin.
    “Don’t rile him,” Eddy said. “You might find yourself on the business end of that knife of his.”
    “Well, who told him to come along anyway?” Squirrelly spat, kicked a loose rock and sent a cloud of dust into the warm evening air.
    “That’s none of your business.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong, Eddy old boy. Mr. Jacobs said I was a partner in this deal. I think I got the right to know why it ain’t just the two of us.”
    “Hayden knows the territory out here, and we don’t. In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t New York City. Things work a little differently out here. We might be glad we have him later on.”
    “I’d love to have seen old man Tyler’s face when he got that ransom note. Wooey, I bet that was somethin’! How are we gonna know when he’s forked over the money?”
    “We’ll know.” The plan was simple. Edwin was to wire his uncle after Kate had been kidnapped; then he’d check for an answering wire, in code, every three days. The station that the message would be wired to was Muddy Creek.
    “So what are we gonna do with her after we get the money?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What do you think I mean? She knows who you are. She ain’t gonna go waltzin’ back to Daddy with her trap shut. We’re gonna have to kill her.”
    “Don’t even think about it,” Eddy said, turning a vicious look toward the thug. “How we handle that isn’t your affair.”
    “She can identify me. That makes it my affair.”
    “When she’s safe at home and we have our money, she’ll keep quiet. She isn’t going to want anything to happen to her daddy.”
    “What’s to keep him from goin’ to the law?”
    “He won’t. Uncle will see to it.”
    “Damn, I hope so.” Squirrelly pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow. “They can give you the chair for kidnappin’. Look what they did to that dumb bastard that took Lindbergh’s kid.”
    Eddy looked back toward the cabin. How he hated dealing with Squirrelly! From the very beginning, he’d had to remind himself why he needed to go along with this whole mess. This was his big chance at freedom from his uncle. Eddy knew that the mighty William Jacobs would have