"The Ransom of Red Chief"
By: O. Henry
It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in
Alabama--Bill Driscoll and myself-when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was,
as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental
apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.
There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of
course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class
of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.
Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just
two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western
Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps of the hotel.
Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities therefore,
and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the
radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk
about such things. We knew that Summit couldn't get after us with anything
stronger than constables and, maybe, some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a
diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers' Budget. So, it looked good.
We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer
Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern,
upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with
bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at
the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer
would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I
tell you.
About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar
brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored
provisions.
One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset's house. The kid
was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.
"Hey, little boy!" says Bill, "would you like to have a bag of
candy and a nice ride?"
The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.
"That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars," says Bill,
climbing over the wheel.
That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got
him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took him up to the cave,
and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy to the
little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the
mountain.
Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features.
There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and
the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tail feathers
stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:
"Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the
terror of the plains?"
"He's all right now," says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining
some bruises on his shins. "We're playing Indian. We're making Buffalo
Bill's show look like magic-lantern views of Palestine in the town hall. I'm Old
Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief's captive, and I'm to be scalped at daybreak. By
Geronimo! that kid can kick hard."
Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping
out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself. He immediately
christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned
from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.
Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy,
and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this:
"I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet 'possum once,
and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of
Jimmy Talbot's aunt's speckled hen's eggs. Are there any real Indians in these
woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had
five puppies. What makes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money.
Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don't like girls. You
dassent catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are
oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got
six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can't. How many does it take
to make twelve?"
Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his
stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the
hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a warwhoop that made Old Hank the
Trapper, shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.
"Red Chief," says I to the kid, "would you like to go home?"
"Aw, what for?" says he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate to
go to school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back home again, Snake-eye,
will you?"
"Not right away," says I. "We'll stay here in the cave a
while."
"All right!" says he. "That'll be fine. I never had such fun in
all my life."
We went to bed about eleven o'clock. We spread down some wide blankets and
quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren't afraid he'd run away. He kept us
awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching:
"Hist! pard," in mine and Bill's ears, as the fancied crackle of a
twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy
approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed
that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red
hair.
Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They
weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you'd expect
from a manly set of vocal organs--they were simply indecent, terrifying,
humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars.
It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in
a cave at daybreak.
I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill's chest,
with one hand twined in Bill's hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we
used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to
take Bill's scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him
the evening before.
I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that
moment, Bill's spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he
never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off
for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was
to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn't nervous or afraid;
but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.
"What you getting up so soon for, Sam?" asked Bill.
"Me?" says I. "Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I
thought sitting up would rest it."
"You're a liar!" says Bill. "You're afraid. You was to be burned
at sunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it. And he would, too, if he could find a
match. Ain't it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a
little imp like that back home?"
"Sure," said I. "A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that
parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up
on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre."
I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous
vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the
village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the
dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one
man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed
hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was
a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external
outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. "Perhaps,"
says I to myself, "it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have
borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!" says
I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.
When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing
hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a
cocoanut.
"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back," explained Bill,
"and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun
about you, Sam?"
I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument.
"I'll fix you," says the kid to Bill. "No man ever yet struck the
Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!"
After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it
out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.
"What's he up to now?" says Bill, anxiously. "You don't think
he'll run away, do you, Sam?"
"No fear of it," says I. "He don't seem to be much of a home
body. But we've got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don't seem to be
much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they
haven't realized yet that he's gone. His folks may think he's spending the night
with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbours. Anyhow, he'll be missed to-day.
To-night we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars
for his return."
Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when he
knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out
of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.
I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse
gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had
caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell in
the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged
him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.
By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: "Sam, do you
know who my favourite Biblical character is?"
"Take it easy," says I. "You'll come to your senses
presently."
"King Herod," says he. "You won't go away and leave me here
alone, will you, Sam?"
I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.
"If you don't behave," says I, "I'll take you straight home. Now,
are you going to be good, or not?"
"I was only funning," says he sullenly. "I didn't mean to hurt
Old Hank. But what did he hit me for? I'll behave, Snake-eye, if you won't send
me home, and if you'll let me play the Black Scout to-day."
"I don't know the game," says I. "That's for you and Mr. Bill to
decide. He's your playmate for the day. I'm going away for a while, on business.
Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for hurting
him, or home you go, at once."
I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was
going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out
what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit. Also, I
thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day,
demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.
"You know, Sam," says Bill, "I've stood by you without batting an
eye in earthquakes, fire and flood--in poker games, dynamite outrages, police
raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped
that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He's got me going. You won't leave me long
with him, will you, Sam?"
"I'll be back some time this afternoon," says I. "You must keep
the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we'll write the letter to old
Dorset."
Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief, with a
blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the
cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars
instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry
the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with
humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that
forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen
hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up to me."
So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran this way:
Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:
We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for you
or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only
terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen
hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight
to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply--as hereinafter
described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a
solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o'clock. After crossing Owl
Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees about a hundred
yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At
the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small
pasteboard box.
The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to
Summit.
If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you
will never see your boy again.
If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well
within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no
further communication will be attempted.
TWO DESPERATE MEN.
I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to
start, the kid comes up to me and says:
"Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was
gone."
"Play it, of course," says I. "Mr. Bill will play with you. What
kind of a game is it?"
"I'm the Black Scout," says Red Chief, "and I have to ride to the
stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I 'm tired of playing
Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout."
"All right," says I. "It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill
will help you foil the pesky savages."
"What am I to do?" asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.
"You are the hoss," says Black Scout. "Get down on your hands and
knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?"
"You'd better keep him interested," said I, "till we get the
scheme going. Loosen up."
Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a rabbit's
when you catch it in a trap.
" How far is it to the stockade, kid? " he asks, in a husky manner of
voice.
"Ninety miles," says the Black Scout. "And you have to hump
yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!"
The Black Scout jumps on Bill's back and digs his heels in his side.
"For Heaven's sake," says Bill, "hurry back, Sam, as soon as you
can. I wish we hadn't made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit
kicking me or I '11 get up and warm you good."
I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post office and store, talking
with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerand says that he hears
Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset's boy having been lost
or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco,
referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter
surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier would come
by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.
When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I explored
the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response.
So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments.
In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled out into the
little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like
a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat and wiped
his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.
"Sam," says Bill, "I suppose you'll think I'm a renegade, but I
couldn't help it. I'm a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of
self-defense, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance
fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in
old times," goes on Bill, "that suffered death rather than give up the
particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such
supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to be faithful to our articles of
depredation; but there came a limit."
"What's the trouble, Bill?" I asks him.
"I was rode," says Bill, "the ninety miles to the stockade, not
barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. Sand
ain't a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to
him why there was nothin' in holes, how a road can run both ways and what makes
the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by
the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my
legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got two or three bites on my
thumb and hand cauterized.
"But he's gone"--continues Bill--"gone home. I showed him the
road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I'm
sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the
madhouse."
Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing
content on his rose-pink features.
"Bill," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your family, is
there?"
"No," says Bill, "nothing chronic except malaria and accidents.
Why?"
"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a look behind
you."
Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the
ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I
was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole
job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by
midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to
give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a
Japanese war with him as soon as he felt a little better.
I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by
counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree
under which the answer was to be left--and the money later on--was close to the
road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be
watching for any one to come for the note they could see him a long way off
crossing the fields or in the road. But no, sirree! At half-past eight I was up
in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.
Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle, locates the
pasteboard box at the foot of the fencepost, slips a folded piece of paper into
it and pedals away again back toward Summit.
I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree,
got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at
the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and
read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and
substance of it was this:
Two Desperate Men.
Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the ransom
you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your demands,
and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you
will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in
cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night, for
the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they
would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.
Very respectfully, EBENEZER DORSET.
"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the impudent--"
But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his eyes
I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.
"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars, after all?
We've got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam.
Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for
making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going to let the chance go, are
you?"
"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe lamb has
somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransom and make our
get-away."
We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had
bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going
to hunt bears the next day.
It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebenezer's front door. Just at the
moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the
box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out
two hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset's hand.
When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl
like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His
father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.
"How long can you hold him?" asks Bill.
"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset, "but I
think I can promise you ten minutes."
"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross the Central,
Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for the
Canadian border."
And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he
was a good mile and a half out of summit before I could catch up with him.