Beneath the Tombstone (The Tombstone Series)

by Martin Cogburn

  As they stood, Tomas’s eyes widened as he looked past Jason’s head at something behind it. Jason turned around quickly to investigate. When he did, to his surprise a black metallic object was being pointed directly at his mouth. He instinctively drew his head back, like he’d come face-to-face with a poisonous snake.

  “Mister Hathaway,” the young lady with the microphone jammed in his face chirped, “care to comment on your wife’s disappearance for your local news station?”

  “Um… not really,” he replied honestly.

  “Well, Jason – Can I call you Jason?”

  “That is my name.”

  “Jason it is then.” The reporter smiled a little bit, but then continued on her mission. “There are a lot of stories floating around out there about what happened last night, and I can’t think of any better way to get to the truth than to bypass the grapevine and get right to the root of the story. That would be you, Jason.”

  Jason was chomping at the bit to go chase down their lead and an interview would profit him nothing. “Maybe some other time. I’m busy right now.”

  “Okay, sounds good,” the lady said with a smile. “Maybe then you can tell us why you sat silently by, without a word or action of protest, as your wife was being kidnapped.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Jason said, defending himself.

  “Well, unfortunately, that is the story going around,” the reporter said, sounding innocent.

  Jason sighed. If nothing else, this interview might give him a chance to clear his name. The reporter saw her opportunity showing in his eyes, so she dropped her bait questions and began with what she really wanted to report on.

  “Let’s roll,” she spoke turning to the camera man. He counted down with his fingers and when he pointed she began by saying, “I’m here with Jason Hathaway, husband of the woman who was kidnapped last night from a public park in the nearby area. Tell us Jason,” she said, turning to him, “when did you first learn that your wife had been kidnapped?”

  “When I was laying there bleeding and barely conscious, listening to them drag her away – that was my first clue,” he spoke coolly.

  The reporter acted surprised. “So what you are saying, Jason, is that you were there… not only were you there but you were brutally attacked by these men and left unable to intervene as they abducted your wife.”

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “Is that where all of this came from?” she asked, waving her hand around his face in a circular motion.

  “Yes,” he responded simply.

  “Ouch. That looks painful,” she said, turning to the camera.

  “It was,” he assured her.

  Without missing a beat, she asked, “Has a ransom note or any correspondence of any kind been received from the kidnapper?”

  “Honestly, I’d rather not comment on that at this time,” Jason spoke bluntly.

  “So it would be safe to assume that some form of correspondence has been received?” the reporter asked, then, without waiting for an answer, she added, “Was their demand for money or something else?”

  The last question caught Jason’s attention. Most of the time, from what he understood, the motive for a kidnapping was to get money – sometimes revenge but usually money… or both. The fact that she asked if the demand was for something other than money made him just a bit suspicious. He gave her a strange look before turning his back on the question. As he walked away, he could hear her closing out the interview.

  “That was Jason Hathaway, husband of Misty Hathaway – the woman kidnapped from our local park late last night. And this is Kim Kaylight with KRZ News.”

  Tomas caught up with Jason and took a slight lead, guiding them in the direction of his car. “Let me tell you something, Jason… a reporter is a desperate hunter. I saw a show on television the other night about a small town reporter who got tired of reporting on fender-benders and decided she wanted something big to report on… something like a murder. So you know what she did? She murdered somebody. That lady you just talked to reminds me a bit of her.” He shook his head. “They are all the same – reporters – they make their living off of other people’s misfortunes, and the bigger the misfortune the higher the profit margin.”

  “Forget her,” Jason said. “Let’s go see what we can find out about this Isaac guy.” He paused for a moment. “You do realize this could be dangerous, right? I mean, we’re going to visit the family of one of the kidnapper. It’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I feel bad involving you.”

  “Don’t worry, Jason,” the doctor smiled, “I won’t let things get out of control.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A dark brown horse loped towards the little red car that crept down the narrow driveway. The vehicle was being inched along in an attempt to keep the pot holes in the road from doing any damage to its undercarriage. The horse came to a bouncing stop at the fence that separated him from the car and tossed its head, nickering a greeting to the visitors. It then pranced and snorted, tossing its head as it escorted them along.

  Jason, sitting in the passenger seat, was transfixed. It was like they had driven through some magic portal that either took them back in time or dropped them off into the middle of a western movie set. There were several old barns and sheds scattered around, in no certain order, and a small, rustic house sat up on a hill, a little higher than the rest of the buildings.

  Off to one side, out in the middle of a big pasture, a lone rider, sitting atop a speckled gray horse, eased his way through a herd of young cattle. Jason watched, curious as to what the man was doing. He circled the calves several times, his horse still in a slow, nonchalant walk before passing through them again. He seemed to be inspecting every single calf in the herd.

  Tomas and Jason’s equine escort let out a loud squeal, causing the rider to look over in their direction. He acknowledged their presence but made no move to head in their direction.

  “Park here and we’ll walk up to the house,” Jason instructed in a hushed tone, almost whispering. His heart was pounding and a thick cloud of tension hung in the air. He had no idea what they were walking into. It could end with something as peaceful as a conversation with Isaac’s family or as violent as getting shot by one of the kidnappers. The possibility that kept flooding Jason’s mind, drowning out all other thoughts, was the hope he had of finding Misty.

  “What an old, rundown place this is,” Tomas commented as he put the car in park.

  Jason grunted in reply for kindness sake but, in truth, he wasn’t the least bit concerned about the buildings and their décor. He was there for one purpose – finding Misty. Taking a deep breath, he got out of the car, walked up to the old ranch house and knocked on the door. Tomas followed a short distance behind and stopped, waiting at the edge of the porch. After knocking, Jason walked slowly over to where Tomas stood and glanced out to the pasture where the cattle and rider had been. Strange. The rider had disappeared.

  They stood for a moment, giving anyone on the inside plenty of time to come to the door… if they wanted to do so, that is. Isaac himself could be in there. No one came to the door, so they headed back towards the bright red cherry car to sit and wait.

  Reaching the car, Jason opened the passenger-side door. “If my boy owes you money, he isn’t here,” a man’s voice, heavy with a Spanish accent, spoke from the shed that was behind Jason.

  Jason turned around. It was the man from the pasture. He still sat on top of the same speckled grey horse. How he had gotten from the pasture to the shed without being seen in such a short amount of time was beyond Jason’s understanding, but there he was – a taller, darker, older and thinner version of the boy whose fists had brought Jason to the ground the night before.

  Jason figured it would be safe to assume that this was Isaac’s father. He wore an old, sweat stained felt cowboy hat, a pearl snap shirt, denim blue jeans, chaps, boots and spurs… then there was the double barrel sawed-off shotgun, which was pointed in their ge
neral direction. From the little bit Jason knew about shotguns, with a sawed-off, a general direction was all you needed.

  “He doesn’t owe us any money,” Jason said nervously and was thankful when he saw the armed man relax a bit.

  “He still isn’t here,” the horseman replied calmly.

  “When do you expect him to return?” Jason asked.

  “When he mends his ways and gets his life right with God,” the man said firmly. “Until then, he’s not welcome here.” With that, the old rancher raised the shotgun and pointed it at the sky, simultaneously flinging his right leg over the top of the saddle-horn before sliding to the ground with grace and ease that would be expected of a man half his age. He then strode towards Jason and Tomas with the weapon clutched in his right hand, pointed barrel up, with the break-open part of the gun resting against his shoulder. He was positioned in such a way that he could lower the shotgun and fire at a moment’s notice, but he approached without a threat in his eye.

  “I’m Irwin,” the man spoke as he nodded his head to each of them but didn’t offer his hand. Jason suspected it was because the man was too cautious to drop his guard, even for a moment. “If you two aren’t looking for my boy to collect money, then what did he do? Steal something from you?”

  “Yes,” Jason spoke firmly, disregarding the shotgun in the man’s hand, “my wife.”

  The man’s eyes widened in surprise and his gripped tightened down on the shotgun a bit. “So now he’s got me dealing with jealous husbands?” he exclaimed as he flung his left hand in the air. “Listen son, I taught that boy better than to go around messing with married women but…”

  “It’s – it’s not like that,” Jason stammered, cutting the man off short. “He kidnapped her.”

  “Kidnapped?” the man asked in disbelief, casting his eyes towards the ground. “Why in the world would my boy go off and kidnap anyone? It’s not his style. He likes to fight.” His words were spoken more to himself than to his visitors.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Tomas assured him. “He got in a little of that, too.”

  The man looked at Jason and acknowledged the damage done to his face but didn’t comment. “There’s only one reason he’d get so far away from his usual stunts,” the boy’s father said, “that would be money… I’d say quite a bit of it, too.” He thought for a moment before adding, “Has any ransom note been sent?”

  Jason didn’t want to reveal too much to the wrong source, but he figured if the man was part of the kidnapping, he would already know about the note’s strange instructions anyways. He decided to trust the guy with a small portion of the information. “Yes, but no demands for money were made.”

  “It couldn’t be my son at the wheel of the operation then,” the man huffed. “If Isaac was behind it, the note would be talking money. Yep, I’d be willing to bet that somebody paid him good money to do the job.” He stood looking off into the distance, seeming to contemplate what he was about to say. Finally, it seemed a decision had been made in his mind. He lowered his gaze to Jason. “Why don’t y’all come on in the shed here,” he said, nodding his head towards the open door. “When my boy, Isaac, was still living here, he had him a little room fixed up in there. Still makes for a pretty good resting spot.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Jason said, accepting the invite.

  “Either of you want a bottle of water?” Irwin asked as they walked in.

  “Sounds good. Thanks,” Jason replied and watched as Irwin grabbed three bottles of water in one hand out of an old rust stained refrigerator without putting the shotgun down or turning his back on them.

  There were only a few pieces of furniture in the shed; an old recliner and a loveseat faced each another across an old coffee table. This could get a little awkward. Irwin took the recliner and laid the shotgun across his lap. Tomas went and sat on one end of the love seat and looked up at Jason. Jason sighed within and sat down beside the doctor on the love seat.

  Irwin took a deep drink from his bottle of water, sighed with contentment and began talking once more. “Isaac got himself into a bunch of gambling debt. The boy knows how to fight. Taught him that when he was young. Now I regret it. He started fighting underground and anywhere else he could make money doing it. This is the only address that is connected to him so, every once in a while, some fool in a suit will show up, trying to collect money on my boy’s debt. One of them started to get hostile with me at one point, but we talked him out of it,” he said with a smile that indicated the persuasion had come from looking down each barrel of that shotgun.

  “For a while there the boy was raking in money hand over fist,” Irwin sighed. “Nobody would bet on him at first and the odds were sometimes ten to one. He would put every bit of his money on himself, go in, clean house and walk away with ten times the amount of money he’d walked in with… plus the winnings. The reason no one would bet on him at first is because he looks to young, happy and innocent to be a good fighter.”

  Jason involuntarily reached up and felt of his face. He knew exactly how those who wouldn’t bet on Isaac felt. Before being turned inside out by him, Jason wouldn’t have bet on him either.

  “My boy isn’t necessarily evil,” the old rancher said, a bit of sadness in his voice, “not in his own mind anyways. Some people fight to satisfy the demons within. Isaac fights because he loves to fight and loves money.”

  Jason remained quit and listened. Insignificant though these little details may have seemed, he figured the more of them he could learn the better he would understand the lead kidnapper.

  Irwin got quite for a moment as he gazed blankly at the wall above Jason’s head. He seemed to be pondering something over. “You said they are not wanting money in exchange for your wife’s release?”

  “No sir. Not money,” Jason replied.

  “Would I be meddling too much if I were to ask what it is they want, if not money?” Irwin asked.

  Jason sat silent and thought for a moment. There was just something about the rancher that urged Jason to trust him, so he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone and, as he lit it up, he turned to Tomas. “I haven’t showed this to you either, have I?” The doctor shook his head, seeming to be unsure of what Jason was talking about.

  Jason pulled up the photo that he’d taken of the note then handed the phone to Tomas. The doctor studied the picture for a moment, and Jason saw his eyes get big as his head bobbed back slightly. Shortly thereafter, he handed the phone back to Jason who, in turn, handed it to Irwin.

  Irwin’s face revealed nothing as he studied the note. After a short time, he handed the phone back to Jason. “So they want you to climb the Tombstone,” he spoke dryly. “That’s a fitting name for that piece of rock… Tombstone.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Do you know of anyone who wants you dead? Maybe someone who would profit from you getting killed?”

  “Not that I know of… Why?” Jason asked, wary of the direction the conversation was going.

  “Because getting you to climb the Tombstone without ropes, in the shape you’re in, would be like getting you to agree to commit suicide.”

  “What do you mean by ‘the shape I’m in’?” Jason asked defensively.

  “He means you need training, Jason,” Tomas injected.

  Irwin looked at Jason like that wasn’t exactly what he’d meant but let it be.

  “How do you know about the Tombstone?” Jason asked.

  “My boy climbed it on several occasions,” the horseman replied.

  That bit of information made Jason sit up a little straighter as he asked, “Isaac not only knows how to climb, but he has climbed the very rock that whoever wrote the note wants me to climb?” Irwin nodded his head, not only acknowledging the truth of the statement but seeming to know where Jason was heading with it. “So there’s the possibility that even if he didn’t come up with the scheme himself, he may have had something to do with the demands that were made?”

  Irwin nodded his head. “I woul
d say it is more than possible. I would call it likely.”

  Yes! Now they were getting somewhere. Irwin was really warming up to them, so Jason popped a question that had been in the back of his mind all day. “Do you think there’s a possibility that this could somehow be linked to the Mexican Drug Cartel?”

  Irwin and Tomas both frowned at him. “What makes you ask that?” Irwin asked, bewildered.

  Well, Jason didn’t want to be the one to point out the obvious, especially when it sounded a bit racist, but he needed to cover all of his bases. “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but he’s a Mexican, so I just put two and two together. I thought it might be worth considering anyways.”

  Both Tomas and Irwin stared at him for a moment, like neither of them could believe he’d just said that.

  Irwin shook his head and spoke. “I would take offence if not for what you have been through. First of all, I am Spanish, not Mexican, so my ancestors were here when yours were considered immigrants. And second, Isaac’s mother died when he was young, but she was as white as freshly fallen snow.” He paused for a moment and thought before adding, “Basing your suspicions off of the color of someone’s skin is not the most intelligent thing to do.”

  Jason was embarrassed to say the least. He could feel the red rushing to his face as he mentally kicked himself for being so stupid and inconsiderate. “Look man, I’m – I’m really sorry. I don’t know what, um, why I said that. I guess I just want to find my wife.” He grew silent and looked away from the man.

  Irwin nodded his head in understanding. “I know how you feel. I wasn’t myself for several years after my wife passed away.” He paused for a moment and sighed, “Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do… How long until your birthday?”

  “Almost a month,” Jason replied.

  “Good,” Irwin responded. “That is when the note said you were to climb, correct?”