The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4)

by Vikki Kestell

  “Yeah. Kinda that.”

  They did not speak further but stood together in companionable silence, allowing the purple and white majesty to speak all they needed to hear until the distant whistle of the coming train roused them.

  That evening O’Dell, the two Pinkerton agents Groman had assigned to him, Marshal Pounder, and two of his men planned their raid on the Silver Spurs Bawdy Hall. “We are looking for a young woman by the name of Monika Vogel. I’ve been told she may be known as Monique. She is five feet, two inches, light blonde hair, 15 years old.”

  “Fifteen?” Pounder swore under his breath.

  “She was barely 14 when they snatched her. She and her brother emigrated from Germany to New York a year and a half ago. She answered an employment advertisement to work here in Denver and instead ended up in Corinth—you know where. She was there for a short while before we believe they brought her down mountain.”

  He glanced at Pounder. “When her brother did not hear from her after she left for Denver, he asked us to find her.”

  O’Dell pushed his hat back on his head, put his hands on his hips, and looked at each man in the room. “I want two men inside playing the role of customers, two men out front with the motor car, and Pounder with me.” He hesitated. “Any questions?”

  “I ’spect Cal Judd, the Spurs’ owner, will not take kindly to our honorable intentions,” one of Pounder’s marshals drawled. The man was holding up a wall with his backside, arms folded across his chest.

  “I don’t intend to start a war,” O’Dell replied, “and we aren’t going in to close the place down—seeing as how Denver has more crooked elected officials and cops on the take than a stray dog has fleas. It’s unfortunate, but the present political climate will not support shutting him down.

  “But this is kidnapping. So Pounder and I will locate the girl and take her out. Anybody gets in our way, and we’ll deal with them.”

  He nodded to the two men who would be posing as customers inside the saloon. “Watch our backs. Be discreet, but pay attention. Keep your side arms out of sight unless you need them. Don’t drink too much.”

  Pounder hefted a double-barreled shot gun. “And me?”

  “You? Oh, I want you right out in front, Marshal. Out in plain sight with your badge on your chest and that hog leg of yours at the ready. I’ll be right behind you with my little beauty.” O’Dell tucked his revolver into his pocket.

  O’Dell and Pounder shoved past the two thugs at the front door. O’Dell could see the guards were itching to take them on, but the marshal’s star and shotgun gave them pause.

  The hall was hot and smoke-filled, the crowd boisterous. O’Dell headed directly for the stairway that led to the cribs on the second floor. A burly guard put a hand on O’Dell’s chest and quickly removed it when the marshal leveled his shotgun.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Pounder growled. “You just stay out of our way, right?”

  The burly guard nodded, but his eyes slanted around the crowded hall, looking for help.

  O’Dell and the marshal hit the top of the stairs. A hall opened up in both directions.

  “Go left. I’ll go right. Start at the end and work your way back.”

  Pounder jogged down the hall until he hit the end. He threw open the door of a room and strode inside. “Monika Vogel!” he yelled. The girl inside was not her. He withdrew and threw open the next door.

  O’Dell was doing the same at his end of the hall. On his fifth room, he called out the girl’s name and saw a terrified dish-water blonde raise her head. The man in the bed with her scowled at O’Dell.

  “You.” O’Dell pointed his gun at the man. “Get up. Over there.”

  Slowly the man complied, his face suffused with rage. “I don’t know who you are, but you are making a big mistake.”

  O’Dell looked at him now. He was a bull of a man, ruddy, with a hard, chiseled face, obviously a man accustomed getting what he wanted.

  “Cal Judd?” O’Dell asked. He was guessing, but something about the man’s manner told him he was not wrong.

  “You got a problem with that?” the man spat back.

  O’Dell tipped his head toward the girl. “She’s fifteen. I have a big problem with that.” Keeping his gun trained on Judd, O’Dell asked again, “You Monika Vogel?”

  The girl trembled in fear and cut her eyes to Judd and back. She did not answer.

  “Your brother Ernst sent me to find you,” O’Dell added, his eyes not leaving Judd. “I’m a Pinkerton man. We’re taking you out of here.”

  The girl moaned and looked at Judd. The man stared hard at her, and O’Dell could feel the fear radiating from the girl.

  “Get up. Get some clothes on,” he ordered. When she still did not move, O’Dell stepped back until she and Judd were both in his view. Her eyes shifted to him and he snarled, “Get dressed. Now!”

  She scrambled to obey him. O’Dell backed into the hall and yelled, “Pounder!” A few seconds later the marshal joined him.

  “This her?”

  “Yup. And this here’s Cal Judd.”

  “I know who he is.” Pounder lifted his shotgun and Judd flinched. “O’Dell, we don’t have much time.”

  The girl had slipped on a faded cotton dress and was lacing up her boots. O’Dell grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. Keeping his gun on Judd, O’Dell rasped, “Move out, Pounder.”

  The marshal stuck the barrel of his shotgun into the hallway and heard bodies hit the floor in panic. He jumped out of the doorway and leveled the gun down the hall.

  “You men throw your guns out on the floor!”

  The two men who’d panicked and thrown themselves on the floor reluctantly complied.

  “Get up and back slowly down those stairs. Just four steps, then stop. If anybody down the stairs starts shooting, you’ll be the first to die,” Pounder shouted.

  He headed down the hallway. O’Dell, who was dragging the girl, stopped before he left the room and issued Judd a warning. “Open this door, Judd, and you’ll catch a bullet.”

  Judd stared with hatred at O’Dell. “This isn’t over,” he promised.

  The girl shuddered in O’Dell’s grasp but he kept her moving. A door behind him opened and he swung around. A woman, a frizzled redhead, held out her hands. “I’m alone! Please! Please take me with you!”

  O’Dell cursed. He gestured to the woman to fall in behind them. Barefoot and clad in nothing more than a diaphanous wrapper, the woman obeyed.

  Seconds later Pounder and O’Dell were on the bottom stairs. Judd’s two men, their hands up, shielded them from gunfire. The hall had gone eerily quiet. The two Pinkerton agents they had sent in before them were standing back-to back, their guns out, covering the guards around the room. As Pounder, O’Dell, and the two women moved toward the door, the Pinkerton men retreated with them.

  The six of them slammed through the front door and out onto the street. Pounder’s marshal driving the car pulled up and threw open a door. And then they were away.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 4

  O’Dell, Pounder, and the girls spent an uncomfortable night at the Pinkerton office. While the girls slept, the men took turns watching the street until the sun rose in the morning. Grimy and grizzled, Pounder and O’Dell planned their next steps.

  “I’m catching the early train to Chicago,” O’Dell stated. He nodded at Monika Vogel. “Taking her with me.”

  “What do I do with her,” Pounder demanded. He pointed at the other woman. In the stark morning light she looked older than Monika, street-savvy, and worn.

  “What’s your name?” O’Dell asked her.

  “I go by Red,” she replied carefully.

  O’Dell snorted. “That’s original. Where are you from?”

  “Kansas City.”

  “You want to go back there?”

  “No,” she answered quickly and shivered. She was still barefoot and wearing the thin wrapper she had left the Silver Spurs in
, but O’Dell had given her a coat he’d found hanging in what had been Bickle’s office.

  “Where do you want to go?” he pressed.

  She opened her mouth and then closed it. Finally she answered, “I don’t know. I just don’t want to—I can’t—go back . . . there.”

  O’Dell put an unlit cigar in his mouth and rolled it around for a moment. “Pounder?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do me a favor. Take Red here up to Corinth. Make sure she gets to Rose Thoresen.”

  “That I will.”

  “Thanks.”

  —

  Marshal Pounder knocked on the door of the former Corinth Gentlemen’s Club. It was mid-morning and he could hear bustling activity within the doors of the house. Beside him, Red, as she called herself, shivered in uncertainty.

  One of the girls from the house opened the door. “Yes? May I help you?” She was wearing a simple dress and, without the garish makeup so many of the girls had been wearing the other night, he did not recognize her. She looked curiously at Red, who stared daggers in return.

  “Good morning, miss. I’m Marshal Jake Pounder. Is Mrs. Thoresen in?”

  “Yes sir. Would you come this way, please?” Sarah opened the door and gestured. She showed them into a small room that looked as if it were being used as an office.

  A few minutes later Rose Thoresen greeted him. “Marshal! It is a pleasure to see you.” She shook his hand. Somehow, instinctively perhaps, she knew why he was there.

  She extended her hand to Red. “I’m Rose.”

  “Red . . .” she mumbled in return.

  “I can see why.” Rose replied. “Your hair is a lovely color.”

  Red stared hard at Rose, searching for condescension or sarcasm. When she didn’t find it, she relaxed a little.

  “Have you come to try us out, then?” Rose asked her gently.

  Red looked nervous and unsure and cut her eyes at the marshal. Suddenly he realized he needed to explain why they were there.

  “Mr. O’Dell figured, er, suggested, that Miss Red here . . . uh, he asked me to bring her to you.”

  “Mr. O’Dell! Have you seen him then?” Rose asked eagerly. “He left abruptly and we did not have an opportunity to wish him God Speed.”

  “Well, he, uh, found the girl he was looking for,” Marshal Pounder offered. “Monika Vogel, I think her name was. Three nights back. Took her off to Chicago next morning.”

  Rose clasped her hands together. “What an answer to prayer! I believe that she and Gretl are the only two girls on his list he found after all this time.”

  She turned to Red. “And did he also find you, my dear?”

  Red, as prickly as a cactus and looking for a reason to be offended, fired back tartly, “I wasn’t lost and I’m not your dear.”

  Marshal Pounder, standing behind Red, raised his eyebrows to Rose and shrugged his shoulders.

  Rose smiled. “I apologize. It was presumptuous of me. Can you tell me why you are here?”

  Red huffed and pursed her lips. “I just asked that other man, O’Dell it was, to . . . take me outta that place. I didn’t ask to be taken to another whorehouse.”

  Rose nodded sagely. “It still looks that way, doesn’t it? We are working on that. I can assure you, though, that it is no longer a, er, whorehouse. The marshal here, his men, plus Mr. O’Dell, and others arrested the men who ran this house. Less than a week ago, in fact. So the girls here are no longer in that, er, line of work.”

  She gestured for them to sit down. “Red, my daughter Joy and I and a few of our friends plan to secure a house in Denver and move there. We intend to help the girls who come with us to learn new skills and find honest employment so that they may become independent.” She looked at Red. “Does that sound like something that interests you?”

  Red frowned. “I can’t be in Denver if it’s gonna be too close to the Silver Spurs.” She threw a worried look at Pounder. “That Cal Judd holds a grudge, I can tell you. If he finds out I’m in Denver and where I am, he’ll come for me.”

  “Cal Judd?” Rose directed this to the Marshal.

  “Man who runs the Silver Spurs, Mrs. Thoresen,” he explained.

  Rose nodded and thought. “We will need to be far enough from that part of town that our girls are not in danger yet close enough that perhaps others will find their way to us. But you raise a valid point, my d—I mean, Miss Red. We will need to take precautions such as solid doors with good locks and not advertising our location.”

  She looked at Red again. “If you are interested in staying with us for a bit, you are welcome. For the time being we can feed you, probably find you some clothing, and give you a place to stay. If you choose not to move with us to Denver, we can offer you a train ticket away from the city. That is about all we have.”

  Red stared at Rose a little longer and then answered, “I reckon I can stay a while.”

  “All right then. Marshal, would you care to stay for dinner?”

  Blushing furiously, Marshal Pounder declined. “Thank you, no. I, uh, will just catch the afternoon train back down the mountain. The little missus will be expecting me.”

  (Journal Entry, May 1, 1909)

  We already have a new girl, or I should say young woman. She is a little older than the rest, perhaps Joy’s age. She is, as I heard Breona phrase it, “a wee bit crusty,” which is to say she is touchy and easily offended.

  This morning I asked if she had a given name. She replied with some heat that “Red” had been given to her—she hadn’t stolen it. I calmly asked if she had another name she preferred that we use. After a few minutes she mumbled that her mother had called her Tabitha.

  Careful not to step on her toes again, I asked if she would like us to call her Tabitha or was it too special, since her mother had given it to her. (Thank you, Lord, for helping me to think on my feet!) Apparently asking was the right thing. She thought it over and decided we could call her Tabitha.

  I told her it was a good name, one that is found in the Bible. She was curious about that, so I opened my Bible to the Book of Acts and read to her about the woman named Tabitha, a woman known for her good works, and how she sickened and died but the Apostle Peter prayed for her and she came back to life.

  This account impressed our Tabitha. She was actually quite smitten with the idea that her namesake had been raised from the dead. A few minutes later she was back asking what Tabitha meant. When I told her it meant “deer” or “gazelle,” she was highly disappointed, I might even say disgusted, so I had to chuckle. To myself, of course!

  I know she has been deeply hurt in her life, for she looks for the bad in every situation. It will take time, patience, and love. And of course, you, my Jesus!

  —

  Two mornings after the raid on the Silver Spurs, O’Dell showed up in his home office in Chicago. He’d taken Monika Vogel to a hotel not far from the office and paid for her room, a bath, several meals, and some second-hand clothes. He spent the day writing an extensive report for Parsons, his boss and the head of the Chicago office, then sent a wire to the New York Pinkerton office:

  Have located M. Vogel. Sending NY with Chicago agent. Notify brother. Report following.

  Parsons spent an hour reading O’Dell’s report. He saw his boss shaking his head several times. Finally he waved O’Dell into his office.

  “You embellished this, right?” The frown lines between Parsons’ eyes were deep and permanent.

  O’Dell shrugged. “What do you think? You can’t make this stuff up.”

  “To be frank, after four months of sitting on your backside in that little mountain village with no results, Pinkerton was on the verge of cutting you loose. Nobody here thought you were actually working the case.”

  “I get that.”

  “But you pulled it off. And to think that Branch . . . and that Thoresen woman—”

  “Michaels. Joy Michaels.”

  “—That she was tied into our kidnapping case and was married to B
ranch?”

  “Grant Michaels.”

  “Yeah, OK. And this guy, Dean Morgan. He’d burned her out in Omaha? This gets stranger by the minute. Unbelievable.” Parsons rocked back in his chair and looked O’Dell over. “So now what?”

  O’Dell shrugged. “I’m ready for another case.”

  “You know, McParland is looking for a new head of the Denver office. It would mean a promotion for you, a chance to clean up that town.”

  “No thanks. Let someone else have it.”

  Parsons studied him. “All right. I’ll have someone escort Miss Vogel to New York. You be back here in the morning. I’ve got a few things for you.”

  (Journal Entry, May 9, 1909)

  We celebrated a wedding this morning, right after Sunday service! I’m sure Billy and Marit would have liked to have had more time to prepare, but now that we are all starting “from scratch,” so to speak, it made no sense to put their wedding off, and they surely did not wish to wait longer.

  Our wonderful little church family has already been so good to us providing clothing, food, and all the ordinary, everyday things we take for granted. Today they gave Billy and Marit bedding and kitchen items and the use of a little cabin until we relocate to Denver.

  I am so glad for them to have a place of respite where they can go to learn of each other and just be a family. Will is five months old now, and he will never know any father other than Billy. How good you are, Lord!

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 5

  Rose and Joy studied the list of names on the table before them. Little Blackie slept curled in a contented heap at Joy’s feet. Nearly seven weeks had passed since the lodge had burned; almost seven weeks had gone by since the marshals had arrested Morgan, Banner, Darrow, and the rest.

  O’Dell had left Corinth without saying good bye, and Joy still felt the sting of his abrupt departure. At the same time, she recognized how awkward it would have been for him to remain.

  She was not the only one who felt his absence keenly—those who had lived at the lodge felt strangely abandoned by the man who had been steadfastly with them through so many difficulties. One or two remarked how unlike him it was but most kept their own counsel.