Ghosts and Gators

Most mornings, Artemus West woke up not suspended by wrist shackles over an alligator pit. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of those mornings. Tem didn't know how long he'd been unconscious, but sunlight was streaming in through a pair of narrow, heavily barred windows set high up on the walls of this surreal dungeon. Arms aching, he'd awakened to the downward sight of his own booted feet standing on a thin metal grill that separated him from the pit of writhing, snapping gators down below. The swamp creatures looked hungry and Tem was guessing he knew who the main course was intended to be. He did his best to stand upright and take some of the pressure off of his arms. Clearing his head, he realized he wasn't alone in this bizarre setting. Another prisoner was shackled and standing on the grate.

"You know what you said about the suspects being armed and dangerous?" the rueful voice of Federal Marshal Bill Jeffers pierced the fog surrounding Tem's consciousness. Tem looked over and saw the lawman grimacing in a chagrinned fashion. "Turns out you were right."

Both men looked down at the pit and flinched reflexively as one of the gators leapt up out of the water to snap at them, the tip of its snout coming within inches of their fragile platform. Tem shivered, too, at the itchy sensation of a bead of sweat rolling down the middle of his back in the dungeon's damp warmth. He'd been stripped of his jacket, vest and shirt which now lay visible and tantalizingly close on the stone floor that surrounded the grate, in a heap next to the Marshal's gun belt. There went most of Tem's weapons and equipment, not that he could have accessed them with his wrists shackled like this.

"Sorry to get you into this mess, Marshal," Tem muttered, trying to size up his options and not finding any he liked.

"Not your fault." Jeffers shook his head. "Doin' my job." The Marshal glanced down at the alligator pit as another gator tried to leap up at them. "Can't rightly say as I've had a lot of experience dealing with this sort of thing, though."

Neither have I, Tem thought gloomily. He wondered how his father would have dealt with this situation. Maybe his father had dealt with this same exact situation before. If Tem survived, he was really going to have to get a closer look at Jimmy's box of stories. But for now he was reduced to looking up at the metal bar overhead that he and Marshal Jeffers were both shackled to. Tem still had his boots on, at least. Perhaps he could swing his body hard enough to position himself around that bar and then reach his bootheels . . . .

"Agent West, I see you're awake."

Tem's gaze snapped back down as he saw his father's killer walk in through the entrance of the dungeon, followed by three cowled and heavily armed guards. Tem felt the hot rush of blood into his cheeks. Here was the man in the red hat himself. The man with the sinister scar across his jaw. The man who had shot James West. The man Tem wanted to bring to justice more than anything. And Tem could do nothing!

He lunged forward as far as his wrist shackles would allow in his fury to get at this man. But his best efforts produced no results except to make his father's killer chuckle at his helplessness.

"And here, Agent West, I was thinking you're almost as big a pain as your father was. Guess I was wrong, though." The big man ran a hand along his scar, scratching a bit as he surveyed his captives. "Appears as you'll be a useful snack for my little pets."

"Who are you?" Marshal Jeffers asked. "What do you want with us?"

The man in the red hat appeared to ignore the Marshal and kept his attention on Tem. But Tem had an equally pressing question of his own.

"What have you done with James Gordon?"

The man in the red hat snorted.

"The Gordon brat is being given a chance to prove himself useful." Their captor grinned. "In a way, he already has been. Looking for him sure helped lure you out of the woodworks, didn't it?"

Tem's only response was a glare. He was relieved to know that Jimmy was still among the living. Not relieved at all to know how accurate a point the enemy had.

"I have to say, West, you sure are lively for a dead man." Tem's would-be killer tapped the edge of the metal grate with his boot, still just far enough out of range that Tem knew he couldn't connect with the kick he dearly wanted to deliver. "Thought I'd taken care of you in Chicago. Waste of a good goddamn building too."

Now Tem did his best to manage a cynical grin of his own.

"We Wests have a way of being stubborn like that."

"The one of you that's left, anyway," the man in the red hat grunted.

Tem's face went blank with shock, and a sudden chill coursed through his system. Amanda . . . ? Was she . . . ?

No. he told himself. If this sadist could have gloated over killing Tem's wife, he would have done so first. Instead, he must still be trying to rub Tem's face in the death of Tem's father. The thought was enough to make Tem want to shiver again, though. Keep calm. The enemy hadn't even appeared to acknowledge Amanda's presence back in Chicago. How much did they know about her secret agent skills? Like most people, this enemy assumed that there was only one 'Agent West' currently living. As far as Tem knew, she was still free, and he hoped to heaven she would remain so.

Tem was in for another icy shock when he saw a trace of movement of one of the guards standing just behind his main foe. The guard on 'hat's' left was noticeably bigger and bulkier than his two compadres. Tem hadn't looked closely enough at these sentries to wonder if he had seen someone with that exact build before. Now he did. The biggest guard reached under the edge of his cowl just enough to scratch an itch on his face, and as he did so, he pulled that section of the cowl up so that Tem got a good glimpse of something that lay underneath it – a large purple birthmark covering the left cheek. That guard looked straight at Tem and nodded, ever so slightly, evidently having wanted the prisoner to see that mark.

Charlie. Charlie Murphy. The butcher's boy.

So.

The nightmare enemy from childhood had not been imagined. Charlie Murphy was working for the weapons smugglers too. What an actor! Charlie must have been laughing like a fiend inside while he'd been blubbering like a coward back at his butcher shop. Tem had fallen for it too, wanting too hard to believe in the better angels of human nature the way his mother had. Now the same fiend who'd given Tem his first black eye was going to be in at the kill too. Getting revenge on Tem for the remembered ghost of Tem's Dad . . . .

Tem hadn't cried back then, when he'd taken the punch. He wasn't going to cry now. Not in front of these men. These monsters. But if Tem thought his spirits had sunk low back on the train, they managed to sink even further with this new discovery. What a fool he had been!

"Something the matter, West?" the man in the red hat smirked.

"Aside from the accommodations, you mean?" Tem was determined to maintain as much bravado as he could in the face of impossible odds. With sheer dint of effort, he managed to yawn and tried to make himself look bored. "I've had better, frankly. Were you trying to make a good impression?"

Bill Jeffers was gaping at Tem, goggle-eyed. It was bad enough to be shackled over any pit of alligators, but realizing that the person shackled next to you was obviously mad made it just that tiny soupçon worse. Tem noticed that he'd managed to make the man in the red hat almost gape with disbelief for a second or two.

The man in the red hat was getting ready to say something more when at that very moment the entire dungeon shook with the sound and feel of a dramatic explosion from somewhere not very far off. The gators began thrashing and leaping wildly in their pit of water down below. Tiny bits of loose stone and mortar plinked down from the walls up above. Jeffers and the guards stared about wildly.

"What was that?" one of the smaller guards said.

Tem didn't know either, but it certainly seemed as if it wasn't anything on the vicious gang's agenda. The man in the red hat barked an order at the guards and more or less shoved them out the dungeon doorway in front of him.

"You too!" the 'hat' shouted, shoving Charlie hard as the biggest guard attempted to lag behind.

Eager to practice his vivisection unsupervised? Tem wondered bitterly. He tried tugging at his shackles as hard as he could, in case the mini-earthquake had loosened them any, but no such luck. The bar he and the Marshal were chained to was as solid as ever. The same might not be said for the thin metal platform they were standing on. Tem thought the grate felt just a bit looser than before, and that was the thing he didn't want breaking off! Jeffers evidently felt it too, and both men tried to stand as still as possible, all too aware of the fix they would be in if the fragile grill gave way. The gators below them continued to thrash and snap, agitated by whatever had just happened. From where Tem stood – literally – this made his plans to try and get at the item concealed in his boots all the more precarious, and not just for himself. A failed attempt to swing upward with a too-hard impact on the grate wasn't something he wanted to risk with Jeffers just as trapped as he was. Still, he might have no choice. He had wondered if the blast they'd felt might be part of some rescue attempt, especially with Amanda still on the loose. But when several minutes passed without any sign of rescuers showing up, he had to discount it as something else; a careless explosion of one of the munitions, perhaps. Tem was going to have to try something. It was clear that he and the Marshal were going to be gator chow if he didn't.

"Who are these guys?" Marshal Jeffers asked.

"Weapons smugglers," Tem said. "The worst of the worst. Washington sent us to try and stop them."

"Looks like they're gonna stop us instead." While Tem was looking upwards at the metal bar again, Jeffers was watching the herd of hungry gators.

"Not if I can help it." Tem explained briefly what he was about to attempt in order to free them.

"You've got stuff you keep in your bootheels?" Jeffers whistled.

"Sort of a family tradition," Tem nodded grimly as he made a game attempt to swing his body upward.

It was no use. The bar moved as Tem moved. Like a spit for roasting meat, the square-shaped bar was designed to turn in its brackets. Tem could guess why. Ol' Scar-jaw must really get a kick out of feeding his pets this way . . . . Tem made another attempt, but wound up right where he started. He wanted to groan more from frustration than exertion, when he and Jeffers heard the sound of booted feet tromping toward the dungeon once more.

"West!" the man in the red hat roared with rage as he stamped back into the chamber. Tem still didn't know what had caused the explosion, now maybe fifteen minutes earlier, but something had his mortal enemy in a state of fury. The guards behind him, the same trio by the look of them, didn't act so much angry as nervous. Not even they wanted to be around their boss when he was in this mood. "No more delays!" 'hat' yelled, hitting a lever on the wall with his fist.

At once, the platform grill swung away underneath the prisoners, leaving nothing between them and the eager gators. One of the creatures leapt up immediately, but it was still too far below to get a bite – yet. That too was about to change. With a tug on another lever, the 'spit' now holding them above the pit began to turn – slowly. And with each full turn, the mechanism made a 'kachinking' sound and dropped the bar and its brackets half an inch lower. Tem and Jeffers were going to meet death by dinner bell all right. Grabbing onto the chains from which they were suspended to take some of the pressure off their wrists, both men tried pulling their legs up out of the reptiles' range. Tem didn't look down. Instead he chose to glare at the monster of a man who was deciding their fate. If Scar-jaw thought he was going to beg or break down instead of meeting his death with all the bravery a man could muster, the big brute was in for a disappointment. Jim West wouldn't have given in. Neither would his son.

Behind the man in the red hat, the largest of the three guards appeared to be almost writhing with excitement. Get your jollies while you can, Charlie, Tem thought. They won't last. Alas, neither would the gators' intended meal. The man in the red hat somehow didn't seem to want to gloat over his triumph, though. Instead, he was still in a foul mood.

"Your Gordon pest just proved himself expendable, West," the man snorted. "You're getting your turn first. See you in hell!"

Tem would've sworn the man in the red hat had intended to stay and enjoy the sight of them dying, but he turned to leave instead. Maybe that was the reason for his temper. Whatever else had happened, the lead smuggler was going to be too busy with it to take his leisure with their demise.

"You three!" Scar-jaw shouted at the guards. "Keep an eye on things and make sure those cuffs come back up with nothing left in them or you'll end up the same way!" The three guards nodded, and the man in the red hat stormed out of the dungeon as quickly as he'd stormed in.

"Least I'll die with my boots on," Marshal Jeffers muttered, trying to tuck his legs up just a bit more. "Never thought it would end like this!"

Neither had Tem. But if he couldn't win a deathday staring contest with his main enemy, he could keep an eye on the secondary one. Charlie Murphy was agitated, for sure. The butcher-turned-henchman watched as his boss disappeared down some corridor, then came back in behind the other two guards. Tem was expecting Charlie to take up the lead position in torment, but as he watched, Charlie did the very last thing Tem had been expecting. The burly butcher grabbed each of the other two guards with a beefy hand and suddenly smashed their heads together with such force that they went down in a silent, unconscious heap.

"Huh?" Tem gaped in more astonishment as Charlie tore off his cowl and dashed to the mechanism causing the bar to descend. The butcher lifted the bar, prisoners and all – a feat of immense strength – just as more gators jumped up to bite. "You're . . . rescuing us?"

"Trying to!" Charlie grunted, face turning red. He could lift the bar, but there wasn't a way to set it back up any notches. "I can't stop it!" he wailed, as the turning spit strained against his fingers.

"The lever, Charlie!" Tem shouted as he felt the snout of one of the gators bump against his left boot before the creature splashed back down. "Pull on the lever that will bring the platform back up!"

With a gasp, Charlie let go of the bar mechanism, causing Tem and the Marshal to drop a couple of inches at once, and ran over toward the wall the levers were set in.

"How can I pull them?" Charlie cried in dismay. "They're both pulled already! Which one is it?"

"The one on the right," Tem said, attempting to sound calmer for Charlie's sake. "Push it upwards!" And pray that it works . . . .

Charlie didn't need to be told twice, although it was taking him a few seconds to remember which was right and which was left, apparently. The Marshal yelped, and he and Tem both felt snout tips brushing against them as Charlie pushed up on the correct lever. The metal grate swung back into place underneath them in the nick of time as even more gators tried to get the human goodies. Tem and Jeffers were back on terra-not-quite-firma again - saved. Charlie heaved a sigh of relief and looked like he was about to collapse to his knees from the nervous strain if nothing else.

"We aren't out of the woods yet," Tem said. "Charlie, we need your help to get out of these shackles before more guards come or the big boss shows up again."

"How do I do that?" Charlie began wringing his hands nervously. "I don't have the key!"

"Okay, listen to me very carefully," Tem said, trying to use the most reassuring tone he could in this very un-reassuring situation. "I have something in a hidden compartment in the heel of my boot that will remove these cuffs, but I need you to get it for me, okay? Because I can't reach it." It was a challenge to soothe their would-be savior and explain while also keeping an ear open for the sound of any more guards approaching, but Tem gave it his best shot – and he was an excellent marksman. Charlie might be scared half to death by what he was doing, and understandably afraid of the alligators, but he gingerly crept toward the edge of the platform; close enough to reach for the heel of the boot Tem held out to him. Tem was holding his breath as Charlie reached into the detached heel with thick, huge fingers to extract what Tem knew was a very small and precise instrument. If Charlie accidentally dropped it and it fell through the grill grate, they'd be finished.

"What – what is it?" Charlie gulped, holding the tool, which was no bigger than half a cigarette.

"An invention of my uncle's." Tem felt like doing a little gulping himself. "Now here's the tricky part, Charlie. You need to either hand it to me – carefully! – so I can use it. Or you need to put it in the lock on the cuffs yourself and press the little button."

"I'll give it to you! I'll give it to you!" Charlie decided quickly. "Uh, what does it do?"

Keep calm, Tem told himself. Keep Charlie calm too. How had his uncle described it in that long-ago, oft-requested story?

"Um, it will make a bright, pretty light. Like fireworks! And then the cuffs will come off."

"Honest?" Charlie sounded impressed.

"Honest!" Tem said, wondering how fast their time for this escape was running out.

Charlie looked down at the alligator pit again, his forehead dripping sweat.

"I sure wish you could come here to get this, Mr. West!"

So do I, Charlie. So do I. But Tem had to admit, Charlie Murphy was probably the bravest coward he had ever met. The metal grill creaked ominously as the bulky butcher stepped out onto it. If it gave way now, Charlie would fall to his death, taking Tem West's and Marshal Jeffers' only hope with him. But Charlie crept forward anyway, taking the risk of his life that no one had dared him into. Tem reached out as carefully as he could with his own shackled hand as Charlie passed the precious object into his own humidity-drenched fingers. Don't drop it. Don't drop it . . . . The transfer made, Charlie stepped back off the platform as swiftly as possible, causing it to vibrate a little. Even so, Tem managed to keep his grip on the implement, get it into the keyhole of one of the cuffs and push the button. With a bright, pretty light, 'like fireworks,' the cuff popped open. With another push of the button, Tem freed his other wrist, then removed Marshal Jeffers' cuffs.

"Time to get ourselves out of here!" Tem whispered, throat gone dry. He didn't have to tell Jeffers twice – the Marshal must have been holding his breath too. Jeffers was looking a bluish shade of pale when they stepped off the platform.

"I've had some close calls before," the Marshal gasped, grabbing and strapping on his gun belt. "But this one's a doozy!"

"It isn't over yet," Tem reminded them, while he snatched up his shirt and jacket and one of the unconscious guards' gun belts. Heaven only knew where his sleeve derringer had gotten to. Accepting his now-empty bootheel from their rescuer, he snapped that back into place. "Thanks, Charlie!" It didn't sound nearly adequate for what the 'bravest coward' had just accomplished, but it was all he could manage for right now.

All three men had guns drawn, though Charlie looked like he'd rather be holding a clump of poison ivy than such a weapon, as they listened at the dungeon entrance before risking an exit into the hallway.

"Reckon we'll have to fight our way out," Jeffers whispered.

"Reckon you're right." Tem took the lead, with some whispered advice from Charlie on navigating the maze-like passage that led away from the 'alligator room.' But Charlie wasn't all that familiar with this fortress of evil himself. Apologetically, he explained that he'd 'joined' the gang only the day before, and with an intent to do just as he had done.

"After you three left my shop, Mr. West, a man came in. He didn't seem very nice. Wanted to know who you were. I told him you were people I'd had a fight with a long time ago. He said if I joined, I could have my chance to get revenge on you." Charlie flushed. "I didn't like the sound of that, but I took this card he gave me. Figured I'd better warn you, but I didn't know where you'd gone to. So I went looking for the Marshal . . . ."

"And didn't find me," Jeffers sighed. "Hell of a risk you took there, son, goin' undercover like that! And you with no training."

"I didn't know what else to do!" Charlie moaned. He gave the Marshal an embarrassed, guilty look. "I done something wrong a long time ago, and now I've got to make up for it. And these people are really, really bad!"

"Speaking of bad people," Tem gestured to them to silence the whispered conversation as he peered around the corner and saw the first sign of other enemy sentries posted in the hallway. Knowing that a quiet ambush would serve their purposes better than a noisy gunfight, he tossed a pebble out into the corridor. As he wanted, the two masked guards obligingly walked over to investigate, and walked into a trio of fists. But only one guard was knocked unconscious – Tem had a purpose for the other one.

"Where's James Gordon?" He bared his teeth and pressed the tip of the revolver up under the man's chin to make his point clear.

"I didn't do it!" the terrified henchman gasped.

Tem didn't like the sound of that at all, or the fact that the man in the red hat had used the word 'expendable' – but he wasn't prepared to give up yet. He cocked the gun and pressed harder.

"Where's. James. Gordon. ?"

"Ratch took him to the drowning place!" the man whispered. "It wasn't my idea! I swear! Please!"

"And. Where. Is. The. Drowning. Place. ?"

Tem listened in horror as the guard gave them vague directions to a pit in the earth hidden somewhere in the forest about a mile past the old battlefield, which they were apparently partly under right now. The man had never been there himself to know its exact location, but supposedly the pit was an old cistern that would fill up with water slowly after a rain storm, where people could be taken to make them talk, or to suffer a slow and horrible death if someone wanted them to.

"It rained last night," Marshal Jeffers whispered to Tem. "You were unconscious 'most of a day before they brought us to that gator trap of theirs and trussed us up like turkeys! But I heard the rain on the roof where they were keepin' us!"

"There isn't much time, then," Tem answered, not that he'd been expecting that there would be. But there was still a chance he could save Jimmy. He clung to that hope as the three men forced the guard to lead them to the horse stables and the exit out of the hidden complex. The explosion they'd heard earlier was apparently one of Jimmy's own devising, and from the sound of it, most of the gang was distracted with the cleanup and with getting electricity and air circulation restored to the tunnels below. That made it a lot easier to get to the stables, but the stables themselves had not been left unguarded. Scouting ahead briefly, Tem saw at least six cowled sentries blocking their way. Knocking their 'guide' out before he could shout a warning to his comrades, Tem told Jeffers and Charlie what they were facing.

"Six against three," the Marshal grinned and cocked his revolver. "I like them odds!"

Charlie didn't. The burly butcher wasn't an experienced gun hand – or comfortable with violence, apparently – so Tem and Jeffers posted him on lookout behind them while they prepared for a daunting shootout. This time, their attempt to get past the guards did not end bloodlessly or silently, but it did end quick. Marshal Jeffers suffered a grazing wound in his gun arm, and Tem had nearly taken a shot himself, but the casualties were very one-sided. When they turned around to get Charlie Murphy, they were surprised that the unconscious but still living guards near his feet now numbered four instead of one. The butcher looked at them sheepishly.

"You won't tell my Ma I was hitting anyone, will you?" Charlie pleaded. "She'll be real mad at me if she learned I was hitting!"

In spite of the seriousness of their situation, Tem almost had to laugh. How strange that the ghosts of his childhood had come back to save him now! But he had a brother-in-law who needed saving too . . . .

"I promise, Charlie!"

"Me too!" the Marshal whistled.

Knowing that the sounds of battle might bring a small army at any moment, they raced into the stable and barred the door behind them. Baccarat was there, and started whinnying recognition as soon as Tem entered. Well, like his rider or not, the horse was smart enough to know when it wanted out of a viper's nest. While Tem saddled Baccarat, Jeffers and Charlie did the same with two other horses, although it was clear Charlie wasn't much more of a horseman than a gunman. He was barely managing to stay up on his steed as they galloped away from the smugglers' hideout as fast as they could, or at least as fast as Charlie could. Tem knew Baccarat was capable of going faster, and he had a destination he needed to reach in a hurry. That destination led away from Murfreesboro and into dangers unknown.

"Marshal, Charlie," Tem said as they halted their horses briefly near a crossroads that would take them in the direction of the city, or its opposite destination. "I have to save Agent Gordon, if I can. But Washington needs to know what's going on down here. I'm counting on you two to get word to them, to the Secret Service and federal law enforcement, in case I can't."

Both of the other men nodded solemnly, and Charlie looked down at the ground, as if not wanting to contemplate what that 'can't' meant.

"You can count on us, Agent West," Jeffers told him.

"Thanks," Tem said before reining Baccarat in a different direction than their horses. "And Charlie –" The big man looked up at him. "Thanks again!"

Tem barely had time to see Charlie's nod of acknowledgment before he and Baccarat were speeding like the wind toward a goal Tem hoped and prayed he could find, not a needle in a haystack, but a hidden hole in a forest that Tem didn't know at all.

I'm coming, brother! Tem said inside himself, because that's how he truly thought of Jimmy. Please hang on . . . !