It was amazing, Artemus thought once again, how a man like him could live in a town for a decade and never see so much of it. For example, until today, he had never once climbed down this particular mine ventilation chimney in Millwood Grove – or for that matter any other ventilation chimney in town either. While the accomplished actor had frequently been called on to play the part of Santa Claus for crowds of small fry, his current exercise was more the sort of thing he'd prefer to leave to Santa himself given a choice. All was nearly ready in spite of the short amount of time they'd been given to set everything up. Gideon's clever nose had once again proved as sharp as his owner's axe, and Timson's gang were indeed going to be caught napping, and luckily far enough from the stolen menagerie for the animals to escape harm.
Unfortunately the same might not be said for the glowing paint job Arte had given himself. His 'ghost' disguise wasn't the most subtle for sneaking up on miscreants anyway, but he hadn't reckoned on how the slightly sticky residue of the glow-in-the-dark makeup would pick up every single mote of dust, dirt and grime it came into contact with. Given that he was supposed to be the ghost of a man burned to death in a shack, the coating of ash partly obscuring the green paint now might lend him a greater air of authenticity, but cleaning himself up after this adventure was going to be a nightmare! He also wasn't sure under the present circumstances how long his 'glowing' personality would last. Long enough to do what he needed it to, he hoped.
So much of their plan depended on careful coordination, which was next to impossible over long distances. The tunnel system was so vast that not even Bobby Timson could have jury-rigged booby traps over the whole of it during the two months he'd been planning and recruiting allies for his Christmas revenge caper. Timson had presumably been using these same tunnels for earlier small scale lootings he'd carried out under the nose of his employers, but pulling off the theft of the entire Auction Barn's store of goods required freedom of movement through most of the route the gang had taken, and it wouldn't have done to get tripped up by their own traps. So Artemus was taking the assignment he of all of them could handle best, sneaking in behind the gang's underground encampment using some devices of his own to ambush into slumberland as many of them as he could, while using his acting and ventriloquist abilities to throw his voice and send any still awake on the run to where three full length mirrors, his two fellow ghosts, and a now sizable sheriff's posse would be waiting with open, and possibly cocked and loaded, arms as well as more sleep grenades. The one other catch, besides Artemus' need to carry out this awkward descent into a darkness in which he remained the most visible object, was the fact that he had no mirror handy to serve as his own decoy other than a small one he could carry down in his back-sack. Anything larger mirror would have been too heavy and cumbersome to position down here without attracting the gang's notice, and he might not have any opportunity to make use of the portable one on his person. So if the baddies started firing on him, they'd likely be aiming at the real Gordon. Now that was something to reflect upon!
Down, down the ventilation chimney Artemus Gordon climb-crept, a Secret Service Santa spider on a thin cable ready to take a stand against the underworld in more ways than one.
A haunting we will go,
A haunting we will go,
Hi ho, the scary-o . . . .
Staying hidden at the bottom in his day-glo green wasn't going to be as hard as Artemus had feared, and not just because of the soot covering him. This was one of the farther in, less developed sections of the once-thriving Timson family mining business, and its rough-hewn and irregular sides offered plenty of natural alcove space in which the agent could conceal himself as he snuck forward toward his waiting quarry. He felt about his pockets making sure he had with him everything he had intended to bring. Aside from his firearm, which he hoped not to need, he carried so many of his own 'improved formula' sedative smoke grenades he'd been afraid if he smacked up against a wall on the way down he'd be in danger of sedating himself. A member of the sheriff's posse was up top at where the ventilation chimney let out onto a long-overgrown fenced in area, watching the descent cable in case Arte had gotten into such trouble, but the moment the agent detached himself from that line he was – for now – on his own.
Moving from natural depression to natural depression, the semi-glowing 'ghost of Artemus Gordon' advanced forward, checking for traps but finding none. The thieves had not been expecting an attack from behind in a mine shaft they thought no one knew about but themselves, it seemed. They might just be afraid of ghosts in this spooky setting - or of getting lost down here – though. Arte had no trouble finding their little encampment – it glowed so much brighter than he did, with every single lantern lit. There was no guard posted at the back of the cavernous mine opening where Arte looked in, only toward the 'front' tunnels leading to the more even-hewn sections and readier access to the surface – the very direction in which this ghost intended to get them running.
As anticipated, most of the robbers were sleeping off their exertions from the night before. Artemus counted seven men in bedrolls, three more sitting on the floor of the tunnel playing at cards, and the now-familiar ringleaders, Timson, Anders and a single, rifle-equipped sentry standing on the far side from where the Secret Service agent stood concealed. Perfect. According to the mine maps the librarian had found, the tunnel segment Arte was in held only a dead end. The stolen animals and presumably most of the loot were in a well-ventilated tunnel area with a chimney shaft for air similar to the one Arte had utilized, with the entrance to that area just off to the left. That section containing the livestock also led to a dead end, leaving no chance that the robbers would attempt to flee that way. Their only choice if they didn't want to climb up ventilation chimneys would be to run up the one route they were already guarding. So, time to get this post-Halloween haunt party started.
Arte's 'improved' sleep smoke bombs were just the thing to break the ice with, and came with an added bonus. He'd never succeeded in making his 'invisible' sleep gas formula work entirely right, so these ones would cast the same thick, green-tinted smoke that most of his previous formulas did. They would also, in the few seconds immediately following detonation, extinguish the light in any lanterns the green smoke encountered as its fumes very briefly displaced the oxygen the lantern's wick flame needed. Yes, mysterious green clouds, sudden darkness, a howling, vengeful voice bouncing around the walls, men collapsing unconscious and a glowing, green ghost of a murdered man appearing to anyone the smoke didn't affect . . . . This was almost going to be fun!
Arte pitched one sleep smoke grenade then another and another directly into the midst of the men in bedrolls and watched them go off like a charm. The seven sleepers didn't have much of a chance, waking up just long enough to shout in alarm and take good, deep breaths of the chemical cloud as their lights went out in every sense of the expression. With decades of stage experience and 'subtle-fuge' in his past, Artemus began throwing his voice with loud, ghostly moans and accusations that seemed to aim at the criminals from more than one direction.
"YOU . . . MURDERED . . . ME . . . !"
He heard a couple of screams and shouts that were definitely not his, followed by the sound of running feet. He needn't have worried about being seen and shot at after all; by the time he emerged from the natural alcove he'd been hiding in, nine outlaws littered the ground and the remaining four had taken off as if the very devils of hell were chasing them.
"So much for my dramatic entrance," he sighed. Audiences were so flighty these days!
With the expected signal of running and screaming sounds in the tunnel given, Jim and Deputy Wilson would be all ready to go into their own acts, but with the aid of mirrors so that the fleeing bandits came face to face first with terrifying phantom reflections rather than their real opponents. Forced to wait until the sleep smoke from his attack had settled and dissipated enough to allow him to enter the criminals' encampment area safely, Arte heard the sweet melody of more ghostly moans and screams in the distance ahead while keeping up a few poltergeistish laments to discourage the fugitives from doubling back toward him. Then, patiently picking his way across the field of slumberers, gathering up their guns, he continued to listen. There, from several hundred yards away, was the sweet sound of Deputy Wilson doing an impressive if high-pitched moan, and Jim's growling, best ghostly voice intoning . . . oh, good lord . . . .
Suddenly there came the expected sound of gunfire and glass breaking. Sleep smoke grenades gave out very little sound when they detonated, more of a simple clunking down onto whatever surface they struck than the release of the fumes being what made all the noise. But Arte, with a double armload of impounded weapons dashed as best he could toward the sounds of combat, praying that the bodies he now heard hitting the tunnel floor belonged to the thieves and not his friends.
He almost wound up being the recipient of a gas grenade attack himself as a result of his heroics, before the would-be grenade-pitchers stopped themselves from throwing at the glowing green Gordon in the nick of time and he managed to pull up short. Another green mist settled to reveal the full scenario. Bitter Bobby Timson, Deputy Anders and two other men lay in the tunnels, unconscious but still breathing and unbloodied in front of a massive mess of mirror shards and their smoking weapons on the ground.
"It sure worked, Mr. Gordon!" Deputy Wilson exclaimed. "The gas didn't even need to get all of 'em! I think the one guy just plain fainted!"
Well it was hard to argue with such glowing enthusiasm – and physiology. The junior deputy had more than earned a promotion today. As for Jim West's ghostly act however . . . .
"James," Arte raised an eyebrow at his partner. "Scroooooge? Seriously?"
Jim shrugged and gave him a mischievous grin.
"You do such a great job as Marley's ghost when you read that story out loud to people I couldn't think of anything else, except maybe boo!"
Jim had a point. Artemus knew he did a terrific Marley's ghost bit.
The sounds that filled the mine tunnels next, though, were those of the victorious sheriff and the rest of the posse sweeping in, all of them as enthusiastic as Frank Wilson had been. Arte handed over the armload of guns he'd gathered up from the fallen felons to Sheriff Kurtz and the volunteers, while Kurtz's junior deputy joyfully handcuffed the unconscious senior deputy.
"Tsk, tsk!" Artemus said, looking over the shards of shattered mirror glass. "Definitely going to get seven years bad luck out of that!"
"They'll get a darn sight more than seven years if I have my way!" the sheriff growled.
With many hands to make light the work, Timson and his crew awoke to find themselves restrained, relieved of their guns and ready to be frog-marched off to the Millwood Grove lockup that barely had enough room for the whole baker's dozen of bandits. A second round of happy hoots and hollers commenced as the volunteers found the stolen pile of goods and the livestock, most of the presents with the tags connoting their proper ownership still attached. Distributing the purchased gifts to their rightful owners and returning the residue to the Auction Barn might take even longer than it had taken the thieves to haul it away from the auctioneers in the first place, but it would happen now, and in time for Christmas too!
Sour-faced Mr. Nusker, who'd done more than just about any of them to bring this happy resolution about, assisted with leading and carting the animals through the tunnels all the way to the very Auction Barn stable they'd been stolen from. That too was an act carried out with haste, because while the animals had enough ventilation in the mine section to breathe at least, none of the robbers had bothered to bring food for any of the beasts or make an effort to clean up after them. Had they been left down there much longer, Gideon wouldn't have been the only one to detect the menagerie by scent. The hard-working, three-legged hound hung back whining from most of the humans who came and went from the Auction Barn to the tunnel and vice versa, but Gideon greeted Sassy with an enthusiastic barking Jim and Arte had never recalled hearing from the maimed mutt before, and the enthusiastic wagging of a tail stub.
"Friends reunited," Artemus sighed. "Jim . . . ."
The two agents exchanged glances and looked at Gideon and the not-so-mean-after-all Mr. Nusker. Much as they'd longed to find the living, furry Christmas present and teaching tool they'd bought for their children, they both knew there was only one right thing to do. Nusker's tale of how Chester Hartfeld had meant to leave him the animals only to have them impounded by a greedy relative of Hartfeld's likely was no lie. He and Jim nodded in silent agreement.
"Mr. Nusker . . . ." Artemus began, "we know we were wrong in the way we thought about you. If Chester wanted you to be Sassy's owner, it seems only fair to . . . ." He broke off as the old farmer gestured him to silence with an upturned hand.
"What Chester wanted more'n anything," Nusker rasped, "was to make sure Sassy'd be well taken care of. I reckon you'll do that, now I've seen how good you keep the horses. And he'd want children to be taught to take care of and respect their animals the same way. I'm content to have you keep 'im, 'specially me being old and all too. I'd just ask that Gideon 'n' me be allowed to visit him now and again."
"We'd be honored," Jim said, holding out his hand to shake Nusker's larger one. "I hope you'll consider teaching them about animals as well. I'd bet you know a lot more about it than most folks."
Nusker nodded and shook Jim's hand.
"Might do at that."
"And I," Artemus added, holding out his own hand, "hope you'll consider joining us for Christmas dinner tomorrow afternoon, if you aren't too put off that some of us eat turkey. I can make a casserole for you that will have no meat in it, and there'll be plenty of side dishes and desserts that don't either." Artemus happened to know that Adele West made her incomparable, feather-light pie crusts using butter rather than lard from his many unsuccessful attempts to duplicate them.
"You sure?" Nusker raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Been a long, long time since I had anyone's company but Chester's on the day."
"Then it's time to start a new tradition!" Arte assured him, shaking hands. "Two o'clock tomorrow. Please accept."
Nusker did. Then they all headed out of the Auction Barn with Jim leading Sassy to where their horses were, and Nusker carting the cage containing his rabbits to where his own horses and cart were waiting. With the sun going down, they'd have just barely enough time to get the little donkey back to its temporary concealment in the shared West-Gordon stable before Lily and Adele arrived back with the children. They had to wend their way through clusters of fellow citizens who'd heard the big news and were once again streaming into the Auction Barn to claim their purchases. Nusker shook his head at the spectacle.
"Isn't supposed to be all about gifts," he harrumphed. "Supposed to be about a gift."
He definitely had a point, though that made Artemus wonder why Nusker too had left his purchase of the rabbits at the Auction Barn to be kept there and picked up on Christmas day. Obviously the bunnies weren't intended as a surprise gift for anyone so why . . . . He got his answer when Jim dared to ask Nusker the question he hadn't.
"Chester always knew to keep 'em separated," the farmer explained. "But his dang fool nephew put all four of 'em in the same cage! So I've been needin' the time to build more hutches to have enough of 'em and larger."
Looking more closely at the cage, Artemus saw what Nusker meant. He was no veterinarian, but even he could see the farmer was about to have a whole lot more rabbit than just what had been paid for. Perhaps he and Jim could sweet-talk their wives into adopting one of those next-generation rabbits for their little darlings if in a few weeks or months Nusker found himself too knee deep in them . . . .