Trip to Murder 27
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As both men approached the door, they paused when they heard a door shut on the floor below and footsteps climbing the stairs. Matt looked at Sean for some sign that he had a plan for this. But the patrolman's frightened glance told him otherwise. "It's his butler." Sean whispered.
Matt looked desperately around and noted the door across from the one they wanted to enter. Swiftly he crossed over to it and tried the handle. The door swung open to reveal an empty bedroom. Grabbing Flannery by the arm, he pushed him inside the room and entered himself, closing the door just before a man appeared at the top of the stairs and made his way down the hall.
When the elderly man with a tray in his hands reached the end of the hall, he paused before raising a hand and gently knocking on the door opposite Matt and Sean's hiding spot. Matt, peering through a crack in the doorway, saw his opportunity. Bracing himself for quick action, he waited until the other door opened and the man in the hallway was ushered in.
Quickly springing out from his hiding spot, Matt seized the old man, in the hallway, by the collar and pushed him further into the room following in behind him with Sean right beside him.
"What the…?" The dark haired man with the bushy mustache and dark eyes demanded as Matt and Sean came in behind his servant. "Who are you?" The man insistently demanded. "What do you want here?"
Matt, gun now raised, looked over at Sean. "That him?"
Sean nodded. "Yeah, that's Frank Peat."
Matt pointed his gun squarely at the man's head. "Get dressed." He told him. "You're going with us."
"I will do no such thing." Peat told him. "I am calling my guards and having you two taken out of here. You can't be here. I have…"
"What you have," Matt took a menacing step closer to him and cocked his handgun, "is about two minutes to get your clothes on before I shoot you."
Peat visibly paled but he stood his ground. "You… you shoot me and it will alert my guards. They'll come up here and…"
Matt nodded. "You're probably right." He said as he quickly hit the man on the head, knocking him senseless to the floor. Looking over at the stunned face of his partner, Matt grinned. "More than one way to skin a cat."
After tying and gagging the aged old man, Matt picked Peat up and slung him over his shoulder with only the slightest grunt. He didn't want to carry the man, but it seemed the only way to get him out and away without alerting the remaining men keeping watch over the place.
With Sean once again leading the way, the two men and their unconscious prisoner made their way back down the stairs and towards the back door. After first making sure that no one was near, Sean quickly unlatched the back door and held it open for Matt to exit first. Once outside, they sprinted, as fast as they could, back towards the way they had come.
Matt made it about half way before finally having to stop and catch his breath. Frank Peat was not a small man and as strong as Matt was, it was still not easy to carry a 200 pound, 6 foot tall man on his shoulder and run.
Sean could see he was flagging and feared he'd not be able to make it all the way back with Peat across his shoulder. "Tell ya what." Sean told him. "You stay right here with him. I'll go get the horses and bring them here."
But Matt shook his head. "Un, huh. We left those horses where they are cause it wasn't safe to bring em any closer. I've got my breath back now, so let's go. I'll make it."
Shaking his head at the marshal's stubbornness, Sean rose back to his feet and started out again, leading them back to their horses. As soon as they secured Peat's hands they tossed him across Matt's saddle and swiftly retraced their path out and away from the ranch.
"You really sure this idea of yours will work?" Sean asked when they were finally off the grounds of Peat's large estate.
Matt took a look down at the man draped across his saddle, his head bobbing to the motions of the horse. "Well, no." Matt admitted. "But it's about the only shot we got. Whether he confesses to everything or not, your uncle won't know and it might just give us enough leverage to get him off our backs."
Sean grimaced slightly when Matt called him his uncle. "Sure wish you wouldn't call him my uncle." He said. "I don't think of him in that way and I'm certainly not proud of the fact."
"Alright," Matt responded. "Owens then. Don't matter what we call him, the fact is we need something on him, because I doubt he'll confess. He's most likely gonna deny everything loud and long. Those files we have, as well as anything ol' Peat, here, can give us, maybe the only way to bring him down."
"Well, not the only way." Sean said thoughtfully.
Matt frowned at him. "I hope you don't mean what it sounds like you mean."
Sean shrugged. "I know you may not understand this, Matt. And to tell the truth, I'm not sure I understand it either, but I've just about gotten to the point that I don't care if he lives or dies. The man is a monster. Not only did he kill my father, but he helped cover up Jim Peats murder and he tried to have you and Kitty killed. His death wouldn't be too hard on me, especially if I was the one to do it."
"Maybe not right away," Matt answered. "But eventually it would. Eventually it'd get pretty hard indeed."
"You sound like you know from experience." Sean observed.
"I do." Matt answered without expression. "I never killed a man in cold blood or one that didn't need killing and I've done everything I can to keep from killing, but there have been many times, I had no other choice. And each time took something from me, I can't ever get back." He turned his head then and looked straight at Sean. "I don't want the same fate for you. We'll get Owens alright, but let's get him legally and alive."
Sean sat quietly for a few minutes before finally nodding. "Alright."
TBC