IT LOOKED like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Alabama - Bill Driscoll and myself - when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary constipation in the brain cells"; but we didn't find that out till later.
There was a town down there called Cockston, named after the attributes of the founder, I presume. Its inhabitants were as unappetizing and aromatic a class of citizens as the pussy of the town whore after a busy Saturday night.
Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent scheme selling stock in a non-existent whorehouse in Louisiana. We talked it over on the front steps of the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, we figured, is strong in the states that still celebrate Jeff Davis' birthday with excessive drinking and celebratory insertion of a stiff boner into the neighbor's wife; therefore a kidnapping project ought to work as well there as a long strong hard-on does at a Nymphomaniac Society picnic. We knew that the constabulary of Cockston were a dyspeptic bunch and spent more time sitting on the crapper in the courthouse than they did hunting down wrong-doers so we had no fear from that quarter of the compass.
We selected for our victim the only daughter of a prominent citizen named Jeremiah Cockston, grandson of the renowned founder. The father was respectable, or at least he had never been caught whilst imbuing his pecker with the succulent dew of the local pussies; the daughter was named Sally Ann and was a white-bosomed flower of Southern maidenhood and totally unsullied, at least according to the description written by the local editor in his story of her eighteenth birthday party. Bill and me figured that Jeremiah would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I tell you.
About two miles from Cockston was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored provisions and created a sylvan bower suitable for a maiden of the proportions of Jeremiah's li'l darlin' girl chile.
One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Cockston's house. The girl was sitting in the porch swing with a dreamy look on her face and a hand under her dress. Bill whispered, "Ladylike, hell, she is scratching where it itches right on the front porch." Poor Bill, he was soon to learn what itches that girl was scratching.
I sauntered up on to the porch trying to look like a respectable solicitor at law who has mistaken his steps on his way to a consultation with a valued client. I lifted my hat to the girl, who gave me a quizzical look. "Pardon me, miss, but could you direct me toward the residence of Miss Lolly Scraggs?" Miss Lolly had signed three of the letters to the editor in the latest edition of the local weekly so I figured everybody would know her.
"Why, of course, good sir," the girl drawled in that slow Southern music. She slid off the porch swing, showing quite a bit of her very nice legs as she did so. "Prithee come on down to the gate and I'll direct you." I wasn't sure about that fancy language but figured it was the local dialect. She took my arm, and seemingly accidentally rubbed a well rounded tit up against me in the process. That should have wised me up to the deal right there. But wait till I tell you.
When we reached the gate she pointed down the street, but before she could direct me to the accustomed domicile of that respected citizen Miss Lolly, Bill came up behind her with a handkerchief well soaked with chloroform. She only struggled a little before she collapsed in his arms. He grabbed her chest, getting a lecherous handful of boob in the process, and I grabbed her legs, spreading them wide enough to see that the poor thing had totally forgotten her bloomers that morning. Resting below a little nest of curly blonde hair was a representation of that orchidaceous beauty that flourishes high in the trees of the Amazon, delightful to look at but out of reach. Quickly I averted my gaze, not wanting to be distracted from the important business at hand. We dumped her in the back of the wagon and off we went toward our hide-out.
After following the ruts of the old road as far as we could, I left Bill to carry the still sleeping beauty up the hill to the cave over his shoulder, looking like a Neanderthal bring home his newly clubbed mate. I checked my pocket for the ransom note and drove the buggy over the other side of the hill to a small town where we had rented it. There I posted the note.
Bill and I had a note all prepared. It ran like this:
"Esteemed Col. Cockson:
We have your daughter in a place that cannot be found by any searchers. Your only hope of her safe return is to comply with these terms. If you do so, she will be returned to you, safe and sound, pure and unsullied. If you do not, you can be sure that she will suffer the fate which is called worse than death."
It then described the hollow tree into which the two thousand dollars was to be inserted, and the white handkerchief that was to be waved when it had been. I signed it "Two Desperate Men."
It took me some time to walk the three miles back to the hide-out. When I neared the cave, I was surprised to hear sounds emanating from it reminiscent of a sawmill going through a four inch oak plank, now and then increasing its screech when it hit a hard knot. Sure enough, that was old Bill, lying on his back on one of the cots we had set up, and sound asleep snoring hard.
But the truly amazing spectacle that presented itself to my optical nerve was the young lady who was supposedly our prisoner in durance vile. She was sitting calmly on the other cot, combing her hair. Her dress was carefully hung over the limb of a nearby tree, and nothing covered her pulchritude but a thin linen shift.
I struggled to maintain the proper professional attitude, being a man who puts his whole mind to the fiduciary opportunity at hand at all times. I couldn't help but notice that our ticket to two thousand dollars had shapely legs and a well rounded bosom, with little pink nipples straining against the soft linen of the shift. It was enough to make a banker drop his interest rates.
Never taking my eyes off the girl, for reasons of security of course, I walked to Bill's cot and delivered a sharp poke of the elbow to his solar plexus. He woke with a huff and exclaimed, "What? Again?"
