River Bend, for a number of years, had been a rather stagnant community. When Jim Perry and Gail Sanders owned nearly all of Clearwater Valley, there wasn’t much room for population growth. But after Perry’s death, Gail Sanders bought all of the land with the intention of selling plots to settlers on the western side of the valley in order to pay off the note. That had been about four years ago—Rob Conners’ first visit to River Bend. Indeed, he had helped work out the whole deal (and it was his bullet that sent Jim Perry to his grave; these events are recorded in Whitewater). With the opening of the valley, settlers had begun to move in. Not in huge numbers, but steadily, and thus the town of River Bend was seeing some concomitant growth.
With the influx of new people, a new school was needed, and, since most of the newcomers were settling to the north of town, that’s where the school was built. There were now several dozen children attending. Yet, the old school, at the south end of River Bend was still operating, mainly for farmers and ranchers who lived in the southern part of the valley. There were only about 25 children there—it was the old “one room schoolhouse,” with one teacher for all grades. And while the new school did offer several levels for the students, some folks held on to the old traditions and thought the southern school should remain. Nobody objected, but the school might not be there for many more years.
Be that as it may, the white-framed schoolhouse, built on blocks, stood in a small clearing at the southern edge of town. It was surrounded on three sides by woods, though the foliage was halted on the north by buildings that at one time maintained businesses, but were now boarded up. There were still some shops across the street, though. The school building itself was still in fairly good shape, though it could have used some paint. It was maybe 60 feet long by 25 wide. Three steps led up to a small porch and the front door. A tiny foyer opened into the schoolroom itself, with 15 double desks for students and the teacher’s desk at the front left. A blackboard covered most of the back wall. There was an office behind the teacher’s desk; the door of that office was missing. Another door, at the back right of the room, led to a storeroom, in which mostly cleaning materials were kept and the local rat population congregated. There was one back door, and it was in the teacher’s office, just inside the door, on the north side of the structure. Windows lined the walls, the alphabet was posted above the windows, and Gilbert Stuart’s obligatory unfinished picture of George Washington—unfortunately, hanging crookedly—was watching the students from the center of the room above the blackboard. Outside, enough land had been cleared to give the children some room to play during recess, though there was a nice sized oak tree in the front of the building, to the right, which lent some charm to the setting. The forest began about 100 feet away from the building. There had been concerns, ever since the school had been built, that a hungry mountain lion from the forest might attempt to snatch one of the children during playtime, but it had never happened and the fear had largely been laid to rest. The property was finished by a rock wall in front, maybe three feet high, crenelated after the fashion of medieval castles. The crenels (gaps) were decorated with wrought-iron fencing, from which a squeaky gate at the center of the wall was also constructed. The school building itself was set maybe 25 yards from the wall.
Perhaps any curious lion from the forest was frightened off by the schoolteacher, a wispy, but severe older lady by the name of Mrs. Whitby. She had been the teacher since the inception of the school some 25 years before. Her husband had been a stagecoach driver, out of town much of the time, but deceased. Mrs. Whitby was a good teacher, but…severe. It wasn’t unusual for several of the children to have sore backsides when greeted by their mothers once the lessons were over for the day. But results were what counted and the children learned. They had to or…they would have sore backsides when greeted by their mothers, etc., etc., etc. All in all, education, on both the north and south parts of River Bend, seemed to be in good hands.
Mrs. Whitby’s school, as it had long been dubbed, rarely—never—had visitors. But about noon on Thursday, September 4, that pattern was brutally interrupted.
Thursday, September 3, 11:45 A. M.…
The rain had started in River Bend, not hard, but steady with occasional rumbles of thunder. There weren’t too many people walking the streets, and none who weren’t forced by some necessity. The wind was from the mountains, which made it cold and bitter, and only added to the misery caused by the precipitation. All in all, a good day for mischief.
Six men rode into town, from the south, on that mission—mischief. Dangerous mischief. And since their target was at the southern end of town, they drew no attention. The Tolliver men spotted the schoolhouse right off. They rode past it and turned down the next side street, in an attempt not to draw attention to themselves. And they succeeded in that attempt. They pulled into an alley between two deserted buildings and stopped.
“How are we going to approach this, Trent?” his brother asked him.
“I think it would be a good idea if we kept the horses out of sight among those trees to the south of the building. Duck, you shouldn’t mind staying with them in this wet weather.”
Everybody but Hank caught the jest and chuckled, though Duck wasn’t especially amused.
Trent continued, “Terrell, you and Ed go around the back and come in through the back door. Me, Rick, and Hank will knock on the front door and wait for an hospitable invitation to enter.” A few more chuckles. “I don’t know how many kids are in there, or their ages, but the building doesn’t look like it could hold more than 20 or 30. The teacher is probably a woman, so she won’t give us any trouble.”
“Unless she’s Allie Summer’s sister,” Rick joked.
“Well, if she is, we’ll kill her, too, just for meanness. We don’t need to hold all the kids, in fact, it would be too much trouble to keep an eye on the whole bunch. We’ll send the oldest boy after the marshal, and let most of the rest of them go home. We’ll hang on to five or six, mostly girls.”
“Why girls?” Terrell asked.
“They’ll probably have less of a tendency towards bravado and trouble-making than boys. We don’t really want to kill any of these kids, remember. They are just hostages until the two women show up. As I said yesterday, we’ll give them until 6 o’clock to get there. If they don’t show, we’ll toss the teacher out first, with a hole in her head. That should get them moving. We’ll give them another hour and then some of the kids start to die, the older ones first. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Those two women will be there by 6, I have no doubt about it.”
Terrell nodded. “I imagine you’re right."
“When we have both of the women, we walk out the front, where everybody can see us, with guns to the head of both of those ladies. We’ll get the horses, pick up the other boys at the camp, and put some miles behind us tonight.” He looked up at the sky and squinted when some rain hit him in the face. “If we’re lucky, this rain will continue the next few days and wash out any tracks we make.”
“You figger that marshal’l come after us, Trent?” Hank asked.
“I’d be amazed if he didn’t,” Trent replied. “And he’ll almost surely have a posse with him. But they won’t catch us. We’ll make a beeline for the Hole-in-the-Wall and they won’t chase us more than a hundred miles or so.” He looked around at his men. “Do any of you see any holes in that plan?”
Nobody said anything.
Trent Tolliver looked at his pocket watch. It was just past noon. “Let’s do it,” he said.
Noon, Mrs. Whitby’s school…
It wasn’t difficult. The six men rode their horses into the woods south of the school building where they picketed them and left Duck to watch them. Terrell and Ed Monger circled around back of the schoolhouse and, when they appeared at the edge of the forest to the northwest of the building, the younger Tolliver waved at his brother, who was watching for him. That was the cue for everyone to converge.
The rain was still falling and there was no one in sight as Trent, Ricky Sata, and Hank Frobisher walked up the steps of the schoolhouse. Trent opened the door, which, not surprisingly, caused Hank to say, “I thought you was gonna knock, boss.”
Trent didn’t have time for Hank’s stupidity. “Maybe next time,” and he entered the building with the other two men behind him.
Mrs. Whitby was at the blackboard with two of her students, working some math problems. Teacher and about 20 children all heard the men enter building, and everyone turned and looked. Mrs. Whitby was the first to react, and she was a little tart.
“Gentlemen, I hope you have a good reason for this intrusion,” she said.
At that time, Ed and Terrell appeared at the door of the teacher’s office. Heads shifted to look at them.
It was Trent who spoke, of course. “Yes, we do. We need to borrow your schoolhouse and a few of your students for a few hours. Maybe we can have a little party, play some games, sing some songs, that sort of thing.” Trent was being sarcastic, though Terrell actually thought it might be a pretty good idea in keeping the children occupied.
“Would you care to explain your meaning?” Mrs. Whitby said, the belligerence evident in her voice.
“My name is Trent Tolliver,” Trent told her. “The names of these other men is unimportant. I want...” and here he looked around and spotted a boy who appeared to be about 13 or 14 years old and the oldest among the students. Tolliver pointed at him and spoke to him. “I want you to go directly to Marshal Baker. Tell him that Trent Tolliver is here, holding the school. Tell him I want Kelly Atkins and Kelly Kramer here by 6 o’clock. Not one minute later. Marshal Baker will understand.”
The boy was wide-eyed. “You’re Trent Tolliver? I’ve heard of you.”
“Good. Then you know that you need to do what I say, right?”
“Don’t you move an inch, Jeff Longstreet,” Mrs. Whitby said, her hands on her hips in total defiance. “I don’t know who this man thinks he is, but if he thinks he can just come in here and order—“
“Shut up, woman,” Trent said, his voice and face ugly. “We’re taking over this schoolhouse, and we can do it the easy way or the hard way, that’s up to you.” He looked at his brother. “Terrell, round up four of the girls and one boy and stick them in that corner over there,” he said, pointing. “Teacher, you go over there, too—“
“I will do no such thing, and children, stay right where you are,” Mrs. Whitby ordered.
The children were looking back and forth from Trent to their teacher. Tolliver walked up the aisle and faced Mrs. Whitby. He was twice her size. “You want me to break your scrawny little neck right now, woman? If you do what I say, nobody will get hurt, ok? But if you keep trying to give orders, then somebody will get hurt, and it won’t be me or my men. You understand?”
Mrs. Whitby, for all her bravado, was way out of her league, of course. Trent Tolliver had intimidated people with a lot more courage and intestinal fortitude than the teacher had, but she put up as brave a front as she could. She looked up at him and saw no mercy. Now getting a little frightened herself, she tried one more time, “This is a schoolhouse, sir, these are children—“
“Which is the very reason I’m here,” Trent said. “Now, you do what I say or I promise, I promise, something nasty is going to happen. And I’m not going to tell you again.” He looked at his brother. “Terrell, get them rounded up.” He spoke to Mrs. Whitby again. “The rest of the children can go home. Like I said, nobody will get hurt as long as nobody does anything stupid. Ed, check the desk and rooms for guns.”
Monger nodded.
Trent then spoke to Jeff Longstreet, the boy he was sending to Ben Baker. “Now, tell me what you’re going to tell the marshal.”
Jeff, a red-headed, freckled-face boy, stood up. He gulped twice, but said, “I’m…I’m gonna tell him that Trent Tolliver is here—“
“With seven other men.”
“…with seven other men and you’re holdin’ the schoolhouse. Mrs. Whitby and a few students. And that you want Kelly Atkins and Kelly Kramer here no later than 6 o’clock. Is that right?”
“That’s perfect. Now, get gone.”
Jeff was puzzled. “I only see four other men, Mr. Tolliver.”
“I’ve got some outside.” Except for Duck, Trent was lying, of course. But the more men Ben thought he had, the more hopeless the situation would appear.
“Should I tell the Marshall what’ll happen if the ladies don’t show up?” Jeff asked.
“Oh, I think he knows the answer to that,” Trent replied. “No more questions. Go.”
And Jeff grabbed his coat off a rack in the foyer and ran out of the schoolhouse.
By this time, Terrell had picked out four girls and a boy. They appeared to range between the ages of 7 and 11, the boy being the youngest. Some of them were starting to sob and Mrs. Whitby was trying to comfort them. Trent looked at the remainder of the pupils. “The rest of you go home. And stay there. School is out for the day. Come back tomorrow.”
The remaining children were terrified and looked at Mrs. Whitby. She tried to speak consolingly. “Go ahead, children, everything will be fine. Don’t forget to take your coats and stay out of the water puddles on the way home. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
It took another second for the children to react, but finally one girl stood up and said, “Yes, Mrs. Whitby.” With a frightened glance at Trent, she headed to the back of the room—or, front of the schoolhouse, depending upon perspective. The other children followed her and within a minute, the building was cleared of all human life forms except Trent Tolliver, his men, Mrs. Whitby, and five very scared children…
“Now, Mrs. Whitby,” Trent said with a smile that came nowhere near his eyes, “why don’t you lead these sweet children in some songs?...”
12:20 P. M., the office of Marshal Ben Baker…
It was eight blocks from Mrs. Whitby’s school to Marshal Baker’s office, but young Jeff Longstreet ran the whole way and never slowed down. He burst through the door of the office. Ben was sitting at his desk, doing some paperwork and looked up when the boy came in.
“Marshal Baker!” Jeff wheezed. “You gotta go to the schoolhouse. Trent Tolliver is there and he’s got Mrs. Whitby and some others and he says he’s gonna kill ‘em all if you and Miss Kelly Atkins and Miss Kelly Kramer ain’t there by 6 o’clock…”
Ben didn’t know all the children in town and he didn’t know Jeff. But when he heard the name “Trent Tolliver,” his blood turned to ice. Oh, no… He tried to calm the youngster down. “Now, hold on, son,” he said. “Take a breath and tell me what happened, nice and slow. What’s your name?”
Jeff took a few deep breaths to get his wind. “My name is Jeff Longstreet, sir. Bobby Joe and Annie Longstreet’s boy. I go to Mrs. Whitby’s school. A few minutes ago, Trent Tolliver and four of his men came in the schoolhouse. He sent me to tell you that he wants those two Kelly ladies at the schoolhouse by 6 o’clock. He didn’t say what would happen if they wasn’t there by then, but…I heard of Trent Tolliver, Marshal Baker. He’s a bad outlaw, ain’t he?”
Ben sighed. This was worse than a nightmare. “Yes, Jeff, he is. He said he was going to kill all the children if Miss Atkins, Miss Kramer, and I weren’t at the school building by 6?”
“Well, he didn’t actually say he was going to kill ‘em, but I kinda figured…”
And you figured right, boy…”Is he holding all the children hostage?” Ben asked.
“I think he said he was gonna let most of them go, hold maybe four or five, and Mrs. Whitby, too. What are you going to do, Marshal?”
At the moment, Ben didn’t have the foggiest idea. But he knew the first steps he needed to take. “I’ll handle it, son, you don’t worry yourself about it. But I do need your help, if you can.”
“Yessir,” Jeff said, his chest puffing out. “I’ll be proud to help you out. Me and my pa have got shotguns.”
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” Ben said. “What I need you to do is go get Deputy Edwards. Do you know where he lives?” Turley usually worked the night shift and would probably be home asleep at the moment.
“Yessir, over on Cotton Street.”
“That’s right. I want you to run over there, as fast as you can, and tell him to meet me at the schoolhouse. Wake him up, if you must. I’ll go find Mayor Dodd and talk to him.” Ben smiled at Jeff with a confidence he didn’t feel. “We’ll get this sorted out pronto and have Trent Tolliver behind bars in no time.”
“Ok, Marshal Baker. Oh, he said he had seven men with him, but I only saw four.”
“Well, I’m sure he has some men watching the street.”
“Yeah. That’s probably it. Do you want me to run and tell Misses Atkins and Kramer? Miss Kramer, she works at the Gold Dust, but I hear they’re closed today and tomorrow so’s Oscar can put in a new stove or something.”
Ben knew about the restaurant being closed, so he didn’t know where Kelly Kramer would be. His mind in a whirlwind, he said, “No, you just go tell Deputy Edwards I need him at the school as soon as possible, and then you get on home. Your ma and pa will be worried about you.”
The boy looked a little disappointed. “Well, ok. Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Ben said, his mind already moving in other directions. “But if I need you, I’ll send for you, ok?”
Jeff beamed again. “Yessir. You just call on me and I’ll be there.” And he ran out the door.
A split-second too late, Ben yelled at the boy, “And don’t tell…anybody… what’s...happening…at the school…” His voice trailed off at the end, for Jeff was long gone. The River Bend Marshal knew the story would be all over town within an hour.
There was nothing he could do about that now. He had a hostage crisis on his hands, and one he wouldn’t wish upon the devil.
12:30 P. M., in the schoolhouse…
Trent Tolliver had everything under control in the schoolhouse. Mrs. Whitby and the children were sitting against the south wall, in the middle, away from the storeroom door. She was trying to get them to sing, albeit quietly. Most of the children were holding up pretty well, but a couple of them were sobbing. The teacher was doing the best she could, and Trent wasn’t terribly worried about her—at the moment.
“Ricky, you go out back and watch, make sure nobody tries to sneak in that way. Ed, you stand at that back door and make sure nobody comes at us from that direction. Hank, did you check out that storeroom?”
“Yessir. Ain’t no back door there. Fact is, they ain’t no winders, neither. No way to get in that room.”
“Ok. Keep an eye out the south windows, just in case. Terrell, let’s open this front door. I’m sure the marshal will want to talk to us...”
12:55 P. M., outside Mrs. Whitby’s school…
And indeed he did.
Ben arrived at the schoolhouse a few minutes before one o’clock. Mayor Dodd wasn’t in his office—it was lunchtime—but Ben had spoken to his secretary and told her what was happening and asked her to pass it on to the mayor as soon as she saw him. “I don’t have time to wait for him, Sheila. Have him come to the schoolhouse as soon as he can. And tell him to talk to a couple of the councilmen, too. We’ll need to get our heads together on this.” The secretary was efficient, so Ben felt she’d handle orders with aplomb.
Turley was already at the scene when Ben arrived. The deputy was standing under the eve of the deserted building next to the schoolhouse. It was still raining, and harder, and the thunder and grey clouds were ominous. The wind was swirling in gusts, adding to the miserable conditions, but Ben wasn’t thinking about the weather.
“What’s goin’ on, Marshal?” Turley asked Ben. “That Longstreet boy was babbling pretty good.”
“Maybe so, but I imagine he got most of the particulars right. We’d better find out, though.”
“You aren’t going into the schoolroom, are ye?”
“Not on your life,” Ben replied. “Let’s see if Tolliver can hear us.”
Ben squatted down and ran behind the wall at the front of the school property. He crouched near the gate. “Tolliver!” he shouted. “Can you hear me? This is Marshal Ben Baker.” Ben didn’t waste his breath saying something stupid like, “Come out with your hands up.”
“Yeah, I hear you, Marshal. Did that boy give you my message?”
“Yes, he did.” Ben paused, for effect. “You know what will happen to you if you kill any of those children, don’t you. You’ll never get out of this town alive.”
“I don’t intend to kill any of the kids, Marshal—as long as you have Kelly Atkins and Kelly Kramer here by 6 o’clock. Those are the two I want and you know why. You bring them to me, and none of these children, or their teacher, will be hurt. But if those two women aren’t here by 6, so help me God, I’ll start throwing out dead bodies.”
Turley was beside Ben now. “He means it, don’t he, Ben.”
“He means every word of it, Turley.” Ben thought he’d try something. So, he shouted back at Tolliver, “You killed Kelly Kramer, don’t you know that?”
“Nice try, Marshal, but that won’t work. A few of my men were through town not long ago and found out that she’s alive and well, thank you. That needs to be remedied because she can identify me.”
Ben was frustrated. “I can identify you now, too, Tolliver, and so can that teacher and every child in that schoolroom. There’s no way you can get away with this.”
“You let me worry about that. You just make sure those two women are here by 6 o’clock. Or else. You understand?”
Ben was silent, thinking furiously.
“Do you understand me, Marshal?”
“Yeah, I hear you, Tolliver,” Ben said. “Loud and clear,” he muttered to himself. “Let’s get out of this rain, Turley.”
The two lawmen dashed back to the relative comfort of the next door eve. “What are we goin’ to do, Ben? We cain’t let him have those two women.”
“We’ve got to buy some time, Turley, but we’ve also got to let Kellys Atkins and Kramer know what’s going on.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do, yet. Hopefully, the mayor and a couple of councilmen will be here soon.” He sighed and looked at his deputy. “We can’t let them have the two Kellys and we can’t let them kill those children. I’m not sure how we’re going to prevent those two things, but we’ve got five hours to figure it out.”
“Yessir,” is all Turley responded. He didn’t have any ideas at the moment, either.
Ben continued, “I want you to ride out to the Atkins place and talk to Kelly. I’ll send somebody to find Kelly Kramer. We’ll go from there.”
Turley Edwards looked at the big marshal. “This is serious stuff, isn’t it, Ben.”
Ben slowly nodded his head. “A nightmare, Turley, nothing but a nightmare.”
And, as if on cue, there was a loud clasp of thunder and a wicked streak of lightening across the sky. “Get out there and tell Kelly. We’ll come up with something. And hurry. We don’t have much time.”
“Ok. I’ll be back within the hour,” and the deputy mounted his horse and headed for the peaceful, lovely—unsuspecting—Atkins ranch.
Ben watched him ride away and then watched as three men—the mayor and two councilmen—headed in his direction. While awaiting them, the Marshal of River Bend couldn’t help but think, What would Rob Conners do? If anybody could handle this, I know you could…I sure could use you, buddy…this one is way over my head…
Where are you, Rob?....
We’ll answer that question by and by…