Free In The Belly Of The Bloodhound by Louis A. Meyer

Missy…they messed me up and they messed up the[_ Star.”_]
    “You did just fine, my brave, brave young Jim,” I say, tears pouring out of my eyes and onto his face. I kiss his brow. “Just fine, you did…And I am the Jacky girl they’re lookin’ for, I am, and I should have trusted you with that so you could be more careful, but I didn’t and now it’s come to this…I am so sorry.”
    “I knowed you was that girl. I heard you talk with your mates, so don’t…,” he burbles through his blood-filled mouth. He grows quieter as his gasping stops and his breathing becomes more regular.
    “Jim,” I say softly into his ear, “what did they look like? The two men.”
    His cracked and bloody lips open. “Black jackets. White shirts. Black round hats. Heavy boots. Both had mustaches…dark hair…I…”
    “That’s enough, Jim. That will do. You rest now…Rest…”
    We clatter up Center Street and onto Beacon and soon pull up to the school. Ed Strout is off the driver’s seat and the door is pulled open.
    “Here, Jacky, let me help you…” But the clatter of our arrival has roused the kitchen staff and the door bursts open and Peg hurries out, followed by Annie and Betsey and Katy, and they gather up Jim and take him inside. They have seen me, myself, dragged through that very door in a very similar condition to poor Jim, so they know what to do. They lay him out on a tabletop and take hot, wet cloths and wipe off the blood and check the wounds. He looks so small lying there like that. I bite my knuckle and try not to cry.
    “If he needs a doctor, get him one,” I manage to choke out. “I’ll pay for it.”
    Peg pokes around at his ribs and feels his arms and legs. “Now, now, we’ll see. Nothing broken…These boys are pretty tough…Made of leather and bone, they are. The cuts will heal…Wait, Jacky! Where are you going?”
    But I am already at the door. “I got some business to settle,” I say, and am out and gone before anyone can stop me.
    Somewhat later, I’m peeking around the corner of State and Union. Those thugs are undoubtedly still about…[_ There! Coming out of the Bull and Crown!
] I sidle a little bit closer so as to get a look at them. I’m somewhat mystified by their presence, since I haven’t seen any of the WANTED posters around Boston. They are putting on their broad-brimmed round black hats and hitching up their trousers after what was surely their dinner at the tavern and they step out into a beam of sunlight and…[
Well, I’ll be damned! It’s Beadle and Strunk! Those two coves what kidnapped me and sold me to that crazy Reverend Mather when last I was here!_]
    It’s plain to me now: Ezra had told me that those two had been banished from Boston, their license to practice their dubious trade as private investigators having been revoked after their dealings with the Reverend were brought to light. According to the town fathers reviewing the case, snatching me, a landless, underage girl, was perfectly all right and completely legal—as[_ long as I was delivered to the person who had hired them,_] which was Colonel Trevelyne, not the Reverend. So it was merely a question of bad business practice, a breach of contract, not out of any concern for me or my wishes in the matter of my disposition. Go figure…
    So Beadle and Strunk must have set up their nasty business again in either Philadelphia or New York and seen the posters when they were tacked up in those places. Recalling me from our last encounter, they figured that I’d probably be hiding out in Boston, where I knew my way around, and since they knew what I looked like, they came up here in hopes of a quick reward.[_ Hey, sell her once, sell her twice,
] they must have joked, winking at each other as they climbed into the coach that would bring them here,[
this girl’s a walking industry for us, she is, and bless her for that._]
    I step out and start walking down State toward the[_ Star._] Beadle and Strunk walk