The Ransom of Red Chief

Sam and Bill are outsiders to the town, and Sam’s description of Summit and its people reflects both his arrogance and his ignorance of the local population. His reference to the locals as “inhabitants” makes clear that’s he’s not fully seeing them as human—instead, he’s looking at them as pawns to be easily manipulated in service of his plans. In addition, he suggests they are irrational (a flat town called Summit), unthreatening (undeleterious), and unsophisticated (peasantry). However, this passage reveals more about Sam himself than about the townspeople (who, after all, he knows nothing about). First, Sam is arrogant to look down on these strangers as he does, and second, Sam seems himself to be a little silly and pretentious (the word “undeleterious” is not at home in ordinary usage, and it would be much clearer to use a word like “harmless” or “benign”). Finally, Sam’s reference to the Maypole, an ancient pagan tradition which is found primarily in fairy tales and story books, makes clear that Sam’s ridicule of the townspeople’s primitive pastimes is based more on his fantasies of rural people than on fact, suggesting that his confidence in his own assessment of the world around him may be foolish. 

This brief and insightful description of Ebenezer Dorset foreshadows a great deal of Sam’s subsequent trouble with him. From this description, readers learn that Ebenezer is powerful (respectable, stern, upright) but also greedy (tight), ungenerous (collection-plate passer), and a predator (mortgage fancier and forecloser). That Ebenezer is so powerful, unlikeable, and even cruel sets readers up to sympathize with the kidnapping plot against him—a man like that might deserve to be victimized, since he victimizes others. However, for Sam’s ransom plan to work, Ebenezer must be vulnerable and empathetic towards his son. As it turns out, Ebenezer’s bad qualities run even deeper than Sam and Bill anticipate: he has no sympathy for his son’s plight and is therefore not easily manipulated, and he is also a clever and brutal negotiator, which has surely contributed to his wealth.

Bill says this to Sam when Sam comes back to the cave to find Bill tending to his cuts and bruises, the result of Johnny’s abuse and rough play. While one might expect Bill to be furious that he has been physically injured by their captive child, Bill actually seems calm. This paints Bill as being tolerant, patient, and oddly noble in his care of this ten year-old child whom he has kidnapped. Bill becomes Johnny’s primary caretaker throughout the story, and many of his interactions are just as filled with pathos as this one. This statement also shows that Bill is actively participating in Johnny’s fantasy world in which Johnny is Red Chief and Bill is his captive. Bill’s resigned patience about his injuries seems in part due to the fact that they happened “in character”—Johnny isn’t beating up his captor, but rather playing a game whose narrative requires violence. Of course, the reality of the situation is that Johnny has taken charge of the kidnapping, but the fantasy element seems to conceal this reality from both of the men. In this way, Johnny has gained power over them through fantasy, putting them in the position to accept their injuries and obey his orders rather than fighting back or telling him what to do.

Johnny makes a speech during his first night in the cave with the men who kidnapped him. While previously his fantasy of being an Indian chief seemed to account for his ability to accept his abduction, this moment affirms that Johnny is not fully living in fantasy: he understands what is happening to him, and he nonetheless appreciates the present company of Bill and Sam. In other words, his happiness is not just due to his being in a fantasy world—he is actually enjoying the reality of his new situation. His enjoyment of being kidnapped also takes on a tragic element here, as he is framing his abduction as “camping out”—something he claims never to have done before. This emphasizes how attention-starved the boy is and how unhappy his childhood has been. Fully aware that he has been kidnapped by criminals, Johnny still relishes the moment because it at least approximates normal boyhood recreation.

Here, Sam speaks of Bill’s suffering at Johnny’s hands after the attempted scalping and, although he describes Bill's spirit as broken, he distances himself from this reality with humor. He calls the screams terrifying and humiliating, which is accurate enough, but his term “indecent” has a hint of reproach, making fun of Bill’s fear as unmanly. The phrase “such as women emit” is also a distancing criticism, as is the idea that Bill might be screaming for imaginary reasons (“ghosts”) or trifles (“caterpillars”). The adjectives “strong, desperate, fat” make fun of Bill in a way that indicates that Sam has sympathy for his friend despite some friendly ribbing. After all, Sam had his own desperate bad dream where he was held captive by a red-haired pirate, and subsequently Sam will sign the letter to Ebenezer from both of them as “Two Desperate Men.” In light of Sam’s own growing concerns, his reference to Bill's “incontinently” screaming is again a bit of ridicule that, by its very extremity, hints they may both be in deeper trouble than they bargained for.

With these words, Sam shows a dawning awareness that his abduction of Johnny has not had the effect on the community that he and Bill predicted. The characterization of the locals as “yeomanry” echoes his earlier depiction of them as peasantry, as does the demeaning suggestion that they should be armed with “scythes and pitchforks.” Even though the locals are defying Sam’s expectations, the fact that his plan is going awry has not left him sufficiently chastened to stop condescending to the locals. Furthermore, his characterization of himself and Bill as “dastardly” is wry and, in a way, aspirational. By using this old-fashioned word, he seems to be saying they are not evil, but ought to appear so. Indeed, they have abducted a child, which is dastardly in itself, but they are unwilling to hurt anyone, so they are, in a sense, pretending to be evil. Sam’s frustration with his own ineffectiveness is communicated effectively by his alliterative description of the region’s “sylvan, somnolent sleepiness.” One can imagine his jealousy at being able to sleep peacefully, given the night he just had, sitting up until dawn so as not to be burned at the stake. He admits he might be wrong in his perceptions when he only can see the “external outward surface” of this place, so perhaps this is a moment of dawning self-awareness that he doesn’t understand what’s really going on in Summit.

With the phrase “lost my nerve,” Bill admits he is defeated by the challenge of caring for Johnny. His admission is made with a persuasive purpose: he needs to make sure that the ransom transaction is concluded successfully and soon, so he wants to drop the asking price in the ransom letter he and Sam are writing to Ebenezer. His two characterizations of Johnny are calibrated for this effect: a skyrocket is powerful and uncontrollable, but not evil; so too, a freckled wildcat is a dangerous creature, but not wicked, and the fact that Johnny is merely a forty-pound sized chunk suggests he might not be worth all this trouble, either. As always, despite Bill’s attention paid to Johnny, Bill also keeps the distance of a stranger, calling him “kid.” Johnny is never mentioned by name in the story by either Sam or Bill—he is always referred to as the “boy” or “kid.” The only way readers know his name is when his own father uses it in his letter of response; whether boy, kid, skyrocket, or wildcat, this fact puts a limit on the degree of intimacy readers sense in Bill and Sam’s care for Johnny.

In this exchange, Johnny (as Black Scout) orders Bill to get on his knees to pretend to be a horse so that Johnny can physically ride him. Sam, rather than defending Bill, suggests that Bill’s job is to comply with Johnny’s orders to keep the boy occupied while Sam attends to the kidnapping scheme. This exchange speaks volumes about the dynamic between Sam and Bill, whose response to this is a wordless look like a rabbit in a trap. Johnny has been the leader of the Red Chief fantasy, and now he introduces another level of the game, so to speak, which involves a new humiliating and active level of participation by Bill: “down on your hands and knees.” Pathetically, it seems to be Bill’s lot to suffer any indignity, taking care of Johnny, while Sam’s job is to spy and reconnoiter afield. The saddest part, however, is the sense Sam expresses that Bill is really making a big deal over nothing, whether it was being scalped earlier or now being ridden and kicked like a horse. Instead of sympathizing with Bill’s physical pain and humiliation, Sam reprimands Bill for being too rigid (“loosen up”). The fact is that, despite the humor in his delivery, Sam is both deluded about his own abilities and unkind to his cohort Bill, two factors that, as the story unfolds, make him somewhat unsympathetic, if not unreliable, as a narrator.

Having decided he can no longer take Johnny’s abuse, Bill finally finds the strength of will to resist the powerful combination of Johnny’s bullying imagination and Sam’s conniving scheming and he sends Johnny back home while Sam is gone. When he says “All is off,” he is letting go of their ransom plan and perhaps the scheme in Illinois that the ransom money was supposed to fund. It’s a complete capitulation, and to support his decision he makes a comparison to Biblical stories of martyrs suffering terrible torture. However, while martyrs suffered for a greater cause, Bill reduces this to “graft” and says that even they had it easier than Bill with Johnny. Further heresy is Bill’s declaration that he “tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation,” which shows the pair’s depraved faith. His lack of confidence in Sam’s schemes and his self-pitying indicate both strength and weakness—standing up to abuse, while making the heretical argument that what he has suffered should be measured on an epic, religious scale.

When Bill believes Johnny has gone back home (thereby freeing him finally from the abuse and tyranny of Johnny’s fantasies and games), Bill has a shock: Johnny has only pretended to go home, turning this into yet another scouting game by creeping quietly behind Bill and following him all the way back to the cave camp without his knowing. In response to this surprise, Bill sits “plump” on the ground, a word that is perhaps a way of Sam indicating his weight and large size, as well as the sound of his collapse. Seemingly, Bill has lost his mind along with any color in his face, and he goes into a kind of trance, plucking little sticks and grasses on the ground. Sam reports that this continues for quite a long time (not minutes but a full hour), during which he is concerned Bill has broken with reality. A wise person who knows how to cut their losses might be looking for an exit at this point, but Sam is not that character. He is as out of touch with reality as Johnny or Bill in his own way. Thus his reaction to Bill’s complete physical and mental collapse in the face of punishing treatment, with no success in sight, is to brace up his partner by declaring victory is imminent, and they will “put the whole job through immediately.”

This passage comes from Ebenezer’s letter to Sam and Bill in response to Sam’s ransom demand. Sam’s prior letter spelled out intricate requirements regarding the location, time, and manner of communication. Unfortunately for Sam, by focusing on logistics he has overlooked the greater issue: he has not yet won the power struggle with Ebenezer. What leads to success in negotiation, as Ebenezer demonstrates here, is steely nerves and a narrow focus on the goal. His measured response to the kidnapping (“a little high in your demands”), coupled with his calm tone (“I am inclined to believe”), give a chilly power to his counter-proposal for the desperate men to pay him instead of the other way around. His offer has the legalistic tone of a businessman familiar with legal contracts when he uses diction such as “hereby” and, to drive the point home that he is negotiating from a position of strength, he frames the return of his son as a concession for which he needs to be paid (he writes, “and I agree to take him”). Presumably, without payment he would not agree to the return of his son, which turns the ransom plan on its head.

After all their suffering, it seems so easy when Sam says it: “we took him home that night.” But it’s anything but easy. What started out as a sure-fire scheme to make $2000 finally ends when Sam and Bill bring Johnny back to his father and agree to old Dorset’s demands for them to pay him $250 to take back his own child. This bizarre arrangement would not even be possible were it not for one additional element added to the mixture of confusion, delusion, and torture which characterizes their time with Johnny: they have to trick the boy into returning to his father with a fantasy as compelling as the fantasies he has used to control his captors. By concocting an imaginary bear hunt and the pretend gifts from Johnny’s father of a silver-mounted rifle and moccasins, they entice the pitiable child to return home to a father who, though rich, would never contemplate gifts so generous or plans so thoughtful for his son. The fantasy, though false, is a testament to the fact that Bill and Sam have, at least, an idea of what would make Johnny happy, which, one suspects, is more than can be said of his father.

Sam and Bill never call Johnny by his given name. Here, when they are leaving him at home, reunited with his father, he is once again “the kid” and this underlines the fact that, however softhearted (and soft-headed) they may be, they are not his true guardians. This duality is evident in Johnny’s “howl” at being left there. This is a howl of sadness, one presumes, since Johnny is clinging to the leg of his abductor rather than his father. Yet Sam compares Johnny’s howl to that of a calliope (an organ-like instrument found often at fairs), which is a sound more evocative of a fun circus than a tragic moment. It’s no compliment for Sam to say he’s clinging like “a leech” either, but Sam is not much for sentimentality—the softer touch was always Bill’s, and by this point, having suffered a great deal of abuse, Bill also just wants to get away as fast as possible. The reference to “porous plaster” which one uses on broken bones reminds readers that this story, though weird and funny at times, has not been without injury to its protagonists. Ebenezer says, “I’m not as strong as I used to be,” and it’s arguable that this might indicate some hope for the old man’s heart softening. Alternatively, the porous plaster may suggest some persistent disorders in remain in Summit, at least in Johnny’s life, long after the dust clears from Sam and Bill’s escape from town.

Sam and Bill are outsiders to the town, and Sam’s description of Summit and its people reflects both his arrogance and his ignorance of the local population. His reference to the locals as “inhabitants” makes clear that’s he’s not fully seeing them as human—instead, he’s looking at them as pawns to be easily manipulated in service of his plans. In addition, he suggests they are irrational (a flat town called Summit), unthreatening (undeleterious), and unsophisticated (peasantry). However, this passage reveals more about Sam himself than about the townspeople (who, after all, he knows nothing about). First, Sam is arrogant to look down on these strangers as he does, and second, Sam seems himself to be a little silly and pretentious (the word “undeleterious” is not at home in ordinary usage, and it would be much clearer to use a word like “harmless” or “benign”). Finally, Sam’s reference to the Maypole, an ancient pagan tradition which is found primarily in fairy tales and story books, makes clear that Sam’s ridicule of the townspeople’s primitive pastimes is based more on his fantasies of rural people than on fact, suggesting that his confidence in his own assessment of the world around him may be foolish. 

This brief and insightful description of Ebenezer Dorset foreshadows a great deal of Sam’s subsequent trouble with him. From this description, readers learn that Ebenezer is powerful (respectable, stern, upright) but also greedy (tight), ungenerous (collection-plate passer), and a predator (mortgage fancier and forecloser). That Ebenezer is so powerful, unlikeable, and even cruel sets readers up to sympathize with the kidnapping plot against him—a man like that might deserve to be victimized, since he victimizes others. However, for Sam’s ransom plan to work, Ebenezer must be vulnerable and empathetic towards his son. As it turns out, Ebenezer’s bad qualities run even deeper than Sam and Bill anticipate: he has no sympathy for his son’s plight and is therefore not easily manipulated, and he is also a clever and brutal negotiator, which has surely contributed to his wealth.

Bill says this to Sam when Sam comes back to the cave to find Bill tending to his cuts and bruises, the result of Johnny’s abuse and rough play. While one might expect Bill to be furious that he has been physically injured by their captive child, Bill actually seems calm. This paints Bill as being tolerant, patient, and oddly noble in his care of this ten year-old child whom he has kidnapped. Bill becomes Johnny’s primary caretaker throughout the story, and many of his interactions are just as filled with pathos as this one. This statement also shows that Bill is actively participating in Johnny’s fantasy world in which Johnny is Red Chief and Bill is his captive. Bill’s resigned patience about his injuries seems in part due to the fact that they happened “in character”—Johnny isn’t beating up his captor, but rather playing a game whose narrative requires violence. Of course, the reality of the situation is that Johnny has taken charge of the kidnapping, but the fantasy element seems to conceal this reality from both of the men. In this way, Johnny has gained power over them through fantasy, putting them in the position to accept their injuries and obey his orders rather than fighting back or telling him what to do.

Johnny makes a speech during his first night in the cave with the men who kidnapped him. While previously his fantasy of being an Indian chief seemed to account for his ability to accept his abduction, this moment affirms that Johnny is not fully living in fantasy: he understands what is happening to him, and he nonetheless appreciates the present company of Bill and Sam. In other words, his happiness is not just due to his being in a fantasy world—he is actually enjoying the reality of his new situation. His enjoyment of being kidnapped also takes on a tragic element here, as he is framing his abduction as “camping out”—something he claims never to have done before. This emphasizes how attention-starved the boy is and how unhappy his childhood has been. Fully aware that he has been kidnapped by criminals, Johnny still relishes the moment because it at least approximates normal boyhood recreation.

Here, Sam speaks of Bill’s suffering at Johnny’s hands after the attempted scalping and, although he describes Bill's spirit as broken, he distances himself from this reality with humor. He calls the screams terrifying and humiliating, which is accurate enough, but his term “indecent” has a hint of reproach, making fun of Bill’s fear as unmanly. The phrase “such as women emit” is also a distancing criticism, as is the idea that Bill might be screaming for imaginary reasons (“ghosts”) or trifles (“caterpillars”). The adjectives “strong, desperate, fat” make fun of Bill in a way that indicates that Sam has sympathy for his friend despite some friendly ribbing. After all, Sam had his own desperate bad dream where he was held captive by a red-haired pirate, and subsequently Sam will sign the letter to Ebenezer from both of them as “Two Desperate Men.” In light of Sam’s own growing concerns, his reference to Bill's “incontinently” screaming is again a bit of ridicule that, by its very extremity, hints they may both be in deeper trouble than they bargained for.

With these words, Sam shows a dawning awareness that his abduction of Johnny has not had the effect on the community that he and Bill predicted. The characterization of the locals as “yeomanry” echoes his earlier depiction of them as peasantry, as does the demeaning suggestion that they should be armed with “scythes and pitchforks.” Even though the locals are defying Sam’s expectations, the fact that his plan is going awry has not left him sufficiently chastened to stop condescending to the locals. Furthermore, his characterization of himself and Bill as “dastardly” is wry and, in a way, aspirational. By using this old-fashioned word, he seems to be saying they are not evil, but ought to appear so. Indeed, they have abducted a child, which is dastardly in itself, but they are unwilling to hurt anyone, so they are, in a sense, pretending to be evil. Sam’s frustration with his own ineffectiveness is communicated effectively by his alliterative description of the region’s “sylvan, somnolent sleepiness.” One can imagine his jealousy at being able to sleep peacefully, given the night he just had, sitting up until dawn so as not to be burned at the stake. He admits he might be wrong in his perceptions when he only can see the “external outward surface” of this place, so perhaps this is a moment of dawning self-awareness that he doesn’t understand what’s really going on in Summit.

With the phrase “lost my nerve,” Bill admits he is defeated by the challenge of caring for Johnny. His admission is made with a persuasive purpose: he needs to make sure that the ransom transaction is concluded successfully and soon, so he wants to drop the asking price in the ransom letter he and Sam are writing to Ebenezer. His two characterizations of Johnny are calibrated for this effect: a skyrocket is powerful and uncontrollable, but not evil; so too, a freckled wildcat is a dangerous creature, but not wicked, and the fact that Johnny is merely a forty-pound sized chunk suggests he might not be worth all this trouble, either. As always, despite Bill’s attention paid to Johnny, Bill also keeps the distance of a stranger, calling him “kid.” Johnny is never mentioned by name in the story by either Sam or Bill—he is always referred to as the “boy” or “kid.” The only way readers know his name is when his own father uses it in his letter of response; whether boy, kid, skyrocket, or wildcat, this fact puts a limit on the degree of intimacy readers sense in Bill and Sam’s care for Johnny.

In this exchange, Johnny (as Black Scout) orders Bill to get on his knees to pretend to be a horse so that Johnny can physically ride him. Sam, rather than defending Bill, suggests that Bill’s job is to comply with Johnny’s orders to keep the boy occupied while Sam attends to the kidnapping scheme. This exchange speaks volumes about the dynamic between Sam and Bill, whose response to this is a wordless look like a rabbit in a trap. Johnny has been the leader of the Red Chief fantasy, and now he introduces another level of the game, so to speak, which involves a new humiliating and active level of participation by Bill: “down on your hands and knees.” Pathetically, it seems to be Bill’s lot to suffer any indignity, taking care of Johnny, while Sam’s job is to spy and reconnoiter afield. The saddest part, however, is the sense Sam expresses that Bill is really making a big deal over nothing, whether it was being scalped earlier or now being ridden and kicked like a horse. Instead of sympathizing with Bill’s physical pain and humiliation, Sam reprimands Bill for being too rigid (“loosen up”). The fact is that, despite the humor in his delivery, Sam is both deluded about his own abilities and unkind to his cohort Bill, two factors that, as the story unfolds, make him somewhat unsympathetic, if not unreliable, as a narrator.

Having decided he can no longer take Johnny’s abuse, Bill finally finds the strength of will to resist the powerful combination of Johnny’s bullying imagination and Sam’s conniving scheming and he sends Johnny back home while Sam is gone. When he says “All is off,” he is letting go of their ransom plan and perhaps the scheme in Illinois that the ransom money was supposed to fund. It’s a complete capitulation, and to support his decision he makes a comparison to Biblical stories of martyrs suffering terrible torture. However, while martyrs suffered for a greater cause, Bill reduces this to “graft” and says that even they had it easier than Bill with Johnny. Further heresy is Bill’s declaration that he “tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation,” which shows the pair’s depraved faith. His lack of confidence in Sam’s schemes and his self-pitying indicate both strength and weakness—standing up to abuse, while making the heretical argument that what he has suffered should be measured on an epic, religious scale.

When Bill believes Johnny has gone back home (thereby freeing him finally from the abuse and tyranny of Johnny’s fantasies and games), Bill has a shock: Johnny has only pretended to go home, turning this into yet another scouting game by creeping quietly behind Bill and following him all the way back to the cave camp without his knowing. In response to this surprise, Bill sits “plump” on the ground, a word that is perhaps a way of Sam indicating his weight and large size, as well as the sound of his collapse. Seemingly, Bill has lost his mind along with any color in his face, and he goes into a kind of trance, plucking little sticks and grasses on the ground. Sam reports that this continues for quite a long time (not minutes but a full hour), during which he is concerned Bill has broken with reality. A wise person who knows how to cut their losses might be looking for an exit at this point, but Sam is not that character. He is as out of touch with reality as Johnny or Bill in his own way. Thus his reaction to Bill’s complete physical and mental collapse in the face of punishing treatment, with no success in sight, is to brace up his partner by declaring victory is imminent, and they will “put the whole job through immediately.”

This passage comes from Ebenezer’s letter to Sam and Bill in response to Sam’s ransom demand. Sam’s prior letter spelled out intricate requirements regarding the location, time, and manner of communication. Unfortunately for Sam, by focusing on logistics he has overlooked the greater issue: he has not yet won the power struggle with Ebenezer. What leads to success in negotiation, as Ebenezer demonstrates here, is steely nerves and a narrow focus on the goal. His measured response to the kidnapping (“a little high in your demands”), coupled with his calm tone (“I am inclined to believe”), give a chilly power to his counter-proposal for the desperate men to pay him instead of the other way around. His offer has the legalistic tone of a businessman familiar with legal contracts when he uses diction such as “hereby” and, to drive the point home that he is negotiating from a position of strength, he frames the return of his son as a concession for which he needs to be paid (he writes, “and I agree to take him”). Presumably, without payment he would not agree to the return of his son, which turns the ransom plan on its head.

After all their suffering, it seems so easy when Sam says it: “we took him home that night.” But it’s anything but easy. What started out as a sure-fire scheme to make $2000 finally ends when Sam and Bill bring Johnny back to his father and agree to old Dorset’s demands for them to pay him $250 to take back his own child. This bizarre arrangement would not even be possible were it not for one additional element added to the mixture of confusion, delusion, and torture which characterizes their time with Johnny: they have to trick the boy into returning to his father with a fantasy as compelling as the fantasies he has used to control his captors. By concocting an imaginary bear hunt and the pretend gifts from Johnny’s father of a silver-mounted rifle and moccasins, they entice the pitiable child to return home to a father who, though rich, would never contemplate gifts so generous or plans so thoughtful for his son. The fantasy, though false, is a testament to the fact that Bill and Sam have, at least, an idea of what would make Johnny happy, which, one suspects, is more than can be said of his father.

Sam and Bill never call Johnny by his given name. Here, when they are leaving him at home, reunited with his father, he is once again “the kid” and this underlines the fact that, however softhearted (and soft-headed) they may be, they are not his true guardians. This duality is evident in Johnny’s “howl” at being left there. This is a howl of sadness, one presumes, since Johnny is clinging to the leg of his abductor rather than his father. Yet Sam compares Johnny’s howl to that of a calliope (an organ-like instrument found often at fairs), which is a sound more evocative of a fun circus than a tragic moment. It’s no compliment for Sam to say he’s clinging like “a leech” either, but Sam is not much for sentimentality—the softer touch was always Bill’s, and by this point, having suffered a great deal of abuse, Bill also just wants to get away as fast as possible. The reference to “porous plaster” which one uses on broken bones reminds readers that this story, though weird and funny at times, has not been without injury to its protagonists. Ebenezer says, “I’m not as strong as I used to be,” and it’s arguable that this might indicate some hope for the old man’s heart softening. Alternatively, the porous plaster may suggest some persistent disorders in remain in Summit, at least in Johnny’s life, long after the dust clears from Sam and Bill’s escape from town.