There's a revival meeting of sorts going on at their church and of course Jeremiah attends, taking Reuben with him. Reuben is interested in going because a girl he has a bit of a crush on is also going to be there. Jeremiah thinks Swede is too young to go to this type of thing and leaves her at home with Davy. She's in the house working on a poem and Davy's in the loft over their garage working on a gift for Swede because her birthday is in a couple of days. He doesn't hear a car pulling up outside their house, but Swede does, and curiously goes out to see who's there. She's immediately grabbed by Israel Finch and pulled into his car which contains his henchman Tommy Basca. They drive around with the terrified young girl, forcing her to sit on their knees, and threatening her. Thankfully they don't inflict any serious physical damage; this is by way of a threat to the whole Land family, showing that they can get to what they cherish the most. Finch and Basca eventually drop Swede back at the house, telling her "We'll take you home now, but we'll be back. We're right outside your window." Davy is just coming in the back door from the garage when Swede runs in the front, scared, bruised, and shaking. He's trying to comfort her and find out exactly what happened when Jeremiah and Reuben arrive back home. As soon as Swede relates what happened, Davy is halfway out the door, going after Finch and Basca. Jeremiah grabs him and pulls him back, insisting that they call the police first... Davy listens, barely.
This, unsurprisingly, proves useless; the town cop, Ted Pullet, is still too intimidated to do anything. When he hears what happened, he says he'll "talk to the boys" as though they'd been egging houses or something instead of kidnapping a nine year old. Then, when Jeremiah protests this weak response, "You said yourself they didn't hurt your girl." Pullet- a very apt name, by the way- continues with his excuses: after all, Jeremiah had given the two "a pretty bad scare" that night in the locker room, so they were "kicking a little". He also mentions that Basca's aunt had wanted to press charges against Jeremiah... obviously trying to dilute his guilt by insinuating that Jeremiah had used too much force when rescuing Dolly. Pullet returns the next day to tell them that Finch and Basca have assured him that they'd just been kidding around and had meant no harm. He's just going to write the entire incident off as youthful hijinks. Davy is openly contemptuous of Pullet's prevarication, saying "How many times does a dog have to bite before you put him down?"