Good Day For A Hangin' (Remington Book 2)

by Robert Vaughan

  “Do you know where Gerner is right now?”

  “I can’t swear to it, Marshal, but I can make a pretty good guess.”

  “How so?”

  “The bartender told me Gerner tried to cash in a house token.”

  “A house token? What’s that?”

  “It’s like money, only it can only be used at the place that sells ’em. You can use it for everything from drinks and a meal to paying one of the girls for her services. They don’t none of the places use tokens here in Harrison. Fact is, the only place I know around here that does use ’em is the Paradise Saloon, and that’s down in Jasper.”

  Ned wiped his mouth with the napkin by his plate, then stood up and looked at his two deputies. “Gents,” he said, “we’re going to Jasper.”

  Chapter 7

  Down the creek road toward Jasper Ned Remington led his two deputies, trotting his horse sometimes, other times urging it into an easy, ground-eating lope. If Molly was right, if Newsome had joined up with Gerner, then there was also a chance that all four men were together now.

  On the one hand, that was good. He was out to bring them all in if he could. On the other hand, all four of them united could make a formidable challenge. He knew they were all dead shots; he knew they had been in dozens of gunfights, both during the war and in the brushes with the law they had had since the war.

  Jake Newsome climbed onto a rock from which he could see the road for three miles back. Beyond that point the road curved around behind a range of peaks.

  “See anything?” Gerner asked. Gerner, a short, hairy man with gray eyes and a pug nose, took the last swallow from a whiskey bottle, then tossed it against a nearby rock. The bottle broke into two pieces.

  “Goddammit, Gerner, what for’d you break that bottle?” Ephraim Flatt asked. Flatt was tall and gaunt, with sunken cheeks and bad teeth. “We coulda got us five cents for it back in Jasper.”

  “Five cents.” Bill Kimmons snorted. “You worried about a nickel now, are you?” Kimmons was between Gerner and the others in size. He was clean-shaven and had gray eyes. His most distinguishing feature was his left hand. There were only three fingers on his left hand, the result of a badly fused mine during the war.

  “It’s worth a beer,” Flatt insisted.

  “Iffen we’da robbed that bank up in Hollister liken I wanted to, we wouldn’t be worryin’ ’bout no nickel for a beer.”

  “You see anythin’ yet?” Gerner asked again.

  “No.”

  “You don’t see nothin’ ’cause they ain’t comin’,” Gerner said.

  Newsome stroked his mustache. “They’re a-comin’,” he said. “I’ve had them on my trail for three days now. I can feel it in my gut when they’re close, and they’re close now.”

  Gerner walked over to his horse and slipped his rifle out of the saddle holster. He worked the lever.

  “What are you fixin’ to do?” Kimmons asked.

  “If they really are comin’ like he says, the best thang we could do is lie here and wait for ’em.”

  Flatt giggled. “Yeah,” he said. He pulled out his rifle. “Yeah, we can just wait right here, ambush ’em soon as they come into range.”

  The other two got their own rifles. Newsome took the horses back into the woods a short distance, then tied them down. He came back, saw that his three partners were already getting into position in the rocks. He checked the load in his rifle, eased the hammer back to half cock, then hunkered down behind a rock and waited.

  “Let them come on up to no more’n a couple hundred yards,” Gerner said. “We got all the advantage. They don’t have no idea we’re here.”

  “Shhh!” Newsome said. “There they are! I told you they was comin’.”

  Three riders came into view at the most distant point the road was visible. They were riding at a brisk pace, coming on unsuspectingly.

  “Be patient,” Gerner said quietly. “Remember what I said. Just be patient.”

  On the riders came, to a mile, half a mile, a quarter mile. Gerner raised his rifle and rested it carefully against the rock. “Just a little closer,” he said. “A little closer before we fire.”

  Newsome shifted position to get a better aim. As he did so he dislodged a loose stone, and the stone rolled down the hill, right into the largest, unbroken piece of the whiskey bottle. The stone shattered the glass and it made a loud, tinkling noise.

  “Goddammit!” Gerner shouted angrily. “We’re in for it now!” He raised up and fired his first shot.

  The sound of the crashing bottle reached Ned’s ears at about the same time Gerner suddenly reared up. Ned could see that the man was holding a rifle pointed toward them.

  “Ambush!” he shouted, pulling his pistol at the same time. He snapped off a shot, knowing he was out of range, hoping only to make the bushwhacker hurry his own shot. The ploy worked: Gerner fired quickly, then dropped down behind the rock.

  Beck and McKirk were off their own horses nearly as quickly as Ned. All three slipped their rifles from the saddle sheaths and ran, low, toward the rocks to the side of the road. Beck threw a handful of dirt toward the horses, shooing them out of the line of fire.

  “Looks like we found ’em,” Beck observed dryly.

  “Aye, thut we did.”

  “If we can make it to the creek bed, we can work our way up closer without coming under their fire,” Ned said.

  “We’re right behind you, Marshal,” Beck replied.

  The three men stood up and ran, crouched over, toward the creek bed. Four rifles spit bullets toward them, but the ambushers were more than four hundred yards away and they were shooting downhill at moving targets. None of the bullets came close enough even to kick up dirt around them.

  “Newsome, you dumb son of a bitch!” Gerner swore. “Iffen you hadn’t kicked that rock down we woulda had ’em by now.”

  “Where are they?” Newsome asked, sticking his head cautiously over the rock and looking down toward where the targets had been. “Where are they? I can’t see ’em.”

  “They headed for the crick bed,” Kimmons said. “I seen ’em go in there.”

  “Where at does that crick come out?” Flatt asked anxiously. “Is there any way they can get the drop on us?”

  “No way,” Kimmons said easily. “The crick curves away, right down there. That’s as close as they can get.”

  No sooner were the words out of Kimmons’s mouth than was there a puff of smoke and the bark of a rifle from a clump of bushes at exactly the place Kimmons was pointing out. The bullet hit the rock right in front of them, then hummed off, but not before shaving a sliver of rock to kick up into Kimmons’s face.

  “Ow! I been hit, I been hit!” Kimmons called, slapping his hand to his face. “I been shot right in the jaw!”

  Flatt looked up at him and laughed.

  “You ain’t been hit,” he said. “That ain’t nothin’ no more’n a piece of rock.”

  Two more bullets hit the rocks then and chips of stone flew past the men.

  “I don’t like this!” Gerner said. “They’re gettin’ too damn close.” He fired a couple of shots toward the bush just below the puff of gunsmoke.

  “Hey, Newsome, look down there. Ain’t that their horses comin’ back up the road?”

  “Yeah,” Newsome said. He raised his rifle and pointed toward the animals. “Shoot the horses. They can’t come after us if they ain’t got no horses.”

  All four men started shooting at the three horses. The horses had wandered much closer than Ned and his deputies had, but they were still a couple of hundred yards away and they were still downhill. As a result, none of the animals was hit, though this time the bullets were close enough to strike the ground nearby. Frightened by the bullets hitting so close to them, the horses turned and ran in a group off the road, but parallel to it, toward the shelter of a large bluff a quarter mile away.

  “Dammit! We missed!”

  “No matter, it’ll be an hour or so before they can roun
d those critters up again,” Newsome said. “Let’s get the hell out of here while we got a chance.”

  The four outlaws started for their own horses, snapping off shots toward the brush as they ran.

  With his rifle, Ned followed them, firing at the man in the lead. The man went down, but the other three made it to their horses. They kicked their horses into motion and in just a few seconds were behind a rocky ledge, out of the line of fire. One down and three to go.

  “Don’t leave me, you bastards!” the one on the ground shouted. “Don’t leave me!”

  Ned and Beck started toward the outlaw on the ground, holding their weapons pointed toward him.

  “I’ll get the horses,” McKirk offered.

  The outlaw sat up, saw them coming, and threw up his hands. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” he pleaded. “I’m hurt. I’m hurt bad.”

  “Which one are you?” Ned asked when he reached the wounded outlaw.

  “Gerner. Tom Gerner,” the man said. “You got to get me to the doctor. I seen men get wounds no worse’n this durin’ the war, and when they wasn’t treated fast enough, why, they’d wind up losin’ a leg.”

  “You’ll hang as good with one leg as you will with two,” Beck said.

  Ned put his rifle down, then knelt beside Gerner. He cut the trouser leg away with his knife and saw the ugly black hole where the rifle bullet had gone into the flesh. The bullet had come out the other side. There was a goodly amount of blood, but it wasn’t pumping as it would be if an artery had been hit. And there didn’t appear to be any shattered bone. He ripped up some more of Gerner’s trouser leg and used it to make a bandage, tying it in place with strips of cloth.

  “You could hang with one leg,” Ned said. “But you probably won’t have to. You’re not hurt bad.”

  “The hell I ain’t. What do you know? You ain’t the one with the bullet in you.”

  “No, but I’m the one that put the bullet in you,” Ned said as he tied off the last strip. “And if I had wanted to hurt you bad I would have done it. I promised Judge Barnstall I’d bring the four of you back to meet his justice, and that’s just what I intend to do.” McKirk came up then, riding his horse and leading the other two.

  “Horses all right?” Ned asked.

  “A wee nervous, but nae a scratch,” McKirk said. Beck brought Gerner’s horse over and held it while Gerner climbed into the saddle.

  “Where you takin’ me?” he asked.

  “Into Jasper,” Ned said. “I’m going to leave you in jail there until I round up the other three.”

  “Jasper’s my territory, mister,” Gerner said. “You don’t expect no Arky lawman is going to put me in jail on the say-so of somebody from Missouri, do you?”

  “The badge I’m wearin’ ain’t Missouri,” Ned said. “It’s U.S. And that means it’s good in every state, territory, and in the Nations. Your Arkansas lawman damn well better lock you up, or I’ll throw his ass in jail with you.”

  As Ned and his deputies rode into Jasper with their prisoner, someone on the street pointed to Gerner. “Hey!” he shouted. He ran down the sidewalk, his footfalls sounding loudly on the boards. “Hey, the law’s got Tom Gerner. They’re bringin’ in Tom Gerner!”

  “What?”

  From both sides of the street people began appearing, and they walked quietly along the lawmen’s path, watching with wide, curious eyes.

  Ned stopped his group in front of the sheriff’s office. “Get down,” he said to Gerner.

  “Who are you, mister?” someone from the crowd called. “You got no right to bring one of ourn in like this.”

  “They ain’t even got me a doctor,” Gerner complained. “Look here, I got a ball in my leg, an’ they ain’t even got me a doctor.”

  “I said get down,” Ned repeated, McKirk reached up and took Gerner by the back of his collar, then pulled the prisoner down. Gerner winced as his feet hit the ground.

  “You can’t treat me like this,” Gerner complained. The door to the sheriff’s office opened and a tall, thin, white-headed man stepped out.

  “What’s goin’ on here?” the sheriff asked.

  “Howdy, Ben,” Ned said, recognizing the sheriff. “Boys, this here is Ben Mason. We’ve rode together some in the past.”

  “Ned Remington,” Ben said. “It’s been a long time.” He saw the star. “And a U.S. marshal? How’s the wife and child? You got a girl, don’t you?”

  Beck and McKirk looked at Ned warily. They didn’t know how he’d react to someone bringing up this painful subject.

  “Yeah,” Ned said without elaboration. “I got a girl. Get inside, Gerner.”

  The five men went inside. Beck and McKirk stayed by the front window, looking out over the street. The crowd had evidently gathered more out of curiosity than anything else, for they dispersed quickly once the excitement was over.

  “What happened, Ben?” Ned asked. “How’d you let this town get away from you like this? You used to be a pretty good lawman.”

  Sheriff Mason looked down toward the floor in shame. “I got older, slower,” he said. “I took a slug in my shoulder up in St. Joe. Another one in my gut in Omaha. I figured to come down here, find me some small town where roustin’ drunks would be the worst of it. Only I found myself right in the middle of the wildest bunch I ever laid eyes on. And to make things worse, I arrest ’em and Judge Binder lets ’em go. I... I’m ashamed to say, I decided to roust the drunks and let the others alone.”

  “Binder’s not the judge anymore,” Ned said. “Barnstall is.”

  “Barnstall? Samuel Parkhurst Barnstall?”

  “The same.”

  Sheriff Mason smiled. “Barnstall will set them straight,” he said. The smile left his face. “But it’s too late for me. I don’t have any respect...if I started now, I’d get run out of town on a rail.”

  “I’m not going to tell you how to run your town, Ben,” Ned said. He looked over at Gerner. “But I am going to tell you how to keep my prisoner. I want him here when I get back.”

  “He will be,” Ben promised. “Hey, tell me about Barnstall. Has he made a dent yet?”

  “I reckon,” Ned answered. “He hung three men just the other day.”

  “Who’d he hang?”

  “Amos Cullimore, Lou Woods, and Bill Sisley.”

  “Knew ’em all three,” Ben said. “Can’t think of a better thing to have happen to ’em. Come on, Gerner. Back to the cell with you.”

  “What about a doctor?” Gerner asked. “This here leg is hurtin’ me somethin’ awful. You gotta get me a doctor in here. It’s a law that you gotta take care of your prisoners.”

  “I been lawin’ a long time, and I ain’t never heared of no law like that,” Mason answered. “Have you?” he asked Ned. He was smiling broadly.

  “Don’t think I have,” Ned agreed.

  “What? You can’t leave me back here like this. My leg’ll get gangrene an’ it’ll have to come off!”

  “Well, I think there is a law that says we can take off a leg if we need to,” the sheriff went on. “If it gets that bad, we’ll do somethin’ about it, don’t worry.” Mason put Gerner in a cell and closed the door; then he and Ned walked back to the front of the jail, leaving Gerner behind, cursing in fear and anger. After the door between the office and cells was shut, the sheriff spoke again.

  “I’ll get Doc Swinney to come down here and take a look at it. I’ve seen worse. I think he just wants to yell a bit. So Barnstall is takin’ hold pretty good, is he?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mason rubbed his chin for a moment, then went over to his desk and opened the drawer. He pulled out a few wanted posters and looked at them. “These are all federal posters,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see what I can do about drummin’ up a few customers for your new boss.”

  “I’m sure he’d like the business,” Ned said. “By the way, where’s a good place to eat?”

  Mason thought for a moment; then he smiled. “Why don’t you go over to the Bull’
s Head? That’s about as good a place as any. It’s a saloon, but they’ll cook you up a steak or pork chops, some taters, and black-eyed peas.”

  “Sounds good enough to me,” Ned replied. He nodded to his two deputies, and the three men took their leave of the sheriff’s office while Mason shuffled through the wanted posters he had pulled from his drawer.

  A sign outside the saloon promised cool beer, and Ned thought that would go pretty well with his meal. He pushed his way through the batwing doors, and the other two followed him inside. It was so dark that he had to stand there for a moment or two until his eyes adjusted to the interior. This was one of the nicer saloons he had been in for a while. The bar was made of burnished mahogany, with a highly polished brass foot rail. Crisp, clean white towels hung from hooks on the customers’ side of the bar, spaced every four feet. A mirror was behind the bar, flanked on each side by a small statue of a nude woman set back in a special niche. A row of whiskey bottles sat in front of the mirror, reflected in the glass so that the row of bottles seemed to be two deep.

  Even the bartender seemed to be a part of the decor, with slicked-back black hair and a handlebar mustache. He stood behind the bar, industriously polishing glasses.

  “Is the beer really cool?” Ned asked.

  The bartender looked up at him, but he didn’t stop polishing the glasses.

  “It’s cooler than spit,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “I’ll have one.”

  “You gentlemen?”

  Beck ordered a beer also, while McKirk ordered his usual scotch.

  The bartender set the drinks in front of them. Ned picked his up, then turned and looked around the place. A card game was going on in the corner, and he watched it for a few moments while he drank his beer. Suddenly the back door opened and Sheriff Ben Mason came in. He pointed a gun toward the table.