Good Day For A Hangin' (Remington Book 2) Read online

  Good Day For A Hangin’

  (Remington Series Book 2)

  Robert Vaughan

  Contents

  Copyright

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  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  Good Day For A Hangin’

  (Remington Series Book 2)

  by

  Robert Vaughan

  © Copyright 2016 Robert Vaughan (as revised)

  Wolfpack Publishing

  P.O. Box 620427

  Las Vegas, NV 89162

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-62918-460-9

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  Prologue

  The man had already tried to escape twice. And twice Chief Territorial Marshal Ned Remington had caught him, put him in irons. He wasn’t about to let the son of a bitch run away again. He would shoot him first, and not twitch a muscle when he did it. Leroy Switcher was a mean bastard, the scum of the earth. Cocky, too, and Ned hated that in a man, especially in a criminal like Switcher.

  The warrant Remington carried in his coat pocket had taken him to the Nations, into Creek and Choctaw lands, where Switcher was hiding from the law and Judge Samuel Parkhurst Barnstall’s Western District Circuit Court of Missouri. Switcher had been charged with murder, robbery, and rape. There were two surviving eyewitnesses sitting in a hotel in Galena, Missouri, waiting to testify against Switcher. Ned didn’t want to disappoint any of them, so he kept hard, cold eyes on Switcher as the man rode ahead of the marshal, his wrists handcuffed.

  “Damn, Remington, I gotta have a smoke,” said Switcher, a lanky, rawboned man in his late twenties. His face was ferret-thin, with deep wrinkles around the mouth, next to his slender, sharp-pointed nose. He wore three days of stubble on his chin, which gave him the appearance of having dipped it in soot. He wore gray duck trousers, a patched linsey-woolsey shirt open at the throat, boots that had lost their tan shine and were cracking from the dryness. His dark brown eyes glittered in deep sockets and restlessly searched the land around him like an animal’s. His battered felt hat shaded his forehead as the morning sun climbed above the trees. They had been riding since dawn, without a stop, after spending the night in Siloam Springs, just inside the Arkansas border.

  “When I say so, Switcher,” said Remington softly. His voice at that level sounded like an echo in a cave; his words were hollow, rumbling like far-off thunder.

  “Feel like I’m sittin’ on an ax blade,” said Switcher. “Damn saddle’s ’bout to cut both cheeks off.”

  Remington didn’t reply, and Switcher cackled at his own humor. That was the cockiness in him, thought Ned. Switcher was brash and fancied himself irresistible to the ladies. When they refused his attentions, he was apt to lash out violently at their stupidity. It had gotten him in trouble more than once. But the last time he had gone too far, and had beaten the woman senseless in front of witnesses. Then he had raped her and strangled her during the act. She had died, and Switcher had taken her money and valuables and then run off to the Nations with two of his cronies.

  Remington had intended to halt this side of Eureka Springs, but not until they reached the hills and hollows just south of town. They were near the battlefield now, Elkhorn Tavern, the rebs called it. The Union called it Pea Ridge. It was more open here, and ever since leaving Tahlequah Switcher had bragged about never going back over the Missouri border. The two men who had run off with him had lit a shuck when Remington captured Switcher. But once, two days ago, Ned had crossed the fresh tracks of two shod horses, and yesterday he had seen a rider slip over a distant hill less than a thousand yards ahead of them.

  Maybe neither incident meant anything, but Leroy Switcher had been restless as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs ever since they had left the Choctaw Nation. And no sign of Leroy’s friends since Ned had put Switcher in irons. Not close up, anyway.

  Remington transferred his reins from his right hand to his left. His right hand came to rest on the butt of his pistol, a .44-caliber converted Remington New Model Army. Two more pistols hung from his saddlehorn: a Smith & Wesson .38, nickeled, which he sometimes wore in a shoulder holster, and a Colt .44 with an eight-inch barrel. His rifle, a ’73 Winchester in .44-40 caliber, jutted from its leather boot within easy reach.

  Some instinct began to prick at Remington’s senses like the jabbing spines of a Spanish bayonet. Switcher was doing everything he could to get them to stop and dismount. Why? He was always whining about something, but this time was different. Ned couldn’t put his finger on it, but Switcher had something up his sleeve besides his arm.

  The land began to drop off, then pitch toward the first hollow after the long ride on the fiat. Beyond, the Ozark Mountains, a fiery green, loomed like islands in a sea. Remington looked around one last time.

  And that’s when he saw it.

  His blood froze and something clawed at his innards. It was only a flick of light, a brief shot of sun glinting off the surface of metal, but it was enough.

  The flash came from the trees to their left, a thick stand of hickory, pine, oak, surrounded by thickets of sassafras and Osage orange.

  “Goddam you, Switcher,” Remington said, and he dug spurs into his mount, lucking his horse into motion. The animal lurched ahead. Switcher, startled at the sudden movement, turned, his eyes wide with fear. Remington rode up to him and swung a roundhouse right. His fist caught Switcher behind the ear, sent him toppling.

  The outlaw hit the dust, skidding into a heap along the rutted road, as Remington swung over the side of his horse and drew his six-gun.

  The riders came out of the trees on fleet horses, their rifles cracking flame and lead. Repeaters, Remington thought, and he waited behind his horse, cocking the hammer back on the forty-four. Dust spouts kicked up all around him, and the marshal suppressed a smile.

  “That would be your friends, Switcher,” he said evenly.

  Switcher looked at the marshal as he would at a madman.

  The bushwhackers came on, their horses stretching out, manes flying, as they closed the distance. They shouted rebel yells and leveled their rifles, took aim that never centered. Bullets fired the air, whistled off harmlessly.

  “Come on, Leroy!” shouted one of the men. “Get your sweet ass up on that horse.”

  Remington stepped to his saddle, rested his pistol butt on the seat, and shot the rider in the chest. The wounded man threw his rifle up in the air. It flew end over end and hit the ground before the man did.

  The other rider hesitated, started to rein his horse sideways.

  Ned cocked his pistol again, took careful aim, and squeezed the two-pound trigger.

  The lead ball struck the charging rider in the brisket and tore out a lung before it broke a hole in his back as big as a fist. Blood sprayed from the man’s mouth as he left the saddle and hit the ground in a sickening skid.

  “Jesus Christ,” breathed Switcher, “you killed
both of them.”

  Remington ejected the empty hulls, put two fresh cartridges into his pistol. He walked over to Switcher, picked him up by the collar. He put the pistol barrel up to his prisoner’s lips and forced them open. He slid the barrel inside Switcher’s mouth.

  “And if there was any question that I wouldn’t kill them,” he said, “I’d have blown your stupid brains to pulp. First.”

  Switcher swallowed hard. Beads of sweat broke out over his forehead. He began to tremble.

  “Christ, Marshal,” he said, “I got to go. I got to go real bad.”

  “Piss your pants, you son of a bitch,” said Remington.

  His smile made Switcher’s face go chalk, and it stayed that way all the way to Galena, Missouri, where Judge Samuel Parkhurst Barnstall was preparing to sit on the bench in Western District Circuit Court.

  Chapter 1

  Fred Loomis wasn’t the only barber in Galena, Missouri, but his establishment was the barbershop closest to the courthouse, so when he applied to the court to be the jail barber he got the contract. He knew they had brought in a new prisoner yesterday, so he wasn’t surprised when he was summoned to the jail barbershop for a special job.

  His customer was Amos Mordecai Cullimore, brought in for murdering an Indian girl in Tahlequah, a small settlement down in the Nations. Fred sharpened his scissors as Cullimore shuffled in with a guard, then settled into the barber chair as comfortably as his leg shackles would allow. Cullimore spoke jovially to the barber.

  “Jes’ a little off the top, barber, and a nice trim over the ears.” The prisoner ran his hand across the top of his head. “I don’t get to a barber all that often, so I want you to do a particular nice job.”

  “You slickin’ up for your appointment with the hangman, are you, Cullimore?” the guard asked.

  Cullimore laughed. “Don’t want to spoil your party none, but that’s an appointment I don’t reckon to keep.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Let’s jes’ say that I been around a bit, and I know how to play the game.” Cullimore leaned back in the chair. “Okay, barber, get to cuttin’.”

  Samuel Parkhurst Barnstall, a thick-chested, broad shouldered man with piercing blue eyes and a square chin, stalked through the door of the jail barbershop. He wore a dark suit, slim silk tie, and white shirt. He seemed tall because of his bulk, but he was under six feet. Men who stood in judgment before him would always swear that he was several inches above six feet. When he came into the room he cast a shadow over the barber and the ankle-shackled man sitting in the chair. The scissors clacked like the mandibles of an insect over the shorn edges of his clipped hair. The prisoner looked up at the big man.

  Outside, the sounds of hammering could be heard.

  “You’d be Amos Mordecai Cullimore,” the big man said.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “I looked at your case records over coffee this morning.”

  The sound of hammering grew louder.

  “What’s that infernal racket?” Cullimore asked irritably. “Can’t a man even get a haircut in peace?”

  “The sound you hear is the building of your scaffold, Cullimore.”

  Cullimore grunted. “Judge Binder ain’t gonna hang me.”

  “Binder’s no longer the judge,” the big man said. “I took over his chair.”

  Cullimore looked up at Barnstall, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

  “You the new judge?”

  “I am. The name is Samuel Parkhust Barnstall.”

  “Binder would have let me go free.”

  “How much did you pay him?”

  “A hunnert dollars. Do you the same.”

  Fred Loomis stepped away from the chair then, finished with Cullimore’s hair. The guard stepped up and pulled the prisoner from the chair as the barber shook out the towel.

  “You can’t buy mercy from my court,” said Barnstall.

  “Well, I ain’t goin’ to hang anyways,” Cullimore said. He looked into a mirror to check his haircut.

  Barnstall’s eyebrows arched, like a pair of woolly caterpillars going over a hump.

  “Oh? And where did you get that information?”

  “I got me witnesses said I didn’t go anywhere near that store and kill that woman over to Tahle- quah. ’Sides, she were a squaw anyways.”

  “The witnesses. Are you speaking of the Messrs. Woods and Sisley?”

  “Damned right I am,” Cullimore said.

  Barnstall laughed. “I’m afraid they won’t do you much good.”

  “Why not?”

  “I intend to allow them to testify, then instruct the jury to disregard the testimony.”

  “What? You gonna tell the court not to pay any regard to my witnesses?” Cullimore strained against the guard’s grip on his arms.

  Judge Barnstall did not back away as the prisoner got one arm free and reached out for the jurist’s throat. The guard grabbed the arm, pinned it back as his face flushed and swelled with the effort.

  The judge sat down in the chair vacated by the prisoner, threw his shoulders back, and smiled.

  “I am glad you brought those two in, though. Did me a favor, Cullimore. We’ve been looking for them, too.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll all three hang together.”

  Cullimore, enraged, struggled to break free, lunged two feet toward the chair. The guard put a knee in the prisoner’s back, snaked an arm around Cullimore’s throat. The prisoner gagged, his eyes bulging as if the hatred would boil out of them in a hiss of hot steam.

  “You...you got to give me a fair trial,” gasped Cullimore.

  “Oh, it’ll be fair.”

  “In front of a jury.”

  “Of my peers,” said the judge.

  “I thought it was my peers,” Cullimore said.

  “You thought wrong. There’ll be no murderers or thieves or swine like you sitting in my jury box.”

  “Hell, Judge, you done got your mind made up.”

  “That’s right, Cullimore,” Barnstall said easily.

  “What’s fair about that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe on your way to hell you can ask that Indian woman you killed in cold blood. That is, after your spine snaps like a dry twig, and your face turns purple as you gasp for breath with that hangman’s knot behind your ear.”

  “You son of a bitch. I’ll appeal,” Cullimore swore. Judge Barnstall snapped his fingers at the dumbfounded barber, pointed to his hair.

  “Just a light trim, Fred,” he said softly, as if he didn’t even hear Cullimore’s words.

  “Didn’t you hear me, you fuckin’ bastard? I said I’d appeal to the Supreme Court. You can’t railroad a man to the gallows.”

  Cullimore struggled, but the guard started backing him toward the door. He was bigger than Cullimore. “I’ll appeal...I’ll appeal!” Cullimore gasped.

  The judge looked toward Cullimore as if surprised that he was still there. Then, almost as an afterthought, he explained a few things to the enraged prisoner.

  “Oh, didn’t they tell you, Cullimore? There’s no appeal from my court. Not if you committed a crime in the Nations. For your information, I can do any damned thing I want.” He paused as the barber threw a fresh towel around his neck. The cloth settled regally on his wide shoulders like a mantle of snowy ermine. “And,” the judge continued, “I want to see you hang by your scruffy neck until dead.”

  “No!” Cullimore said. “No, you can’t do this to me, you son of a bitch! I paid Binder a hunnert dollars! I’m being cheated! I’m being cheated!” Cullimore’s voice receded down the hall as the guard took him back to his cell. Judge Samuel Parkhurst Barnstall sighed as Fred began snapping his scissors across the big man’s hair.

  Judge Barnstall had recently taken over the corrupt court of Lucius Binder under direct authorization of the governor of Missouri, Benjamin Gratz Brown, a Republican elected in November 1870. As the scissors clacked quietly over Barnstall’s h
ead, he recalled his meeting with Governor Ben Brown. It seemed like ages ago they had shared a lunch in the governor’s office while the governor gave him his commission and his instructions.

  “I have the full cooperation of the United States government on this, Sam,” the governor said. “You are to implement a force of U.S. territorial marshals with broad powers to cross state lines, work without written warrants, search and seize, do whatever is necessary to bring criminals to justice.”

  “With no interference?” Barnstall asked.

  “With no interference,” the governor promised. He buttered a piece of steaming bread and transferred it to his mouth. Just before he took a bite, he spoke again. “The Nations have been a sanctuary for murderers, thieves, and rapists too long. The federal government doesn’t want it to go on, and I don’t want that kind of sanctuary to exist just across our state line. Do whatever has to be done.”

  “All right,” Barnstall answered.

  “Do you have any ideas who you might get to serve as the chief of your marshals?” the governor asked as he chewed a bite of bread.

  “Yes,” Barnstall said. “I have just the man.” Barnstall didn’t elaborate with the governor, but shortly after he left Jefferson City he contacted the one man he knew could do the job. The man was Ned Remington, already serving as a legitimate U.S. marshal. Barnstall had empowered Remington with the authority to deputize as many men as he might need, whenever and wherever he needed them. He made but one stipulation: If any deputy U.S. marshal broke any state or federal laws while in the service of the court, he would be tried and sentenced for any crime or crimes committed while under the court’s jurisdiction.

  Fred finished with the haircut and Judge Barnstall thanked him, then stepped outside to look toward the gallows. The construction job was nearly completed. All that was left was for him to do his job in the courtroom. That he intended to do.