Red River Revenge (Remington Book 1) (11 page)

R
emington dashed
back downstairs and saw Frank and Tom sitting in the lobby. Tom was checking Frank’s gunshot wound.

“Lina’s not up there,” Ned said in an excited voice. “Paco’s gone, too. He’s kidnapped her.”

“We’ll find them, Ned,” Tom said.

“How bad is the wound?” Remington asked.

“Not too bad,” Tom said. “The bullet went clean through the flesh. The desk clerk said there was a doctor up the street and I’m going to take Frank up there.”

“Go ahead,” Ned said. “I’m going to check out back. I’ll meet you at the doctor’s office in a few minutes.”

Ned stopped at the counter and asked the desk clerk if he had seen Lina and the Mexican come downstairs.

“No,” the clerk said, “but I haven’t been here all the time. After the shooting, I went to fetch the sheriff. I just got back.”

“Thanks anyway,” Ned said. He dashed down the hall and went out the back door. It was already dark outside. He didn’t see anybody in the alley. He walked around but couldn’t find anything that indicated that Lina and the Mexican had been there. He didn’t have a lantern and it was too dark to see much. In the starlight he did notice that there were a lot of hoof prints in the loose dirt, but he figured those belonged to customers of the hotel.

Frustrated, he walked back through the hotel lobby, and then went to the doctor’s office. The elderly doctor gave Ned the report that he had cauterized the wound and wrapped it in sterile bandages. The doctor gave Ned a bundle of sterile clothes and told him to change the dressings at least once a day. He informed him that there was a chance that the wound would still become infected.

Ned paid the doctor for his services and after the three deputies left the doctor’s office, Ned informed them that they had to track the girl down.

“I think the outlaws teamed up and took Lina with them,” he said as he and Tom helped Frank up in his saddle.

“Van Hook, too?” Tom asked. “Do you think he’s with them?”

“I think so. And I don’t think they’ll kill Lina as long as they think we’re tracking them. Paco knows that I won’t risk her life. As long as they’ve got her, they’ll figure we won’t get too close.”

“You’re probably right, Ned.”

“You’re the tracker in the family, Tom. You got any idea where they might have gone?”

Tom shook his head. “Hell, they could be anyplace. They could have gone back to Van Hook’s ranch. That would have been the smartest thing to do, but since we know where it is, they probably won’t risk it. We don’t know where Paco and Haskins live, do we?”

“No,” said Ned. “But since the cattle rustling operation seems to center around here and the Red River Station, Van Hook has probably provided them with a hideout shack somewhere between here and there.”

“Didn’t someone tell us that Paco and Haskins were staying at a little town near the Red, downstream from Tishomingo?” Beck asked.

“Yes. You think they went there?”

“Hell, for all we know they could be out on another raid.” Tom said. “And that could be anywhere from here to the Nations, or on over to Arkansas, or maybe even Missouri. It ain’t gonna be easy.”

“What about you, Frank?” Ned asked. “Do you feel up to riding tonight?”

“Not really,” Frank said, his voice weak.

“Tonight?” Beck said. “There’s not much we can do tonight except to ride around in circles and check out our hunches. It’d be better to wait until morning when I can look for tracks.”

“I figure they’re going to be riding all night to put some miles between us,” Ned said. “If so, they may get too far ahead of us for us to ever find them.”

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take, Ned. They’ve got to stop sometime to sleep. And Van Hook’s a prissy old lady. He ain’t gonna want to be sleeping on the hard ground. Not when his money can buy the best hotels and food in the country.”

“We’ll wait until morning, then,” Ned agreed. “Maybe you’ll be feeling better by then, Frank.”

In the morning, Frank Shaw was stronger. He felt good except for the throbbing pain in his arm.

The three deputies left the Nocono Hotel at dawn and rode south far enough for Beck to know that he hadn’t found the tracks he was looking for. They turned around, rode back through town, and checked the tracks again when they were out on the open road.

Tom finally found what he was looking for. One set of hoof prints was shallow and it was made by an unshod horse. That would be Lina’s Indian pony. He had noted before that her pony was unshod. He found a distinguishing mark on another set of hoof prints. One of the horseshoes had a triangular-shaped nick in it.

“They’re headed for the Red River,” he told the others.

For the next two days, the deputies took almost the same path they had covered before as they tracked the outlaws north to Tishomingo. And then for the next four days they backtracked on the same well-traveled road they had used to get to Tishomingo, losing sight of the tracks at times, picking them up again further along the trail. Not once in all that time did they see Lina or the outlaws, but Tom assured them that they were making progress and that the foursome was still riding together.

It wasn’t until they reached Sallisaw, near the Arkansas border, that things changed.

“Lina’s not riding with them anymore,” Beck said after examining the tracks for several miles after he first discovered that the unshod pony’s tracks were not with the others.

Remington became alarmed. “What does that mean?” he asked. “Do you think they killed her?”

“Maybe not,” Beck said. “Maybe she escaped from them.”

T
he deputies backtracked
to the place where Tom had first discovered that Lina’s tracks were missing. After walking in all different directions, carefully examining the ground, he finally found Lina’s tracks again.

“Lina’s alive,” Tom said.

“Thank God,” Ned sighed.

“She escaped from her captors. The tracks seem to be headed for Tahlequah.”

“I think she’s heading home to Osage,” Remington said. “My guess is that she’ll go through Siloam Springs.”

“I think you’re right about her heading home,” Shaw said. “But Tahlequah would be out of her way.” His arm was healing nicely and hardly hurt anymore.

“She probably went that way to throw the outlaws off guard if they tried to follow her,” Beck said.

“She’s smart enough to do it,” Ned said.

“Now we’ve got a big decision to make,” Tom said. “Do we follow Lina, or do we follow the outlaws?”

“There’s no question about it,” Remington said.

“We go after Lina. Once we find her, we can always go after the outlaws.”

“Then do we go to Tahlequah or Siloam Springs?” Beck asked.

“Siloam Springs,” Ned said. “I know she’ll be there and it’ll cut out a lot of time. If we’re closing in on them as fast as you say we are, Tom, we might even beat her there.”

“We will beat her there, if my calculations are right,” Beck said.

The men headed for Siloam Springs and got there early in the morning of the third day.

Siloam Springs was quiet when they arrived. The deputies took up a position in a grove of trees where they could watch the road from Tahlequah.

They waited and waited. The hours dragged by and the men were sure they had made a wrong decision. They were about to leave when they saw a lone rider heading toward them.

Twenty minutes later, Lina Miller rode up, totally exhausted. Her horse was lathered, almost ready to cash it in.

“They’re right behind me,” she cried. Ned helped her down from her saddle and she fell into his arms. “I just knew they were going to catch up to me today,” she sobbed. “They’re trying to kill me.”

“It’s all right now, Lina,” Ned said as he wrapped his arms around her. “We’ll help you.”

“I know you will,” she sobbed. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Tom Beck is the best tracker around. He knew at every turn in the road just where you were going. He told us that you escaped from the outlaws near Sallisaw.”

Lina pulled away from Ned, “That’s amazing,” she said.

“Tom also told us you were going to Tahlequah,” Ned said.

“I did,” she laughed. “I didn’t want them to know I was going back to Arkansas so I went the long way around.”

Ned Remington looked off in the distance and saw the spools of dust kicked up by the fast-approaching horses. “They’re coming fast,” he said.

Lina and the two deputies turned and saw the riders.

“Give me a rifle or your spare pistol,” Lina said to Ned.

“You’re in no condition to fight, Lina,” he said. “Just stay out of sight and let us handle it. Besides, I want these men alive.”

“Why?” she asked. “Haven’t they killed enough?”

“They’re going to trial,” Ned said. “I want them to stand trial in front of Judge Barnstall.”

“All right,” she said. “I won’t shoot to kill. But let me help. Please.”

Reluctantly, Ned gave her an extra pistol and the ammunition to go with it. They all tucked back into the grove of trees.

As the riders came on fast, Ned kicked Lina’s horse and sent it out onto the trail. The trick worked. The outlaws charged.

“Shoot low,” Ned said. “Try to hit the horses, not the men.”

He took aim and shot Paco Gaton’s horse in the leg. The horse faltered and went down. Gaton slammed to the ground and the horse rolled over on his legs.

Lina shot Peter Van Hook’s horse right out from under him.

Norville Haskins whirled his horse around and made a break for it just as Remington took aim. Ned adjusted his aim and shot at the retreating horse. His shot was high and he hit the rider instead. Haskins tumbled from his saddle, a bullet in his back.

Van Hook was up and running and Tom Beck chased him down, tackled him to the ground. Beck dragged him back over to the trees and Frank Shaw helped him put the handcuffs on.

Paco Gaton cursed a blue streak as he struggled to free himself from the weight of his downed horse. Ned and Beck walked over and pulled the animal’s legs off of the outlaw. They shackled him on the spot.

Haskins was still alive and not badly wounded. The bullet passed through the fleshy ring of fat just below his ribs. He crawled into the thick brush while the others were busy with the other outlaws.

A few minutes later, Remington heard the click of a cocking pistol. He turned around just in time to see Lina running toward the brush. He knew the clicking sound had come from the brush. He glanced around and didn’t see Haskins on the ground where he had fallen from his horse. And then he knew. Haskins was in the brush, prepared to kill one of them.

“No, Lina!” he called just as the girl disappeared into the brush.

A shot rang out and Ned was certain that Lina had been killed,

Ned and Tom approached the brush cautiously. The brush rattled and they jumped back just as Lina emerged from the thick brush, carrying the pistol.

“I—I only had one bullet left,” she said in a shaky voice.

“What about Haskins?” Remington asked. •

“He’s in there. Dead.”

“Did you have to kill him?”

“Yes. He was going to kill one of you I fought off his advances when I was with them. He hurt me very badly. He has been trying to kill me all along. I hated him. That’s what finally gave me the courage to escape from those dreadful murderers. I wanted to kill all of them. I still do.”

“You’d better give me that pistol,” Ned said.

She looked over at the two prisoners with hatred in her eyes. “Yes, maybe I should,” she said bitterly.

She handed the Colt to Ned.

Ned let out a sigh of relief. He spun the cylinder around and saw that there was still one shot left. He looked at Lina.

“That was for me, if I missed,” she said softly. Remington looked hard at her for a long time. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

“Let’s go,” he said gruffly. “Tom, mount ’em up.”

“Sure,” said Tom. He glanced at Lina and shook his head. “I’m sure glad she’s going to come willin’,” he told Ned.

“So am I, Tom,” Ned said with a smile. “So am I.”

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R
obert Vaughan
sold
his first book when he was 19. That was 57 years and nearly 500 books ago. He wrote the novelization for the miniseries
Andersonville
. Vaughan wrote, produced, and appeared in the History Channel documentary
Vietnam Homecoming
. His books have hit the NYT bestseller list seven times. He has won the Spur Award, the PORGIE Award (Best Paperback Original), the Western Fictioneers Lifetime Achievement Award, received the Readwest President’s Award for Excellence in Western Fiction, is a member of the American Writers Hall of Fame and is a Pulitzer Prize nominee. Vaughn is also a retired army officer, helicopter pilot with three tours in Vietnam. And received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, The Bronze Star with three oak leaf clusters, the Air Medal for valor with 35 oak leaf clusters, the Army Commendation Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

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