Longarm and the Lone Star Trackdown by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Chapter 22

Even gagged, all four Gilfeathers made quite a bit of noise during the night. The father, Reuben Gilfeather, tried to bellow curses through his gag when he regained consciousness. Longarm suppressed the urge to just shoot all four of them, and when Ki suggested cutting their tongues out, Longarm vetoed that as well. It would have made quite a mess, and probably would have taken him and O’Malley both to hold each of the owlhoots down while Ki did the cutting, and Longarm didn’t figure the Irishman had the stomach for that.

In the morning, after they had eaten and saddled up their horses, Longarm loosened the Gilfeathers’ bonds so that they could work their way free after a while. He had brought the outlaws’ horses into camp the night before, and now he gathered up their reins. Ki and O’Malley were already mounted. Longarm swung up into the saddle and grinned down at the prisoners.

“Don’t forget what I told you and Joe last night, Calvin,” he said. “You’d better explain it to Mort and your pa and make sure they understand, too, since their lives are riding on it just as much as yours.”

Reuben looked over at his sons and made puzzled, angry grunts through the gag. Calvin just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“So long,” Longarm said as he turned his horse. He rode away with Ki and O’Malley. He and Ki each led two of the extra horses.

When they were out of earshot of the outlaws, O’Malley asked, “Will ye really kill them if ye ever see ’em again, Marshal?”

“I just might,” Longarm said.

Ki laughed. “I doubt it. The marshal may not always want to admit it, Captain, but he is a law-abiding man.”

“Tell that to my boss,” Longarm said with a smile. “He’s all the time hoorawin’ me about the way I do things.”

“Bending a rule is not the same as breaking a law.”

“I’ve been known to break a law or two when I had good cause.”

“And ye used me as bait last night,” O’Malley said, a note of anger in his voice.

“What do you mean?”

“Ye knew I couldn’t move quiet enough to keep those rapscallions from hearin’ me,” the Irishman accused. “Ye wanted them to close in on me and give away where they were so you and Ki could jump them.”

“Well, things sort of worked out that way,” Longarm admitted, “but that don’t mean I planned it.”

O’Malley’s disgusted snort showed how much he believed that claim.

They rode on, following the tracks left by Jessie’s kidnappers. At least, they hoped the kidnappers had left those tracks. They didn’t know that for sure, and the worry that they had guessed wrong gnawed at Longarm’s guts. If it turned out that they weren’t on the right trail, they would have lost days in the search for Jessie.

Around mid-morning, though, after leaving the Gilfeathers’ horses miles from where they had left the outlaws, they got a break. They came upon an aged Mexican herding a flock of sheep, and Longarm signaled a halt.

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