Moonshine Massacre

by William W. Johnstone

  She kissed him again, her lips finding his with an unerring instinct despite the thick shadows inside the barn.

  The kiss lasted a long time, and when it was over, Matt’s heart was pounding hard in his chest. Blood roared in his ears. He barely heard Frankie slip away from him and leave the barn.

  But by the time a couple of minutes had gone by, he had calmed down enough so that he had no trouble hearing Sam say, “You gave her your word that you’d help her and her family, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Matt said.

  “Oh, come on, Matt! You know good and well you haven’t been over there for the past ten minutes whispering to some cat. That was Frankie Harlow. She came out here to convince you to help them. Thing of it is, she probably didn’t realize that you didn’t need any extra convincing. You would have thrown in with them just from what you’d seen so far.”

  “You think whatever you want to think, Sam. But just so you’ll know, I’m not goin’ back to Cottonwood with you in the mornin’. Reckon I’ll stay out here for a while and see how things go with Cimarron Kane and his bunch.”

  “Somehow I’m not surprised,” Sam said, and Matt heard the disapproval in his blood brother’s voice.

  “We’ve ridden different trails before,” he pointed out. “It’s nothing new.”

  “Nope,” Sam agreed.

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  “I didn’t say I was worried.”

  “Well…that’s good.”

  Matt stretched out in the hay, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep. He had a hard time of it, though, because whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was worried. Because of the circumstances, there was a chance that this time, he and Sam might wind up not only on different trails, but on opposite sides of the law as well.

  And that couldn’t be good for anyone.

  Things didn’t look any better when Matt woke up the next morning. An awkward silence lay between him and Sam. As longtime trail partners, they could sometimes ride for hours without either of them saying a word, and those quiet stretches never seemed to bother them. It was different this morning, though. The fact that they couldn’t find anything to say to each other spoke volumes.

  Farrell Harlow came out to the barn while the blood brothers were tending to their horses and told them, “Frankie says to come on in for breakfast.”

  “Tell your sister we’ll be right there,” Matt said as he poured some grain from a bucket into a feed trough for their mounts.

  Farrell grunted in acknowledgment and started to turn away, then paused.

  “Is it true that you’re as fast on the draw as folks say you are, Mr. Bodine?”

  “Well, I don’t know what everybody says,” Matt replied with a faint smile, “but I reckon I’m fast enough to still be alive.”

  “I’ve heard that you can outdraw anybody except maybe Smoke Jensen or Frank Morgan.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Never met those fellas. Wouldn’t have any reason to draw against them if I did, from what I know of them. They don’t go around huntin’ trouble any more than I do.”

  “Men like you, they always find it, though.”

  Matt shrugged. “Sometimes it seems like that, don’t it?”

  A few minutes later, he and Sam went into the house. “Mornin’, boys,” Thurman Harlow said from the stove, where he was pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Sleep good?”

  “Fine,” Sam said. “We’re obliged to you for the hospitality, Mr. Harlow.”

  “Think nothin’ of it. One good turn deserves another, I always say, and you done us a mighty good turn when you run off those bushwhackin’ Kanes before Frankie got hurt.”

  Frankie stood by the stove, too, cooking flapjacks in a big iron skillet. As she turned them, she said curtly over her shoulder, “Sit down, you two. Pa, fetch them some coffee.”

  “Sure,” Harlow agreed. He gestured toward a jug that sat on a nearby shelf. “You fellas care for a little sweetenin’ in it?”

  Matt shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  “Black is fine,” Sam added.

  “Yeah, it’s a mite early, even for ’shine as good as we make,” Harlow agreed.

  The four brothers weren’t in the cabin’s main room. “Where are your sons?” Sam asked.

  “Out tendin’ to chores.” Harlow didn’t explain what those chores were, but Matt thought they might have something to do with brewing whiskey. He hadn’t seen any evidence that the family’s still was located inside the cabin, so it had to be somewhere else, probably close by.

  Thurman Harlow set cups of steaming black coffee in front of Matt and Sam. He said, “Frankie tells me you’re gonna be stayin’ on with us for a while, Mr. Bodine.”

  “That’s right,” Matt said. He picked up his coffee and blew on the strong black brew to cool it. “Until I see what Cimarron Kane and his relatives are gonna be up to next.”

  “It won’t be anything good, I reckon you can count on that. I appreciate you offerin’ to help us, and you’re mighty welcome to stay as long as you want.” Harlow looked over at Sam. “I don’t mean to slight you by sayin’ that, Mr. Two Wolves. I reckon you and Mr. Bodine just look at things differentlike, that’s all.”

  Sam nodded. “Sometimes that’s true,” he agreed. He looked at Matt, eyes narrowing as he did so. “This happens to be one of those times.”

  “Well, any time you feel like ridin’ on out here to see us, you’ll be welcome as you can be.” Harlow turned to the stove. “Them flapjacks about ready, honey?”

  Frankie brought a platter full of the hot flapjacks over to the table, along with a bowl of molasses. “Help yourself,” she said as she set the food on the table.

  The blood brothers dug in. The meal was simple but delicious, especially when the flapjacks and molasses were washed down with the hot coffee. Matt and Sam both relaxed a little as they ate, and the friction between them was forgotten for a while.

  But then the meal was over, and the time had come for Sam to head back to Cottonwood while Matt stayed here on the Harlow homestead. Neither of them knew when they would see each other again.

  Or under what circumstances that meeting might take place.

  Chapter 15

  “There’s one thing we need to get straight,” Matt said as Sam led his horse out of the barn a short time later. The two of them were alone.

  “You know you can say whatever’s on your mind,” Sam told his blood brother.

  “What you know about the Harlows…and about Loomis’s saloon in town, for that matter…you need to keep that to yourself and not go tellin’ Marshal Coleman all about it.”

  “Why would I tell the marshal?” Sam asked as he regarded Matt steadily.

  “Because you’re friends with him…and because of the way we both know how you feel about Hannah, whether you want to admit it or not.”

  Sam felt his face growing warm as he frowned. “You’re wrong about Hannah,” he insisted. “And as for the marshal, well, enforcing the law is his job, not mine.”

  “Even if he talks you into pinnin’ on a tin star as his deputy?”

  “I won’t say anything about the Harlows or about Loomis’s place,” Sam promised. “That just wouldn’t be right.” He paused. “What about Cimarron Kane wanting to take over the whiskey business around here?”

  Matt smiled slightly. “I reckon you can say anything you want to about Kane. That won’t bother me a bit.”

  Sam nodded. He picked up the reins, grasped the saddle horn, and swung up into the saddle. “I’ll be seeing you, Matt,” he said. “You know where to find me if you need me.”

  “Likewise.” Matt held up his hand. “So long.”

  Sam gripped Matt’s hand. “So long.”

  He rode away without looking back. There was no point in thinking about the circumstances or the decision that each of them had made. Sam knew how strong-willed Matt Bodine was. It was almost impossible to change Matt’s mind once he’d made it
up. And to be fair, Sam thought with a wry smile, he himself could be a mite stubborn at times.

  He headed for Cottonwood, retracing the trail he and Matt had followed the night before. When he reached the spot where the Kanes had ambushed Frankie, he reined in and studied the place in broad daylight this time.

  It was a good place for an ambush, Sam thought, with a view of the road and adequate cover on top of the ridge. He was a little surprised that Cimarron Kane hadn’t stood his ground the night before, since there had been at least half a dozen bushwhackers with only him and Matt to oppose them.

  However, the blood brothers had been moving fast enough and spraying so much lead at the top of the hill, Kane might not have been able to tell exactly how many men had ridden to Frankie Harlow’s rescue. He could have believed that the odds were much closer to even, in which case staying on the hill and getting pinned down in a cross fire would have been a dangerous thing for him and his companions to do. So Kane had chosen the better part of valor and lit a shuck out of there.

  That line of reasoning told Sam that Cimarron Kane was a man who liked to have the odds on his side. Sam tucked that bit of information away in his brain, because you never knew what might turn out to be important in a fight.

  He reached Cottonwood by mid-morning and went first to Loomis’s livery stable to put up his horse. Ike Loomis greeted him with a nod and the shift of an unlit cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.

  “You boys been stayin’ out of trouble here in Cottonwood?” Loomis asked around the stogie as he took charge of Sam’s horse.

  “That’s right. You stay on top of everything that’s going on in this town, don’t you?”

  “Yep. Mike gives me a full report ever’ night. Lord knows, there ain’t much goes on anywhere in Cottonwood that I don’t know about.” Loomis frowned slightly. “I don’t know where that partner of yours is, though.”

  “He’s tending to some business of his own,” Sam said, leaving it at that. He could tell that the liveryman was extremely curious about Matt, but Loomis didn’t probe for more information, and Sam didn’t offer it.

  He left the stable and started toward the marshal’s office, intending to check with Coleman and see if there had been any more trouble in town. Before he reached the squat stone building, though, the sudden pounding of hoofbeats made him stop and look around while he was still in the street.

  Half a dozen riders pounded toward him, and it appeared that they didn’t intend to slow down. Sam got a good look at the man who rode slightly in the lead. The hombre sat tall in the saddle and wore black trousers and a black coat over a white shirt. A black Stetson with a curled brim was crammed down tightly on snow-white hair that grew down around his shoulders. He was clean-shaven, with a craggy, hawklike face that years of exposure to the sun had burnished to a copper not unlike Sam’s own skin tone, although this man didn’t look like he had any Indian blood in him.

  Sam took all that in, then had to move quickly to get out of the way before the horses trampled him. When he reached the boardwalk, he turned to follow the riders with his eyes. The men following the leader all had hard, hawkish countenances, too.

  Sam had a hunch he was looking at Cimarron Kane and some of his kin.

  That hunch grew stronger when the men drew rein in front of the marshal’s office. The tall, white-haired man dismounted and handed his reins to one of his companions. Then he went inside and left the others sitting there on their saddles.

  Sam continued toward his destination. He still wanted to speak to Marshal Coleman, and he wasn’t going to let Cimarron Kane stop him.

  One of the men on horseback made a move to do just that, however, edging his horse closer to the boardwalk as Sam approached.

  “Hey, you! What’re you doin’?”

  Sam nodded toward the door of the office. “Going to see the marshal.”

  “No, you ain’t. Our cousin’s in there right now, and he’s got important business with that damn lawman. You just get on outta here.”

  Sam shook his head and said, “I don’t think so.” He kept walking.

  The man moved fast as he got off his horse and hopped onto the boardwalk to block Sam’s path. He stuck his jaw out belligerently and demanded, “Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

  “I heard you.”

  “Well, you must not’ve understood.” The man’s lip curled in a sneer. “And I reckon now I see why. You’re a Injun, ain’t you, or at least a filthy half-breed?”

  With an effort, Sam controlled his temper. “Just step out of my way, please. I’m not looking for any trouble.”

  “You talk mighty fancy for a redskin. You go to mission school, boy?”

  It wouldn’t do any good to mention the prestigious university back east he’d attended, Sam thought. The man sneering at him had probably never even heard of it. Sam said, sharper this time, “Step aside.”

  Fury darkened the man’s face. “No Injun’s gonna talk to me that way,” he said. “Come on, boys, let’s teach this red son of a bitch a lesson.”

  With potential odds of five to one facing him, Sam didn’t waste any time thinking about how it sure would have been nice to have Matt at his side right now. He just went to work, and the first thing he did was to improve those odds by twenty percent.

  He brought his left fist rocketing up in a terrific punch that landed squarely in the middle of the man’s sneering face. The impact of that blow lifted the hombre completely off his feet, sent him sailing backward through the air, and brought him crashing down onto the boardwalk in a crumpled, senseless heap.

  By the time the man hit the planks, Sam had used his own momentum that had been behind the punch to help him whirl toward the men still on horseback. His right hand dipped to his Colt and palmed it out in a draw so swift that it would have shaded nine out of ten men. The revolver came level in Sam’s rock-steady hand as he pointed it at the other four men, none of whom had had a chance to do anything other than sit there and gape foolishly at what had just happened.

  “The first man who reaches for a gun, I’ll blow him out of the saddle,” Sam warned.

  “The hell you will!” a voice grated from his left. Sam’s eyes flicked in that direction for a second and saw the tall, white-haired man standing in the open doorway of the marshal’s office. The man had a long-barreled Remington revolver in his hand, and the gun was pointed right at Sam’s head. “Drop your gun, you son of a bitch,” the man went on, “or I’ll kill you where you stand!”

  Cimarron Kane had the drop on him.

  Chapter 16

  But Kane wasn’t the only player who had taken cards in this deadly game. From behind him in the office came the unmistakable sound of a pair of hammers being eared back. Marshal Coleman said, “If I let loose with both barrels of this Greener at this range, Kane, there won’t hardly be enough left of you to bury.”

  Sam saw Kane stiffen and glance back over his shoulder. “You do that, Marshal, and you won’t live another minute,” he warned. “My kin will see to that.”

  Coleman sounded calm as he said, “In that case, I’ll just use one barrel. That’ll still splatter you all over the street, and I can save the other barrel for the rest of your no-account bunch.”

  Despite the tense situation, Sam wanted to smile at the marshal’s coolheaded comment. Kane must have realized that he didn’t have any cards to play, because he slowly lowered the Remington.

  “I ain’t gonna forget this, Coleman,” he said in ominous tones. “Nor the way you locked up my cousins, neither.”

  “I want you to remember it,” Coleman countered. “I want you to remember that you aren’t the law in Cottonwood. I am. As for those cousins of yours, if they hadn’t taken those shots at me, they’d have likely just been fined for disturbing the peace and would be out of jail by now. Trying to kill a peace officer is something else entirely. It’ll be up to the circuit judge to decide what to do with them when he comes through in a couple of weeks. Until then, like I told
you, they stay locked up.”

  Kane’s arm hung at his side, the revolver still tightly gripped in his hand. But as Sam continued to cover the rest of the bunch, Kane holstered the gun and heaved an angry sigh. He started toward his horse and snapped, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “But what about Dud and Nelse and Wiley?” one of the men asked. “What are we gonna do about them?”

  Another man spoke up. “Yeah, Cimarron. You gonna let kin just rot in jail?”

  “Shut up!” Kane blazed as he jerked his reins away from the man who’d been holding them. “I still give the orders here, and you’d damn well better not forget it. We’ll deal with that law dog some other time.”

  Stiff with fury, Kane swung up into the saddle and hauled hard on the reins to pull his horse around. The others got out of his way as he cruelly dug his spurs into the animal’s flanks and sent it galloping back down the street. The others followed him, although not without visible reluctance on the part of some of them. Sam waited until they had vanished in a cloud of dust at the end of the street before finally lowering his gun.

  Marshal Coleman came up beside him, holding the shotgun he had used to threaten Kane. “Glad you came along when you did, Sam,” he said. “If Kane hadn’t gotten distracted by what was goin’ on out here, I don’t know if I’d have been able to get my hands on this scattergun.”

  Sam slid his Colt into its holster. “I take it Kane came to town to try to get his cousins released?”

  “Yeah, he heard about them being arrested. Figured he could ride in with some of his gunslinging kinfolk, bluster a little bit, and get me to turn them loose.” Coleman shook his head. “He figured wrong.”

  “He won’t let it go at that, though, will he?”

  Coleman sighed. “Probably not. But we’ll worry about that later.” He tucked the shotgun under his left arm and clapped his right hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, son. Where’s that side-kick of yours?”