Angry shouting drew Matt’s attention to the chamber where the still was located. He saw all four Harlow brothers come through the entrance, and so did Frankie. “Thank God,” she breathed. One of her brothers was limping, but they were all alive and relatively unscathed, from the looks of it. A couple of them finished the job of stomping out the flames from the torches.
Matt whistled for the stallion. The horse came through the field with Frankie’s bay trailing along behind it. Matt and Frankie grabbed the reins and led the animals toward the cabin. Frankie’s brothers were converging on the cabin as well.
They all got there about the same time. “Pa!” Frankie said as she hurried toward him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine as frog’s hair,” Thurman Harlow replied in his mild-mannered voice. “Those varmints shot up the place mighty good, but I kept my head down as much as I could and didn’t get hit.”
“Dex got a crease on his leg, Pa,” one of the brothers reported. Matt still wasn’t quite sure which one was which.
“Ah, hell, I’ll be all right,” Dex said. “Ain’t nothin’ but a puny little scratch.”
“Looks like it bled right smart for a puny little scratch,” Harlow said with a nod toward his son’s blood-soaked pants leg. “Better let your sister take you inside and clean that up.”
Frankie took hold of Dex’s arm. “Come on and don’t argue about it.”
“Pa, she’s rough as a cob when she goes to tendin’ to hurts, and you know it!” Dex protested.
“Go on, boy,” Harlow said. “You don’t want to get blood poisonin’.”
While Frankie took her brother into the cabin, Matt walked over to the barn, expecting to find at least one body there. Instead, although there were a couple of generous splashes of blood on the ground, there were no corpses.
“Either those hombres I ventilated weren’t quite dead, or their compadres took the bodies with them,” he said to Thurman Harlow, who had followed him.
“I seen a couple of them helpin’ other fellas into the saddle,” Harlow confirmed. “Wish I’d gotten outside in time to give ’em a load of buckshot.”
“If you had, they might have killed you, too,” Matt pointed out. “I reckon we were all mighty lucky that things didn’t turn out any worse than they did.”
Harlow shook his head. “Luck didn’t have nothin’ to do with it,” he declared. “I reckon the rest of us are alive right now ’cause you were around to lend us a hand, Mr. Bodine. Without you and Frankie doin’ what you did, they’ve have blowed up the still and roasted my boys along with it. Then they’d’ve rooted me out of the cabin and killed me, too.”
Harlow was probably right about that, Matt thought. But he just nodded and said, “I’m glad I was here. You think it was Cimarron Kane and his kinfolks?”
Harlow rubbed his fingers across his stubbled jaw. “Well…I didn’t actually see Cimarron amongst ’em, mind you…but who else could it have been?”
Matt didn’t have an answer for that. He figured Cimarron Kane was to blame for this attack, whether the leader of the bloodthirsty clan had actually been part of it or not.
“Maybe we ought to think about takin’ the war to the Kanes,” he said. “Otherwise, all we can do is sit back and wait for them to hit you again.”
“You reckon? Maybe what happened today will convince ’em to leave us alone.”
Matt glanced at the blood spilled on the ground next to the barn and knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of that.
Chapter 20
Sam watched as Ambrose Porter, Calvin Bickford, and the other men drove the prison wagons into the shade of the trees along the creek at Cottonwood. Porter designated two deputies to stand guard over the wagons, while the others took the saddle mounts to the livery stable.
They would probably be surprised, Sam mused, if they knew they were turning their horses over to the man responsible for selling illegal liquor here in town.
Sam wasn’t just about to tell them, though, and he didn’t think that anyone else in the settlement would, either.
Porter and Bickford left the wagons and walked toward Main Street, carrying their rifles. As they came closer to Sam, Porter stopped short and frowned at him, suspicion etched deeply on the hawkish, sunburned face.
“Don’t I know you?” he snapped.
“We met yesterday,” Sam said. “Ten miles west of here where you blew up that cabin.”
Bickford grinned and said, “Oh, yeah, sure! Ambrose, this is that fella Two Wolves. Where’s your friend Bodine?”
“Tending to some business of his own,” Sam replied.
Bickford nodded at the badge pinned to Sam’s shirt. “You didn’t mention you were a lawman.”
“Wasn’t, then,” Sam replied with a shake of his head. “I just took the job of deputy to Marshal Coleman today.”
“Marshal Marshall Coleman,” Bickford said with a laugh. “A good man, from what I hear.”
“He is,” Sam said.
Porter said, “Stay out of our way.”
Sam frowned. “I wasn’t intending to—”
“Our authority supersedes yours,” Porter went on as if Sam hadn’t said anything. “If you try to interfere with us, you’ll be subject to the same treatment we’d give anyone selling or brewing illegal liquor.”
Sam tried to rein in his temper, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “You mean you’ll blow me up with a bomb, too?”
“Just give me an excuse,” Porter said between clenched teeth. Then he pushed past Sam, brushing him harder with a shoulder than he needed to.
Sam half turned to watch him go, then said to Bickford, who still stood there, “Is he like that with everybody?”
Bickford sighed. “I’m afraid Ambrose doesn’t have much patience with people. He’s very devoted to his job, you understand, and he can’t stand the idea of anything or anyone keeping him from doing it to his fullest.”
“If he keeps that up, somebody’s going to take offense and draw on him.”
Bickford shook his head. “It would be a real shame if that happened. Ambrose is pretty fast on the draw himself, you see. In fact, I’ve never come across anybody faster. I’m not sure even your friend Bodine could beat him.” The pudgy little special marshal brightened. “Luckily, we’ll never have to find out, because you and Bodine are law-abiding citizens, aren’t you, Sam?”
“We try to be,” Sam allowed.
“And now that you’re a fellow lawman, well, I’m sure there won’t be any trouble. In fact, if we need a hand while we’re here in town, we’ll be able to count on you, won’t we?”
Sam didn’t care for the question, but he had to nod. “Sure. How long do you plan to be here?”
“I suppose that’ll depend on what the doctor says about our prisoners. If he thinks they’re fit to travel, we’ll probably pull out later today and get started to Wichita. If not, I guess we’ll wait a few days and let them get stronger.”
Sam nodded again. He knew that Marshal Coleman wanted Bickford, Porter, and the others out of Cottonwood as soon as possible, so he hoped the doctor would say the prisoners were all right to travel now.
“Ambrose has gone to find the doctor,” Bickford went on. “We should know something soon.”
“It would be a good idea if you kept Marshal Coleman informed about what you’re doing.”
“Of course.” Bickford’s head bobbed up and down in a nod. “We always try to cooperate with the local law.”
Sam didn’t figure that Porter cooperated with anybody, but he didn’t say that.
“Say, did Coleman tell you to keep an eye on the wagons?” Bickford went on.
“That’s right.”
“It’s not necessary, you know. We always have at least two men standing guard.”
“Yes, I can see that, but since that’s what he told me to do…”
“Of course, of course. Wouldn’t want you to disobey orders, especially your first day on the job!” Bickford raised a hand in fare
well. “Well, see you later. I’m going to go find a café and get a cup of coffee. Nothing like a hot cup of belly wash!”
The amiable little special marshal walked off toward Main Street. Sam moved into the shade of a cottonwood, leaned against a tree trunk, crossed his arms over his chest, and settled down to watch the wagons as Marshal Coleman had told him to do.
The moaning and cursing that came from inside the wagons brought a frown to Sam’s face after only a few minutes. Not so much the profanities, but the sounds of men in pain bothered him. He stood it for a while, but eventually he straightened from his casual pose against the tree and walked toward the wagons.
One of the guards saw him coming and stepped out to meet him. The man was rawboned and had a lantern jaw with dark stubble on it. He held a Winchester at a slant across his narrow chest.
“You best hold it right there, mister,” he warned as Sam came closer.
Sam stopped. “I’m a deputy, too.”
The man shook his head. “You ain’t a special deputy workin’ for the governor, like I am, so that means you ain’t squat as far as I’m concerned. Marshal Porter said nobody was to come around them prisoners, and that means nobody.”
“Sounds like some of them are in pretty bad shape.”
A leer stretched the guard’s thin-lipped mouth. “Never you mind about what kinda shape they’re in. They got what was comin’ to ’em, the damn moonshiners!”
“You never took a drink yourself?” Sam asked sharply.
The way the guard glared and then suddenly, furtively, ran his tongue over his lips told Sam that the man had indeed taken a drink in the past. He could have used one right now, in fact.
But then a stubborn expression came over the guard’s face, and he said, “That ain’t none o’ your business. Just back off, or when Marshal Porter gets here, I’ll tell him to arrest you, too!”
“Shouldn’t he have been back by now with the doctor?”
“That ain’t none o’ my concern.” The guard started to swing the muzzle of his rifle in Sam’s direction. “Now skedaddle, or—”
The face of one of the prisoners appeared in the small, barred window on the side of the lead wagon. The window was set so high that the man must have had to pull himself up somehow.
“Mister!” he cried in a wretched voice. “Mister, you gotta help us!”
The guard whipped around and yelled, “You get away from that window, you bastard!”
The prisoner was looking straight at Sam. “They’re gonna murder us! You gotta help!”
“I said shut up, damn you!” The guard lunged at the wagon. Sam followed and saw that the prisoner was holding on to the bars, supporting himself that way. Then the guard lashed out with his rifle, slamming the barrel against the bars and smashing the prisoner’s fingers. The man screeched in pain and dropped out of sight.
“You probably broke his fingers!” Sam exclaimed angrily.
The guard whirled toward him, snarling, “I told you to get the hell out—”
Sam’s patience had reached its limits. He reached out, took hold of the guard’s rifle, and plucked the weapon out of the man’s hands. Sam’s movements were so smooth and efficient that he didn’t even appear to be moving fast, but in reality, he had taken the guard’s rifle away before the man even knew what happened. When the guard let out an outraged howl and clawed at the revolver holstered on his hip, Sam swung the Winchester and caught the man on the side of the head with the stock, knocking him senseless to the ground.
“You sonuva—”
That angry shout came from the other guard, who was charging toward him. Sam dropped the rifle, pivoted lightly, and drew his Colt at the same time. The special deputy skidded to a shocked, frightened halt as he found himself staring down the rock-steady barrel of Sam’s revolver from a distance of about four feet.
“Whatever you were about to do, I’d advise you not to,” Sam said quietly.
The man’s prominent Adam’s apple jumped up and down as he swallowed. “Mister, you’re crazy! When Porter gets back here, he’ll throw you in one of those wagons!”
“He may try,” Sam said. Despite the fact that Matt was generally the more reckless and hotheaded of the pair, Sam had just as deep a reserve of outrage when he saw something happening that shouldn’t be. And when Sam Two Wolves finally lost his temper, as was about to happen here, he was every bit as much a man to stand aside from as Matt Bodine was.
He went on. “Put your rifle on the ground, and then put your pistol beside it.”
“I’m not givin’ up my guns,” the guard insisted. Sam had to give him credit for some courage. It took sand to refuse to follow orders when a fella was pointing a gun at your face from only a few feet away.
The standoff came to an end a couple of heartbeats later when Marshal Coleman roared, “What in blazes is goin’ on here?”
“Stand aside!” That was Ambrose Porter. “Stand aside, by God! I’m going to kill that man!”
“The hell you will! That’s my deputy!”
From the corner of his eye, Sam saw Coleman and Porter hurrying toward the wagons, trailed by a man in a dark suit who was probably Cottonwood’s doctor. Porter carried his rifle, and Coleman had drawn his handgun. It was a question now of who was going to shoot who.
But it seemed entirely likely that one way or another, in the next moment or two, bullets were going to fly.
Chapter 21
“Sam!” Marshal Coleman bellowed. “Put away that gun! That’s an order!”
“Marshal, you don’t understand—” Sam began.
“I understand that you pinned on that badge, and that means you do what I tell you, damn it! We’re all lawmen here. We don’t need to go around killin’ each other.”
Porter was so tightly strung that he quivered a little as he said, “That man is under arrest. I’m within my rights to kill him for assaulting a special officer and interfering with the performance of our duties.”
“Nobody’s gonna arrest anybody,” Coleman said, still trying to be the voice of reason. “I’m tellin’ you, this is all just a plain ol’ misunderstanding. Sam, holster that hogleg—now!”
Sam took a deep breath and lowered the Colt. He didn’t holster it, though. Instead, he held it down at his side, ready to use it. He wasn’t convinced that gunplay had been averted here.
Coleman moved so that he was between Sam and Porter. “Now, let’s try to get this straightened out,” he said.
“There’s nothing to straighten out.” Porter’s voice was as cold and hard as a glacier. “That man is under arrest. We’ll be taking him back to Wichita with us to face trial.”
“How about if I give you my word that he won’t bother you or any of your folks again while you’re here in Cottonwood? That I’ll keep him away from you?”
Sam felt a surge of anger at Coleman’s words, but he knew the marshal was just trying to head off more trouble. He clamped his jaw tightly shut so he wouldn’t say anything and just make the situation worse.
“You want me to close my eyes to a violation of the law?” Porter demanded. “You know I can’t do that. My God, man, my deputy was attacked!”
That so-called deputy was nothing but a hardcase, a hired gunman, Sam thought, and he couldn’t hold his anger in check any longer. “Doesn’t anybody want to know what actually happened here?” he asked.
Coleman glanced over his shoulder at Sam. “I sort of would, now that you mention it.”
Sam used his free hand to point at the deputy he had knocked senseless. “That man right there attacked one of the prisoners. A man inside this wagon had hold of the bars in the window and had pulled himself up so he could look out.”
“That’s a violation of the rules, right there,” Porter snapped. “Prisoners are to stay away from the windows. All those men know that.”
This time it was Sam’s turn to ignore Porter and act like the special marshal hadn’t said anything. “The guard slammed the barrel of his rifle against the bars a
nd probably broke that hombre’s fingers.” Sam looked at the little, goateed man in the dark suit who had followed Coleman and Porter from town. “That’ll be something else for you to take a look at, Doc,” he said. Sam was sure of the man’s identity now, having spotted the black bag he was carrying.
“You can’t blame my deputy for enforcing the rules—” Porter began.
“But those are just your rules,” Coleman pointed out. “That’s not the same as a law. Sounds to me like your deputy assaulted the prisoner by whackin’ his hands that way, and my deputy was within his rights to stop an assault from going on in town.” Coleman paused. “The town limits go all the way to the creek, you know. This is still my jurisdiction, Marshal.”
“My authority supersedes yours,” Porter said, tight-lipped with rage.
“Actually, I’m not sure that it does,” Sam said. “It could be argued in court that your authority only pertains to the enforcement of the specific statue forbidding the brewing, sale, possession, or consumption of liquor and that you have no jurisdiction whatsoever over other crimes, such as the sort of simple assault that was carried out here by your deputy. In other words, Marshal Porter, it seems to me that Marshal Coleman could arrest your deputy and hold him on charges of assault and disturbing the peace until the circuit judge arrives in a couple of weeks to sort everything out.”
If Porter got any more red-faced, he was liable to bust a vein, Sam thought. Coleman turned all the way around to frown at his new deputy and ask, “Do you have any legal training, Sam? You sound a mite like a lawyer.”
Sam smiled faintly and shook his head. “I’ve done quite a bit of reading, that’s all.”
Porter growled in anger, literally growled like a dog. Then he said savagely, “The hell with this! Coleman, take your deputy and get out of here. If either one of you come around these wagons again, I won’t be held responsible for what happens.”
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