Moonshine Massacre

by William W. Johnstone

  “I need to find Marshal Coleman,” Sam replied as he stopped. “Have you seen him?”

  “Nope. I just got back from visitin’ with Mike. He’s awake now and seems to be doin’ pretty good.”

  Sam nodded. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said honestly. “He may well have saved my life.”

  “If I see Marsh, I’ll tell him you’re lookin’ for him.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Sam said. He hurried on toward the marshal’s office.

  When he got there, he saw that the door was still standing open. Coleman had opened both the front and back doors earlier, to let whatever breeze there might be blow through the building. So far it hadn’t done anything to dissipate the heat, Sam discovered as he stepped inside. It was sweltering in there, just as it had been when he left.

  He frowned as he saw that Coleman wasn’t in the office. The cell block was quiet. It was too hot even for the prisoners to bitch. Sam felt a pang of worry and dropped his hand to the butt of his Colt as he stepped over to peer through the window in the cell block door. He thought for a second that the prisoners might have escaped somehow, but he could see that the cells were all closed securely and the prisoners were still locked up inside.

  Coleman could have gone to his house for a few minutes. That was the most likely explanation since Sam hadn’t spotted him on the street. He turned and walked out of the office, heading for the lawman’s home.

  He heard Lobo barking before he reached the house. The little dog sounded upset about something, but that didn’t really mean anything. Sam had been around dogs all his life and knew that they often carried on like that for no good reason.

  But the possibility that Lobo did have a reason for being upset made Sam walk a little faster as he approached the house. He saw Lobo standing on the front porch, barking at the closed door.

  “Lobo, what’s wrong?” Sam called as he opened the gate. He started up the walk toward the house.

  Lobo turned and started barking at him then. The little bundle of gray and brown fur was definitely angry or scared or both, Sam thought. He bounded onto the porch and rapped his knuckles sharply against the doorjamb. Lobo kept barking.

  Marshal Coleman opened the door a few seconds later and looked out at Sam through the screen. Sam felt relief go through him as he saw that the lawman seemed to be unhurt. Coleman didn’t look happy, though. He frowned as he glanced down at the dog and said sharply, “Hush, Lobo!”

  Lobo gave a little whine, but he stopped barking.

  Coleman looked at Sam and asked, “What is it?”

  “There’s a lot of dust outside of town, Marshal,” Sam reported. “Appears to be a big bunch of riders coming.”

  “Why are you tellin’ me about it?”

  It was Sam’s turn to frown. “Well…I thought you’d like to know.”

  “People come and go all the time,” Coleman said stiffly. “I don’t reckon it’s anything to worry about. Just go on back to the office, Sam.”

  “It could be Cimarron Kane and his family coming back to cause more trouble,” Sam pointed out.

  Coleman waved a hand in dismissal. “On a hot day like this? I don’t reckon even Kane’s that crazy. No, Sam, just go on back to the office and don’t worry so much.”

  Why was Coleman so insistent that he go back to the office? Sam wondered. He had just been there a few minutes earlier, and everything seemed fine.

  Unless Coleman didn’t really care where he went. The marshal just wanted him to get away from here, Sam realized. That meant if there was something wrong, it was probably going on right here, and Sam knew that Coleman would want to protect Hannah above all else…

  But who or what could be threatening her?

  Lobo had stopped barking, but he continued to make angry little growling noises deep in his throat. He stood stiffly next to Sam’s boots, and suddenly, as Coleman pushed open the screen door and snapped at Sam, “Well, go on,” Lobo shot forward through the narrow gap. He darted past Coleman’s feet, prompting a startled exclamation from the marshal, and raced across the room, snarling.

  Coleman jerked around, lines of terror suddenly appearing on his weathered face. “No!” he cried.

  Sam jerked the screen door open and rushed inside even as the wicked crack of a gunshot sounded. Somewhere inside the room, which was dimly lit because all the curtains were pulled, Hannah screamed. Sam shouldered Coleman aside and drew his gun at the same time. He caught a glimpse of Hannah struggling with a man, holding on to his arm and trying to keep him from shooting again. Down around the man’s feet, Lobo nipped furiously at his ankles.

  “Drop the gun!” Sam ordered as he raised his Colt, but the man ignored the command. Instead, he slashed a brutal backhanded blow across Hannah’s face, knocking her away from him. At the same time, the small-caliber pistol in his hand jerked up and gouted flame and lead again.

  Sam was in the line of fire and might have been hit if someone hadn’t knocked him aside. He heard Coleman grunt in pain, and realized that the marshal had shoved him out of the way and taken the bullet meant for him. There was no time to see how badly Coleman was hurt, though, because there was still the threat of the intruder to deal with. Sam snapped a shot at him, but the man twisted aside just in time to avoid the bullet. Sam couldn’t pull the trigger again because Hannah cried out, “Dad!” and lunged toward her wounded father, putting herself in the line of fire.

  The intruder didn’t worry about endangering her. His pistol cracked again, and what felt like a giant fist slammed into the side of Sam’s head just above his left ear. The impact made him stumble back a step. The room spun crazily around him. He felt his legs folding up beneath him, but couldn’t seem to stop them. As he fell, he tried to raise his gun for another shot, but everything was such a blur he couldn’t find his target.

  He heard Lobo’s pained yelp, though, and Hannah’s sobs. He realized he was lying on his back. A figure loomed over him. His vision cleared enough for him to recognize Linus Grady glaring down at him over the barrel of the gun. The gambler didn’t look so affable now. In fact, he looked like the Devil himself.

  “You should have done what the marshal told you and gone back to the office, Sam,” Grady said. “Of course, you’d have died anyway, but you could have postponed it for a while.” Grady drew back the pistol’s hammer. “This way I can go ahead and dispose of you now.”

  He pulled the trigger, and the red flame spurting from the muzzle was the last thing Sam saw before oblivion claimed him.

  Chapter 35

  It was close to midday by the time the group of riders Matt was following approached Cottonwood. The heat was worse than ever, and Matt had breathed so much dust he felt like the insides of his mouth, nose, throat, and lungs were coated with the stuff.

  He had been staying well back of the riders, so when they came to a halt outside the settlement, he was able to stop, too, before he was close enough to risk being spotted. He reined in, dismounted, and reached into his saddlebags for a pair of field glasses he carried. He knew he would have to be careful using the glasses and not let sunlight reflect off the lenses. Some of Kane’s men might spot the flash and figure out that they were being followed.

  Stealing forward through the tall buffalo grass, Matt dropped to his hands and knees when he was only a couple of hundred yards behind the riders. From there he crawled even closer, then stood up in a crouch and trained the glasses on the men.

  His heart leaped in a combination of relief and anger when he spotted Frankie Harlow seated on one of the horses in front of Cimarron Kane. Kane’s arm was around Frankie’s waist, holding her tightly to him, but as far as Matt could tell, she seemed to be all right. The field glasses brought them close enough so that he could see the outrage on Frankie’s face. She was mad as hell.

  Kane didn’t seem worried about that. He was talking to a couple of his men, and after a moment the two men spurred off toward the town. The rest of the group sat there, obviously waiting for the men to come
back. Matt figured that Kane had sent the pair into Cottonwood to check on something, although he wasn’t sure what.

  Slowly, Matt moved the glasses so that he could take a good look at the rest of the men. They were a rough, hard-bitten bunch, much like their leader, Cimarron Kane himself.

  Then Matt saw something that made him stiffen in surprise. Sitting on one of the horses not far from Kane was Calvin Bickford, the corrupt special marshal who had escaped from Sam the night before.

  The fact that Kane had used a bomb to blow up the Harlows’ moonshine still had reminded Matt of Bickford and Porter, but the possibility that there was actually a connection between them hadn’t occurred to him. He had no idea what that connection might be, but from the looks of it, Kane and Bickford were plenty friendly.

  That didn’t bode well, Matt thought, but he would have to sort it all out later. Right now, all that mattered was getting Frankie out of Kane’s hands…literally.

  A few minutes later, the two men Kane had sent into town returned. They talked excitedly to Kane for a moment, and then Kane hitched his horse into motion and waved for the rest of the men to follow him. They rode unhurriedly toward the settlement. They weren’t attacking Cottonwood, Matt realized.

  Instead, they were riding in like they already owned the place.

  Something was terribly wrong, and Matt didn’t know what it was. He lowered the field glasses, dropped again onto his hands and knees, and crawled back to where he had left his horse. After tucking the field glasses in his saddlebags, he patted the stallion on the shoulder and murmured, “You’re gonna have to stay here, fella. I need to get into town without anybody seein’ me, so I’ll have to do it on foot.”

  He checked both his Colts, thumbing a cartridge into the empty chamber on each weapon where the hammer usually rested. He made sure all the loops in his shell belt were full, and then stuffed his pockets full of ammunition, too. There was no telling how many bullets he would need before this day was over, but he was betting that it would be a lot.

  Matt hung his hat on the saddle horn, rubbed the stallion’s nose one last time, then turned toward Cottonwood. He moved in a crouch through the tall grass, then dropped once again into a crawl as he drew near the edge of the settlement.

  He didn’t look behind him, but if he had, he might have seen the dark gray clouds building along the southwestern horizon. A little puff of cooler air stirred the buffalo grass for a few seconds, but Matt’s attention was focused on the task in front of him, and he didn’t notice.

  When Sam regained consciousness, his first thought was one of surprise at still being alive. His next was the realization that his head hurt like hell.

  That, at least, came as no surprise. He remembered Linus Grady shooting him. The small-caliber slug must have just grazed his skull, with enough of an impact to knock him out but not enough to penetrate into his brain. However, there was the matter of that second shot Grady had fired down at him at point-blank range.

  Somehow he’d survived, and Sam was thankful for that. As the pain in his head subsided to a dull ache, he began to wonder where he was.

  After a moment, he figured out that he was lying on rough planks. His cheek was pressed against them, since he was sprawled on his belly. He forced his eyes open and saw a stone wall about six feet away from him. Something about it looked familiar. Without moving his head, he managed to lift his gaze along the wall until it came to a small, barred window.

  He was in jail.

  That was why the wall looked familiar. He had seen it before. He was in one of the cells inside Cottonwood’s jail. Curiosity overwhelmed him, and he lifted his head for a better look around. The movement made a fresh burst of pain explode inside his skull. He couldn’t hold back the groan that came from him.

  “Take it easy, Sam.” The voice belonged to Marshal Coleman. “You’ll be all right.”

  Sam gritted his teeth against the pain and rolled over. He saw that he was alone in the small cell. Coleman was behind the locked door of the cell across from him. Sam scooted closer to the bars, reached out to grasp one of them, and used it to help pull himself into a sitting position.

  The left side of his face felt stiff. He checked it and found that it was covered with dried blood. He knew from experience that scalp wounds usually bled freely and often looked worse than they really were. The painful gash on the side of his head above his ear was no different. Blood must have flooded down his face from it.

  “Yeah, you look like you’re in pretty bad shape,” Coleman confirmed. “You bled all over the floor of my parlor. But at least you’re not dead.”

  “H-Hannah…” Sam rasped.

  “That’s right. She jumped Grady again and pushed his gun to the side just as he pulled the trigger. Put a bullet hole in my floor, to go along with all the blood. Better that than your brains, though. After that, Grady decided maybe it would be better to keep you alive, so he made me carry you down here and locked us both up.”

  “No. I meant…is Hannah…all right?”

  Coleman’s face was lined with worry. “As far as I know. Grady took her with him. I don’t know where they are now.”

  “What the hell…is Grady…upto?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Coleman replied with a shake of his head. “All I know is that he showed up at my house a little while before you got there. He pulled a gun on us and said we’d be all right if we just did what he told us. He had the drop on us, so we had to go along with him. Lobo started carryin’ on, so Grady told me to put him outside. Then you showed up a couple of minutes later. Grady said for me to get rid of you without makin’ you suspicious. I tried.” Coleman shrugged. “But you saw how well that worked out.”

  Sam’s brain was beginning to function at a higher level. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Grady’s just a gambler. Why would he do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know. I reckon he’s got some sort of plan, though, or else he wouldn’t have locked us up and let everybody else go.”

  Sam looked around. In his dazed state, he hadn’t really thought about it until the marshal mentioned it, but the rest of the cells in the cell block were indeed empty. Ambrose Porter and the crooked deputies were gone, along with Dud, Wiley, and Nelse Kane.

  “Where are they?” Sam asked.

  “They left with Grady and Hannah.” Coleman’s voice caught a little in his throat as he added, “Lord, I…I hope she’s all right.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Sam said, although he wasn’t really sure of anything anymore.

  “Porter wanted to shoot both of us,” Coleman went on, “but Grady talked him out of it. Said that havin’ us alive might come in handy later on, whatever that means.”

  Sam thought about it and had an idea he knew what Grady meant. The gambler intended to use them as hostages. That meant he had to be worried about Matt for some reason. But Matt had headed back out to the Harlow place earlier today. Grady had no reason to worry about him…

  Unless Grady knew something Sam and Coleman didn’t, such as a reason to suspect that Matt might be returning soon to Cottonwood. A picture began to form at the back of Sam’s mind, a theory that everything going on around here was connected in some way.

  “We have to get out of here, Marshal,” Sam said. “Whatever Grady has in mind, we can’t stop him as long as we’re locked up in here.”

  “I know,” Coleman said solemnly, “but there’s not any way out. I’ve been the marshal here for five years, and I know good and well that this jail is as sturdy as can be. Nobody’s ever busted out of it.”

  “There has to be a way,” Sam insisted.

  Coleman shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  Sam hated the feeling of helplessness that gnawed at his guts. He had never given up on a fight, and he didn’t intend to start now. He grabbed hold of the bars in the door again and hauled himself to his feet. Once again, he had to hold on for a moment while a wave of dizziness swept over him. When it passed, he stumb
led over to the window and grasped those bars, looking out into the alley beside the jail. When he pressed his face against the bars and craned his neck, he could see a narrow slice of Main Street.

  That was where he was looking when he saw Barnabas Smith stumble past.

  “Psst! Barnabas!” Sam called as his hands tightened around the bars. “Barnabas, come here!”

  The little former prisoner stopped and peered around in owlish confusion. Sam saw the way Barnabas was swaying slightly, and knew that he was drunk. Barnabas must have found out somehow about Ike Loomis’s secret saloon and had come up with enough money to buy some whiskey. Either that, or he had begged a few drinks. After a moment, Barnabas shook his head and looked like he was about to move on, no doubt thinking that he had just imagined someone calling his name.

  “Barnabas!” Sam said again. “Down here at the jail window!”

  This time Barnabas turned toward the alley and frowned as he looked along the side of the building. Sam stuck a hand out through the bars and motioned to him.

  Unsteadily, Barnabas came toward him. When he got close to the window, he looked up and said in surprise, “Deputy? Is that you?”

  “That’s right, Barnabas,” Sam told him. “It’s Deputy Two Wolves. I need your help.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you locked up in there?”

  “That’s right. I—”

  Barnabas giggled. “You’re locked up. Now you know how I f-felt, locked up in that wagon.”

  “You have to come into the marshal’s office, find the keys, and let us out of here.”

  “Like you let me out last night when I…I asked you to?” Barnabas shook his head. “You s-said I had to st-stay locked up. Now you have to.”

  “You don’t understand, Barnabas,” Sam insisted. “Something bad is about to happen—”