Moonshine Massacre

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?”

“Matt had some business of his own to tend to,” Sam replied, being deliberately vague with his answer.

He was in an awkward position. He had promised Matt that he wouldn’t tell the marshal about the hidden saloon or the moonshining going on at the Harlow farm. Yet he felt that Coleman had a right to know about those things. For now, he would have to continue walking a fine line between keeping his word to his blood brother and following what he felt was his civic responsibility.

“Well, come on in the office,” Coleman invited. “I’ve got coffee on the stove.”

They went inside. Sam heard angry voices coming from the cell block. Coleman waved a hand toward the cell block door and said, “Don’t pay them any mind. They’ve been carryin’ on and raising a ruckus most of the night, and it got worse when they heard Cimarron out here. I try to just ignore ’em.”

Sam saw the wisdom of that approach but doubted it would be easy to carry out, considering the profanity that was coming from the cells. Coleman didn’t seem bothered by it, though. The marshal poured two cups of coffee from the pot staying warm on the stove and handed one of them to Sam.

“I’m glad you came by,” Coleman said as he sat down behind the desk. “I’ve been thinking about something. Were you planning to be around town for a while, Sam?”

“We didn’t really have any plans, one way or the other,” Sam answered. “I don’t think Matt intends to move on any time soon, though.”

Of course, that would depend to a certain extent on Frankie Harlow, he added silently.

“Well, then, how would you boys like to have a job while you’re here? I could sure use a couple of deputies.”

“Did the town council decide to let you hire someone?” Sam asked, remembering what Hannah had said the day before.

Coleman’s mouth tightened a little. “No, the council says the town can’t afford that. So I’d be payin’ you out of my own pocket. I can’t offer much in the way of wages, but you’d get three square meals a day, plus there are a couple of cots in the back room where you could sleep and save the price of a hotel room.”

Coleman had no way of knowing that with their successful ranches in Montana, both of the blood brothers could be considered rich men, especially out here on the frontier.

Sam started to shake his head. Then, as a look of disappointment came over Coleman’s face, he hurried on. “I can’t speak for Matt, but I’ll take the job, Marshal. But only on one condition. You won’t owe me anything in wages.” He smiled. “I’ll take the three square meals a day, though, if Hannah’s going to be cooking them.”

Coleman sat forward and slapped the desk. “She sure is! You got to let me pay you something, though.”

“No, that doesn’t matter,” Sam insisted. “Maybe if the town council sees that it’s a good thing for you to have a deputy, they’ll realize they need to find the money for a real one.”

Coleman opened one of the desk drawers and reached inside. He brought out a badge, which he slid across the desk to Sam.

“Pin that on. You’re hired, Sam, and as far as I’m concerned, you are a real deputy. Let me know when Matt gets back to town, and I’ll make the same offer to him.”

“Sure,” Sam said as he picked up the tin star. It was easier just to agree rather than trying to explain why Matt wasn’t going to be pinning on a deputy’s badge.

“Hannah will be awful glad to hear about this. You know she’s been tryin’ for a while to convince me that I need some help. I don’t know if I do or not—I’ve always been able to keep order here in town—but I’ve got a hunch that Kane is about to start raisin’ more hell than ever.”

Considering the attack on Frankie Harlow and the fact that three of Kane’s cousins were locked up here in town, that seemed like a safe bet to Sam. And that was the main reason he had agreed to take the job. Coleman wouldn’t be any match for the Kanes by himself. It was always possible, too, that the clash between the Kanes and the Harlows could spill over into the settlement. Cottonwood was where everyone in the area had to come for supplies.

Sam pinned the badge onto his buckskin shirt. Coleman nodded in satisfaction and said, “Looks mighty good.”

Before Sam could make any reply, one of the townsmen jerked the door open and stuck his head inside the office. “Marshal, come quick!” he said. “You ought to take a look at this!”

Coleman didn’t waste any time standing up. “What is it?” he asked the townie.

“Prison wagons comin’ into town, from the looks of it!” the man replied.

Sam recalled what Frankie Harlow had told him and Matt about the special marshals sent out by the governor using prison wagons to tranport the men they arrested for brewing, selling, or possessing illegal liquor. It sounded like the marshals were paying a visit to Cottonwood after all.

Coleman and Sam followed the townie outside. Quite a few people had congregated on the street to watch the new arrivals. There were four wagons in the convoy, flanked by outriders on horseback. The vehicles had enclosed beds that formed eight-foot-by-ten-foot cells. A door with a barred window was on the back of each wagon, and there was a small, barred window in each side for ventilation.

Those openings wouldn’t let in much air, though, and Sam had a hunch that on a hot day, like most days were at this time of year, the backs of those wagons would be like sweatboxes.

Ambrose Porter sat on a driver’s box attached to the front of the lead wagon. Calvin Bickford handled the team hitched to the second wagon, and two of the deputies drove the other pair. The men brought the vehicles to a stop in front of Marshal Coleman’s office.

Porter nodded and said, “Marshal, I’m sure you remember us. We stopped by here a few weeks ago to let you know that we’d be working in your area.”

Coleman grunted. “Yeah, I appreciated that.” Clearly, he wasn’t too fond of the governor’s men. “Something I can do for you?”

Porter jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the wagon he’d been driving. “As a matter of fact, there is. We have some wounded men here, and we’d like to have your local doctor take a look at them before we start for Wichita.” Porter smiled thinly. “We wouldn’t want them to die along the way so that they couldn’t face justice for their crimes.”

“What crime would that be?” Coleman asked. “Bein’ thirsty?”

Porter’s insincere smile disappeared. “The legislature passed that law, Marshal, not me. If you have a problem with it, take it up with them. Now, where can we find the doctor?”

“Take those wagons over by the creek and park ’em in the shade of the cottonwoods,” Coleman said. “At least that way, those fellas you’ve got locked up can be a mite more comfortable. I’ll go get the doctor and bring him over there.”

“I don’t care whether these lawbreakers are comfortable or not.” Porter shrugged. “But I suppose it won’t hurt anything. We’ll be by the creek.”

He lifted the reins and flicked them against the backs of the mules hitched to the wagon. The team stepped forward, and the wagon rolled toward the creek, followed by the others. As the vehicles moved past, Sam heard the groans coming from the wounded prisoners in the first one. The men in the other wagons were cursing monotonously. Bickford nodded pleasantly to Sam as he drove past, evidently recalling him from their encounter the day before.

“I’ll go down to Doc Berger’s office,” Coleman said when the wagons were gone. “You want your first job as my deputy, Sam?”

“Sure.”

Coleman nodded. “Good. Keep an eye on those wagons while I’m gone.”

“You think those prisoners might give some trouble?” Sam asked.

“I’m more worried about those special marshals,” Coleman said bluntly. “Especially Porter. I didn’t like the looks of him when he came through here before, and I still don’t. As far as I’m concerned, the man’s just one step above a hired killer.”

“He’s a lawman, too,” Sam pointed out.

“So they say.” Coleman sighed. “All I know is that I’d just as soon never have seen that bunch again. I’ll be happy when they leave town, and as far as I’m concerned, I hope they never come back!”