Moonshine Massacre

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 stumbled 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—”

“Damn right it is,” Barnabas interrupted. “It’s fixin’ to storm, jus’ like I told you. Big ol’ storm cloud comin’ up from the southwest.” A breeze suddenly swirled dust and litter in the alley. “See? The wind’s pickin’ up.”

“I’m not talking about a storm. Some bad men are going to do something here in Cottonwood—”

Again Sam was interrupted, this time by heavy footsteps from the office. The cell block door swung open. He turned away from the window, not wanting to draw attention to Barnabas.

Linus Grady strode into the cell block, followed by Cimarron Kane, Ambrose Porter, and Calvin Bickford. Sam’s breath hissed between his teeth at the sight of the four men together. His rudimentary theory about there being a connection between the four of them had just been confirmed.

Bickford grinned smugly at Sam. “I’ll bet you thought you’d never see me again, you damn half-breed,” he said. “Bet you didn’t know my mother’s maiden name was Kane, either.”

Sam shook his head. “So you’re all working together.”

“It didn’t start out that way. Ambrose and I had our own deal. But then you ruined that, so when I got away, I headed for Cimarron’s place. I knew it was close by here. I knew he’d been trying to put the competition out of business and take over the moonshining around here, too, so I suggested we throw in together. Once everybody’s dead who knows what was going on before, Ambrose and I will carry on as special marshals and make sure that nobody ever interferes with Cimarron’s business.”

“And I’ll run the end of the operation here in town,” Grady said. “Cimarron and I already had a deal concerning that. All we have to do is get rid of Ike Loomis and that dumb son of his, and I’ll take over the saloon.”

Those details fit right in with the picture that had begun to form in Sam’s mind. These four men were in an alliance of evil and would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, even wholesale murder if it came to that.

“There’s just one loose end,” Grady went on. “That gunhawk friend of yours. Bodine. He’s out there somewhere. We’ll need to deal with him, and once he’s dead, we can dispose of you.”

“You’ll never catch Matt,” Sam said. “Anyway, he’s nowhere near here.”

Cimarron Kane spoke up, rasping, “That’s where you’re wrong, ’breed. He’s gonna come to us, because we got somethin’ he wants.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked tensely.

“That Harlow slut,” Kane replied. “We got her down at the doc’s place, too, along with the marshal’s gal and the Loomises. Soon as we get our hands on Bodine, we’ll have everybody we need.” A savage grin tugged at the outlaw’s mouth as he added, “And then the killin’ can commence.”