“We don’t,” Sam said. “His name was only vaguely familiar to us, until Marshal Coleman in Cottonwood told us about him tonight.”
“Oh. You’re friends of the marshal, are you?”
“I reckon you could say that,” Matt replied. “We helped him round up and arrest three of Kane’s cousins who showed up in Cottonwood today and started causin’ trouble.”
“That’s right!” Frankie said. “I heard something about that in Loomis’s place. That was you two?”
Matt nodded. “Yep.”
Sam asked, “Why would Cimarron Kane and his family attack you?”
“Because they want to take over the whiskey business in these parts. They’ve got a good-sized still out there on that spread they call a ranch. They’d like nothing better than to wipe out all the Harlows so they wouldn’t have any competition.” Frankie laughed humorlessly. “They’ll have to kill us all, because they sure as hell can’t make ’shine as good as we can.”
“How do you know it was them and not the marshals who were lying in wait on that ridge?”
“Because I heard Cimarron himself yelling orders at the others just as the shooting started,” Frankie replied.
“We should go back into Cottonwood so you can report that to Marshal Coleman,” Sam suggested.
Frankie laughed again, but this time there was a trace of genuine amusement in the sound.
“What’s funny about that?” Sam asked with a frown.
“Coleman’s the town marshal. He’s got no jurisdiction out here. What am I gonna do? Go to the county sheriff or, better yet, those special marshals and tell them that I got ambushed while I was on my way home after delivering a load of illegal whiskey to Ike Loomis’s place?”
“You don’t have to tell them what you were doin’,” Matt pointed out, “just that you were attacked.”
Frankie shook her head. “I’m not going to do anything to draw the law’s attention to my family, Bodine. That would be a mighty stupid thing to do.”
She was probably right about that, considering her family’s line of work, Matt thought.
“I don’t like the idea of Kane and his bunch gettin’ away with such a thing,” he said.
“We’ll deal with the Kanes in our own way,” Frankie said in a flat, hard tone. “That’s a promise. In the meantime, the two of you can head back to town. They won’t bother me again tonight.”
Matt shook his head. “You can’t be sure of that. We’re comin’ with you.”
“I told you—” Frankie stopped and heaved a sigh. “You’re pretty stubborn, aren’t you, Bodine?”
Matt grinned at her. “I’ve been accused of it,” he admitted.
“Actually, he’s been accused of a lot worse,” Sam added.
“What about you, Two Wolves?” Frankie asked. “Do you have any sense?”
“I like to think so. But in this case, I happen to believe that Matt’s right. There’s no guarantee that Cimarron Kane and his relatives won’t double back and try to ambush you again.”
“All right. I’m tired of arguing with the two of you.” Frankie lifted the reins and slapped them against the backs of the team. “Do what you want to,” she went on as the buckboard started rolling. “Whatever happens, it’s your own damned fault.”
“That sounds a little worrisome,” Sam commented as he and Matt rode side by side behind the buckboard.
“Aw, she’s just blowin’ off steam,” Matt said. “You can’t blame her, after gettin’ ambushed like that. If we hadn’t come along, there’s no tellin’ what might’ve happened, and I’ll bet she knows it.”
They followed the buckboard as Frankie drove another quarter of a mile or so along the main road, then turned south on a smaller trail. It led through a range of low, rolling hills, then cut through a series of rocky ridges that thrust up from the prairie almost like waves from the sea. The trail ran between cut-banks that rose just above the height of a man’s head on horseback.
Matt and Sam were following Frankie’s wagon through one of those cuts when dark shapes suddenly sailed out from the banks on both sides with no warning. The blood brothers saw the figures leaping toward them but didn’t have time to avoid them. The attackers slammed into Matt and Sam and knocked them out of their saddles, sending them crashing to the hard ground.
Chapter 12
The impact knocked the breath out of both Matt and Sam, momentarily stunning them. Matt blinked his eyes and gasped for breath. He had twisted as he fell, so that he landed on his back, and he could see the dark figure looming above him and raising a club of some sort.
The realization that the varmint intended to bludgeon his brains out galvanized Matt’s muscles. His iron will allowed him to shake off the effects of the fall. He heaved up from the ground and threw his right fist at his attacker. At the same time, his left hand shot up and grabbed the man’s wrist as the killing blow started to fall.
Because of his position, Matt’s blow didn’t have much power behind it, but it landed cleanly on the man’s jaw. That was enough to make the man lean to the side, and from there, Matt was able to buck him off.
A few yards away, Sam had his hands full, too. He recovered his wits and jerked his head aside just before a club came smashing down on it. His attacker was bending down close enough so that Sam was able to reach up and lock his hands around the man’s neck. The two of them went rolling across the ground, grappling desperately.
