Matt leaped after the man who had knocked him off his horse. He drove a knee into the man’s side, eliciting a gasp of pain. Matt clubbed his hands together and swung them in a powerful blow that stretched his opponent out on the ground.
Sam had the upper hand by now, too. The man he was fighting was small and wiry, but his strength was no match for Sam’s. Keeping a steady pressure on the man’s neck, Sam continued choking him. He intended to ease off as soon as the man passed out from lack of air and went limp.
Before that could happen, a shot blasted. Sam heard the bullet whine over his head.
“Stop it!” Frankie Harlow yelled. “You’re killing him! Let him go!”
Matt’s attacker seemed to be out cold. He saw Frankie fire the warning shot over Sam’s head and surged up from the ground, worried that she might fire again and not miss that time. She was standing beside the buckboard holding the ivory-handled revolver as Matt lunged at her and grabbed her from behind. He wrapped his left arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet as he reached around her with his right and snagged her wrist. He jerked her arm up. The gun went off again, but this time the bullet was directed harmlessly into the sky.
“You’re the one who’d better stop it,” Matt told her as she writhed and struggled in his grip. “Somebody’s gonna get hurt if you’re not careful!”
“Damn right,” a new voice threatened, “and it’s gonna be you if you don’t let go o’ my little girl!”
Sam had climbed to his feet, but he froze, as did Matt, as three shadowy figures pointing rifles closed in around them.
“Take it easy, mister,” Matt said to the man who had spoken. “You can’t shoot me without runnin’ the risk of hittin’ Frankie, too.”
“No, but my boys can sure ventilate that friend o’ yours,” the man replied. “And don’t count on me not bein’ able to blow your brains out. I growed up knockin’ squirrels outta trees with an old flintlock, back in the Smoky Mountains. My aim’s as good as it ever was, even at night like this.”
Matt didn’t really believe that, but he didn’t see any point in pressing the issue, especially since he had figured out by now that this was all just a misunderstanding. He said, “Put your gun down, Mr. Harlow. We’re friends.”
The man gave a little grunt of surprise. “How do you know who I am?”
“Who else could you be? You called Frankie here your little girl.”
“You know Frankie?”
Sam said, “Why do you think we were riding with her?”
“Didn’t know,” Thurman Harlow responded. “That’s what we was aimin’ to find out.”
Frankie had stopped struggling. She snapped at Matt, “You can let go of me now.”
“Not just yet,” Matt said. “Your pa and your brothers might decide to start shootin’.”
Besides, although it wasn’t very gentlemanly to admit it, he enjoyed having his arms around her.
“Nobody’s gonna do any more shooting,” Frankie said. “You hear that, Pa? Put your gun down. Alf, you and Quint lower yours, too.”
“You know these fellas, Frankie?” Thurman Harlow asked.
“Yeah. They gave me a hand earlier when Cimarron Kane and his bunch ambushed me on the road back from town.”
“Kane!” Harlow exclaimed bitterly. “That son of a bitch. Did he hurt you?”
“No,” Frankie replied. “Thanks in part to Bodine and Two Wolves here.”
Harlow lowered his rifle and motioned for his sons to do likewise. “Help your brothers,” he told them. “Get ’em on their feet and take ’em back to the house.”
“All right, Pa,” one of the younger men said.
Frankie turned her head toward Matt. “Are you convinced you can let me go now?”
“I’ll risk it,” he said. He released her.
She slipped out of his arms, whirled around suddenly, and jabbed the barrel of her gun under Matt’s chin. He stood absolutely still, knowing that it would take only the slightest pressure on the trigger for her to send a bullet into his brain.
“Don’t you ever lay hands on me again,” she said between clenched teeth, “unless I ask you to.”
She was a tall girl, and her face was only inches from his. He felt the warmth of her breath on his cheek. Maybe it was foolish under the circumstances, he thought, but he wanted to lean forward and kiss her. Instead, he said, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me?” she repeated, clearly surprised by the question.
“All Sam and I have done tonight is try to help you, and not only do we get jumped by your brothers, you keep actin’ like you want to bite our heads off every time you turn around!”
She stared at him for a second, then sputtered in outrage, “You…you…”
“I’ve had enough of this.” Matt reached up, closed his hand around the gun she was digging into his neck, and wrenched it aside. Another twist pulled it out of her fingers. He turned and extended the gun toward Thurman Harlow, saying, “Here. Until you teach your daughter some manners, maybe she shouldn’t be packin’ iron.”
Harlow chuckled and said, “Your mistake, mister, is thinkin’ that I can teach that little wildcat much of anything.”
Frankie gasped, evidently as mad at her father now as she was at Matt for grabbing her.
