“What we all need to do is sit down and talk,” Sam suggested, the voice of reason as usual. “We’re not looking for trouble, Mr. Harlow. We just wanted to make sure Miss Frankie got home safely after that fight with Cimarron Kane and his men.”
“His relatives, you mean,” Harlow said. “Everybody on the Kane spread is blood kin in one way or another, even if they ain’t all called Kane. Cimarron’s got a bunch of nephews and shirttail cousins, and they’re all a sorry lot.” Harlow tucked his rifle under his arm, another sign that the hostilities were over, at least for now. “Come on to the house and have a drink. If you boys helped out Frankie, then I owe you.”
Matt said, “If the drink you’re offerin’ is the same stuff you sell to Ike Loomis for his saloon, then we accept.”
Harlow chuckled again. “Like it, do you?”
“It’s prime drinkin’ whiskey,” Matt declared.
“Frankie, bring the buckboard on in,” Harlow ordered. “You fellas come with me.”
Frankie’s disgusted snort said that she didn’t like being given orders like that, but she didn’t argue. She climbed back onto the buckboard’s seat while Matt and Sam picked up their hats, took the reins of their horses, and led the animals as they followed Thurman Harlow. The four brothers had already disappeared through the cut.
The trail came out into the open beyond the ridges, and Matt and Sam saw the light from a cabin that backed up to the last ridge. It was a sprawling structure that had probably started out as a small soddy before being expanded with timbers and more blocks of sod. Several tin stovepipes stuck up through the sod roof. A barn and a corral sat beyond the cabin.
The door stood open, letting yellow lantern light spill out into the night. As Harlow led Matt and Sam toward it, he said, “You boys put your horses in the corral. You’re welcome to spend the night in the barn, if you’re of a mind to. It’s a mite late to be headin’ back to town tonight.”
The blood brothers had been planning to return to Cottonwood. They had rooms in the hotel, after all. But when Matt glanced over at Sam, he shrugged and said, “It’s up to you, Matt.”
“Well…it is pretty late,” Matt said. “We might just take you up on that, Mr. Harlow.”
“You’ll be welcome. Any friend o’ Frankie’s has got a place to stay with us.”
“You
“Yeah, but she didn’t shoot you,” Harlow pointed out. “She can be a mite touchy, but I’d say she likes you.”
Matt just shook his head.
By the time he and Sam had led their mounts into the corral and unsaddled them, Frankie had driven the buckboard into the barn. Not surprisingly, she refused their offer to help her unhitch the team, saying curtly, “I can take care of it. Go on in the house.”
Matt shrugged and told Sam, “Let’s go.”
The door was still open. They walked in and found themselves in a large, surprisingly comfortably furnished room with a plank floor, rugs, several heavy chairs and a divan, and a polished hardwood dining table with a matching china cabinet sitting against one wall.
Harlow must have noticed them looking around. “Most of these things belonged to my folks back in the Smokies,” he explained. “When we come west, we brung ’em with us. I wanted to have a little touch o’ home wherever we wound up.”
“It’s a nice place,” Sam said.
The four Harlow brothers sat at the table. The ones who had tackled Matt and Sam looked up with surly expressions. It was clear they didn’t like the fact that the blood brothers had gotten the better of them. They didn’t make a move to get up and start the fight again, though.
“Why did your boys jump us like that?” Matt asked.
Harlow hung his rifle on a couple of hooks fastened to the wall. “Frankie was late gettin’ back from town,” he explained. “I don’t like her takin’ the deliveries in by herself, but she gets her back up when you tell you she can’t do somethin’.”
“We noticed,” Matt said dryly.
“Anyway, we was a mite worried about her,” Harlow went on, “and we thought we heard some shootin’ a while ago, but we couldn’t be sure. We went out to watch the trail, and when we seen Frankie comin’ with a couple of strangers followin’ her, we figured she might’ve been took prisoner. Dex and Farrell climbed up on those banks to take you fellas by surprise.”
“That’s exactly what they did,” Sam said. “I’m sorry if we hurt either of them.”
One of the brothers said in a hoarse voice, “Liked to choke me to death, that’s what you done, you big varmint.”
“Well, you were trying to club our brains out,” Sam reminded him.
Harlow said, “Yeah, and I didn’t tell you boys to do that. I never said nothin’ about killin’ nobody.”
All the men in the Harlow family were on the short side, with sandy hair and muddy brown eyes. They weren’t much for looks, Matt thought. Frankie must have inherited her beauty from her mother. Matt didn’t see any sign of an older woman in the cabin and wondered if Frankie’s mother had passed away.
Frankie came in from putting away the buckboard and the team. She rested her hands on her hips, glared at her father, and asked, “What are we gonna do about the Kanes?”
“What do you reckon we ought to do?” Harlow said.
“I think we should ride over there and kill ’em all!” Anger made Frankie’s eyes blaze. “If they want a war, we’ll damn well give ’em one!”
