He left the stable and started toward the marshal’s office, intending to check with Coleman and see if there had been any more trouble in town. Before he reached the squat stone building, though, the sudden pounding of hoofbeats made him stop and look around while he was still in the street.
Half a dozen riders pounded toward him, and it appeared that they didn’t intend to slow down. Sam got a good look at the man who rode slightly in the lead. The hombre sat tall in the saddle and wore black trousers and a black coat over a white shirt. A black Stetson with a curled brim was crammed down tightly on snow-white hair that grew down around his shoulders. He was clean-shaven, with a craggy, hawklike face that years of exposure to the sun had burnished to a copper not unlike Sam’s own skin tone, although this man didn’t look like he had any Indian blood in him.
Sam took all that in, then had to move quickly to get out of the way before the horses trampled him. When he reached the boardwalk, he turned to follow the riders with his eyes. The men following the leader all had hard, hawkish countenances, too.
Sam had a hunch he was looking at Cimarron Kane and some of his kin.
That hunch grew stronger when the men drew rein in front of the marshal’s office. The tall, white-haired man dismounted and handed his reins to one of his companions. Then he went inside and left the others sitting there on their saddles.
Sam continued toward his destination. He still wanted to speak to Marshal Coleman, and he wasn’t going to let Cimarron Kane stop him.
One of the men on horseback made a move to do just that, however, edging his horse closer to the boardwalk as Sam approached.
“Hey, you! What’re you doin’?”
Sam nodded toward the door of the office. “Going to see the marshal.”
“No, you ain’t. Our cousin’s in there right now, and he’s got important business with that damn lawman. You just get on outta here.”
Sam shook his head and said, “I don’t think so.” He kept walking.
The man moved fast as he got off his horse and hopped onto the boardwalk to block Sam’s path. He stuck his jaw out belligerently and demanded, “Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“I heard you.”
“Well, you must not’ve understood.” The man’s lip curled in a sneer. “And I reckon now I see why. You’re a Injun, ain’t you, or at least a filthy half-breed?”
With an effort, Sam controlled his temper. “Just step out of my way, please. I’m not looking for any trouble.”
“You talk mighty fancy for a redskin. You go to mission school, boy?”
It wouldn’t do any good to mention the prestigious university back east he’d attended, Sam thought. The man sneering at him had probably never even heard of it. Sam said, sharper this time, “Step aside.”
Fury darkened the man’s face. “No Injun’s gonna talk to me that way,” he said. “Come on, boys, let’s teach this red son of a bitch a lesson.”
With potential odds of five to one facing him, Sam didn’t waste any time thinking about how it sure would have been nice to have Matt at his side right now. He just went to work, and the first thing he did was to improve those odds by twenty percent.
He brought his left fist rocketing up in a terrific punch that landed squarely in the middle of the man’s sneering face. The impact of that blow lifted the hombre completely off his feet, sent him sailing backward through the air, and brought him crashing down onto the boardwalk in a crumpled, senseless heap.
By the time the man hit the planks, Sam had used his own momentum that had been behind the punch to help him whirl toward the men still on horseback. His right hand dipped to his Colt and palmed it out in a draw so swift that it would have shaded nine out of ten men. The revolver came level in Sam’s rock-steady hand as he pointed it at the other four men, none of whom had had a chance to do anything other than sit there and gape foolishly at what had just happened.
“The first man who reaches for a gun, I’ll blow him out of the saddle,” Sam warned.
“The hell you will!” a voice grated from his left. Sam’s eyes flicked in that direction for a second and saw the tall, white-haired man standing in the open doorway of the marshal’s office. The man had a long-barreled Remington revolver in his hand, and the gun was pointed right at Sam’s head. “Drop your gun, you son of a bitch,” the man went on, “or I’ll kill you where you stand!”
Cimarron Kane had the drop on him.
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.”
