worth it to do whatever you had to in order to get me on your side.”
“Yeah, well, I was a fool,” she said bitterly. “I thought just asking you for your help would be enough. I had you pegged as the sort of hombre who appreciates it when folks are honest with him.”
“I do,” Matt insisted. “And I believe you—”
She shoved her arms through the sleeves of her shirt. “You didn’t believe me all the other times I told you, though. There was still some doubt in your mind, even when we…even when we were…Oh! The hell with it!”
Leaving the shirt unbuttoned, she started toward her horse. “Hey, wait a minute!” Matt said as he reached for his long underwear. “If you ride back to the cabin lookin’ like that, your pa’s liable to take a shotgun after me!”
“And you’d damned well deserve it, wouldn’t you?”
“I wasn’t the only one out there in that creek, you know.” Matt was getting mad now, too. She couldn’t blame him for having a few doubts about the situation when there was so much at stake.
Evidently she did, though. She stopped long enough to force her shaking fingers to fasten the buttons on her shirt. Then she stomped into her boots, grabbed the reins, and started to mount up. By that time, Matt has his own jeans and boots on. He pulled the bib-front shirt over his head, which had just emerged from the faded blue garment’s neck opening when he heard the sudden crackle of gunfire in the distance.
Frankie must have heard it, too. Her head jerked up as she settled down in the saddle. Her eyes widened in fear.
“That sounds like it’s coming from the cabin!”
Matt agreed with her, and he ripped out a bitter curse at his own stupidity. He had agreed to help the Harlows, and then, knowing that Cimarron Kane and his bunch of bloodthirsty kinfolks might attack at any time, he had gone off to play a little slap-and-tickle with Frankie. No matter how pleasant that had been, he should have known better.
His Winchester was still in the saddle boot on the gray. He grabbed his shell belts and the attached holsters and strapped them on, quickly thonging down each Colt. As Matt did that, Frankie suddenly wheeled her horse around.
“Wait!” Matt told her. “Don’t go charging off—”
Too late. That was exactly what Frankie was doing. She jabbed her heels into her horse’s flanks and sent the animal racing up the hill from the creek. All Matt could do now was grab his hat off the saddle horn, bound onto the stallion’s back, and gallop after her.
That and pray that she wouldn’t ride right into a hailstorm of leaden death.
Chapter 19
Matt let the gray really stretch his legs out this time. They sailed into the air, too, when they topped the hill like Frankie and her mount. In the distance, Matt saw the thin line of smoke that rose from the still’s firebox through the stovepipe in the ridge. He didn’t see any other smoke, which was probably a good sign. He wanted to think so, anyway.
Frankie was about fifty yards ahead of him. The stallion pulled steadily closer until Matt was riding right behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, and he saw that her face was white with fear.
He could still hear the shots, even over the pounding hoofbeats. Most of them were the sharp cracks of rifles, mixed with the reports of handguns and an occasional dull boom of a shotgun. Matt had no doubt that the Harlows were under attack, and it seemed obvious who the attackers were, too.
He pulled alongside Frankie and motioned for her to fall back. “Let me see what’s goin’ on!” he shouted to her.
“The hell with that!” Anger blazed brightly on her face. “You know it has to be Kane!” She reached for her rifle and drew it out of its saddle sheath.
Even though he hadn’t been acquainted with Frankie for long, Matt knew he’d be wasting his breath if he tried to tell her to stay out of the fight. She would never do it. For another thing, he could probably use her help. The odds were bound to be against him, and if Thurman Harlow and his sons were pinned down as Matt suspected, he couldn’t expect much help from them.
“They won’t be expectin’ us to cut through the cornfield!” he called. “Maybe we can take them by surprise!”
She jerked her head in a curt nod to show him that she understood. When they reached the edge of the field, they plunged into it, Matt going first to break a path and Frankie following. The rows ran the other direction, so their horses had to trample over some of the plants. If any of the raiders happened to look this way, they might spot the movement among the crops as the plants shook. Matt’s hope was that they wouldn’t think to keep an eye on the fields.
When he sensed that he was getting close to the edge of the corn, he pulled back on the reins and brought the stallion to a halt. Since Frankie was following him, she had no choice but to either stop or veer off onto a new path of her own. She stopped, but she didn’t look happy about it.
“What the hell are you doing, Bodine?” she asked in a low, urgent voice.
Matt dismounted and pulled his rifle from the saddle boot. “I told you, I’m gonna have a look at what’s goin’ on.”
Frankie’s boots hit the ground. “Not without me, you’re not!”
“Come on, then.”
They left the horses and started forward through the few remaining yards of corn, weaving around the stalks now. When they came to the edge of the field, Matt dropped to one knee and motioned for Frankie to do likewise.
Shots still rang out from the cabin and the entrance to the underground chamber where the still was located. A
