Moonshine Massacre

The guard whirled toward him, snarling, “I told you to get the hell out—”

Sam’s patience had reached its limits. He reached out, took hold of the guard’s rifle, and plucked the weapon out of the man’s hands. Sam’s movements were so smooth and efficient that he didn’t even appear to be moving fast, but in reality, he had taken the guard’s rifle away before the man even knew what happened. When the guard let out an outraged howl and clawed at the revolver holstered on his hip, Sam swung the Winchester and caught the man on the side of the head with the stock, knocking him senseless to the ground.

“You sonuva—”

That angry shout came from the other guard, who was charging toward him. Sam dropped the rifle, pivoted lightly, and drew his Colt at the same time. The special deputy skidded to a shocked, frightened halt as he found himself staring down the rock-steady barrel of Sam’s revolver from a distance of about four feet.

“Whatever you were about to do, I’d advise you not to,” Sam said quietly.

The man’s prominent Adam’s apple jumped up and down as he swallowed. “Mister, you’re crazy! When Porter gets back here, he’ll throw you in one of those wagons!”

“He may try,” Sam said. Despite the fact that Matt was generally the more reckless and hotheaded of the pair, Sam had just as deep a reserve of outrage when he saw something happening that shouldn’t be. And when Sam Two Wolves finally lost his temper, as was about to happen here, he was every bit as much a man to stand aside from as Matt Bodine was.

He went on. “Put your rifle on the ground, and then put your pistol beside it.”

“I’m not givin’ up my guns,” the guard insisted. Sam had to give him credit for some courage. It took sand to refuse to follow orders when a fella was pointing a gun at your face from only a few feet away.

The standoff came to an end a couple of heartbeats later when Marshal Coleman roared, “What in blazes is goin’ on here?”

“Stand aside!” That was Ambrose Porter. “Stand aside, by God! I’m going to kill that man!”

“The hell you will! That’s my deputy!”

From the corner of his eye, Sam saw Coleman and Porter hurrying toward the wagons, trailed by a man in a dark suit who was probably Cottonwood’s doctor. Porter carried his rifle, and Coleman had drawn his handgun. It was a question now of who was going to shoot who.

But it seemed entirely likely that one way or another, in the next moment or two, bullets were going to fly.

Chapter 21

“Sam!” Marshal Coleman bellowed. “Put away that gun! That’s an order!”

“Marshal, you don’t understand—” Sam began.

“I understand that you pinned on that badge, and that means you do what I tell you, damn it! We’re all lawmen here. We don’t need to go around killin’ each other.”

Porter was so tightly strung that he quivered a little as he said, “That man is under arrest. I’m within my rights to kill him for assaulting a special officer and interfering with the performance of our duties.”

“Nobody’s gonna arrest anybody,” Coleman said, still trying to be the voice of reason. “I’m tellin’ you, this is all just a plain ol’ misunderstanding. Sam, holster that hogleg—now!”

Sam took a deep breath and lowered the Colt. He didn’t holster it, though. Instead, he held it down at his side, ready to use it. He wasn’t convinced that gunplay had been averted here.

Coleman moved so that he was between Sam and Porter. “Now, let’s try to get this straightened out,” he said.

“There’s nothing to straighten out.” Porter’s voice was as cold and hard as a glacier. “That man is under arrest. We’ll be taking him back to Wichita with us to face trial.”

“How about if I give you my word that he won’t bother you or any of your folks again while you’re here in Cottonwood? That I’ll keep him away from you?”

Sam felt a surge of anger at Coleman’s words, but he knew the marshal was just trying to head off more trouble. He clamped his jaw tightly shut so he wouldn’t say anything and just make the situation worse.

“You want me to close my eyes to a violation of the law?” Porter demanded. “You know I can’t do that. My God, man, my deputy was attacked!”

That so-called deputy was nothing but a hardcase, a hired gunman, Sam thought, and he couldn’t hold his anger in check any longer. “Doesn’t anybody want to know what actually happened here?” he asked.

Coleman glanced over his shoulder at Sam. “I sort of would, now that you mention it.”

Sam used his free hand to point at the deputy he had knocked senseless. “That man right there attacked one of the prisoners. A man inside this wagon had hold of the bars in the window and had pulled himself up so he could look out.”

“That’s a violation of the rules, right there,” Porter snapped. “Prisoners are to stay away from the windows. All those men know that.”

This time it was Sam’s turn to ignore Porter and act like the special marshal hadn’t said anything. “The guard slammed the barrel of his rifle against the bars and probably broke that hombre’s fingers.” Sam looked at the little, goateed man in the dark suit who had followed Coleman and Porter from town. “That’ll be something else for you to take a look at, Doc,” he said. Sam was sure of the man’s identity now, having spotted the black bag he was carrying.

“You can’t blame my deputy for enforcing the rules—” Porter began.

“But those are just your rules,” Coleman pointed out. “That’s not the same as a law. Sounds to me like your