Sam stiffened. “What were you about to say, Mr. Loomis?”
“I was about to offer you a payoff for lookin’ the other way, son,” Loomis answered bluntly. “Then I realize that’d be the wrong thing to do.”
“It sure would,” Sam agreed. “I’m doing this because the marshal has enough trouble on his plate right now without worrying about anything else. If things settle down, things may be different.”
“Reckon we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Exactly.”
Sam left the livery stable and walked to the hotel. Earlier he had moved all of his gear out of the rented room and taken it over to the marshal’s office, stowing it in the back room where he would sleep. As he came in now, he gave the clerk a friendly nod. The man’s name was Herman, Sam had learned.
“Evening, Herman,” he said. “Are Marshal Porter and Marshal Bickford in their rooms?”
The clerk glanced at the rack of keys behind the desk. “Yep, looks like it. You need to see them?”
Sam shook his head. “No, I’m just making sure they’re settled in for the night. Part of my evening rounds for Marshal Coleman, I guess you could say. Making sure the town’s special guests don’t need anything.”
Herman made a face. “That Marshal Porter is about the unfriendliest gent I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I don’t see how Marshal Bickford puts up with him. But they’re both fine as far as I know. Had their supper, went down to the creek to check on their prisoners, and came back and turned in. Those deputies of theirs are upstairs in their rooms, too.”
“All of them?” Sam asked.
“Well, all but a couple.”
That came as no surprise. Sam hadn’t expected Porter to leave the prison wagons unguarded, but it looked like the special marshal had been satisfied with posting only two sentries, as he had done during the day.
“I’m glad Marshal Coleman’s got himself some help at last,” Herman went on. “He’s done a bang-up job of keeping the peace here in Cottonwood, but the way things are going, what with these new laws and that gunman Cimarron Kane hanging around, I’m afraid hell’s liable to start popping around here. You don’t think you could talk Mr. Bodine into signing on as a deputy, too, do you?”
“Matt’s not in town right now, but we’ll see,” Sam replied noncommittally.
“If Porter or Bickford come downstairs, you want me to tell them you were asking about them?”
Sam shook his head. “No need for that. Just pretend that I wasn’t here, Herman.”
The clerk grinned. “You got it, Sam.”
Leaving the hotel, Sam paused on the porch. Cottonwood was quiet at the moment, but as Hannah had said that morning, an uneasy air hung over the town, a sense that something bad was going to happen, and soon.
Sam pushed that thought out of his head. He turned and started toward the marshal’s office. After a few steps, he passed the dark mouth of an alley.
One second he was there, the next he was gone. As if he had vanished by magic, Sam Two Wolves had disappeared into the shadows, becoming one with the night.
Chapter 23
The four wagons were parked in a line along the creek bank, separated by the spaces where the mule teams had been when they were pulled up there. One of the guards sat on the tongue of the fourth wagon, smoking a quirly. The other paced back and forth beside the lead wagon where the wounded prisoners were. He was probably moving around to fight off boredom and to help keep himself awake, Sam thought as he stood in the shadows of a nearby cottonwood and watched them.
It was dark here along the creek, under the trees, but Sam’s eyes were almost as keen as a cat’s. The light from the moon and stars that filtered down through the leafy branches was enough for him to make out the details of the scene. He waited until the pacing guard swung around, facing away from him, and then darted out of concealment long enough to circle the fourth wagon and approach the smoking guard from behind.
The man had no idea Sam was there. Sam could have killed him with no trouble at all, driving the bowie knife that was sheathed on his hip into the guard’s back and piercing his heart with the cold steel.
Sam wasn’t here tonight to kill, though. He was just after information. When he struck, his hands were empty of weapons. His left arm went around the man’s neck with the speed of a striking snake, closing hard and jerking the guard backward off the wagon tongue. The man never had a chance to make a sound.
The guard’s rifle fell to the ground. Sam reached down with his right hand and plucked the man’s revolver from its holster. The man continued to flail and writhe, but he was weakening rapidly from lack of air and his struggles were almost soundless. The groans of wounded men coming from the lead wagon would keep the guard up there from hearing anything.
After a couple of minutes, the man Sam had hold of slumped into unconsciousness. Sam lowered him to the ground, pulled the man’s belt off, and used it to tie his hands together behind his back.
The man had dropped his quirly when Sam grabbed him. The end of it still glowed redly on the ground. Sam put his boot toe on it and stubbed it out.
The other guard was too alert to sneak up on like that. Sam wouldn’t be able to take him by surprise as he had with this one. In such a case, the best course of action was usually to be bold. Sam walked toward the lead wagon like he was supposed to be there.
The man heard him coming and stopped pacing, swinging around to ask, “Something wrong, Hendrickson?”
“Yeah,” Sam grunted as another step carried him closer. “A lot.”
