wagon.”
“I’m going to get Marshal Coleman, and we’ll get to the bottom of this. If you’re telling me the truth, we’ll do something about Porter and Bickford.”
“What can you do? They’ve got ten men workin’ for them, and those two are stone-cold killers themselves. I saw Bickford shoot a man in the back of the head the other day for cussin’ him, and Porter’s even more of a madman.”
Those were bad odds, all right, but maybe he and Coleman could take the special marshals by surprise while they slept in their hotel rooms, Sam thought. If they could capture the men one by one without alerting the others, they would stand a chance.
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure out something,” Sam said. He let go of the bar in the window and jumped down backward from the wagon wheel.
He had just landed on the ground and caught his balance when a ring of cold, hard steel pressed against the back of his neck, under the long, raven-black hair. Calvin Bickford said in a regretful voice, “Don’t move, Sam, or I’ll have to kill you.”
Chapter 24
Sam froze, mentally chiding himself for letting Bickford slip up on him unnoticed. He had been concentrating on what the prisoner inside the wagon was telling him. It was possible, too, that Bickford was capable of more stealth than should have been possible, considering his appearance.
“Marshal Bickford, is that you?” Sam asked as the wheels of his brain spun swiftly. “It looks like someone attacked your guards and knocked them out. I just came down here to check on the wagons—”
Bickford’s chuckle interrupted him. “Nice try, Sam,” the man said, “but I’ve been over there under that tree for the last few minutes, listening while that varmint inside the wagon spun that crazy yarn. It’s a good thing I decided to come down here and check on things before I turned in for the night.”
“Yeah, that story is crazy, isn’t it?” Sam agreed. “I didn’t believe him, of course.”
“Well, see…
“I was just going along with what he said—” Sam began.
The gun muzzle pressed harder against the back of his neck as Bickford plucked Sam’s gun from its holster. His voice had lost all its jovial affability as he said, “Shut up, you damned redskin. You think I’m gonna take any chances on a sweet deal like this getting ruined?”
“You admit it, then? You’ve been taking bribes and murdering the prisoners who won’t pay up?”
“You know how much money I’ve made in my whole career as a lawman, half-breed? Not as much as I’ve made in the past few months as a special marshal. And that’s with splitting the take with Porter and paying off those hardcases we hired as deputies, too.” Bickford paused. “I’d be a damned fool to give that up. I
“You can’t get away with that,” Sam told him.
“I don’t see why the hell not. Those guards you knocked out probably never saw you. They’re still out cold, and they don’t know what happened. Nobody will ever get a chance to talk to the other prisoners, at least not without Porter and me being right there to make sure they keep their mouths shut, so we’re in the clear there. I’ll shoot you, then get one of those bastards out of the wagon and kill him, too. When I put a gun in his hand, it’ll look like he broke out, knocked out the two guards, and then shot you when you came along and interrupted his escape, but not in time to keep you from shooting him. Nobody’s gonna question a story like that.”
“Marshal Coleman might.”
“Even if he does, he won’t be able to prove a thing,” Bickford insisted blandly.
Sam thought desperately, searching for a way out of this. He could move with blinding speed when he needed to, but he wasn’t sure he could twist away from the gun fast enough to keep Bickford from pulling the trigger and putting a bullet in his brain. He needed something to distract Bickford…
“You’re not as smart as you think you are, Marshal,” he said. “If you shoot me and then take the time to unlock the wagon and force one of those wounded prisoners out at gunpoint so you can kill him, too, there’ll be too big a gap between the shots. As close as we are to town, somebody’s bound to hear the shots and remember how far apart they were. They might even come down here to see what was going on before you’d have a chance to gun down the prisoner and frame him for killing me.”
Bickford didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Sam could almost see the frown that creased the man’s forehead as he pondered what Sam had just said.
“Maybe you got a point there,” Bickford finally admitted. “Come on. Back up. We’ll unlock the wagon and get the prisoner out of there first.”
Sam had hoped that Bickford would take the gun away from his neck and step to the rear of the wagon to unlock the door. That would have given Sam a chance to turn the tables on him. Instead, Bickford kept the revolver pressed against his neck and forced him to back to the rear of the wagon.
“All right, swing around, but stay facing away from me,” Bickford ordered when they got there. “If I feel even a muscle tremble, I’ll pull the trigger and take my chances. I mean it, Sam.”
“I know you do,” Sam said. There was no doubt in his mind now that Bickford was a cold-blooded murderer.
He heard keys rattle and knew Bickford was trying to unlock the door and keep an eye on him at the same time. That might be enough of a distraction for him to risk making a move.
But Bickford was more deft than Sam expected him to be. The heavy padlock on the door clicked open, and Sam heard the door’s hinges squeal a little as it swung open.
