“Can’t see much of anything from in here,” Barnabas said. “What happened to Porter?”
“He’s locked up in jail where he belongs.”
“Well, thank God for that! What about them deputies?”
“Most of them are dead.”
“Can’t say as I’m sad to hear it. They might not’ve been quite as bad as Porter and Bickford, but they were a pretty low-down bunch, too.”
“We’ll get you out of there first thing in the morning,” Sam assured him. “In the meantime, try to get some rest.”
“Sure.” Barnabas hesitated, then said, “Thanks, mister. If it wasn’t for what you did, some of us wouldn’t have made it much longer.”
“Somebody had to put a stop to what Porter and Bickford were doing,” Sam said.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t just somebody. It was you. That makes you a hero in my book.”
Sam shook his head. He had never thought of himself as a hero, or Matt, either, for that matter. They were just a couple of hombres who did what needed to be done and dealt with trouble as they came to it.
Which was all too often, Sam reflected. But for tonight, at least, it seemed to be over.
Chapter 32
For once that prediction proved to be accurate, and not a jinx. The rest of the night passed quietly with no sign of Cimarron Kane and his troublesome relatives returning to Cottonwood, or of Calvin Bickford, either, for that matter.
Belatedly, Matt thought about the deputy he had left underneath the wagon, but when he went to check, the man had already been found. One of the bullets that had been fired by the man’s crooked compadres at Matt had struck the hombre smack-dab between the eyes instead, killing him instantly.
The deputy Matt had tied up in the alley had been found, too, and locked up in Marshal Coleman’s jail, along with the two Sam had captured down at the creek. That made it a clean sweep of the crooked lawmen, except for Bickford.
Out of gratitude to Matt and Sam, Ike Loomis offered to take care of their horses for free as long as they remained in Cottonwood, and he told Matt that he could sleep in the livery stable’s hayloft if he wanted to, as well. Matt declined that offer as graciously as he could and chose to spend the night at the hotel instead. He wanted to get back out to the Harlow place as soon as possible—Frankie and her pa and brothers didn’t know yet about Cimarron Kane’s raid on the town—but morning would be soon enough for that, Matt decided.
Sam slept on the cot in the jail’s back room, and was up early the next morning. He went outside as the approach of dawn grayed the eastern sky and was struck by how hot and still the air was. Usually, there was a hint of coolness in the early morning like this, even in the middle of summer, but not today. The atmosphere had a heavy, uncomfortable feeling to it, and at times like this, Sam longed for the clean coolness of the Montana high country, the homeland of his father’s people.
He spotted Matt leading the saddled gray stallion out of the livery barn and walked over to meet him. With a smile on his face, Sam held out the thing he had found and picked up just a few moments earlier as he was making his rounds.
“My hat!” Matt exclaimed. “You found it.”
“Yes, and it doesn’t look like it’s been shot up and trampled on too much,” Sam said.
Matt took the Stetson, beat it against his leg to get the dirt off it, poked it back into shape, and settled it on his head. “How’s it look?” he asked his blood brother.
“No more disreputable than usual.”
“No more…Hey, what do you mean by that? This is a fine hat!”
“Of course it is,” Sam said. “Where are you going this early in the morning?”
“Back out to the Harlow place.”
Sam frowned. “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind about that.”
“Why would I?” Matt asked. “Those folks still need help. Cimarron Kane’s determined to put ’em out of the whiskey business, even if it means killin’ all of them.”
“Seems to me like Kane’s more concerned with getting his cousins out of jail.”
Matt shook his head. “Not yesterday mornin’, he wasn’t. He raided the Harlow farm and tried to blow up their still. Even wounded one of Frankie’s brothers a little bit.”
“You’re sure it was Cimarron Kane and his bunch?” Sam asked with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve never seen Kane, or if I have, I didn’t know which one he was. What does he look like?”
Quickly, Sam described Cimarron Kane’s appearance. He had gotten a good look at the outlaw gunman the day before when Kane rode into town with some of his kinfolks, so he was able to paint a vivid word picture for Matt.
As Sam concluded the description, Matt shook his head. “No, I didn’t see anybody who looked like that in the bunch that attacked the Harlow place. But who else could it have been? It sure as hell wasn’t Porter and Bickford and their deputies, and they’re the only other hell-raisers in these parts right now!” Matt paused, then added, “At least they were until last night. Now I don’t reckon they fall into that category anymore, with Porter locked up, Bickford on the run, and the only other survivors either behind bars or shot up.”
“That reminds me,” Sam said. “I need to go down to Dr. Berger’s and see how Mike Loomis is doing this
