“That they do,” Sam agreed. He lifted a hand in farewell as Matt headed west out of Cottonwood.
The sun had risen and was a giant, brassy ball hanging in the eastern sky behind Matt as he rode. The dust kicked up by his horse’s hooves hung motionless in the air behind him because there was no breeze to stir it. From time to time, Matt took off his hat and sleeved sweat from his forehead. The oppressive feeling in the air didn’t seem to be going away any time soon.
Matt was nearing the spot where the trail to the Harlow farm branched off when he heard some distant popping sounds. That had to be gunfire, he thought as he reined in sharply, and as best he could tell, the reports were coming from the direction of the Harlow place. He bit back a curse as he gazed off to the south and saw a large ball of black smoke suddenly billow up over the horizon.
The Harlow cabin, which was built mostly of sod, wouldn’t cause a cloud of smoke like that if it was on fire, Matt knew. But if the moonshine still had exploded, it might.
Matt wasn’t the sort to sit around and brood because things had gone wrong. He would do his best to put them right again. He urged his mount into a gallop, and a couple of minutes later, horse and rider swung onto the trail leading to the Harlow farm. Matt knew he might run right into Cimarron Kane and the rest of that murderous family, but at the moment he didn’t care. He knew what Kane looked like now, thanks to the description Sam had given him, and he wanted to get that varmint in his gunsights.
As Matt urged the stallion to a faster pace, he watched the black smoke climb higher in the sky ahead of him. There was no doubt in his mind now that it came from the Harlow farm. He lowered his gaze and searched for a pall of dust hanging in the air. That would indicate the location of the Kane bunch as they rode away from the farm.
But he didn’t see any dust coming toward him, which was strange. He figured that after the raid, they would head back to their own ranch, which meant they would have to ride north.
Instead, the air remained hot and clear ahead of him, except for the column of black smoke, which was thinning now. Matt slowed his horse all the way to a stop and listened intently for the sound of shots. He didn’t hear any. More than likely the fight was over, and he had a bad feeling that he wasn’t going to like the outcome.
He pulled his Winchester from the saddle sheath and galloped ahead again. The line of ridges came into view a few minutes later. The Harlow homestead was just on the other side of those ridges, he recalled from the day before. It was hard to believe that only about twenty-four hours had passed since he’d gone exploring the area around the homestead with Frankie Harlow.
Matt followed the trail through the cuts in the ridges, thinking that this would be a bad place to run into Cimarron Kane, but there was no sign of the outlaw and his relatives. When he emerged from the last of the cuts and swung toward the farm, he saw that the cabin was intact. Just as he had thought, the smoke rose from the mouth of the underground chamber where the still was located. Kane had managed to blow it up. Matt discounted the idea of an accidental explosion because of the gunshots he’d heard. There had definitely been a fight here.
A rifle suddenly cracked from one of the windows in the cabin, the slug throwing up dirt about twenty yards in front of Matt’s horse. Matt hauled back on the reins and slowed the animal. That had been a warning shot. Somebody in the cabin was trigger-happy, and he couldn’t blame whoever it was. Lifting his voice, he shouted, “Hold your fire! It’s me, Matt Bodine!”
The cabin door flew open. Thurman Harlow ran out, holding a rifle. “Mr. Bodine!” he called. “Come on in!”
Matt rode quickly up to the cabin and dismounted, his boots hitting the ground even before his horse had stopped moving. “What happened here?” he asked. “I heard the shootin’ and saw the smoke.”
“It was that damned Cimarron Kane!” the usually mild-mannered Harlow replied with unaccustomed vehemence. “He hit us again, and this time he managed to blow up the still. He had a bomb, I reckon you’d call it, that he tossed in there. Quint and Farrell barely got out in time before it blowed up.”
Matt frowned. Kane using a bomb like that reminded him of what he and Sam had seen those crooked marshals doing a few days earlier, when they first rode in to the area.
“They kept the rest of us pinned down,” Harlow went on, “all except for…” He had to choke out the next words. “Except for Frankie.”
Fear made Matt’s heart slug heavily in his chest. “Frankie,” he repeated. “Is she all right?”
“I don’t know,” Harlow replied miserably as he shook his head. “That son of a bitch Kane made off with her!”
Ambrose Porter was sullenly quiet as he sat in a cell by himself. The three crooked deputies who had been arrested shared one of the other cells, but Marshal Coleman had left Porter locked up alone. The whole bunch was quiet at the moment, Sam saw as he looked in through the little barred window in the cell block door.
Sam had returned to the office after bidding Matt farewell. Coleman came in a few minutes later, looking a little stronger this morning after getting a night’s sleep.
“Everything peaceful?” he asked as he went to the stove to pour himself a cup of coffee.
“Quiet as it can be,” Sam replied. “I made the morning rounds a little while ago.”
Coleman nodded. “Good man. You know what needs to be done, and you do it without anybody havin’ to tell you about it. That’s rare.”
“Just a matter of common sense,” Sam said with a shrug.
“Maybe so, but you’d be surprised in what short supply that quality is most of the time.”
Sam got some coffee for himself as Coleman went behind the desk and sat down. “What do you plan to do about Porter and those deputies?” Sam asked.
“Not much I
