“We’ll wait and see,” Sam said. But the glance he cast at the sky was more apprehensive than it had been a few minutes earlier. Barnabas had put into words the worry that had been lurking in the back of Sam’s mind all day. These Kansas plains were notorious for the big storms that sometimes rumbled across them. Those storms had been known to drop torrential downpours of rain, and to spawn cyclones, as well. There wasn’t much out there on the flat and mostly treeless prairie to slow down a twister.
But maybe it wouldn’t come to that, Sam told himself. Cottonwood had already seen more than its fair share of trouble the past few days. Surely it wouldn’t be plagued with a bad storm on top of everything else.
But then he remembered that nature didn’t have any concept of fairness. It just
He headed for the jail to warn Marshal Coleman that a storm might be brewing. He looked to the west and saw a haze in the air. Was that a cloud gathering?
No, Sam decided a moment later, it wasn’t a cloud. Not a storm cloud, anyway.
That haze in the air was dust. Riders were headed toward town.
From the looks of it, a lot of riders.
Chapter 34
Matt was shaken by the news he’d just heard. He stared at Thurman Harlow for a second, then said, “You mean they carried her off?”
Harlow’s head bobbed up and down. “Yeah. She was down at the creek and got caught out in the open when Kane’s bunch showed up. She tried to make it back to the cabin, but they cut her off. I yelled for her to get in the cornfield and hide. She didn’t have time, though. Cimarron Kane hisself grabbed her and hauled her up on his horse.”
Anger raged through Matt like a prairie fire, mixed with fear for Frankie’s safety. “Did he hurt her?”
“Not right then,” Harlow replied with a shake of his head. “Not that I could see, anyway. Lord knows what he plans on doin’ to her, though.”
Matt forced himself to put aside the emotions he was feeling and think coolly and calmly. “This was just a few minutes ago. They haven’t gone far yet. I came in from the main trail and didn’t run into them. Which way were they headed when they rode out?”
Harlow frowned. “Now, that’s odd. They lit a shuck outta here goin’ east. That ain’t the way back to their place.”
“No, it’s not,” Matt agreed. “But Cottonwood’s northeast of here. Maybe they were headed for town.”
“Why would they do that?”
Matt shook his head. “I don’t know, but I aim to find out where they’re goin’, because I’m gonna pick up their trail and follow the sons of bitches. How big a bunch was it?”
“Looked like ever’ nephew and shirttail cousin Kane could scare up. Close to thirty men, I’d say.”
Those were heavy odds, Matt thought, but he wasn’t going to let them stop him.
Besides, if Kane
“You say you’re goin’ after ’em, Mr. Bodine?” Harlow asked.
“That’s right.”
“The boys and me was about to get mounted up and do the same thing, if you want to wait—”
Matt swung up into the saddle and lifted the reins. He wasn’t waiting for anybody or anything, not with Frankie’s life probably in danger. “A bunch of riders that big will leave a trail that’s easy to follow,” he said. “You can catch up to me.”
Before Harlow could argue with him, he turned his horse around and sent the stallion leaping into a run. He rode past the ruined still, where only a little smoke was rising from the entrance now, and on past the ridges. The ground was a jumble of hoofprints from all the horses that had galloped along here. The trail was so plain a blind man could have followed it, Matt thought.
He drove his horse hard, and after a few minutes he began to see dust hanging in the air ahead of him. It hadn’t had time to settle yet after Kane and the others passed, and there was no wind to blow it away. The heat was as bad as ever, maybe even worse, but Matt barely noticed it now. All his thoughts were of Frankie.
Again, he forced his brain to function rationally, pushing the fear aside so that he could figure out what he needed to do now. No matter how you stacked it up, thirty-to-one odds were almost insurmountable. If he rode right up and attacked the men he was following, he wouldn’t accomplish anything except to get himself killed. And that wouldn’t help Frankie one damned bit, he told himself.
As soon as that was clear in his head, he pulled back on the reins and slowed the stallion. The horse couldn’t keep galloping at that pace, anyway, without running itself into the ground. At a fast trot now, Matt continued following the men who had abducted Frankie Harlow. He wasn’t likely to lose sight of them, not with all that dust their horses were kicking up.
And sure enough, the trail had angled a little north of due east. They were heading for Cottonwood. Matt was sure of it.
The question remained, though…what were they going to do when they got there?
Sam stood looking at the dust for a moment and frowning because he couldn’t figure out why a group of that size would be riding toward Cottonwood. He didn’t
But he didn’t know that they were peaceful, either. He decided that he needed to tell Marshal Coleman about this.
