when he hit the ground.
Matt knew it might not be long before another guard came along and discovered the unconscious man. He broke into a run toward the far end of town where the jail was located.
He had taken only a few steps when what sounded like a giant clap of thunder shook the ground under his feet. Despite the gathering storm, though, it wasn’t thunder, he realized.
It was an explosion.
Linus Grady, Cimarron Kane, and Ambrose Porter left the jail soon after Kane’s leering threat, leaving Calvin Bickford behind to keep an eye on Sam and Marshal Coleman.
“You can’t expect to get away with this, Bickford,” Sam told the man. “Too many people in Cottonwood know what you were up to before. Now that you’re partners with Kane and Grady, you can’t wipe out the whole town. It would ruin their plans if you did.”
“Nobody’s going to be brave enough to speak up,” Bickford said confidently. “Not with Cimarron being Cottonwood’s new marshal and Linus Grady its mayor. They’ll run things, and folks will go along with them if they know what’s good for ’em.”
Sam hated to think it, but he knew Bickford might be right. The citizens of Cottonwood were common, ordinary people. They weren’t outlaws or professional gunmen, and they wouldn’t stand a chance against a whole clan of killers like the Kanes. Eventually, of course, the facts of what had happened here would filter out to the proper authorities, but by that time the four conspirators would have cleaned up. They could take their loot and run, but probably not without leaving death and destruction behind them.
“You fellas enjoy what time you have left,” Bickford went on. “Cimarron and Ambrose have a couple of dozen men patrolling the town. As soon as Bodine walks into their trap, we can wrap things up and get on with the business of becoming rich men.”
By wrapping things up, Bickford meant murdering Sam and Coleman, Ike and Mike Loomis, and probably Hannah and Frankie, Sam thought. Although it was possible the conspirators might keep the two young women alive as playthings, at least until they grew tired of them. Sam’s jaw clenched so tightly at the thought that he had to force it to relax before he broke some of his teeth.
Chuckling, Bickford strolled out of the cell block. He left the door open as he went into the marshal’s office. Sam heard the chair behind the desk squeak as the crooked lawman sat down.
Sam hadn’t given up on finding a way out of the cell. He was looking around, hoping that an idea would come to him, when he heard a whisper at the window. “Two Wolves!”
Sam sprang to the window and looked out. Barnabas Smith stood there. The little man didn’t look as drunk now as he had been earlier. Barnabas went on. “I heard what those bastards were sayin’ a while ago. Porter’s liable to try to hunt down all of us he had locked up in those wagons, so he can shut our mouths.”
“That’s right,” Sam said with a nod. “Listen, my friend Matt may be in town. Have you seen him?”
“Nope. But you don’t need him to get you outta there. I can do it.”
Sam frowned. “It’s too late to get the keys,” he said, keeping his voice pitched low. “Bickford’s in the office.”
“Don’t need the keys. Those varmints left their horses in the livery stable when they took Ike Loomis prisoner, so I was able to slip in there and get somethin’ even better outta Bickford’s saddlebags. Back when I was a prisoner, I saw where he keeps ’em.”
“Keeps what?” Sam asked in exasperation.
“This,” Barnabas said as he lifted a round black object into Sam’s line of sight. A fuse dangled from it.
Sam’s eyes widened in shock. “That’s a
“I know,” Barnabas said calmly. He lifted his other hand, and Sam saw a match in it. Before Sam could say anything, Barnabas snapped the match into life with his thumbnail and held the flame to the end of the fuse. “Better grab the mattress off that bunk and get under it. I’ll put this down at the base of the wall.”
“No!” Sam exclaimed. “Put that fuse out! Get rid of it, Barnabas—”
“No time for that now,” Barnabas said as he bent to the ground. “Better duck!”
Then his running footsteps pounded away along the alley.
Sam did the only thing he could. He yelled, “Get down!” at Marshal Coleman, snatched the thin mattress off the cell’s bunk, and curled up in a corner as far away from the wall as he could get, wrapping the mattress around himself. He heard Bickford run into the cell block, shouting, “What the hell?”
When the blast came a second later, it was like being caught in the middle of the biggest thunderclap that ever sounded. A wave of force smashed into Sam and drove him back into the corner. A huge weight crashed down on top of him. He blacked out for a moment, and when he came to, his ears were ringing and the smell of burned powder was so sharp that it seemed to slice into his nose like a thousand knives.
But he was alive, no doubt about that. The weight was still on top of him, making it difficult to breathe. He shoved against it, and some of it fell away. Sam continued to struggle, fighting his way free of the rubble that was heaped on top of him.
He still couldn’t hear anything as he pushed the chunks of broken wall off him and climbed to his feet. He saw the chips of rock fly from a big piece of wall as a bullet struck it, though. Twisting around, he saw Calvin Bickford getting ready to fire another shot through the bars, which had withstood the explosion. Bickford’s face was covered with blood from the gashes that flying debris had left on it.
Sam grabbed a fist-sized shard of rock and let fly with it, aiming for a gap between two of the iron bars. The missile flew true and caught Bickford in the head just as he pulled the trigger. The impact threw off his aim and made him stagger backward.
That brought him within reach of Coleman, whose hands shot through the bars and caught Bickford around the neck. The real lawman jerked the corrupt one back against the door as hard as he could. Bickford’s head clanged against the bars. He went limp, and his gun slipped out of his fingers.
