close to be any sort of warning or ruse.
Which meant that if Stovepipe and Wilbur had been the ones shooting at him, they might be riding up to Sam now in apparent innocence so they could blast the life out of him as soon as they got close enough.
Those thoughts went through his head in a flash. He looked at the approaching cowboys again.
Their rifles were booted, and their Colts were holstered. They were in rifle range now, so Sam brought the Winchester to his shoulder, leveled it at them, and called out, “Hold it right there, you two!”
Stovepipe and Wilbur reined in. Stovepipe leaned forward in the saddle with a puzzled frown on his craggy face.
“Why in Hades are you pointin’ that rifle at us, Sam?” he asked. “It appears to me we just done you a mighty big favor, the sort that usually prompts a fella to say gracias instead of threatenin’ to ventilate somebody.”
“I’m just trying to make sure I have everything sorted out the right way,” Sam said. “What are you doing out here? Following me?”
Stovepipe surprised him by answering, “Yep. That’s exactly what we were doin’.”
Sam’s frown deepened as he asked, “Why would you do that?”
Stovepipe rested both hands on his saddle horn and grinned. He said, “Because Wilbur and me, we got a hunch that you might be lookin’ for the same fellas we are.”
Sam was curious enough now that he lowered the rifle slightly.
“Come on over here so we can talk easier,” he said. “But don’t try anything funny, because I’ll be watching you.”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Wilbur said.
They hitched their horses into motion again and rode slowly toward Sam. He kept the rifle pointed in their general direction and his finger was ready on the trigger.
When they were close enough, he called, “All right, stop there. Now dismount one at a time.”
Stovepipe looked at Wilbur, who shrugged.
“All right, I’ll go first,” Stovepipe said. “Don’t get trigger-happy now, Sam.”
The lanky cowboy swung down from the saddle. Holding on to his horse’s reins with one hand, he raised the other hand to shoulder height.
“See? Not tryin’ anything funny.”
“Now you, Wilbur,” Sam said.
Wilbur dismounted and didn’t make any threatening moves, either.
Once they were both on the ground, Sam lowered the rifle to his waist. He could still fire from the hip with blinding speed if he needed to.
“What’s this about us looking for the same men?” he asked.
“Well, in order to tell you about it, I’m gonna have to ask you to believe a couple of things we can’t prove right now,” Stovepipe drawled. “The first bein’ that we ain’t who we seem to be.”
“You mean you’re not a couple of drifting grub-line riders?” Sam asked. “Yeah, I had started to figure that out.”
“Truth of it is,” Stovepipe went on, “we’re lawmen. . . sort of.”
That took Sam by surprise, but he tried not to show it.
“How can you sort of be lawmen?”
“We ain’t federal marshals or Rangers or even local badge-toters. We’re private operators, I reckon you could say. Range detectives. We work most of the time for the Cattlemen’s Protective Association.”
Sam knew about the CPA. It was a loose-knit organization with members stretching from Montana to the Rio Grande. In fact, he and Matt both belonged to it, that is, assuming their ranch managers had remembered to send in their dues. The blood brothers didn’t keep track of such things.
“If you work for the CPA, you ought to have papers showing that,” Sam said.
Stovepipe shook his head.
“Well, see, that’s why I said we couldn’t prove it right now. We ain’t exactly workin’ for the CPA on this case. They’ve loaned us out, I reckon you could say?”
“Loaned you out?” Sam repeated. “To who? And what case are you talking about?”
“We’re workin’ for the War Department in Washington,” Stovepipe said. “Undercover-like, which is why we got no bona fides on us sayin’ who we are.”
Beside him, Wilbur spoke up.
“Are you sure we ought to be tellin’ him all this, Stovepipe? For all we know, he could be part of the gang.”
“Then who was that shootin’ at him a while ago?” Stovepipe wanted to know.
Sam wasn’t sure whether to believe anything they had told him, but he said, “For what it’s worth, that wasn’t the first time somebody tried to bushwhack me. It’s the third attempt in the past week, and I’m convinced they were all by the same bunch.”
Stovepipe let out a low whistle.
