“Matt had some business of his own to tend to,” Sam replied, being deliberately vague with his answer.
He was in an awkward position. He had promised Matt that he wouldn’t tell the marshal about the hidden saloon or the moonshining going on at the Harlow farm. Yet he felt that Coleman had a right to know about those things. For now, he would have to continue walking a fine line between keeping his word to his blood brother and following what he felt was his civic responsibility.
“Well, come on in the office,” Coleman invited. “I’ve got coffee on the stove.”
They went inside. Sam heard angry voices coming from the cell block. Coleman waved a hand toward the cell block door and said, “Don’t pay them any mind. They’ve been carryin’ on and raising a ruckus most of the night, and it got worse when they heard Cimarron out here. I try to just ignore ’em.”
Sam saw the wisdom of that approach but doubted it would be easy to carry out, considering the profanity that was coming from the cells. Coleman didn’t seem bothered by it, though. The marshal poured two cups of coffee from the pot staying warm on the stove and handed one of them to Sam.
“I’m glad you came by,” Coleman said as he sat down behind the desk. “I’ve been thinking about something. Were you planning to be around town for a while, Sam?”
“We didn’t really have any plans, one way or the other,” Sam answered. “I don’t think Matt intends to move on any time soon, though.”
Of course, that would depend to a certain extent on Frankie Harlow, he added silently.
“Well, then, how would you boys like to have a job while you’re here? I could sure use a couple of deputies.”
“Did the town council decide to let you hire someone?” Sam asked, remembering what Hannah had said the day before.
Coleman’s mouth tightened a little. “No, the council says the town can’t afford that. So I’d be payin’ you out of my own pocket. I can’t offer much in the way of wages, but you’d get three square meals a day, plus there are a couple of cots in the back room where you could sleep and save the price of a hotel room.”
Coleman had no way of knowing that with their successful ranches in Montana, both of the blood brothers could be considered rich men, especially out here on the frontier.
Sam started to shake his head. Then, as a look of disappointment came over Coleman’s face, he hurried on. “I can’t speak for Matt, but I’ll take the job, Marshal. But only on one condition. You won’t owe me anything in wages.” He smiled. “I’ll take the three square meals a day, though, if Hannah’s going to be cooking them.”
Coleman sat forward and slapped the desk. “She sure is! You got to let me pay you something, though.”
“No, that doesn’t matter,” Sam insisted. “Maybe if the town council sees that it’s a good thing for you to have a deputy, they’ll realize they need to find the money for a real one.”
Coleman opened one of the desk drawers and reached inside. He brought out a badge, which he slid across the desk to Sam.
“Pin that on. You’re hired, Sam, and as far as I’m concerned, you are a real deputy. Let me know when Matt gets back to town, and I’ll make the same offer to him.”
“Sure,” Sam said as he picked up the tin star. It was easier just to agree rather than trying to explain why Matt wasn’t going to be pinning on a deputy’s badge.
“Hannah will be awful glad to hear about this. You know she’s been tryin’ for a while to convince me that I need some help. I don’t know if I do or not—I’ve always been able to keep order here in town—but I’ve got a hunch that Kane is about to start raisin’ more hell than ever.”
Considering the attack on Frankie Harlow and the fact that three of Kane’s cousins were locked up here in town, that seemed like a safe bet to Sam. And that was the main reason he had agreed to take the job. Coleman wouldn’t be any match for the Kanes by himself. It was always possible, too, that the clash between the Kanes and the Harlows could spill over into the settlement. Cottonwood was where everyone in the area had to come for supplies.
Sam pinned the badge onto his buckskin shirt. Coleman nodded in satisfaction and said, “Looks mighty good.”
Before Sam could make any reply, one of the townsmen jerked the door open and stuck his head inside the office. “Marshal, come quick!” he said. “You ought to take a look at this!”
Coleman didn’t waste any time standing up. “What is it?” he asked the townie.
“Prison wagons comin’ into town, from the looks of it!” the man replied.
Sam recalled what Frankie Harlow had told him and Matt about the special marshals sent out by the governor using prison wagons to tranport the men they arrested for brewing, selling, or possessing illegal liquor. It sounded like the marshals were paying a visit to Cottonwood after all.
Coleman and Sam followed the townie outside. Quite a few people had congregated on the street to watch the new arrivals. There were four wagons in the convoy, flanked by outriders on horseback. The vehicles had enclosed beds that formed eight-foot-by-ten-foot cells. A door with a barred window was on the back of each wagon, and there was a small, barred window in each side for ventilation.
Those openings wouldn’t let in much air, though, and Sam had a hunch that on a hot day, like most days were at this time of year, the backs of those wagons would be like sweatboxes.
Ambrose Porter sat on a driver’s box attached to the front of the lead wagon. Calvin Bickford handled the team hitched to the second wagon, and two of the deputies drove the other pair. The men brought the vehicles to a stop in front of Marshal Coleman’s office.
Porter nodded and said, “Marshal, I’m sure you remember us. We stopped by here a few weeks ago to let you know that we’d be working in your area.”
Coleman grunted. “Yeah, I appreciated that.” Clearly, he wasn’t too fond of the governor’s men. “Something I can do for you?”
Porter jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the wagon he’d been driving. “As a matter of fact, there is. We have some wounded men here, and we’d like to have your local doctor take a look at them before we start for Wichita.” Porter smiled thinly. “We wouldn’t want them to die along the way so that they couldn’t face justice for their crimes.”
“What crime would that be?” Coleman asked. “Bein’ thirsty?”
Porter’s insincere smile disappeared. “The legislature passed that law, Marshal, not me. If you have a problem with it, take it up with them. Now, where can we find the doctor?”
“Take those wagons over by the creek and park ’em in the shade of the cottonwoods,” Coleman said. “At least that way, those fellas you’ve got locked up can be a mite more comfortable. I’ll go get the doctor and bring him over there.”
“I don’t care whether these lawbreakers are comfortable or not.” Porter shrugged. “But I suppose it won’t hurt anything. We’ll be by the creek.”
He lifted the reins and flicked them against the backs of the mules hitched to the wagon. The team stepped forward, and the wagon rolled toward the creek, followed by the others. As the vehicles moved past, Sam heard the groans coming from the wounded prisoners in the first one. The men in the other wagons were cursing monotonously. Bickford nodded pleasantly to Sam as he drove past, evidently recalling him from their encounter the day before.
“I’ll go down to Doc Berger’s office,” Coleman said when the wagons were gone. “You want your first job as my deputy, Sam?”
“Sure.”
Coleman nodded. “Good. Keep an eye on those wagons while I’m gone.”
“You think those prisoners might give some trouble?” Sam asked.
“I’m more worried about those special marshals,” Coleman said bluntly. “Especially Porter. I didn’t like the looks of him when he came through here before, and I still don’t. As far as I’m concerned, the man’s just one step above a hired killer.”
“He’s a lawman, too,” Sam pointed out.
“So they say.” Coleman sighed.
“All I know is that I’d just as soon never have seen that bunch again. I’ll be happy when they leave town, and as far as I’m concerned, I hope they never come back!”
Chapter 17
Matt watched until Sam had ridden through the cut in the ridge and was out of sight. Then he turned to go back into the Harlow cabin, but before he reached the door, Frankie came out.
“Come on,” she said. “Pa asked me to show you around the place.”
Matt nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
Any excuse to spend more time with Frankie Harlow was just fine with Matt, even if she was a mite proddy a lot of the time. At the moment, she seemed fairly friendly.
Although not as friendly as she’d been the night before when she was kissing him in the barn, he thought…
She led him past the barn and pointed along the ridge. “See where the smoke’s coming up there, a couple of hundred yards away?” she asked.
“I see it,” Matt said. “Is that where the still is?”
“Yeah. Come on. I’ll show you.”
They walked along the ridge until they came to what appeared to be the mouth of a cave. As they got closer, though, Matt saw that the opening had been shored up and steps had been carved into the earth, leading down.
“There was a little cave here already,” Frankie said, anticipating Matt’s question, “but Pa and the boys dug it out and enlarged it, sort of like a root cellar. Then they ran a pipe up through the ground to vent the firebox on the boiler.” She leaned through the entrance and called, “Don’t get nervous and start shooting, boys. It’s just me and Bodine.”
Matt followed her down the earthen steps, and found himself in a chamber that was partially carved out of the ridge and partially underground. It was about twenty feet by twenty feet, he estimated. A couple of lanterns hung from nails driven into the timbers that supported the roof.
A huge iron boiler dominated the room and made the air hot and moist in the chamber. The Harlows must have assembled the contraption here, Matt decided, because he didn’t think they could have gotten it through the door the way it was now. A copper pipe emerged from the tapering top of the boiler and ran over to a barrel that was connected to a second barrel by another pipe. More barrels that were probably full of moonshine sat on the other side of the chamber.
The four Harlow brothers stood around the room, two of them holding rifles, the other two tending to the fire in the boiler and watching the ’shine drip into the second barrel.
Frankie nodded toward the boiler. “This is Old Skullbuster,” she said with a note of pride in her voice. “My great-grandpappy built her originally. She helped brew up thousands of gallons of white lightning, back in the mountains in Tennessee.”
“More like millions of gallons, I’ll bet,” one of her brothers said.
“My grandpappy used it, too,” Frankie went on, “and then when my pa decided to come west, he took it apart and loaded the pieces on his wagon as careful as he could. We put it back together when we decided to settle here and got this place ready for it.”
Matt nodded. “Mighty impressive. You keep it runnin’ all the time?”
“Nearly all the time,” Frankie said. “Have to let it cool off every now and then, so we can clean out the firebox.” She pointed to the first barrel. “The mash is in there, and the squeezins drip out into the other barrel.”
Matt nodded. It was a simple setup. He had seen moonshine stills before, but Old Skullbuster was probably the biggest he had come across.
“It really only takes a couple of people to tend it and to stand guard,” Frankie continued. “We take turns doing that and working in the fields. We have to keep the corn crop growing so we’ll have it to make the mash. Some folks use grain, but Pa says there’s nothing sweeter than good corn liquor.”
“He just might be right about that,” Matt said with a smile. “What would you like me to do? I reckon I can tend a boiler if I need to.”
Frankie shook her head. “We’ll take care of this part of it, just like we always have. You’re here to kill Cimarron Kane, Bodine.”
Matt stiffened at the casual way Frankie spoke the words. “I told you, I’m not a hired gun. And I’m dang sure not a paid killer.”
“That’s not what I meant. Sooner or later, Kane and his kinfolks will come after us again. That ambush last night was just the start of it. When that happens, we’ll need help fighting him off. That’s where you come in.”
“And if Kane happens to wind up with a slug in him—”
“We dang sure won’t grieve for him,” Frankie said.
Matt understood. “Maybe it would be a good idea if I was to sort of patrol the place. You know, keep an eye out for Kane and his bunch.”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Let’s go.”
“You’re coming along, too?”
“Pa and the boys don’t need me right now, and it’ll help if you know the countryside hereabouts.”
Matt couldn’t argue with that, so he and Frankie left the cave where the Harlow still was located and returned to the barn. Matt saddled up his stallion while Frankie got a big bay gelding ready to ride.
“That looks like a lot of horse,” Matt commented. “You sure you can handle him?”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were a mistake. Frankie snorted contemptuously, gave a defiant toss of her head, practically vaulted into the saddle, and said, “Let’s see you keep up with me, Bodine!”
With that, she galloped out of the barn, and all Matt could do was go after her.
He swung up onto his horse and put the animal into a run. Frankie had already opened up a lead as she raced off to the west, paralleling the ridges. A thin cloud of dust coiled up into the air from her horse’s hooves.
Despite that lead, Matt’s rangy gray stallion soon began closing the gap. The horse wasn’t much for looks, but he had plenty of speed and stamina and could run all day if he needed to. Matt saw Frankie glancing over her shoulder at him. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to prove. Probably that she was as good as her brothers. From what Matt had seen so far, he wasn’t sure but what she was already better.
They flashed past the fields where the family’s corn crop grew. The green leaves and tasseled ears waved back and forth a little as a morning breeze stirred them. The plants were shorter and scrubbier than the ones Matt had seen growing in other, more fertile places, but they had plenty of ears on them. He wondered if the Harlows ever roasted any of those ears, or if they all went to make moonshine.
Still in the lead, Frankie sent her mount curving around the fields and took off toward the south. Matt stayed close behind her, holding his horse in a little now so that he wouldn’t overtake her. He was curious where she was going, and letting her win seemed to be the best way to find out.
A few minutes later, when they were out of sight of the Harlow homestead, Frankie galloped up a long swell of ground and didn’t slow down when she reached the top of it. Her horse was airborne for a second as it crested the slope at a full gallop. Matt reined in his horse even more as he reached the top in time to see Frankie’s mount land nimbly on the far slope and keep running. He would have been willing to bet that she had done this before.
At the bottom of the hill, a creek twisted across the prairie. A few trees stood along its banks. Frankie brought her horse to a stop under one of those trees and slipped down from the saddle.
Matt reached her side a moment later. Frankie was breathing hard from the exhilaration of the gallop. Matt tried not to stare at the way her breasts rose and fell under the red-checked shirt she wore, but it wasn’t easy.
“This is one of my favorite spots around here,” Frankie said as Matt dismounted. She pointed to some low hills rising in the distance. “Those knobs aren’t anything like the Smokies, but at least they’re not just flat prairie. They remind me a little of home, and so does this stream.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty,” Matt agreed. “As pretty as any place around t
hese parts, I guess.”
“You’ve been a lot of places, haven’t you?”
“Quite a few, I reckon,” Matt replied with a nod. “Sam and I have been on the drift for a few years.”
In truth, they had seen almost everything from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, from the Rio Grande in the south to the Milk River in the north. Folks talked about somebody having been to see the elephant. Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves had not only seen the critter on numerous occasions, they had walked right up and shaken hands with it. Or trunks, as the case might be.
“How’d the two of you wind up riding together?”
Matt smiled. “That’s too long a story to tell. Let’s just say we sort of grew up together, way up yonder in Montana. That’s still what we consider home, although we don’t get up there very often.”
“So you just…drift? Don’t you have any ambition?”
“Oh, I reckon we do. It’s just not time for us to worry about it yet. We’re still young, after all.”
Frankie gazed off into the distance. “I have ambition,” she said without looking at Matt. “I want to go to San Francisco and see the ocean. And I’d like to go back home someday, only with plenty of money so that folks would know I was a success.”
“Most people consider a woman a success if she has a good home and family,” Matt pointed out.
Frankie glanced sharply at him. “Well, that’s not the way I look at it,” she snapped. “I don’t need some man to take care of me, when what that really means is burdening me with a whole mess of squalling brats.”
“I guess you just don’t have much of a maternal instinct,” Matt said.
“Never you mind about my maternal instincts.” She led her horse over to one of the trees and looped its reins around the slender trunk, tying them so they wouldn’t slip. “I reckon it’s warmed up enough now.”
“Warmed up enough for what?” Matt asked.
“This,” Frankie said as she lifted her hands to the buttons of her shirt and began to unfasten them.
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