“Who’s Cimarron Kane?” Sam asked.
“Seems like I’ve heard the name before,” Matt added.
“Cimarron Kane’s an owlhoot,” Coleman said. “He grew up around here, but went off when he was younger to raise hell in Colorado and New Mexico and Arizona. I don’t know what-all he did, but I wouldn’t put much of anything past him. Heard he killed at least three men in gunfights. Reckon when the law made it too hot for him in those other places, he came back here to Kansas. He’s not wanted for anything in this state, so I can’t arrest him. The old Kane homestead is about five miles northwest of here, and for the past year or so, his relatives have been showing up to stay with him. Most of them are just like those three you tangled with today: right out of the mountains in Tennessee and rough as a cob.”
“How do they get by?” Sam asked. “Farming?”
Coleman shook his head. “They run a few cattle, but if you ask me, they’re up to something no good out there. Those few scrubby cows wouldn’t make ’em much money.”
“And the three men you arrested are part of the clan?”
“Yep. Dudley, Nelse, and Wiley Kane. Claim they’re cousins to Cimarron and said that if I’d send word to him, he’d come in and pay their fines.”
Hannah said, “But you’re not going to let them off with just fines, are you, Dad? They tried to kill you. They deserve to go to jail!”
“That ain’t up to me,” Coleman said with a shake of his head. “I’ll abide by whatever the judge says.”
“Would’ve simplified matters if we’d just killed ’em,” Matt said. Then as Sam turned to frown at him, he said, “What?”
“You’re a barbarian, you know that?”
“Heard a fella say once that barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” Matt replied with a grin. “Pass me another roll, would you?”
Chapter 8
The rest of the meal went smoothly, and after they had finished eating—including healthy servings of the deep-dish apple pie Coleman had advised the blood brothers to save room for—Sam offered to help Hannah clean up.
“That’s not necessary,” she told him.
“I really don’t mind.”
She shooed him out of the dining room. “No, you go with Dad and Mr. Bodine. Dad usually sits out on the porch in the evening after supper, and I’m sure he’d be glad for the company.”
Coleman took one of the rockers on the porch, Matt the other. Sam sat on the steps and rubbed the ears of the shaggy little mutt Lobo, who seemed to revel in the attention.
As Coleman took out a tobacco pouch and started packing his pipe, Matt asked, “Is that Cimarron Kane hombre liable to make any trouble because you arrested his cousins?”
Coleman scratched a match into life on the sole of his boot and held the flame to the pipe’s bowl. When he had puffed on it until the tobacco was burning good, he shook the match out and said, “Probably not. Like I said, there are no reward dodgers out on Kane here in Kansas, and I reckon he’d like to keep it that way. He’s always on his best behavior when he’s in town, and he tries to keep the rest of the clan in line, too.” The lawman smoked for a moment, then added, “I don’t know what he’ll do, though, if he thinks those fellas are going to prison. He might not stand for that.”
Matt and Sam exchanged a glance in the light that spilled onto the porch through the open door. Sam had already started making noises about hanging around Cottonwood for a while to give Marshal Coleman a hand. There might be even more reason to do that if Coleman found himself facing potential gun trouble from a hardcase like this Cimarron Kane.
They already planned to stay here for a few days, though, to rest their horses, so maybe by the time that interval had passed, they would know more about whether or not Kane represented a real threat.
“Don’t you boys worry about any of that,” Coleman went on. “I’ve been the law here for five years, and I packed a badge for more’n twenty years in other places before that. So I know how to handle trouble.”
“I’m sure you do, Marshal,” Sam said. “If you need any help while we’re here, though, don’t hesitate to call on us.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Coleman promised.
They chatted about more pleasant subjects for a while. Like most Westerners, Coleman obviously didn’t believe in prying into a man’s past, so he didn’t ask Matt and Sam to tell him about themselves. They volunteered some information anyway, talking about how they had grown up as friends in Montana and telling the marshal about some of the adventures they’d had since going on the drift several years earlier.
When Hannah joined them on the porch a little later, Matt hopped up to give her his chair. She smiled and sat down, then asked, “Has Dad been talking your ears off?”
“Not at all,” Sam said. “In fact, I think Matt and I have been doing most of the talking.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed that. Maybe you can join us again some other time while you’re in town.”
Sam nodded. “I’d like that. I mean, we’d like that. Wouldn’t we, Matt?”
“Do you know how to make any other kind of pie?” Matt asked.
Hannah laughed. “Oh, yes, all kinds. I bake cakes sometimes, too.”
“Then we’ll come back any time you want,” Matt said.
After they had visited a while longer, Matt practically had to drag Sam away from the house. They said their good nights, Hannah brought them their hats, they said good night again, rubbed Lobo’s ears, and finally the blood brothers were strolling back toward Main Street.
“Those are mighty nice people,” Sam said. “Sitting down with them was almost like being home again.”
“Salt of the earth,” Matt agreed. “I don’t much like the sound of that Cimarron Kane fella, either.”
“So you think we should stay and lend Marshal Coleman a hand, too?”
“We’ll see how the next few days play out,” Matt said. “He may be a good lawman, but I don’t think he’d be any match for a real gun-wolf.”
“That’s what I thought,” Sam said.
“I also think we should mosey on down to that old abandoned livery barn Ike Loomis told us about and see what’s going on there,” Matt added.
Sam frowned. “You mean that secret saloon?”
“Yeah.”
“We’d be breaking the law.”
“A damn crazy law that nobody except the governor and those hired-gun marshals of his believes in.”
“Well…” Sam hesitated. “I don’t suppose it would hurt anything to go have a look.”
A grin spread across Matt’s face. “That’s what I was hopin’ you’d say.”
When they reached Main Street, they turned left instead of right and headed for the western end of town. Matt vaguely recalled seeing the big, apparently abandoned barn when they rode in, but he hadn’t really paid any attention to it.
Cottonwood was quiet and peaceful, and from the looks of it a lot of its citizens had already turned in for the night, although lights still burned at the hotel, of course, and several of the other businesses that stayed open late, including Pete Hilliard’s store. The old livery barn was dark as Matt and Sam approached it, though, but Matt noticed one thing that was odd.
He nudged Sam in the side with an elbow and said quietly, “Lots of horses tied up at this end of town. Where are all the hombres who rode in on them?”
“Yeah, I saw that, too,” Sam said. “I reckon you know the answer as well as I do.”
They walked around the barn and found a narrow door at the back. No light came through the cracks around it, and they couldn’t hear any noises coming from inside the structure.
“You think maybe that old liveryman was just joshin’ us?” Matt asked with a frown.