“Good,” Hannah said. “You work too hard, Dad. It’s about time you took life a little easier.”
She seemed to think that he was going to stay on here permanently, Sam thought, even though he had told her earlier in the day that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe she thought she could change his mind.
Maybe she could, he told himself suddenly. He and Matt had never discussed what they would do when the time came for them to finally settle down. Sam had sort of assumed they would return to their ranches in Montana.
But it didn’t have to be that way. He could sell his ranch to Matt. If the two spreads were combined, the result would be one of the biggest and best ranches on the northern plains. Sam could stay here and marry Hannah, maybe take over as marshal when Coleman hung up his gun and retired…
Sam’s jaw tightened. He was human. He couldn’t stop such thoughts from stealing into his brain, but he didn’t have to go along with them, either. He needed to concentrate on now, not the future, and right now he wanted to find out if there was any truth to what that prisoner had said about Porter planning to murder them.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Marshal,” he said. “Good night, Hannah.”
“Good night, Sam.” Her voice was soft and sweet, no denying it. The sort of voice a man could enjoy hearing every day for the rest of his life.
Sam shook that thought out of his head as he went down the walk to the street.
He made the rounds of Cottonwood’s business district, rattling doorknobs on the buildings that were already locked up for the night, as well as checking in at the ones that were still open, like the café, Pete Hilliard’s mercantile, and the livery stable.
Ike Loomis regarded him nervously. “I heard you was a deputy now, Two Wolves,” he said. “That gonna cause a problem?”
Sam knew the man was worried about what he’d told the blood brothers the night before. He put Loomis’s mind at ease by saying, “Anything I learned last night was before I pinned on a badge. I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other.”
Loomis heaved a sigh. “Mighty decent of you to look at it that way, son. I wouldn’t want Marsh Coleman put in a bad spot.”
“Neither would I.” Sam knew he was bending the law by ignoring Loomis’s hidden saloon, but he honestly didn’t see what good it would do to reveal the secret. Anyway, it was possible that Coleman was already aware of the saloon and was turning a blind eye to it on purpose.
“You know,” Loomis said, “if you was to ever…naw, never mind.”
Sam stiffened. “What were you about to say, Mr. Loomis?”
“I was about to offer you a payoff for lookin’ the other way, son,” Loomis answered bluntly. “Then I realize that’d be the wrong thing to do.”
“It sure would,” Sam agreed. “I’m doing this because the marshal has enough trouble on his plate right now without worrying about anything else. If things settle down, things may be different.”
“Reckon we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Exactly.”
Sam left the livery stable and walked to the hotel. Earlier he had moved all of his gear out of the rented room and taken it over to the marshal’s office, stowing it in the back room where he would sleep. As he came in now, he gave the clerk a friendly nod. The man’s name was Herman, Sam had learned.
“Evening, Herman,” he said. “Are Marshal Porter and Marshal Bickford in their rooms?”
The clerk glanced at the rack of keys behind the desk. “Yep, looks like it. You need to see them?”
Sam shook his head. “No, I’m just making sure they’re settled in for the night. Part of my evening rounds for Marshal Coleman, I guess you could say. Making sure the town’s special guests don’t need anything.”
Herman made a face. “That Marshal Porter is about the unfriendliest gent I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I don’t see how Marshal Bickford puts up with him. But they’re both fine as far as I know. Had their supper, went down to the creek to check on their prisoners, and came back and turned in. Those deputies of theirs are upstairs in their rooms, too.”
“All of them?” Sam asked.
“Well, all but a couple.”
That came as no surprise. Sam hadn’t expected Porter to leave the prison wagons unguarded, but it looked like the special marshal had been satisfied with posting only two sentries, as he had done during the day.
“I’m glad Marshal Coleman’s got himself some help at last,” Herman went on. “He’s done a bang-up job of keeping the peace here in Cottonwood, but the way things are going, what with these new laws and that gunman Cimarron Kane hanging around, I’m afraid hell’s liable to start popping around here. You don’t think you could talk Mr. Bodine into signing on as a deputy, too, do you?”
“Matt’s not in town right now, but we’ll see,” Sam replied noncommittally.
“If Porter or Bickford come downstairs, you want me to tell them you were asking about them?”
Sam shook his head. “No need for that. Just pretend that I wasn’t here, Herman.”
The clerk grinned. “You got it, Sam.”
Leaving the hotel, Sam paused on the porch. Cottonwood was quiet at the moment, but as Hannah had said that morning, an uneasy air hung over the town, a sense that something bad was going to happen, and soon.
Sam pushed that thought out of his head. He turned and started toward the marshal’s office. After a few steps, he passed the dark mouth of an alley.
One second he was there, the next he was gone. As if he had vanished by magic, Sam Two Wolves had disappeared into the shadows, becoming one with the night.
Chapter 23
The four wagons were parked in a line along the creek bank, separated by the spaces where the mule teams had been when they were pulled up there. One of the guards sat on the tongue of the fourth wagon, smoking a quirly. The other paced back and forth beside the lead wagon where the wounded prisoners were. He was probably moving around to fight off boredom and to help keep himself awake, Sam thought as he stood in the shadows of a nearby cottonwood and watched them.
It was dark here along the creek, under the trees, but Sam’s eyes were almost as keen as a cat’s. The light from the moon and stars that filtered down through the leafy branches was enough for him to make out the details of the scene. He waited until the pacing guard swung around, facing away from him, and then darted out of concealment long enough to circle the fourth wagon and approach the smoking guard from behind.
The man had no idea Sam was there. Sam could have killed him with no trouble at all, driving the bowie knife that was sheathed on his hip into the guard’s back and piercing his heart with the cold steel.
Sam wasn’t here tonight to kill, though. He was just after information. When he struck, his hands were empty of weapons. His left arm went around the man’s neck with the speed of a striking snake, closing hard and jerking the guard backward off the wagon tongue. The man never had a chance to make a sound.
The guard’s rifle fell to the ground. Sam reached down with his right hand and plucked the man’s revolver from its holster. The man continued to flail and writhe, but he was weakening rapidly from lack of air and his struggles were almost soundless. The groans of wounded men coming from the lead wagon would keep the guard up there from hearing anything.
After a couple of minutes, the man Sam had hold of slumped into unconsciousness. Sam lowered him to the ground, pulled the man’s belt off, and used it to tie his hands together behind his back.
The man had dropped his quirly when Sam grabbed him. The end of it still glowed redly on the ground. Sam put his boot toe on it and stubbed it out.
The other guard was too alert to sneak up on like that. Sam wouldn’t be able to take him by surprise as he had with this one. In such a case, the best course of action was usually to be bold. Sam walked toward the lead wagon like he was supposed to be there.