“Drop your gun, Two Wolves,” Ambrose Porter ordered as he tightened his left arm around Hannah’s throat and thrust the gun in his right hand toward Sam and Coleman.
“What the hell?” Coleman exclaimed as he turned toward this new and, to him, unexpected problem.
Sam had tucked the extra revolver Matt had given him behind his belt and still held his own Colt. He didn’t drop either gun. He kept the one in his hand pointed toward Hannah and Porter and told the crooked special marshal, “Forget it, Porter. Your little scheme is done for.”
A harsh laugh came from Porter. “I don’t think so. Look around, you damn ’breed.”
Sam glanced up and down the street. “I don’t see anything.”
“That doesn’t mean my men aren’t there. There are eight rifles trained on you right now, Two Wolves. You don’t have any choice but to do as I say.”
“Blast it, what’s goin’ on here?” Coleman demanded. “Marshal Porter, is that you?”
Sam didn’t wait for Porter to answer. He told Coleman, “It’s him, all right, but he’s a lawman in name only, Marshal. He and Bickford and their deputies are all criminals.”
“That’s a matter of interpretation,” Porter said.
“The hell it is,” Sam snapped. “Bickford told me all about how you’ve been taking payoffs to let some of the men you’ve arrested go free…and murdering the ones who wouldn’t come through.”
An angry growl came from Coleman. “Is that true, son?”
“One of the prisoners in the wagon told me all about it, and then Bickford confirmed it when he thought he had the drop on me.”
Coleman glared at Porter. “Why, you low-down skunk! Dishonoring the badge that way. Let go of my daughter, right now!”
“I can’t do that,” Porter said. “You and Miss Hannah and Two Wolves have to go in one of the cells. We’ll lock you up, and then we’ll be on our way. I was tired of this game, anyway.”
Sam knew that Porter was lying. The crooked lawman wouldn’t be content to lock them up and escape. He and Bickford were making too much money with their scheme.
No, if Porter succeeded in getting the three of them inside the jail, he would kill them and probably gun down the three men who were already locked up in there, too, so there wouldn’t be any witnesses. All the law-abiding people in town had their heads down at the moment, lying low because of Cimarron Kane’s attack on the jail and all the lead that had been flying around a few minutes earlier. If Porter insisted that Sam, Coleman, and Hannah had been killed in that fight, there would be little chance that anyone would contradict him. He and Bickford could still salvage their scheme and carry on with it for a while yet, extorting more money from the luckless prisoners they arrested.
“I won’t tell you again,” Porter said in a harsh voice. “Drop your guns, or I’ll kill the girl right now.”
“If you hurt her—” Coleman began.
“Don’t waste my time with threats, old man,” Porter interrupted coldly. “I told you, you’re covered. If I shoot the girl, a second later my men will fill you and the half-breed full of lead. Your only chance to survive is to do what I tell you.”
“He’s lying,” Sam said under his breath. “He intends to kill us anyway.”
Coleman sighed. “I know that.” He bent over and dropped his pistol into the dirt of the street. “But that’s my little girl he’s got. I have to go along with him.”
Sam knew that the marshal was right. Porter would kill them and maybe even try to wipe out the whole town if he was pushed too far. With his mouth twisted in a grim line, Sam dropped his Colt next to Coleman’s. Then he reached for the gun tucked behind his belt.
“Careful,” Porter warned.
Sam eased the revolver out and added it to the two lying in the street. Then he and Coleman backed away from the guns.
“Come on,” Porter ordered. “Into the jail.”
Miserably, Coleman asked, “What do we do?”
“Play along with him,” Sam said. Something had occurred to him. Porter hadn’t said anything about Matt, and when Sam glanced over his shoulder, he didn’t see any sign of his blood brother. Sam hoped that meant Matt was still on the loose somewhere nearby.
Because Matt Bodine was a hell of a secret weapon!
Chapter 29
Matt had been turning away from the rain barrel and Red Mike Loomis when he saw something suspicious going on down at the marshal’s office. Instantly, he dropped into a crouch behind the barrel, next to Mike, so that he couldn’t be seen as easily.
“What…the hell…” the wounded man began.
“Shhh,” Matt hissed. “Let me listen.”
His keen ears picked up enough of the tense, low-voiced exchange for him to understand what was going on. He knew that his blood brother would go along with Porter’s orders, at least for the moment. As long as Hannah’s life was in danger, Sam didn’t really have any choice.
But of course, they couldn’t trust Porter, either. The crooked lawman’s continued survival depended on not leaving any living witnesses to testify against him.
As Sam and Coleman dropped their guns, Matt turned to Mike Loomis and whispered, “You’re gonna have to wait here for a while. Hell’s about to pop again, and I can’t fetch the doc right now.”
“Don’t worry…about me,” Mike said. “I don’t know what’s…goin’ on…but you go take care of…whatever you got to do.”
Matt squeezed the young man’s shoulder. “Hang on, Mike. I’ll see to it that bullet wound’s tended to as soon as I can.”
With that, he dropped to his belly and crawled over into the shadows at the edge of the boardwalk. He didn’t know where the rest of the crooked deputies were and didn’t know if any of them had spotted him. A cold prickle swept over his skin as he started making his way toward the marshal’s office. For all he knew, bullets were about to smash into him at any second.
No hot lead came his way, though. When he reached the corner, he wriggled around it and risked coming to his feet long enough to dart into an even deeper patch of shadows. He pressed his back against the wall of a building and waited there for a moment, listening to the heavy thump of his heart beating in his chest.
There was a back door to the marshal’s office, but he was sure it would be closed and barred. He couldn’t get in that way, and it would be suicide to try to come in through the front door. What he needed to do was draw Porter back out somehow and hope that the corrupt lawman wouldn’t kill the prisoners before he could do that.
But first, Matt thought, he had to even the odds a little. In order to accomplish that, he had to find Porter’s deputies. Porter had probably told them to spread out during the battle against Cimarron Kane, so that they could make their move after Kane fled. Matt would need all the stealth he had learned from Sam Two Wolves and Sam’s father, old Medicine Horse, if he was going to find them.
Staying in the shadows, Matt melted into the night.
Porter didn’t let go of Hannah until they were all inside the marshal’s office. He told Sam, “Close that door,” then took his arm away from her throat as Sam followed the order.
Hannah ran into her father’s arms. Coleman gathered her to him and hugged her tightly. “Are you all right?” he asked in a voice hoarse with emotion.
She nodded and said, “Yes, Dad, I’m fine.” Her voice was a little hoarse, too, and Sam knew that was from the pressure Porter’s arm had put on her throat. Anger welled up inside him. The idea that Porter had hurt her made him want to smash his fist in the middle of the crooked lawman’s face, then hit him again and again…