Berger wiped his bloody hands on a cloth and muttered, “Why is the undertaker bringing someone to me?”
The answer quickly became obvious as the men with the wagon carried in the wounded deputy. Berger told them to take the man into the other examining room, then glanced at Matt and added, “I hope that’s the last of it tonight. You’re not planning to shoot anyone else, are you, Mr. Bodine?”
“Hey, I didn’t shoot Red Mike,” Matt pointed out.
“What about this newest patient?”
“Well…it was hard to tell, the way so much lead was flyin’ around. I reckon I might have.”
A moment later, the front door of the house burst open again and the liveryman, Ike Loomis, rushed in. “Somebody told me my boy got shot! Is he here?”
“Yes, he’s here, Ike,” Berger said, “and I think he’s going to be all right. So you can tone down that bellowing, if you please.”
“Thank the Lord!” Loomis exclaimed fervently. “When I heard he was in the middle of that ruckus, I was afraid he was a goner! Can I see him?”
Berger pointed at the door of the examining room. “Right in there. But you’ll have to be quiet. I don’t want him upset.”
Loomis snatched his hat off his thatch of rusty gray hair and held it in front of him as he nodded humbly. “Sure thing, Doc,” he promised.
Since everything seemed to be under control here, as soon as Loomis had gone in to see his son, Matt told Berger, “Take good care of Red Mike, and if you need any money, let me know.”
The doctor frowned skeptically as he looked at Matt’s rough range garb.
“I know, I look like a saddle tramp,” Matt said with a grin, “but I’m good for the dinero. You got my word on that, Doc.”
“Very well. I doubt if it will be necessary, though. Ike Loomis is a pretty successful businessman.”
Maybe more successful than the medico knew, Matt mused as he thought about the hidden saloon in the old livery stable.
He left the doctor’s house and started along the street. Sometime during all the excitement, his hat had flown off, and he didn’t know where it was. He was looking for it when he spotted Sam walking away from the marshal’s office. Matt angled across the street to intercept him.
“Keep an eye out for my Stetson,” he told his blood brother. “Reckon I lost it somewhere durin’ that ruckus.”
“We can look for it later,” Sam said. “Right now I’m on my way down to the creek to check on Bickford. If he’s still there, he needs to be locked up along with Porter.”
“How come you didn’t just tie him up so he couldn’t run off?”
Sam grimaced. “I was a mite busy at the time, because all hell broke loose here in town. I didn’t know what was going on, but I figured with that much shooting, I ought to take a hand.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you did, I guess. But Bickford’s liable to be long gone.”
“I know.”
“I’ll come with you,” Matt said. “Just in case he’s still there and itchin’ to start some more trouble.”
That wasn’t the case, though. Just as Sam had feared, Calvin Bickford was gone, although the two deputies Sam had knocked out and tied up were still there and definitely unhappy about their predicament. Bickford came in for a large share of their ire because he hadn’t take the time to free them before grabbing one of the horses and fleeing. Matt and Sam ignored their complaints.
“Might be able to trail Bickford when the sun comes up,” Matt suggested.
“Maybe.” Sam went over to the first prison wagon and called through the window, “Hey, Barnabas, you still in there?”
The reply came back instantly. “Where the hell would I go?” Barnabas demanded. “I’m locked up in here, remember?”
“And that’s where you’re going to stay for one more night,” Sam said. “Tomorrow we’ll get everything straightened out.”
“You’re gonna leave us in here?” Barnabas protested. “It ain’t right. We ain’t lawbreakers.”
“We’ll see about that,” Sam promised. “And we’ll make sure all the wounded men get the medical care they need, too.” He paused. “Did you happen to see which way Bickford went?”
“Can’t see much of anything from in here,” Barnabas said. “What happened to Porter?”
“He’s locked up in jail where he belongs.”
“Well, thank God for that! What about them deputies?”
“Most of them are dead.”
“Can’t say as I’m sad to hear it. They might not’ve been quite as bad as Porter and Bickford, but they were a pretty low-down bunch, too.”
“We’ll get you out of there first thing in the morning,” Sam assured him. “In the meantime, try to get some rest.”
“Sure.” Barnabas hesitated, then said, “Thanks, mister. If it wasn’t for what you did, some of us wouldn’t have made it much longer.”
“Somebody had to put a stop to what Porter and Bickford were doing,” Sam said.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t just somebody. It was you. That makes you a hero in my book.”
Sam shook his head. He had never thought of himself as a hero, or Matt, either, for that matter. They were just a couple of hombres who did what needed to be done and dealt with trouble as they came to it.
Which was all too often, Sam reflected. But for tonight, at least, it seemed to be over.
Chapter 32
For once that prediction proved to be accurate, and not a jinx. The rest of the night passed quietly with no sign of Cimarron Kane and his troublesome relatives returning to Cottonwood, or of Calvin Bickford, either, for that matter.
Belatedly, Matt thought about the deputy he had left underneath the wagon, but when he went to check, the man had already been found. One of the bullets that had been fired by the man’s crooked compadres at Matt had struck the hombre smack-dab between the eyes instead, killing him instantly.
The deputy Matt had tied up in the alley had been found, too, and locked up in Marshal Coleman’s jail, along with the two Sam had captured down at the creek. That made it a clean sweep of the crooked lawmen, except for Bickford.
Out of gratitude to Matt and Sam, Ike Loomis offered to take care of their horses for free as long as they remained in Cottonwood, and he told Matt that he could sleep in the livery stable’s hayloft if he wanted to, as well. Matt declined that offer as graciously as he could and chose to spend the night at the hotel instead. He wanted to get back out to the Harlow place as soon as possible—Frankie and her pa and brothers didn’t know yet about Cimarron Kane’s raid on the town—but morning would be soon enough for that, Matt decided.
Sam slept on the cot in the jail’s back room, and was up early the next morning. He went outside as the approach of dawn grayed the eastern sky and was struck by how hot and still the air was. Usually, there was a hint of coolness in the early morning like this, even in the middle of summer, but not today. The atmosphere had a heavy, uncomfortable feeling to it, and at times like this, Sam longed for the clean coolness of the Montana high country, the homeland of his father’s people.
He spotted Matt leading the saddled gray stallion out of the livery barn and walked over to meet him. With a smile on his face, Sam held out the thing he had found and picked up just a few moments earlier as he was making his rounds.
“My hat!” Matt exclaimed. “You found it.”
“Yes, and it doesn’t look like it’s been shot up and trampled on too much,” Sam said.
Matt took the Stetson, beat it against his leg to get the dirt off it, poked it back into shape, and settled it on his head. “How’s it look?” he asked his blood brother.
“No more disreputable than usual.”