Grady’s eyebrows rose in interest. “More trouble? Tell me about it. I know the Harlows fairly well. Good people. And that girl Frankie is beautiful, even if she is a bit of a hellion.”
“You’re right about that,” Matt agreed, “both parts of it. And as for the trouble, some of Cimarron Kane’s bunch attacked the place. I happened to be there, and I helped the Harlows send ’em packin’.”
“Well, that was a stroke of luck.”
“Yeah. You’ve had some of those corn squeezin’s the Harlows brew?”
Grady licked his lips like he was tasting something good. “Yes, indeed.”
“Kane wants to take over the moonshining business around here,” Matt went on. “He knows he can’t ever do that unless he gets rid of the Harlows first.”
“Definitely not.”
“I plan on helping them deal with Kane.”
“I’m sure they’re grateful for that.” Grady looked over at Sam, who hadn’t said anything for a couple of minutes. “Wait a minute. You’re a deputy now, Mr. Two Wolves, and yet you know about the Harlows and their moonshine business. In fact, you know about Ike Loomis’s secret saloon.”
Sam sighed. “Yeah. And it’s a dilemma, too. Not the way the Harlows are brewing that stuff, so much, because that happens outside the town limits and Marshal Coleman doesn’t have any authority over it. But they sell the whiskey to Ike Loomis, and he turns around and sells it in his saloon, which is in town…”
“And you don’t know whether to tell the marshal about it or not,” Grady guessed.
“That’s the problem I’m wrestling with, all right,” Sam admitted. “I like Mr. Loomis, and his son may have saved my life last night, and I think that liquor law is a foolish one…but it’s still the law, which I swore to uphold.”
Grady frowned as he thought it over, then said, “You know, Sam—can I call you Sam?—if I was you, I think I’d turn in my badge, resign that deputy’s job, and ride out of Cottonwood. Just put it all behind you.” He looked over at Matt. “You should go, too, Matt. There’s just going to be more trouble if the two of you stay around here.”
“You mean run out on the Harlows and let Cimarron Kane wipe out their business, and maybe them, too?” Matt shook his head without hesitation. “No, sir. That’s not gonna happen.”
“And I can’t abandon Marshal Coleman, either,” Sam said. “I’ll stay here and figure it all out…somehow.”
Grady shrugged. “I was just thinking about what might be best for you gents, not for everybody else. To tell you the truth, I’m glad you’re staying around here.” He grinned again. “You make life interesting.”
“Maybe so,” Matt said, “if you count gettin’ shot at way too often as interestin’.”
Chapter 33
By the time the three men finished eating breakfast in the hotel dining room and came back out onto the street, the temperature had risen even more. Sweat broke out in beads on a man’s forehead just from him moving around, and the sky was a washed-out silver blue, Matt saw when he glanced up at it. The ride out to the Harlow farm would be a hot one, he thought.
“Well, I’m going to toddle off to bed,” Grady announced. “Good day to you, gentlemen.” He went off down the street toward whatever whore’s crib he was sharing.
“You really have to go?” Sam asked his blood brother when Grady was gone.
“I do,” Matt said. “There’s no tellin’ what Kane will try next, and I want to be there to help the Harlows when he does.”
“All right,” Sam said. He stuck out his hand. “Thanks for showing up when you did last night. That made a real difference.”
The blood brothers shook hands with an odd formality. Matt said, “We’re back on opposite sides now, is that it?”
“Not opposite sides, really,” Sam said. “Just different trails right now.”
Matt nodded. He swung up into the saddle and said, “Trails have a way of comin’ back together.”
“That they do,” Sam agreed. He lifted a hand in farewell as Matt headed west out of Cottonwood.
The sun had risen and was a giant, brassy ball hanging in the eastern sky behind Matt as he rode. The dust kicked up by his horse’s hooves hung motionless in the air behind him because there was no breeze to stir it. From time to time, Matt took off his hat and sleeved sweat from his forehead. The oppressive feeling in the air didn’t seem to be going away any time soon.
Matt was nearing the spot where the trail to the Harlow farm branched off when he heard some distant popping sounds. That had to be gunfire, he thought as he reined in sharply, and as best he could tell, the reports were coming from the direction of the Harlow place. He bit back a curse as he gazed off to the south and saw a large ball of black smoke suddenly billow up over the horizon.
The Harlow cabin, which was built mostly of sod, wouldn’t cause a cloud of smoke like that if it was on fire, Matt knew. But if the moonshine still had exploded, it might.
Damn it! Matt thought. Cimarron Kane had gotten to the Harlows after all, while Matt was in Cottonwood. Kane had launched the next move in the game sooner than Matt expected. He had thought that after the defeat the outlaw had suffered the night before, Kane would lick his wounds for a while before striking again. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
Matt wasn’t the sort to sit around and brood because things had gone wrong. He would do his best to put them right again. He urged his mount into a gallop, and a couple of minutes later, horse and rider swung onto the trail leading to the Harlow farm. Matt knew he might run right into Cimarron Kane and the rest of that murderous family, but at the moment he didn’t care. He knew what Kane looked like now, thanks to the description Sam had given him, and he wanted to get that varmint in his gunsights.
As Matt urged the stallion to a faster pace, he watched the black smoke climb higher in the sky ahead of him. There was no doubt in his mind now that it came from the Harlow farm. He lowered his gaze and searched for a pall of dust hanging in the air. That would indicate the location of the Kane bunch as they rode away from the farm.
But he didn’t see any dust coming toward him, which was strange. He figured that after the raid, they would head back to their own ranch, which meant they would have to ride north.
Instead, the air remained hot and clear ahead of him, except for the column of black smoke, which was thinning now. Matt slowed his horse all the way to a stop and listened intently for the sound of shots. He didn’t hear any. More than likely the fight was over, and he had a bad feeling that he wasn’t going to like the outcome.
He pulled his Winchester from the saddle sheath and galloped ahead again. The line of ridges came into view a few minutes later. The Harlow homestead was just on the other side of those ridges, he recalled from the day before. It was hard to believe that only about twenty-four hours had passed since he’d gone exploring the area around the homestead with Frankie Harlow.
Matt followed the trail through the cuts in the ridges, thinking that this would be a bad place to run into Cimarron Kane, but there was no sign of the outlaw and his relatives. When he emerged from the last of the cuts and swung toward the farm, he saw that the cabin was intact. Just as he had thought, the smoke rose from the mouth of the underground chamber where the still was located. Kane had managed to blow it up. Matt discounted the idea of an accidental explosion because of the gunshots he’d heard. There had definitely been a fight here.
A rifle suddenly cracked from one of the windows in the cabin, the slug throwing up dirt about twenty yards in front of Matt’s horse. Matt hauled back on the reins and slowed the animal. That had been a warning shot. Somebody in the cabin was trigger-happy, and he couldn’t blame whoever it was. Lifting his voice, he shouted, “Hold your fire! It’s me, Matt Bodine!”