By wrapping things up, Bickford meant murdering Sam and Coleman, Ike and Mike Loomis, and probably Hannah and Frankie, Sam thought. Although it was possible the conspirators might keep the two young women alive as playthings, at least until they grew tired of them. Sam’s jaw clenched so tightly at the thought that he had to force it to relax before he broke some of his teeth.
Chuckling, Bickford strolled out of the cell block. He left the door open as he went into the marshal’s office. Sam heard the chair behind the desk squeak as the crooked lawman sat down.
Sam hadn’t given up on finding a way out of the cell. He was looking around, hoping that an idea would come to him, when he heard a whisper at the window. “Two Wolves!”
Sam sprang to the window and looked out. Barnabas Smith stood there. The little man didn’t look as drunk now as he had been earlier. Barnabas went on. “I heard what those bastards were sayin’ a while ago. Porter’s liable to try to hunt down all of us he had locked up in those wagons, so he can shut our mouths.”
“That’s right,” Sam said with a nod. “Listen, my friend Matt may be in town. Have you seen him?”
“Nope. But you don’t need him to get you outta there. I can do it.”
Sam frowned. “It’s too late to get the keys,” he said, keeping his voice pitched low. “Bickford’s in the office.”
“Don’t need the keys. Those varmints left their horses in the livery stable when they took Ike Loomis prisoner, so I was able to slip in there and get somethin’ even better outta Bickford’s saddlebags. Back when I was a prisoner, I saw where he keeps ’em.”
“Keeps what?” Sam asked in exasperation.
“This,” Barnabas said as he lifted a round black object into Sam’s line of sight. A fuse dangled from it.
Sam’s eyes widened in shock. “That’s a bomb!”
“I know,” Barnabas said calmly. He lifted his other hand, and Sam saw a match in it. Before Sam could say anything, Barnabas snapped the match into life with his thumbnail and held the flame to the end of the fuse. “Better grab the mattress off that bunk and get under it. I’ll put this down at the base of the wall.”
“No!” Sam exclaimed. “Put that fuse out! Get rid of it, Barnabas—”
“No time for that now,” Barnabas said as he bent to the ground. “Better duck!”
Then his running footsteps pounded away along the alley.
Sam did the only thing he could. He yelled, “Get down!” at Marshal Coleman, snatched the thin mattress off the cell’s bunk, and curled up in a corner as far away from the wall as he could get, wrapping the mattress around himself. He heard Bickford run into the cell block, shouting, “What the hell?”
When the blast came a second later, it was like being caught in the middle of the biggest thunderclap that ever sounded. A wave of force smashed into Sam and drove him back into the corner. A huge weight crashed down on top of him. He blacked out for a moment, and when he came to, his ears were ringing and the smell of burned powder was so sharp that it seemed to slice into his nose like a thousand knives.
But he was alive, no doubt about that. The weight was still on top of him, making it difficult to breathe. He shoved against it, and some of it fell away. Sam continued to struggle, fighting his way free of the rubble that was heaped on top of him.
He still couldn’t hear anything as he pushed the chunks of broken wall off him and climbed to his feet. He saw the chips of rock fly from a big piece of wall as a bullet struck it, though. Twisting around, he saw Calvin Bickford getting ready to fire another shot through the bars, which had withstood the explosion. Bickford’s face was covered with blood from the gashes that flying debris had left on it.
Sam grabbed a fist-sized shard of rock and let fly with it, aiming for a gap between two of the iron bars. The missile flew true and caught Bickford in the head just as he pulled the trigger. The impact threw off his aim and made him stagger backward.
That brought him within reach of Coleman, whose hands shot through the bars and caught Bickford around the neck. The real lawman jerked the corrupt one back against the door as hard as he could. Bickford’s head clanged against the bars. He went limp, and his gun slipped out of his fingers.
“Sam, go on!” Coleman shouted as he lowered Bickford’s unconscious form to the floor. “Get out of here!”
Sam tilted his head and gave it a shake. He heard the words vaguely, enough to understand them, and realized that his hearing was coming back after the explosion. He saw Coleman waving a hand toward the far wall and looked in that direction to see a gaping hole in it. Barnabas Smith and several other men were waiting outside in the alley.
“Come on, Two Wolves!” Barnabas urged. “We’ll help you! We got a score to settle with Porter!”
It was true. Barnabas’s companions were some of the men who had been imprisoned in the wagons, and they all had guns. Barnabas held out a revolver butt-first, offering it to Sam.
Those men were farmers and drifters, and some of them probably really were moonshiners. A motley army, to be sure. But a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Sam glanced over his shoulder at Coleman. “Go!” the marshal urged again. He was reaching through the bars, searching Bickford’s pockets. “I’ll see if I can find the key to unlock this door. If I can, I’ll come and find you. But you got to get Hannah away from those bastards, Sam. You just got to!”
Sam gave him a curt nod of agreement. “I’ll get her, Marshal,” he promised. Still a little shaky on his feet, he climbed through the hole that the bomb had blasted in the wall and joined Barnabas and the others in the alley.
Barnabas pressed the pistol into Sam’s hand. “I saw Porter and the others headin’ down toward the doc’s house,” he said.
Sam nodded. “We’ll have to fight our way through,” he warned. “Some of us probably won’t make it.”
Barnabas grinned, and the expression was positively fierce, especially for such a small man. “Like I said, we got scores to settle with those sons o’ bitches.”
Sam was about to lead the way when he heard someone call his name. “Sam! Sam!” He turned and saw Matt running toward him, a gun in each hand.
Matt grinned as he came up and waved a Colt toward the destroyed wall. “What’d you do, blow the place up?”
“No, Barnabas did,” Sam replied. “Hannah and Frankie are being held down at the doctor’s house, along with the Loomises. Kane, Porter, and Grady are there, too.”
“Grady!” Matt exclaimed.
“It’s a long, ugly story,” Sam said.
“Then save it for later. Just tell me this. Is Grady one of the varmints behind all this trouble?”
“That’s right.”
“Then we’ll shoot him, too,” Matt said. “Come on!”
Chapter 37
They had barely emerged onto the street when bullets began to whistle around their heads. The blood brothers led the way, crouching, running, firing, their deadly accurate shots ripping through the men who tried to stop them. Barnabas and their other half-dozen allies followed closely behind, fighting with enthusiasm and courage that partially made up for their lack of experience.
Dr. Berger’s house came into view. About a dozen men ranged around the place, mostly relatives of Cimarron Kane but including a couple of the crooked deputies, opened fire on the group led by Matt and Sam, forcing them to dive for cover. They traded shots for a couple of minutes before Cimarron Kane bellowed, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
The shots died away on both sides. Kane stepped out onto the porch of Berger’s house with the doctor’s sister in front of him as he held a gun to her head.
“Bodine! Two Wolves! I saw you there! I don’t know how you got out, ’breed, but it don’t matter! We still got hostages in here, so you better give up if you don’t want their blood on your hands!”