gunfire continued as the blood brothers raced toward town. They rode past the school, which was empty at this time of year, and as they started along the main street, they saw that the boardwalks were deserted. Obviously, people had scattered to hunt for cover when the shooting started.
Matt and Sam saw a man kneeling behind a water trough and firing a revolver at a wagon across the street. Several men were behind that wagon, blazing away with rifles. Once again, Matt and Sam were in the position of not knowing which side was in the right, if indeed either was.
Then a couple of the men behind the wagon solved the problem by turning and throwing lead at the oncoming riders. To Matt’s way of thinking, anybody who took a shot at him deserved whatever happened, and Sam’s opinion was almost as pragmatic. Matt dropped his reins, guided his horse with his knees, and filled both hands with his Colts.
The revolvers roared and bucked as he began squeezing off shots. The hurricane deck of a galloping horse wasn’t a very good platform for accurate firing, but Matt was better at it than most. Some of his slugs ripped through the canvas cover on the back of the wagon, while others kicked up dust around the feet of his targets.
Instead of putting up a fight, the men broke and ran. Clearly, they were the sort of hombres who liked a battle only when the odds were overwhelmingly on their side.
The man behind the water trough stood up and waved his gun arm after the fleeing men. “Stop them!” he called to Matt and Sam. “Don’t let them get away!”
The blood brothers sent their horses pounding after the gunmen. The race, such as it was, was over in a matter of seconds. Matt pouched his irons, kicked his feet out of the stirrups, and left the saddle in a diving tackle, spreading his arms so that he took down two of the men. They all went crashing to the street, rolling over and over in the dust.
Meanwhile, Sam snatched the coiled lasso from his saddle and shook out a loop with the practiced ease of a man who has spent a lot of time working cattle. He twirled the rope over his head a couple of times and then let fly with it. The loop spread out and dropped perfectly over the shoulders of the third man. Sam jerked it tight, dallied the rope around his saddle horn, and then brought his mount to an abrupt, skidding halt.
The rope went taut with a twang! and pulled the running man off his feet. He went backward and crashed down hard enough to stun him.
A few yards back up the street, Matt made it to his feet at the same time as one of the men he had knocked down. The man was tall and scrawny, wearing greasy buckskins. Long, lank hair tangled around his head, and he had a ragged beard sprouting from his lean jaw. He yelled a curse and came at Matt, swinging knobby-knuckled fists.
Matt ducked under the wild punches and stepped in to hook a hard left into the man’s midsection. The man grunted and started to double over as Matt’s fist sank into his gut. Matt threw a right cross that slammed into the man’s perfectly positioned jaw. That blow sent the hombre to his knees.
Matt didn’t have time to feel any elation at his apparent victory, though, because just then a heavy weight landed on his back and drove him forward. “I got him, Dud, I got him!” a voice yelled in his ear. The sharp stench of long-unwashed flesh filled his nostrils.
Matt knew the other man must have jumped on him, and also realized that if he went down, they would probably try to stomp him to death. He was confident that Sam would stop them, but his blood brother might not be able to do that before they had inflicted some damage on him. As he stumbled and fought to keep his balance, he reached behind him and clawed at the man’s face, trying to jab his thumbs in the varmint’s eyes.
One of them came close enough to make the man let out a howl of pain and loosen his grip. Matt reached higher and tangled his fingers in long, greasy hair. He heaved as hard as he could, which sent the man’s yells up another notch. When Matt spun around, the weight came off. He used his left hand to hang on to the man’s hair while his right fist hammered the man’s face.
This one was shorter and rounder, but just as ugly and dirty. Matt hit him a couple of times, then shoved him toward the boardwalk. The man stumbled backward until his heels hit the edge of the boardwalk. He tripped and fell, landing heavily on the planks.
Matt barely had time to catch his breath before the first man was on him again, grappling with him this time. The man’s arms and legs were so long and skinny, it was almost like wrestling with a spider. He lowered his head and butted Matt in the face, which set bright-colored sparks to dancing in front of Matt’s eyes and made his head spin.
He shook off the dizziness and got his hands up. His fingers went under the scraggly beard and locked around the man’s throat. Matt spun him around and drove him toward the boardwalk. Both of them fell, but Matt made sure he landed on top. He used his grip to bang the man’s head against the planks a couple of times. The man went limp under him.
They were lying next to the other man, who was still half stunned. He appeared to be recovering, though, shaking his head and trying to push himself up. Matt muttered, “Oh, no, you don’t,” and reached over to hit that one again. The man subsided into a stupor.
From horseback, Sam called, “You hit him while he was down.”
Matt climbed shakily to his feet, started knocking some of the dust off his clothes, and said angrily, “Damned right I did. I didn’t want him gettin’ back up again. I thought for a minute there they were just gonna take turns tryin’ to kill me!” He glared up at Sam. “I notice you didn’t fall all over yourself helpin’.”
Sam smiled and gestured toward the man he had lassoed. “I got the one you left me. Figured you thought you could handle the other two.”
The man who had been behind the water trough came up to them, still holding his gun. He wore a black hat and a black vest over a white shirt. A string tie was cinched at his collar, and a tin star pinned to his vest reflected the sunlight. He was in his fifties, still a pretty tough-looking hombre despite his age. Bushy gray eyebrows crooked over a pair of deep-set eyes.
“I’m much obliged to you boys,” he said. He had Matt’s hat in his left hand, having picked it up as he came up the street. He held it out, and Matt took the Stetson and began using it to slap dust from his jeans.
“You’re the law around here?” Sam asked.
“That’s right,” the older man said. “Marshal of Cottonwood. The name’s Marsh Coleman.”
“Short for Marshall?”
“Yeah, that’s why I go by Marsh, so folks won’t call me Marshal Marshall. Wasn’t funny the first time I heard it, and it still ain’t.”
Sam made an effort not to grin. “I’ll remember that, Marshal Coleman.” He inclined his head toward the three men who had been trying to kill the lawman. “What was this all about?”
“Those strangers got into a ruckus with Pete Hilliard at the general store,” the marshal explained. Sam noted that the wagon was parked in front of Hilliard’s General Merchandise and Sundries. Coleman went on. “Somebody ran down to my office and told me there was trouble, and by the time I got here those hombres were roughing Pete up and threatening to tear up his store. I threw down on them and told them to stop, and the bastards started shooting at me. I had to run for cover. Barely made it across the street to that water trough.”
“They’re strangers, you say?”
Coleman nodded. “Yeah. Drove into town in that wagon just a little while ago. I saw ’em come in but didn’t know they were going to be troublemakers.”
Matt grunted. “Ought to be able to tell that by lookin’ at ’em. They’re as dirty and greasy as buffalo skinners.”
“Yeah, well, skinning buffalo was legal last time I checked, young fella. Anyway, there’s not any buffalo hunting going on around here anymore. All the herds have moved down to the Texas Panhandle.”
“I didn’t say they were buffalo skinners, just that—” Matt broke off with a shake of his head. “Never mind.