a little closer to the cabin and gave him a better angle to aim at one of the windows. The man lifted a rifle to his shoulder and blasted several shots through the window as fast as he could work the weapon’s lever.
“Looked like that hombre has a badge pinned to his vest,” Sam went on. “I saw the sunlight reflect off it when he ran behind that wagon.”
“You’re saying those fellas are lawmen?”
Sam shrugged. “I’m not sure, but that’s the way it looked to me.”
Matt frowned. They had clashed with crooked badge-toters in the past, but for the most part, he and Sam tried to stay on the right side of the law. They didn’t like being locked up, which had happened a few times.
“Well, hell!” he said in exasperation. “What do we do now?”
Sam shook his head slowly. “I think we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens here.”
“That’s a hell of a note. I don’t like sittin’ on my rear while there’s lead flyin’ around, Sam.”
“I know. But we can’t just get mixed up in every single ruckus that comes our way.”
“Want to bet?”
Sam considered, and then shook his head again. “No, not particularly.”
The two of them sat their saddles and watched the battle for a few minutes. The lawmen, if such they really were, continued working their way closer. They were going to have a hard time rooting out the hombres inside the cabin, though. Those sod walls were thick enough to stop anything short of a cannonball. All the attackers could do was aim for the windows and hope that the slugs would bounce around enough inside to find some targets.
Then one of the men made a dash that carried him all the way up to the cabin itself. He threw himself prone next to the wall and lay there where the defenders couldn’t get a shot at him.
Matt suddenly leaned forward in the saddle and asked, “What’s that he’s got there?”
“I’m not sure,” Sam said with a frown. “He’s lighting a match, though…Good Lord! I think it’s a bomb!”
Sparks flew from the fuse attached to the round black object as the man held the match flame to it. He came up on his knees, leaned out, and tossed the bomb through a window into the cabin.
Several years earlier, Pinkerton detectives had thrown a similar bomb into a cabin in Missouri where they believed Frank and Jesse James were hiding out. Actually, the outlaw brothers weren’t there at the time, but other members of their family were. The blast had killed their younger stepbrother and blown off one of their mother’s arms. Most folks in the West knew about bombs because of what had happened that day.
The men inside this cabin certainly knew a bomb when they saw one. Even up on the hill, Matt and Sam heard their shouts and screams of terror. As the man who had thrown the explosive surged to his feet and dashed away, the cabin door flew open and the men inside started falling all over themselves trying to get out. The attackers held their fire as the men scrambled through the door.
Matt and Sam stiffened in their saddles as a sheet of fire suddenly filled the doorway and the cabin blew apart in a thunderous explosion that sent echoes rolling over the plains. The force of the blast knocked the fleeing men flat on their faces.
“Son of a bitch!” Matt exclaimed. “I hope everybody got out.”
A thick column of black smoke rose into the blue Kansas sky from the place where the cabin had stood. The structure was completely destroyed. The sod blocks that formed the walls had disintegrated in the explosion.
“If anyone didn’t make it out,” Sam said, “there won’t be enough left of them to bury.”
The men who had surrounded the cabin moved in now, guns drawn, and swiftly disarmed and took into custody the erstwhile defenders, kicking guns away, jerking arms behind backs, and slapping on handcuffs.
“They’re star packers, all right,” Matt told Sam. “I can see the sun shining on their badges now, too.” He lifted his reins. “Why don’t we ride down there and see what it’s all about?”
“It’s none of our business, you know.”
“I know, but I’m curious.”
“There’s an old saying about curiosity and a cat.”
Matt grinned. “Yeah, but it ain’t killed us yet, has it?”
“I suppose not.” Sam hitched his horse into motion and started down the slope alongside his blood brother.
Some of the men saw them coming and must have warned the others. Now that the prisoners had been secured and still lay facedown with their hands cuffed behind their backs, their captors straightened and gathered to form a well-armed line that turned toward Matt and Sam.
“I’m glad we’re just looking for information and not trouble,” Matt said. “Those fellas look a mite proddy.”
“They sure do,” Sam agreed. “It’s too late for us to turn back now, though. They’ve already seen us coming.”
Matt and Sam rode to within about twenty feet of the line of men and then reined in. Most of the men were dressed in range clothes, but two of them wore sober dark suits and black derbies.
Matt nodded to the men and said, “Howdy.”
One of the black-suited hombres said in a sharp voice, “What do you want here?” He jerked his head toward the prisoners. “Are you friends or relatives of these men?”
“Never saw them before in our lives, mister,” Sam drawled. “We were just wondering what’s going on here.”
“Yeah, I reckon they heard that explosion all the way back in Abilene,” Matt added.
The spokesman snorted contemptuously. He had an angular face with a nose like a hatchet over a thick black mustache.
“Then this is none of your business, and I suggest you move on,” he said.
“No need to take that tone,” Matt said. “We were just—”
“I don’t care,” the man snapped. “I’ll take any tone I like. And if you don’t ride on now, I’ll tell my men to blow you out of your saddles!”
The rifles in the hands of the other men rose, and suddenly all hell was just one little spark away from breaking loose.
Chapter 2
The other man in black suit and derby stepped forward and said, “There’s no need for more violence, Ambrose. I don’t think these young fellas have anything to do with why we’re here.”
“That’s the truth, mister,” Sam said. “We’re just passing through these parts.”
Both blood brothers knew they were outgunned. They were fast enough and good enough with their irons that they would get lead in several of the men if it came down to a fight, but
