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. I’m just glad we came along in time to give you a hand, Marshal.”
“So am I. Three-to-one isn’t very good odds.”
The man Sam had roped spoke up, saying, “Hey! Lemme go! You can’t do this to us! We didn’t do nothin’!”
“The hell you didn’t,” Coleman said. “I saw you with my own eyes when you were pushing Pete Hilliard around.”
“We were just funnin’ with the old codger,” the man argued. Like his companions, he was bearded, wore buckskins, and smelled like he hadn’t been anywhere near soap and water for at least a year. “We wouldn’t’a really hurt him.”
“You threatened to pull the whole store down around his ears.”
“He tried to cheat us! He said he couldn’t take no Confederate money!”
“I can see why, you dang fool. The war’s been over for fifteen years. Anyway, you did plenty to justify being locked up for disturbing the peace, and that’s just what I’m gonna do.” Coleman looked at Matt and Sam. “Could I prevail on you boys to help me get them on their feet and march them over to the jail?”
Matt clapped his hat back on his head and nodded. “It’d be our pleasure.”
Sam dismounted and went over to the man he had lassoed. Leaving the rope in place so that the man’s arms were pinned to his sides, Sam lifted him onto his feet. The powerful muscles in Sam’s arms and shoulders didn’t even seem to strain much at the task.
Matt drew his guns and prodded the men on the boardwalk with the sharp toe of a boot. “Get up,” he told them. “You can walk.”
The men were groggy, but they managed to climb upright and stumble toward the squat stone building where the marshal’s office and jail were located. Coleman pointed it out to the men and covered them with his gun, just as Matt and Sam were doing. As they escorted the three prisoners along the street toward the jail, doors began to open along the street and the citizens of Cottonwood started emerging again, now that the shooting was over.
The door of the marshal’s office opened, too, just before they got there, and a young woman stepped outside with a worried look on her face and a rifle in her hands.
Despite that expression of concern causing her to frown, she was still pretty enough to almost take the breath away from Matt and Sam.
Chapter 4
She stepped forward, her blue eyes widening as she looked at the prisoners. “Dad, are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, thanks to these two young fellas,” Coleman replied. “They came along and pitched in on my side.”
The young woman hefted the rifle she held. “I was about to come help you. I heard the shooting and got here as fast as I could.”
It was Coleman’s turn to frown as he shook his head. “I’ve told you before, Hannah, you ain’t my deputy. You need to stay out of any law business. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Well, I don’t want you getting hurt,” she said right back at him. “And if the town council won’t let you hire a deputy, I’ll just have to volunteer.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” the marshal said with a weary shake of his head. “I got to lock these gents up.”
He prodded the prisoners past his daughter, who stepped aside to let them go into the office. Matt
