His brain was working swiftly. Given the fact that something was going on up there on the roof, it made sense that what he had heard that woke him up was somebody climbing the ladder, since it was right outside his window.
That in itself wasn’t suspicious; someone sent by the sheriff could have been going up there to relieve the man on duty and take over as lookout.
But coupled with the noises he had heard, the choked gurgle followed by a thump, the situation didn’t seem near that innocent.
In fact, it was downright ominous, Matt thought as he clung to the edge of the window with one hand and reached for the ladder with his foot.
With the lithe agility he’d been blessed with since birth, he swung over to the ladder. In absolute silence, he started climbing toward the roof. As he looked up, he saw a flare of light. Someone had just lit a match. He smelled the faint tang of brimstone from the lucifer.
Matt smelled something else, too, a metallic, coppery scent that he recognized.
That was the smell of freshly spilled blood—and a lot of it.
Matt’s head rose above the level of the short wall that ran around the roof. He saw a man standing several yards away with his back turned, holding a lit match over his head that he moved back and forth three times.
Between Matt and the hombre with the match lay another man, facedown in the middle of a dark, spreading pool.
Matt didn’t need anybody to explain to him what had happened here. The varmint with the match had cut the throat of the other man. That was the only thing that would have produced so much blood.
The dead man had to be the guard Sheriff Flagg had posted up here.
Which meant the killer, in all likelihood, was one of Joshua Shade’s men…
In the back of Matt’s brain, he realized that Shade must have managed to sneak some scouts into the settlement after all, or else he wouldn’t have known about the guard on top of the hotel.
That guess was confirmed a second later when, from the corner of his eye, he saw another match being waved back and forth at the far end of the next block, from the roof of the bank.
He didn’t stop to think about that consciously, though. Instead, he went into action, swarming up and over the wall and onto the roof. Almost noiselessly, he lunged past the dead man at the outlaw who had just sent that signal with the match.
Not quite noiselessly, though, because a bare foot scraped on the rooftop and warned the killer. He started to swing around as he dropped the now-burned-out match and clawed at the gun on his hip.
Matt’s arm was already raised, and he struck first before the man could drag iron. The Colt in Matt’s hand smashed down on the man’s head, crumpling his hat and maybe denting his skull.
The outlaw’s knees unhinged, dropping him like a poleaxed steer. He fell in a limp heap next to the man he had killed a couple of minutes earlier.
Matt whirled as he heard a noise behind him, but it was just Sam climbing from the ladder onto the roof. “What the hell happened here?” Sam demanded.
“This fella just killed the guard Sheriff Flagg posted up here,” Matt explained as he gestured with his gun toward the man he had knocked out. “He was using a match to signal somebody in the hills when I walloped him.”
“Shade,” Sam said in a flat, hard voice.
“Yeah, that’s what I figure, too. Another of his men sent a signal from the top of the bank. They were letting Shade know that the lookouts were taken care of.”
“That means Shade is about to attack the town.”
“That’s right,” Matt said. “You go warn folks.”
“What are you going to do?”
“See if I can catch up with the hombre who sent the signal from the bank.” Matt started toward the ladder, then paused. “You might use this gent’s belt to lash his hands behind his back. Wouldn’t want him coming to and joining the party later on.”
“How come I get that job?”
Matt was already swinging a leg over the roof and onto the ladder. He grinned and said, “Because I’m closer to the ground.”
Then he started down the rungs as fast as he could go, skipping some of them and practically bouncing off of the ladder as he descended.
For a second, he had considered stopping at his room to get his trousers, rather than running around Arrowhead in his long underwear, but he’d decided not to take the time to do that. Modesty was one thing; catching the son of a bitch who had no doubt murdered the lookout on top of the bank was another.
Anyway, he had five rounds in the Colt he clutched in his hand, with the hammer resting on an empty chamber as it usually did. If five bullets weren’t enough for him to deal with one man, then he was in a lot more trouble than a pair of pants could fix.
As soon as his feet hit the dirt in the alley, Matt sprinted toward Main Street. When he reached it, he turned to his right, toward the bank. At the end of the block, he took a left-hand jog, since the bank was on the opposite side of the street from the hotel.
Nobody was on the street at this time of night, although lights still glowed from some of the saloons and a few horses were tied at the hitch rails.
Matt darted into the alley behind the block of buildings where the bank was located. He made no sound except the soft slap of his feet against the dirt.
That was enough to warn the man who had just reached the bottom of the ladder leaning against the rear wall of the bank, though. Matt could barely see him in the shadows, but he recognized the movement as the man spun toward him.
Matt dropped into a crouch and ran forward. At that same instant, Colt flame bloomed in the darkness as the man loosed a wild shot at him. The bullet whined past Matt’s head.
The revolver in Matt’s hand roared as he returned a shot of his own. In the flicker of illumination from the muzzle flash, he saw a man in the charro jacket and broad-brimmed, steeple-crowned sombrero of a Mexican.
The man staggered against the wall, but he didn’t drop his gun. He pulled the weapon up from its momentary sag and fired again, flame lancing from the barrel.
This slug came close enough for Matt to feel its warmth as it whispered past his cheek. Might have been nice to take this hombre alive, he thought, but he reminded himself that there was already one prisoner on top of the hotel.
So he didn’t take any chances. He pulled the trigger three times, and all three bullets hammered the outlaw against the wall. The man hung there for a second, finally dropping his gun, and then pitched forward.
Matt ran lightly toward him and bent to retrieve the fallen Colt. As he straightened, he heard shouts along Main Street, along with the clamorous ringing of a bell. The bell was probably meant to summon Arrowhead’s volunteer fire company, but tonight it served as a warning of a danger that might be even greater than an out-of-control blaze.
Matt had no doubt in his mind that at this very minute, Joshua Shade and his band of ruthless killers were sweeping toward Arrowhead like a plague of locusts.
Chapter 7
Sam knew that Matt was right about tying up the unconscious outlaw, so he pulled the man’s belt off, jerked his arms behind his back, and lashed the wrists together with it. He didn’t worry about how rough he was being either, or about how uncomfortable the hombre would be when he came to.
The smell of blood filled Sam’s nostrils, and it seemed to him that the killer was getting off lightly.
When he was finished with that, he pulled the man’s revolver from its holster and then hurried over to the ladder. Climbing down with a gun in each hand was awkward, but Sam managed.
If