Or maybe somebody who wasn’t his friend, like Pino, was lurking around and keeping an eye on him.
Matt didn’t like the feeling that crawled along his spine when he thought about somebody watching him. Most of the time, when somebody spied on an hombre like that, they were up to no good, he thought.
He would just have to keep his own eyes open for trouble.
No one bothered him during the rest of his walk. When he got back to the hogan, he told Juan Pablo’s wife, “See, I’m doing better. Getting stronger. I walked halfway out of the canyon and back, and I’m fine.”
Some of that was bravado on his part. He was pretty tired. But he was convinced that he was getting stronger with each passing day. Another couple of days, he told himself. Then maybe he could start thinking about riding out on Sam’s trail ... assuming that his blood brother hadn’t returned by then.
“Still no sign of Juan Pablo?” he asked the woman. She ignored him, which came as no real surprise. He was starting to think that she understood more of what he said than she let on, but she didn’t want him to know that.
During the afternoon, the woman left the hogan on some errand. That was all right with Matt, because he’d gotten drowsy. He stretched out on the blankets to take a nap, and he was asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes.
He slept lightly. That habit had kept him alive on more than one occasion. And like a wild animal, he had the ability to go from sleeping to being fully awake in an instant, which also came in handy.
In this case, it allowed him to realize something was wrong as soon as a faint noise came to his ears and his eyes popped open. Even in the middle of the day, the interior of the hogan was dim and shadowy. Matt caught a glimpse of an indistinct figure looming over him. That was all it took for his muscles to burst into action and send him rolling to the side.
At the same time, the intruder’s arm swept down, driving a knife through the buffalo robes where Matt had been a split second earlier.
Chapter 21
Matt snapped a kick at the man and caught him in the side. The impact knocked the man across the hogan.
He was able to hang on to his knife. As Matt started to scramble up, the intruder bounced off the far wall of the hogan and came at him again, slashing back and forth with the blade.
Since Matt was still kneeling, he stayed low and threw himself forward in a diving tackle. The knife sliced through the air above his head, missing him as he caught the attacker around the knees. The man yelled as Matt knocked him off his feet.
Matt levered himself up and made a grab for the man’s wrist. Before he could catch hold of it, though, the intruder struck again. The knife had a brass ball at the end of the handle to keep a man’s grip from slipping off it. The intruder smashed this ball against the side of Matt’s head.
Stunned, Matt fell to the side. His muscles refused to respond to his commands.
Which meant he was as good as dead, he thought, because the intruder would need only a second to slash his throat from ear to ear.
Amazingly, that didn’t happen. As the world spun crazily around Matt, blurring his vision, he realized that somehow he was still alive. The man hadn’t killed him after all.
Footsteps thudded on the hard ground somewhere nearby. Matt rolled onto his uninjured side, got an elbow under him, and lifted himself so he could raise his head and look around.
He was alone in the hogan.
The knife-wielding intruder was gone.
Matt was baffled why the man had fled instead of completing his mission of murder. The only explanation he could think of involved the involuntary yell the man had let out when Matt tackled him.
The would-be assassin must have worried that his outcry would draw attention to the hogan, and he didn’t want to be seen emerging from the dwelling where Matt’s murdered body would be found later. So he had abandoned his plan and gotten out quickly.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t try again to kill Matt later on.
Matt sat up and took stock of himself. The bullet holes in his side hurt from all the activity, but as far as he could tell, they hadn’t opened up and started bleeding again.
He was still sitting there when a figure loomed in the doorway, blocking the light. Matt looked up and saw Elizabeth Fleming standing there.
She hurried into the hogan and dropped to her knees beside him. Juan Pablo’s wife followed her. The older woman’s usually stolid face actually wore a worried expression for a change.
“Matt, are you all right?” Elizabeth asked. “Someone said they heard a shout from this hogan, and then a man ran out.”
“That’s right,” Matt said. “Somebody snuck in here and tried to knife me.”
Elizabeth’s beautiful green eyes widened.
“Who in the world would try to do that?”
“I can only think of one fella I’ve had a run-in with lately.”
“You mean Pino?” Elizabeth asked.
“He was ready to stick a knife in me earlier,” Matt said.
Elizabeth shook her head.
“That was just a spur of the moment thing, because he was angry. I don’t think Pino would deliberately murder anyone. He’s one of the clan’s spiritual leaders.”
“Who else would come after me like that?”
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth had to admit.
A harsh voice spoke outside the hogan. She turned her head toward the doorway.
“That’s Caballo Rojo,” she said. “He wants to know if everything is all right.”
“Not hardly,” Matt said. He started to get to his feet.
Elizabeth took hold of his arm to help him. Out of the habit of being fiercely independent, he started to shake her off.
But he had to admit, having her there to lean on felt pretty good. When he was standing, she kept her hand on his arm.
They went outside and found Caballo Rojo standing there with his arms crossed, waiting to hear what had happened. Juan Pablo’s wife followed Matt and Elizabeth out of the hogan and started talking before they could. A steady stream of Navajo words came from her mouth.
When she finally finished, Matt said to Caballo Rojo, “I don’t know what she told you, but someone snuck into the hogan while I was dozing and tried to kill me.”
The clan leader nodded solemnly.
“Who would do this?” he asked.
“Well, I think it was Pino.”
Caballo Rojo shook his head.
“Not Pino. Pino is good man.”
“I haven’t had trouble with anybody else from your clan,” Matt pointed out.
Stubbornly, Caballo Rojo said, “Not Pino.” He jerked his head in an indication that Matt and Elizabeth should follow him. If that wasn’t clear enough, he added, “Come.”
They exchanged a glance. Since they were both here because Caballo Rojo had extended his hospitality to them, they couldn’t very well refuse.
They followed the clan leader along the creek, past several of the other hogans and the grazing herd of sheep. When they came to another hogan, Caballo Rojo called out to someone inside.
Matt wasn’t surprised when Pino emerged from the dwelling. The man gave him and Elizabeth unfriendly looks, then spoke to Caballo Rojo in Navajo.
When Pino was finished, Caballo Rojo turned to Matt and said, “Pino here.” He made a flat, slashing motion with his hand. “All day.”
Matt wanted to point out that Pino could be lying about that. Even if the members of the man’s family backed him up on that, they could be lying as well.
But while Caballo Rojo might be a judge of sorts, this wasn’t a court of law, Matt realized. No rules of evidence applied here. What Caballo Rojo believed was the only thing that mattered, and clearly the clan leader was on Pino’s side in this dispute.
Anyway, to be absolutely honest about it, he hadn’t gotten a good look at the intruder, Matt reminded himself. All he could be sure of was that the man had been dressed like a Navajo ... and Pino was hardly the only one in this canyon who fit that description.