“Get out of the canyon!” he told them. “Back the way we—”
Something crashed into the back of his left shoulder and made him slump forward over the neck of his horse. Sam thought at first he’d been hit by an arrow, but then he realized that would have been a sharper pain. From the way his arm had gone numb, he figured out that he’d been clouted by a club.
The Navajo warriors swarmed around the three riders. Wilbur drew his gun, but a club knocked it out of his hand before he could fire. Men grabbed Stovepipe and dragged him off his horse. Sam found himself hauled to the ground as well.
Heavily outnumbered as they were, Sam knew their chances of winning this fight were slim. He had no idea why Caballo Rojo’s men were attacking them, but that answer could wait for later.
Right now he just wanted to break free and get out of here.
That wasn’t fated to happen. Another club smashed into the back of his knees and made his legs collapse under him. Men pummeled and kicked him as he went to the ground.
Sam couldn’t see Stovepipe and Wilbur any more, but he doubted if they were faring any better. He could hear the commotion as the struggle continued nearby.
Sam grabbed an attacker’s leg and heaved, upending the man. That gave him a little breathing room. He launched a kick of his own and landed it solidly in another man’s groin. As the Navajo warriors fell back for a second, Sam rolled onto hands and knees and started to lever himself to his feet.
Before he could get up, a club struck him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling to the ground again. He landed with his face in the reddish dirt. The taste of it filled his mouth. He felt consciousness slipping away from him and tried desperately to hang on to it, but the effort was doomed.
The last thing he was aware of before oblivion claimed him was the brutal thud of moccasin-shod feet landing on his ribs.
Red light flickered and glared against Matt’s eyelids, gradually rousing him from the stupor that gripped him. He groaned as he moved his head from side to side in an attempt to shake loose some of the cobwebs from his brain.
The movement was a mistake. It made Matt feel like he was spinning crazily through a hellish void. When he forced his eyes open and saw flames leaping up in front of him, that only reinforced the feeling.
But it was just a campfire, he realized after a moment. He sagged against the ropes binding him to the post. His captors had built a fire that lit up the area in front of Juan Pablo’s hogan.
And he was no longer the only prisoner, Matt saw to his horror.
A few yards away, Sam Two Wolves sprawled motionless on the ground. For a terrible few seconds, Matt thought his blood brother was dead.
Then he saw the slow rise and fall of Sam’s chest and knew that he was still alive. Relief flooded through Matt.
It was tempered by concern, though, because Sam was unconscious and Matt couldn’t tell what had happened to him. Sam might be badly wounded and dying even as Matt stood there staring at him.
Two men Matt had never seen before lay near Sam. Both were white and looked like cowboys. They appeared to be out cold, too. All three men had their hands tied behind their backs.
Matt looked around for Elizabeth and didn’t see her. She might be in Juan Pablo’s hogan, he thought. Juan Pablo wasn’t visible, either, but two of his followers stood nearby, holding rifles and scowling at Matt and the other prisoners.
Sam groaned, causing Matt’s attention to snap back to him. After a moment, Sam shook his head and blinked his eyes open. He winced as the garish light from the fire struck his face. Then he lifted his head a little and started to look around.
“Over here, Sam,” Matt called softly.
Sam muttered something Matt couldn’t make out. He blinked again as he stared toward the post where Matt was tied.
“Matt?” he said. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” A grim smile curved Matt’s mouth. “I’d come over there and let you loose, but—”
“You’re not going to say that you’re a little tied up at the moment, are you?”
“I was thinkin’ about it, yeah.”
“I can see that. Is that Juan Pablo’s hogan?”
“Yeah.”
“I take it this is his doing?”
One of the Navajo guards spoke sharply in his native tongue. He gestured with the rifle, and Matt knew he was telling them to be quiet.
Matt ignored the guard and said, “That’s right. He plans to lead the clan in an uprising and try to get the other clans to join in. But they won’t stand a chance.”
“They might with nearly five hundred new Springfields to lure the other clans into joining them,” Sam said.
Matt’s eyes widened.
“Five hundred Springfields?” he repeated. “What are you talkin’ about, Sam?”
“If Juan Pablo is the leader of this would-be rebellion, then he has some white allies. The gang that bushwhacked us in the first place stole a shipment of rifles bound for Fort Defiance. They were about to deliver them to the Navajo when you and I came along and fouled up the works.”
Matt struggled to wrap his mind around what Sam was telling him.
“You know this for a fact?” he asked.
“At the moment, I don’t have any proof, but I’m reasonably sure the theory is correct.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Matt said. “Who are those two rannihans with you?”
Before Sam could answer, the guard who had tried to get them to stop talking earlier stepped closer and aimed a kick at Sam’s head. Sam rolled out of the way and pulled his legs around in a sudden move, sweeping the Navajo’s legs out from under him. The man let out a startled yell and then hit the ground.
“Maybe not the smartest thing you’ve ever done,” Matt said as the guard scrambled back to his feet with murder in his dark eyes.
At that moment, Juan Pablo stepped out of the hogan. He barked an order at the guard, who stopped in his tracks and then moved back with obvious reluctance.
Juan Pablo stood over Sam and said, “When the time comes for you to die, half-breed, I will kill you. You betray your blood by siding with the white men. You no longer deserve to live.”
“What about you?” Sam demanded. “You’re liable to get a bunch of your people killed if you go through with your plans.”
“And those who are left will mourn their deaths. But the people who live will be free. The white men will be gone.”
Matt said, “It’ll never happen, Juan Pablo. The government won’t let it. They’ll send in the army to wipe you out.”
“This is our land. We know how to fight here better than the white man’s army.”
Much as Matt hated to admit it, Juan Pablo had a point there. The Navajo knew this country, knew how to survive here, knew how to strike hard against the enemy and then hide. Normally a peaceful people, content to farm and hunt, to weave blankets and make jewelry, when aroused they could be fierce, implacable foes. Kit Carson had learned that, back in the old days.
Rooting them out of this wasteland and rounding them up wouldn’t be easy ... but the army had almost limitless resources to do so.
That wasn’t the case with the Navajo. They could fight a war and deal out plenty of damage ... but in the end they would lose.
Juan Pablo didn’t want to hear that. So Matt asked him, “What are you going to do with us?”
“You will all die, of course. When the sun comes up tomorrow morning, you will be killed.” Juan Pablo’s lips curved in a cruel smile. “You will be the first to die from the weapons that will save our people.”
“What do you—” Matt began, but before he could finish the question, Juan Pablo turned and strode away, taking the guards with him and ignoring the prisoners now as if they were no longer worthy of his notice.
It didn’t really matter. Matt had a hunch he knew what Juan Pablo meant by that threat.