Matt fell against the hogan. Battling the two men had taken every bit of his strength.
But he had to summon up more from somewhere, he told himself, because Sam and the two range detectives were still prisoners. With a groan, Matt pushed himself away from the hogan and started around it at a shambling run.
He emerged into the firelight and was almost at the entrance when Elizabeth Fleming ran out of the hogan and almost collided with him. She grabbed his arm to steady herself and exclaimed, “Oh!”
“Are you ... all right?” Matt asked, still breathless and dizzy.
“Yes, Josefina just untied me.”
Matt had to think for a second to remember that Josefina was the name of Juan Pablo’s wife. He had heard it used only occasionally.
From the ground nearby, Sam asked, “Matt, what happened to those two guards?”
“They’re both ... knocked out ... for now.”
“Better cut us loose while you got the chance,” Stovepipe said.
“Give me the knife,” Elizabeth suggested. “You look like you’re about to fall down, Matt.”
“Feel like it ... too.” He pressed the knife into her hands. “Be careful, but ... don’t waste any time.”
As Elizabeth took the knife and knelt beside Sam, Matt saw movement from the corner of his eye and turned to look toward the hogan’s entrance. He saw the woman emerging from the dwelling with her arms full of gunbelts and holstered revolvers.
“Son of a gun!” Matt said as he recognized his own twin Colts. “They were ... hidden in there ... the whole time!”
The woman practically dumped the weapons into his hands. He staggered a little under their weight.
When Matt turned toward the prisoners again, he saw that Elizabeth had succeeded in freeing Sam. His blood brother leaped to his feet and flexed his hands a few times to get the blood flowing in them again.
“Give me my gun,” he said as he came over to Matt.
Sam took his gunbelt and strapped it around his hips. Stovepipe was free by then, and he hurried over to retrieve his revolver as well, followed by Wilbur.
Matt felt strength flow back into him as he buckled on the pair of Colts. It might not be real—the return of his guns had buoyed his spirits, and that could account for the fresh energy—but for now he would take it.
“I’m not sure what’s goin’ on here,” he said, “but it sure does feel good to be free again.”
“You can thank Josefina for that,” Elizabeth said. She still clutched the knife, which Matt now recognized as Sam’s bowie. “It was her idea to cut you loose and to untie me.”
“Why would she betray her husband like that?” Sam asked as he took the knife from Elizabeth and slid it into the sheath attached to his gunbelt.
With a grim little smile, Elizabeth said, “It was either that or cut my throat, and don’t think she didn’t consider doing that instead.”
“But why?” Matt asked.
“She freed us so you can take me out of the canyon and get me far away from Juan Pablo.”
“Oh,” Matt said as understanding dawned on him.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Wilbur said. “You mean—Oh, shoot!”
His face was already red in the firelight. It became more so as he flushed.
“Yes, he was going to take me as a second wife once his armed uprising succeeded. Josefina doesn’t want that. So she thought that if she turned you loose, you’d escape and take me with you.”
“She was right about that,” Matt said. “Where are our horses?”
Elizabeth took hold of his arm.
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
The group hurried along the creek for a quarter of a mile, then Elizabeth led them to a brush corral where a number of horses milled around. It was dark away from the fire in front of Juan Pablo’s hogan, but Elizabeth had been here in the canyon for months and knew her way around, even when she had to navigate by starlight.
“Our horses still have the saddles on them, Matt,” Sam said, “but I don’t see yours.”
“That’s all right,” Matt told him. “I can ride bareback if it means getting out of here.” He paused. “We have to stop Juan Pablo, Sam. If he gets his hands on those rifles, innocent folks will die.”
“I know,” Sam agreed. “But I’m not sure where we’ll find the place the gang plans to deliver them.”
Stovepipe said, “I reckon if it was me, I’d head for the spot where they planned to turn ’em over to the Navajo the first time ... that bluff where you two boys got bushwhacked to start this fandango.”
Matt and Sam exchanged a glance and nodded to each other.
“It’s worth a try,” Sam said. “Let’s get mounted up. Elizabeth, you can take one of the saddled horses. I’ll ride bareback, like Matt.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” Sam told her with a grin. “Remember, I’m half-Cheyenne. I was riding without a saddle almost before I could walk.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Matt said.
The horses inside the corral were nervous, but Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur were adept at handling them. They moved the brush gate aside and led out the animals they wanted, and a moment later all five riders were mounted.
“We’ll have to get past the guards at the mouth of the canyon,” Sam said. “They’re not expecting trouble from in here—”
As if to give the lie to his words, shouts of alarm suddenly rang out, echoing back from the canyon walls. The two guards Matt had knocked out must have regained consciousness.
“Blast it!” Matt exclaimed. “I should’ve cut their throats, or at least gagged them!”
“I’m glad you didn’t kill them,” Elizabeth said. “Juan Pablo is leading them into trouble, but they’re not bad people at heart.”
Stovepipe said, “No offense, ma’am, but I reckon they’ll ventilate us if they get half a chance.”
“We’ll have to try not to give them a chance,” Sam said. He urged his horse into a gallop. “Let’s go!”
Chapter 34
Zack Jardine tossed back the glass of whiskey and thumped the empty onto the table.
“Angus should have been back by now,” he said with a dark scowl. “Something happened out there.”
Dave Snyder, Joe Hutto, and Doyle Hilliard were sitting at the table with Jardine. Hilliard, who was Braverman’s best friend, leaned forward and with a worried frown on his face asked, “You want me to take a ride out to that mesa, Zack? I can find out what’s goin’ on.”
Jardine considered the suggestion for a moment, then shook his head.
“No. The cattle don’t matter that much. We’re gonna get those rifles in the hands of the Navajo tonight, and by this time tomorrow, the war will be started and nothing can stop it.”
Hilliard, Snyder, and Hutto looked surprised. This was the first they had heard about delivering the rifles to the Indians tonight. They had to be wondering how the arrangements had been made, since Jardine had been right here in Flat Rock all day.
Jardine smiled faintly at that thought. He liked to keep a few of his cards close to the vest, and one of them was the fact that he had a partner in this enterprise, a partner none of the other men knew about.
That partner was the one who had ridden out and met with Juan Pablo earlier today, after Two Wolves had formed that unlikely alliance with the Devil’s Pitchfork crew.
When Jardine had heard about that, he had known that it was time to make their biggest move yet in this game. Being cautious was all well and good, but at some point decisive action was needed.
This was that point.
“Go down to the Mexican’s place and get the wagon ready,” Jardine went on. “Bring it to the alley behind the saloon, and we’ll go get the guns.”
His men didn’t know where the rifles were hidden. Only Jardine and his partner knew that, because they had unloaded the crates after the first attempt to deliver the rifles to the Navajo.