The time for secrecy was over, though.
“All right, boss,” Snyder said. “Do we get all the other fellas who are in town together?”
“That’s right. We’ll all ride out with the wagon.”
That was only seven or eight men. The other members of the gang were either wounded or out at the mesa with the rustled cattle.
But that ought to be enough, Jardine told himself. Nobody knew what was really going on here, so they couldn’t prepare for it.
The three men hurried out of the Buckingham Palace. Jardine poured himself another drink and leaned back in his chair to enjoy it. His gaze roamed across the room and lingered on the beautiful Lady Augusta Winslow, who stood at the bar talking to one of the bartenders.
Jardine’s eyes narrowed. Once he was the King of the Four Corners, that lovely but stuck-up British bitch would be his for the taking. She wouldn’t dare turn him down. He had made a few advances already, only to be politely rebuffed.
She would learn, he thought. He would do the teaching, and it would be a lesson Lady Augusta would never forget.
He’d intended to sip the whiskey this time, but thinking about what he would do with the Englishwoman made him swallow the fiery stuff fast. He stood up and went out the side door, then along the alley to the back of the building.
His men showed up with the wagon about ten minutes later, with Hilliard at the reins. Jardine climbed to the seat and took over the team, forcing Hilliard aside. He was the only one who knew where he was going.
He drove along the back alley behind the buildings along Flat Rock’s main street. When he came to one of the larger buildings, he brought the vehicle to a stop and got down. The building was made of boards freighted in from Phoenix. The floor sat on piers, so there was a crawl space underneath it.
Jardine went up some steps to a small rear porch and knocked on the door there. A moment later it opened and a man stepped out.
“It’s time,” Jardine said. “Let’s get those rifles out.”
“Of course,” Noah Reilly said. “I’ll be glad to get them out of here.”
Reilly came down the steps, took a key from his pocket, and used it to unfasten a padlock on a short door that opened into the crawl space under the general store. He stepped aside so Jardine could reach inside and grasp the handle on the end of the nearest crate.
It hadn’t been easy for the two of them to wrestle those crates into and out of the crawl space, but Reilly was stronger than his small stature would indicate. Still, Jardine was glad that after tonight they wouldn’t have to do this anymore.
Jardine grunted with effort as he slid the first crate out.
“Load it up,” he told his men. He reached into the crawl space for another.
He supposed his men were surprised to find out that he and Reilly were working together. That wouldn’t be the case much longer, Jardine thought. Reilly had some idea that once they were successful, he would be the power behind the throne, so to speak, because the whole plan had been his idea to start with.
Jardine wasn’t going to let that happen. Once the Navajo had launched their bloody uprising and the army came in, Reilly wouldn’t be any more use. Jardine could get rid of him without jeopardizing anything, and that was exactly what he planned to do.
Of course, Jardine thought as he pulled another crate out into the alley, Reilly might have the same thing in mind for him. If that was the case, the little storekeeper was going to be mighty disappointed.
But not for long, since he’d be dead soon.
The other men didn’t say anything. They just lifted the crates of rifles and slid them over the lowered tailgate into the wagon. Curious or not, they knew to keep their mouths shut.
“Can you find the rendezvous point in the dark?” Reilly asked Jardine when all the guns were loaded.
“Don’t worry about that,” Jardine said. “I know these parts better than you do. We’ll be there a couple of hours before dawn.”
“Juan Pablo should be waiting for you.” Even in the gloom of the alley, starlight reflected off the lenses of Reilly’s spectacles. “And in another month or so, we’ll be well on our way to being rich men.”
Jardine grunted.
“Can’t be too soon to suit me,” he said.
“That’s true for me as well. I’ve spent my entire life working for other men. But not much longer.”
Jardine tried not to grin. Taking orders was really all that little varmints like Reilly were good for. They didn’t have any business being in charge of anything. Not like big, strong hombres like him.
“Let’s go,” he said curtly to his men. “We’ve got rifles to deliver. See you tomorrow, Noah.”
“Good luck,” Reilly called as Jardine stepped up onto the wagon box again.
“Thanks,” Jardine said, but he knew he didn’t really need luck.
He was going to be the King of the Four Corners. It was his destiny.
Matt, Sam, Elizabeth, Stovepipe, and Wilbur sent their horses racing along the creek toward the mouth of the canyon. Matt hoped Elizabeth was a good rider. In the dark like this, it would be easy for a horse to take a spill.
The guards who were shouting for help were between them and the canyon mouth. As the five riders came closer, men carrying rifles charged toward them.
“Hunker down!” Matt shouted as orange flame spurted from the muzzles of those rifles.
They leaned forward, over the necks of their mounts, to make themselves harder to hit. Matt sensed as much as heard a bullet humming past his head, but that was the closest any of the slugs came to him.
The Navajo who tried to stop them fell behind, as did the fire in front of Juan Pablo’s hogan. Shots still blasted sporadically, but now the men were firing blindly and the chances of them hitting were very slim.
But even wild shots got lucky and found their targets every now and then, Matt knew, so he stayed low and kept his horse moving fast, and hoped that the others would, too.
He looked over his shoulder. The riders were strung out a little now. He was in the lead, followed by Stovepipe, Wilbur, and Elizabeth. Sam was bringing up the rear, and Matt knew his blood brother was doing that on purpose to protect Elizabeth.
They were almost at the mouth of the canyon now. Matt wasn’t surprised when shots rang out from the sentries posted there.
Wilbur yelped in pain. Stovepipe turned to him and called, “How bad is it, pard?”
“Just nicked me, the varmint!” Wilbur replied. “Keep goin’, Stovepipe. Don’t slow down!”
“Wasn’t intendin’ to,” Stovepipe said. “But you holler if you need any help, hear?”
Matt knew he was operating purely on the excitement of battle and the urgent need to escape from this canyon. He drew his right-hand Colt and triggered a few shots toward the places where he had seen the flare of the sentries’ guns.
He wasn’t really trying to hit anything. He just wanted to give them something to think about and make them duck.
From the back of the group, Sam’s revolver roared, too. Matt knew he was trying to do the same thing.
The effort seemed to work. The running horses flashed past the sentries and through the entrance to the canyon. Now they were out in the open, with the cliffs rapidly falling behind them.
“Will ... will they come after us?” Elizabeth gasped.
“I don’t know,” Sam said as he pulled his mount up even with hers. “Juan Pablo left some of his followers behind to guard us and keep an eye on Caballo Rojo and the men who don’t want a war. I don’t know if they would risk leaving the canyon completely unguarded.”
“Some of them might come after us, though,” Matt said as the riders slowed slightly and grouped up again. “They won’t want us to interfere with Juan Pablo gettin’ his hands on those guns.”
“But that’s dang sure what we need to do,” Stovepipe put in. “Think you can find the place where the gang was gonna turn ’em over before?”