Shots continued to blast behind him, but none found him or Spirit. The rocks loomed ahead of him. He could hold off the gunmen for a while, but eventually they would spread out and come at him from different directions, making it impossible for him to stop all of them.
At least he had given the woman the chance to get away, he told himself. That chivalrous act might cost him his life, but if it did, so be it. He had already figured out the drifting life of adventure he led probably meant he wouldn’t die of old age, surrounded by his grandchildren. Smoke Jensen, his mentor and adopted older brother, had taught him to do what was right, no matter the cost.
Saving a lone woman from six varmints bent on killing her was the right thing to do, no matter how you looked at it, Matt thought.
When he reached the rocks, he dismounted quickly and slapped his hat against Spirit’s rump, sending the sorrel deeper into the clump of boulders. Then, carrying the Winchester, he ran back up the sloping slab of rock he had used as a vantage point a few minutes earlier. Throwing himself down on his belly, he thrust the rifle barrel over the top of the rock and lined his sights toward the onrushing gun-wolves.
The rifle cracked as Matt squeezed the trigger. One of the riders jerked and slewed halfway around in the saddle before he caught hold of the horn and steadied himself—wounded—but not out of the fight yet. Nor was the first man he had winged, who had regained his strength and was trailing the others, firing a revolver toward the rocks.
Matt wasn’t worried too much about handgun fire from that range, but the men with rifles continued shooting as they spread out. Slugs thudded into the rocks and chipped dust from them. He began to hear the high-pitched whine of ricochets, as he had expected. It wouldn’t take long for his refuge to turn into a deadly hornet’s nest.
He continued to fire, cranking off several rounds toward the men as they split up. The swiftness with which they had launched into the tactic told him they were professionals. Although he hated to do it, he shifted his aim and sent a bullet into the chest of one of the horses. The animal’s forelegs folded up underneath and it crashed to the ground. The rider was thrown out of the saddle and landed hard, rolling over and over.
Matt was ready when the man came to a stop. He had the Winchester’s sights lined up and squeezed the trigger. As the gunman tried to get up, Matt’s slug ripped through his body and drove him back to the ground. He didn’t move again.
One dead, two wounded, he thought. He was whittling the odds down, but not fast enough. The gunman had reached cover—three in a grove of trees, and the other two in a gully that zigzagged down to the creek. Those were the ones who worried Matt the most, because they could work their way up that gully where he couldn’t get a shot at them until they were behind him.
The men in the trees had a pretty good angle on him, too. Their shots were coming closer. A bullet tugged at the sleeve of his faded blue bib-front shirt and bounced off the rock next to him.
Matt swung his rifle toward the trees, determined to go down fighting. As he peered over the barrel one of the gunmen staggered out from behind a tree, in plain sight. Something stuck out from his shoulder, and after a second Matt realized it was an arrow. Another man yelled in pain or alarm or both. Something brown flashed through the trees, moving too fast for Matt to be sure what it was.
He’d wager a guess it was a buckskin-clad form…
A bullet whipped past his head from behind. The men in the gully had flanked him. He turned and slid down the sloping face of the rock, firing three times as he did so at the place where the gully snaked behind the boulders. Not knowing if he hit either of the men he thudded to the ground at the base of the rock. He had been forced off the high ground. The rocks were little more than a deathtrap.
He whistled for Spirit, and as the sorrel rushed up, Matt grabbed the horn and swung himself into the saddle. He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. Spirit burst out through a gap between the rocks and charged toward the gully.
Matt rammed the rifle back in its sheath and drew his Colt. The gully was about twenty yards away and maybe a dozen feet wide. Spirit covered the distance in only a few bounds. Matt heard guns roaring, but the sorrel never faltered. He didn’t slow down, and as Matt called “Up, Spirit!” the horse launched into a leap that carried them soaring into the air above the gully.
The gunmen hadn’t expected that. They stared up in shock as Matt and the sorrel passed over their heads. Matt fired right, then jerked the Colt left and thumbed off another round. A second later, Spirit’s forehooves hit the ground, dug in, and kept them plunging forward.
Matt pulled back on the reins, slowing and turning the sorrel. He caught sight of both men moving fast back along the gully, heading for the spot where they had left their horses. One was clutching a bullet-shattered arm. The other appeared to be unharmed, but obviously had lost interest in the fight.
Matt holstered the revolver and pulled his rifle again. He sent a couple of shots after the men to hurry them on their way, then heeled Spirit into motion and rode in a big circle to the left around the boulders. He wanted to find out what had happened in those trees on the other side of the rocks.
Was it possible the woman he had intervened to save had doubled back to save him?
As he reached a point where he could see the trees, he spotted three horses and riders on the other side of the creek, moving fast toward the mountains. A moment later, off to the right, he saw the two he had chased out of the gully also mounted, also hurrying. The horse he had killed still lay where it had fallen, but the man was gone. Either his companions had taken his body with them, or he wasn’t dead after all and had managed to grab a ride with one of the others.
What mattered was the echoes of the gunshots had faded away and silence had fallen over the landscape. The would-be killers were gone, and from the looks of the way they had taken off for the tall and uncut, they didn’t have any intention of coming back soon.
That left the woman in buckskins unaccounted for. Matt jogged the sorrel toward the trees, holding the Winchester across the saddle in front of him so that it would be handy if he needed it.
He reined in and called, “Hello! Are you in there?”
At first there was no response from the timber. Suddenly a figure stepped out from behind one of the trees about a dozen feet away, and Matt found himself looking at an arrow nocked on a pulled-taut bowstring. All it would take to send that arrow flying into his body was a slight movement of two fingers.
Matt stiffened in the saddle, not wanting to do anything to spook the woman. He said calmly, “Take it easy, ma’am. I’m a friend. I’m the one who helped you back there.”
For a moment it seemed that his words didn’t penetrate to her brain, and he wondered fleetingly if she spoke his language. He could tell from her black hair and her coppery skin that she was an Indian.
Then, slowly, she lowered the bow and arrow slightly and said in perfect English, “I know what you did. What I don’t know is why, and until I do, I’m not going to trust you.”
He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: the way she had come back to help him, the way she dressed like a warrior, the way she talked…
Or the fact that she was the most beautiful young woman he had seen for quite some time.
Chapter 22
Dark, luminous eyes dominated the lovely face. They had a slightly odd cast that made them look a little different from the eyes of other Indian women he had seen. She was armed with the bow in her hands, a quiver of arrows slung on her back, and a pair of sheathed knives, one on each hip. She wasn’t pointing the arrow directly at him anymore, but the wariness in her eyes and the tenseness in her stance told Matt that she could raise the bow and let fly in the blink of an eye.
He could swing his Winchester up and fire faster than she could loose an arrow, but instead he said, “I don’t have any interest in hurting you, ma’am. I saw those men chasing you and shooting at you, and I stepped in to stop them.”
“Why
?” She put the question to him sharply. “Why would you risk your life to help a stranger?”
“Well…you’re a woman, for onething. But I reckon I’d have taken a hand even if you were a man. I never did like six-to-one odds. They don’t hardly seem fair.”
“Fair?” she repeated. “You helped me because my plight offended your sense of fairness?”
“You could put it like that,” he said with a shrug. If you want to be all high-falutin about it, he added to himself.
“Who are you?” she asked after a moment.
“Name’s Matt Jensen.”
“Jensen…”
The name seemed to mean something to her. She might have heard of him, Matt thought, but more likely she recognized the name because of Smoke, who was much better known on the frontier.
“What are you doing in this valley, Matt Jensen?” she went on.
“Just riding,” he said. “I’ve been up in Montana Territory and thought I’d drift south for a while, before the colder weather moves in. Is there a settlement in these parts? It probably wouldn’t hurt if I picked up some supplies.”
“Buffalo Flat is about ten miles south of here,” the young woman said. “You should be careful, though. Reece Bannerman doesn’t like strangers riding across his range.”
Matt grunted. “Bannerman, eh? As in the Circle B?”
She nodded. “Yes. That’s his ranch.”
“We’re on his range now?”
“He runs his cattle on this land,” she said, the sharpness back in her voice. “That does not mean he owns it.”
“I see,” Matt said, although he didn’t, not fully. Since the woman had lowered the bow and arrow farther and seemed more relaxed, he ventured another question. “I’ve told you my name, but you haven’t told me yours. What do they call you?”
After hesitating a moment, she said, “Starwind.”
He nodded. “Starwind. It suits you.” He studied the beadwork and markings on her buckskins. “You’re a Crow?”
“That’s right. My father’s village is near here.” She frowned at him. “You’ve said nothing about my clothes.”
Matt shrugged. “I reckon folks have a right to dress however they want.”
“Or the fact that I fight like a man.”
“Well, that came in mighty handy when you ventilated one of those fellas with an arrow.”
“Two of them,” she corrected.
“I thought I heard somebody else yell in those trees,” Matt said with a smile. “If you hadn’t turned around and come back to help me, there’s a good chance they would’ve kept me pinned down in those rocks until a ricochet got me. So I owe you just as much as you owe me.”
“We are square, as the white man says.”
Matt nodded. “Yep. We’re square. I’m curious, though…why were those varmints chasing you? Do they work for this fella Bannerman?”
“I don’t know,” Starwind replied with a shake of her head. “I was searching for…something…when they saw me and began shooting at me. If my pony was not so swift, they would have killed or captured me.”
“What were you looking for?” Matt asked, still indulging his curiosity.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she finally unnocked the arrow and slid it back into the quiver slung over her shoulder.
“Will you come with me to the village of my people, Matt Jensen?” she asked.
Matt didn’t have any place he had to be. He knew the Crow were usually friendly toward whites and thought he could count on their hospitality. And he was still mighty curious. It seemed to him that the beautiful young woman called Starwind was being deliberately mysterious.
“Sure, I can do that,” he told her. “I appreciate the invitation.”
“Follow me, then.” She turned her head and whistled, and the paint pony she had been riding earlier came out of the trees. She vaulted lithely onto its back. The buckskin trousers made it easy for her to ride astride.
And the way they hugged the curves of her hips wasn’t half-bad, either, he thought.
Matt let her lead the way. Starwind headed west, her course winding through the lush valley between the rugged, heavily timbered mountains. They crossed the first creek, then another stream half a mile farther on. Turning south they followed the second creek. A few minutes later, Matt spotted a tendril of gray smoke twisting upward into the blue sky.
“My father’s village,” Starwind said, nodding toward the smoke coming from a cooking fire.
When they reached the village, Matt saw that the lodges were scattered along a plain beside the creek, with woods nearby for firewood. It was a good-sized village, housing probably a couple hundred people, he estimated as he and Starwind approached. Dogs came running out to greet them, barking loudly. The commotion drew plenty of attention. Men, women, and children emerged from the lodges. Warriors holding rifles or bows stepped forward, forming a protective line in case there was trouble. Matt wondered a little why they were so defensive.
An air of tension definitely hung over the entire village. Some of the women and children looked frightened. The warriors glared at Matt, and he was glad that Starwind was at his side. If she hadn’t been there to indicate by her presence that he was a friend, he might have been risking his life by riding into that village, he realized.
Something had happened that had everybody spooked.
Matt spotted someone striding forward, behind the line of warriors. The man was easy to see, because he stood head and shoulders above the others. The line parted to let him through. Matt’s jaw tightened as he got his first good look at the tall, broad-shouldered Indian.
The man’s face was scarred and misshapen, and yet it bore a powerful dignity that slightly lessened the impact of his ugliness. His dark hair was heavily streaked with gray, but that was the only real indication of his age. The lines left by the years didn’t show on his ravaged face, and his body seemed as powerful and vital as that of a younger man. He had to be the chief of the band. The way he carried himself, he could be nothing less.
“Starwind!” he said. “I feared that you had disappeared, too.” The man looked at Matt and scowled. “Who is this?”
Starwind slid down from the back of her pony. The chief towered over her. “He says his name is Matt Jensen.”
“Jensen!” The massive Indian seemed as impressed by the name as Starwind had been. He peered at Matt and asked, “You share the same blood as the one called Smoke Jensen?”
“Not exactly,” Matt said. “He’s my adopted brother. Or I reckon I should say he adopted me, since he saved my life, took me in, and pretty much raised me into a man. I took his name when I went out on my own, in tribute to him.”
“Not blood, but blood brothers, then.”
Matt nodded. “That’s the way I feel about it.”
The Indian clenched a ham-like fist and held it to his chest. “I am Crazy Bear. Years ago, Smoke Jensen did a great kindness for my family, and I have never forgotten him. Come. You are welcome here.”
Matt relaxed, as did the warriors who were lined up behind Chief Crazy Bear. The crowd began to break up. Matt dismounted, and as he did so, Starwind reached for his reins.
“I will see to it that your horse is cared for,” she said.
“Thanks. His name is Spirit.”
Crazy Bear ushered Matt toward one of the lodges. “You will be my guest,” he said. “Has Smoke spoken of his time here?”
“Not that I recall,” Matt said. “It might have been after he and I went our separate ways.”
“He called himself Buck West then. I learned his true name later.”
Matt nodded. “Yeah, that was after we split up, after his first wife was killed. I heard about it from him later on, but I wasn’t around when it happened. I’d like to think things might’ve been different if I had been.”
An older woman waited in front of the lodge that was Crazy Bear’s destination. She had gray in her hair, too, but she was still very attractive. Something had upset her.
Matt saw pain and worry in her dark eyes.
“I thought there might be news of Moon Fawn,” she said.
Crazy Bear shook his head. “No, but our daughter has come home. This man was with her. His name is Matt Jensen, blood brother to Smoke.”
The woman came closer, and Matt realized that she wasn’t an Indian. He had taken her for one at first, because of her coloring and her buckskin dress. Her features had a distinctly European look, and he knew that was what he had noticed about Starwind without really understanding it. The young woman was a mixture of the two cultures.
“My name is Mala,” she said.
Matt took his hat off and nodded politely to her. “I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am. I just wish it was under better circumstances.”
She stiffened. “What do you know of the circumstances?”
“Nothing, really, only that your daughter was being chased by gunmen because they caught her looking for someone else who has disappeared, someone named Moon Fawn.” He had put that together quickly in his head from things that Starwind, Crazy Bear, and Mala had said.
Mala drew in a breath sharply. “Starwind was in danger?”
“I stepped in to help her,” Matt explained, “and then she helped me when those hardcases turned around and came after me. I guess you could say we got each other out of trouble.”
Crazy Bear looked past Matt and rumbled, “Starwind! Where did you go?”
The young woman walked up, having cared for her pony and Matt’s sorrel. Her chin held a defiant tilt as she said, “I went to look for my niece. Someone has to find her before it’s too late.”
“We have searched from one end of the valley to the other.”
“Not Bannerman’s line camps or the headquarters of his ranch,” Starwind shot back at him.
Crazy Bear frowned. “The truce between us is too easy to break. If we go near the line camps or Bannerman’s house, there will be trouble.”
“Why should we worry about trouble with Bannerman and his men when Moon Fawn is missing?”
The Family Jensen # 1 Page 17