In this part of the country, these arroyos were bone-dry nearly all the time, except for the one or two occasions every year when a rare desert thunderstorm would send walls of water gushing through them.
The brush and the rock would provide a little cover for Matt. Sam propped him up against the outcropping.
“Think you’re strong enough to handle your guns?”
Both of Matt’s Colts were still in the holsters attached to the crossed gunbelts. He drew the revolvers and said, “You bet I am. Just give me something to shoot at.”
“You ought to have some targets soon enough.” Sam’s horse had come in respose to the whistle. Sam hurried over to the animal and drew the Winchester from its sheath.
Then he took off his hat and slapped it against the horse’s bullet-creased rump. That sent the horse galloping off along the arroyo where Sam hoped it would be safer.
Sam went to the far side of the arroyo and waited there with the rifle in his hands. The banks were steeper here. The bushwhackers would have to descend into the arroyo and come along the bottom of it to get at their intended victims.
“Keep your eyes on the rim above me,” Sam called to Matt. He pointed up with a thumb. “They might cross over somewhere else and try to get above us. I’ll watch the rim on your side.”
Matt nodded and lifted his gaze to the top of the bank about six feet above Sam’s head. The bushwhackers might try to sneak up and fire down directly on them from up there.
The hoofbeats had stopped. That meant whichever way the bushwhackers planned to proceed, they were approaching on foot now.
Matt and Sam both listened intently for the scrape of boot leather on the ground or anything else that might give away the location of the would-be killers.
They didn’t hear anything except the faint sighing of the wind across the plains. Then a shadow moved on the rim above Sam’s head. Matt knew that a man on his side of the arroyo cast it, and he jerked a gun barrel up to alert Sam to the lurker.
Sam had already realized the man was up there. He lifted the Winchester to his shoulder as the crown of a sweat-stained, pearl-gray Stetson came into view.
Sam held his fire, well aware that this could be a trick. One of the bushwhackers could have put his hat on a stick and lifted it up there, trying to draw a shot that would tell him and his companions where Matt and Sam were.
A few seconds later, the man stepped into sight. He held a rifle, and as he spotted Sam, he tried to lift the weapon.
He was too late. Sam’s Winchester was already lined up. The rifle cracked and sent a .44-40 slug drilling through the bushwhacker’s shoulder. With a yell of pain, the man twisted and flopped backward out of sight.
But as if that had been a signal, more shots erupted from farther along the arroyo as several more gunmen charged toward Matt and Sam.
Matt twisted and pressed himself against the outcropping, grimacing as the movement made pain from his bullet wound jolt through him. Flames stabbed from the muzzles of his Colts as he opened fire on the darting, shooting figures.
On the other side of the gully, Sam dropped to one knee and triggered several rounds from the Winchester. Fire spat from the rifle’s muzzle as a storm of lead howled back and forth along the arroyo.
Bullets sizzled through the air and whined off rocks. One of the slugs hit the bank just above Matt’s head and sent dirt and gravel spraying over his face. He jerked back and blinked as the grit stung his eyes and blurred his vision for a moment. The barrels of his Colts drooped.
Sam kept up his deadly fire. Through the haze of gunsmoke that floated in the arroyo, he had seen several of the attackers stagger and a couple of them had fallen. He wasn’t surprised when he heard a man bellow out a curse and then order, “Come on! Let’s get out of here!”
Sam knew that might be a trick, a tactic to make him and Matt think their enemies were giving up.
But when he stopped firing, he could tell that the other guns had fallen silent, too. Echoes of the thunderous blasts still bounced back and forth between the walls, but as they faded, Sam heard swift hoofbeats again. It certainly sounded like the bushwhackers were pulling out.
“You all right?” he called over to Matt.
“No new bullet holes, if that’s what you mean,” Matt replied. He had blinked most of the dirt out of his eyes and could see fairly clearly again. “Reckon they’re really gone?”
“I don’t know. We’d better wait and see.”
“I don’t want to cause a problem for you, Sam, but these holes in my side are still leaking.”
“Just hang on,” Sam said. “I’ll get you out of here and find some help for you.”
“Where do you figure on doing that? We’re out in the big middle of nowhere. There’s probably not a settlement within thirty miles. Maybe not even that close. Might find a ranch house somewhere, but that’d just be a matter of dumb luck.”
Sam flashed a grin at his blood brother.
“Well, then, you’ve got that going for you.”
“I’m gonna keep track of all these mean things you’re sayin’ to me while I’m hurt, so when I get to feeling better ...”
Sam motioned for Matt to be quiet.
“I’m going to go take a look.”
“Be careful,” Matt said, and the joking tone was gone from his voice now.
Sam came up from his kneeling position and stalked along the floor of the arroyo, turning his head constantly from side to side as he looked for any sign of the attackers.
He reached the area where the bank’s slope was gentler, and his keen eyes spotted several indications that the gunmen had fled this way. Carefully, he ventured up.
The plains on both sides of the arroyo were empty as far as the eye could see, which was pretty far in this flat terrain. The bushwhackers were gone, all right.
Sam hurried back to the place where he had left Matt. As he approached, he saw that his friend’s head hung forward limply, as if in death.
Chapter 4
Sam’s breath seemed to freeze in his throat. His heart slugged heavily in his chest. Fearing that Matt had died from the loss of blood, Sam ran forward and dropped to his knees beside his friend.
Sam put his hand to Matt’s throat and searched for a pulse. Relief flooded through him when he found one. Matt’s heart was beating fast but steadily. He had just passed out.
There was no time to lose, Sam sensed.
He checked the pieces of bandanna he had wadded into the bullet holes. Both of them were soaked, and more blood was leaking out around them.
Sam threw the sodden bits of cloth aside and cut replacements from Matt’s shirttail. When he had them in place, he fastened Matt’s belt around them to hold them there.
A whistle brought Sam’s horse back. The animal shied a little at the smell of fresh blood, but Sam calmed it with a quiet word.
He lifted Matt into the saddle. It wasn’t easy, since Matt was so much dead weight in his unconscious state, but Sam managed, then climbed on behind him.
Sam rode out of the arroyo, holding Matt in front of him with one arm and using the other hand to hold the reins.
They had been headed west when the bushwhackers opened fire on them, so he started off in that direction again. He didn’t know of anyplace he could get help that was within reach back the other way.
They had ridden about two miles when Sam spotted something up ahead. A moment later, he recognized it as Matt’s horse. The animal had bolted this far after Matt was shot out of the saddle, then stopped to graze on the sparse clumps of hardy grass that dotted the desert.
Finding the horse didn’t really help matters right now. With Matt out cold, they had to ride double so Sam could keep him in the saddle. But Sam whistled for the horse to follow them, anyway. They would need the animal later, he told himself, when Matt recovered from his injury.
Sam wasn’t going to allow himself to consider any other possibility.
They had covered another mile or so when Sam saw some
thing else in front of them. A haze of dust rose into the hot air. Sam figured it was being kicked up by the hooves of several horses moving quickly over the plains.
He thought at first the dust came from the bushwhackers’ mounts as they put this area behind them, but after a moment he realized the cloud was moving toward him and Matt.
Of course, it could still be the bushwhackers doubling back to look for them, Sam reminded himself.
But it could also be a group of cowboys from one of the isolated ranches that could be found in this region, or even a cavalry patrol. In that case, it would be good to meet up with them. They could help him patch up Matt’s wounds.
Until he knew for sure, it might be wise to err on the side of caution. He turned the horse to the south, thinking he would move out of the path of the oncoming riders.
There was a cloud of dust rising into the blue sky from that direction, too.
Sam’s mouth tightened into a grim line as he turned back to the north. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to see more dust that way.
Whoever the riders were, they were closing in around him and Matt. The only possible way to escape would be to turn completely around and gallop eastward.
Even that would be futile, Sam realized. His horse was big and strong, but carrying double this way, it would only be a matter of time until the pursuit caught up. They couldn’t possibly outrun it.
Instead, Sam slid down from the saddle, caught hold of Matt, and lowered him gently to the ground. Then he drew the Winchester again and thumbed cartridges into it until the magazine was full and a round was in the chamber.
He forced his horse to lie down. Sam stretched out behind the animal and laid the rifle over the horse’s flank.
He had sixteen bullets in the rifle and six more in his Colt. He would sell their lives at the cost of every one of those slugs if he had to.
The dust clouds came nearer. Sam saw the dark shapes of the riders at the base of those clouds as they closed in. When they came in range of the Winchester, he held his fire because he couldn’t be sure who they were.
A moment later he was able to make out buckskin leggings, red and blue shirts, bandannas bound around black hair, and ponies being ridden without saddles. The three groups of riders converged around him and Matt and then came to a halt about fifty yards away.
One man urged his pony forward. His dark face was set in a grim expression, and he carried an old single-shot rifle.
Sam had a hunch that he was looking at a Navajo chief.
The rider called out a challenge in his native tongue, demanding to know who Sam was. Sam wasn’t fluent in the language, but he understood enough to know what was being asked of him.
He kept his rifle trained on the chief as he replied in Spanish, “Two Wolves, son of Medicine Horse!” A lot of the tribes in this part of the country spoke that language in addition to their own.
The chief scowled—although it was hard to discern much change in what was evidently his natural expression—and turned to say something to one of the other warriors.
This man, who also carried an old rifle, rode forward past the leader and came closer to Sam.
“Caballo Rojo says you look like a white man, not a Mexican,” the warrior said in English. “Are you?”
“My father was Medicine Horse of the Cheyenne,” Sam insisted, also speaking English this time.
“And your mother was white,” the Navajo said. He spoke the white man’s language well, which led Sam to believe that he had spent some time on the reservation, around missionaries and the Bureau of Indian Affairs functionaries.
“My mother was white,” Sam admitted. Most Indians were fairly tolerant of people with mixed blood, although like any other group, some looked down on the so-called half-breeds.
The warrior who was talking to him sneered.
“You travel with a white man, you dress like a white man, you use a saddle like a white man. You might as well be white.”
Sam felt a surge of anger and didn’t try to suppress it.
“The Cheyenne blood is strong in me!” he called. “My people have fought and defeated the whites many times!”
Unlike the Navajo, he thought, who had a history of losing more battles than they had won against the invaders of their land.
More than likely, however, pointing out that fact to a proud Navajo warrior wouldn’t be the smartest thing in the world to do. But Sam was proud, too, and the impulse was strong in him.
Proud, but not a blasted fool. He was surrounded, outnumbered, and Matt needed better medical attention. Sam went on, “My friend is hurt. I ask hospitality for him.”
“And for you?”
“I go where he goes,” Sam declared, even though he couldn’t really enforce that position.
The chief—Caballo Rojo, or Red Horse, Sam recalled—spoke again, and the Navajo who had been talking to Sam turned and answered him.
The discussion went back and forth quickly for a couple of minutes. Sam understood enough of it to know the two Indians were talking about what to do with him and Matt, but he couldn’t tell what conclusion they came to.
When the spokesman turned back to him, every fiber of Sam’s being was tense with the knowledge that he might be fighting for his life, and Matt’s life, in a few seconds.
“Caballo Rojo says that you and your friend are welcome among the people of our clan,” the warrior said. Judging by the sullen expression on his face, he didn’t agree completely with that decision. “You will not be harmed, and we will help your friend if we can. This is the word of Caballo Rojo.”
Relief went through Sam. Being given the word of the chief like that meant that he and Matt were safe, at least for the time being.
Of course, a man could ride into almost any Indian village on the frontier and be safe at first.
They wouldn’t kill him until he tried to leave.
Chapter 5
Sam slid the Winchester back in the saddleboot. He stood up and tugged on the horse’s reins. The animal struggled upright and shook itself.
Sam went over to Matt and once again lifted his unconscious friend. The Navajo didn’t make a move to help, but Sam didn’t expect them to.
As soon as he was mounted behind Matt, the riders closed in around them. There would be no getting away now, even if Sam wanted to, which he didn’t.
As the group started off, heading west, the man he’d been talking to fell in alongside him.
“What is your white man name?” the Navajo asked, and he seemed genuinely curious now.
“Sam. Samuel August Webster Two Wolves.”
The Navajo made a face.
“A mouthful of words,” he said disdainfully. “A waste of time and breath.” He thumped his bare chest lightly with a clenched fist. “Juan Pablo, but sometimes I am called Corazón de Piedra.”
Heart of stone, Sam translated.
“Because your heart is hard like a stone?”
“Toward my enemies it is.”
“I’m not your enemy, so I think I’ll call you Juan Pablo.”
The Navajo looked like he wasn’t sure about that.
The group rode in silence for several minutes before Sam said, “Your people are Diné?”
That was the Navajo name for themselves.
Juan Pablo nodded.
“Yes. The true rulers of this land, and someday those who try to take it will be sorry that they did.”
Nobody was trying to take this rugged, arid land in the Four Corners region, at least not that Sam had heard of. Much of it had been set aside by the government for the Navajo.
But it was true that there were white settlements in the area, as well as wagon trails, stagecoach routes, and the like, not to mention the ranchers who moved in and tried to graze cattle or sheep on the hardscrabble land. Most of them laid claim to waterholes the Navajo might consider theirs.
Sam didn’t recall hearing anything recently about Indian raids in this part of the country, so he asked, “Do you and your p
eople make war against the whites?”
“We want only to be left alone,” Juan Pablo snapped. “But if that does not happen ... then there may be war.”
It would be a short one, Sam thought. The only guns these warriors had were practically antiques, old single-shot rifles that probably jammed as often as they fired.
The Navajo might be able to raid an isolated ranch house or something like that, but against a company of cavalry they wouldn’t last fifteen minutes.
To change the subject, Sam said, “How did you happen to find my friend and me? From the looks of the dust clouds, it seemed like you were searching for us.”
“We were,” Juan Pablo said. “I was hunting when I heard much shooting. I went back to my people and told Caballo Rojo, and he gathered the men and came to see what it was about.”
Sam nodded.
“Well, I’m glad you found us,” he said. “My friend Matt needs help.”
“What happened to the two of you?” Juan Pablo asked with grudging interest.
“Some bushwhackers opened fire on us from the top of a bluff,” Sam explained. “We were taking cover in an arroyo when Matt was wounded. The men came after us, but we were able to fight them off.”
“Who were these ... bushwhackers?”
Sam shook his head.
“I don’t have any idea, and I don’t know why they started shooting at us.”
“Did you see them?”
“They were white,” Sam said. “Or maybe a few were Mexican, I don’t know. I was too busy shooting at them to get a good look at them, if you know what I mean.”
Juan Pablo grunted to indicate that he did.
“Will you try to find these men and seek vengeance for what they did to your friend?”
“Matt’s more than my friend,” Sam said. “We’re blood brothers. And the only thing I’m interested in right now is making sure that he’s all right. But if he doesn’t make it—or even if he does ...” Sam’s voice hardened as he went on, “Yes, I’d like to know who they were and why they tried to kill us.”
“I would feel the same way,” Juan Pablo admitted.
The flat terrain had become more rugged as they rode, until now they were in a region of bluffs, ridges, and mesas, cut with deeper arroyos. A line of low cliffs appeared in front of the riders.
Arizona Ambush Page 2