Sam saw a canyon cutting into the cliffs and had a hunch that was where they were headed. The members of Caballo Rojo’s clan probably lived in there. The place could be defended by putting men at the narrow mouth of the canyon.
His guess turned out to be correct. They rode past a couple of sentries armed with bows and into the canyon itself, which had steep walls that would be difficult, if not impossible, to scale.
After a few hundred yards the canyon widened out and ran for more than a mile into the plateau formed by the cliffs. Sam spotted a number of squat, mound-like hogans built of earth and wood scattered along the banks of a little stream, none of them too close together, because the Navajo liked their privacy.
A few scrubby trees grew on those banks, as well as some grass. A flock of sheep cropped at the grass.
Dogs ran out to bark greetings at the newcomers, followed by quite a few children and some women.
Caballo Rojo looked over his shoulder and called something back to Juan Pablo, who nodded and answered in the Navajo tongue.
“We will take your friend—your blood brother—to my hogan,” Juan Pablo told Sam. “My wife will care for him.”
“Thank you,” Sam said. “I appreciate your hospitality.”
“It is the way Caballo Rojo wishes it,” Juan Pablo said, making sure that Sam knew it wasn’t his idea.
The warriors dispersed. Juan Pablo led Sam to one of the hogans, where a short, stocky Navajo woman waited. He spoke to her, obviously seeking her approval.
Sam recalled that women wielded quite a bit of power in the Navajo society. Juan Pablo’s wife might refuse to go along with Caballo Rojo’s decision.
After a moment the woman replied at length to Juan Pablo, who then turned and nodded to Sam.
“I can carry him inside,” Sam said as he slid down to the ground next to the horse.
“I will help,” Juan Pablo said, still grudgingly. He and Sam lifted Matt down from the horse, then put their arms around him to help him into the hogan.
Another woman stepped through the dwelling’s door as Sam and Juan Pablo approached with Matt between them.
This woman glanced at Sam, and he felt a shock go through him as he saw her long, curly red hair and brilliant green eyes. Despite the green shirt and long calico skirt she wore, like the Navajo women, she was white, and from the looks of her, as Irish as she could be.
Chapter 6
Sam tore his eyes away from the young woman. He didn’t want to offend Juan Pablo by staring at her. He wasn’t afraid of the Navajo warrior, but since Juan Pablo and his wife were going to take care of Matt, it wouldn’t be polite to stare.
Juan Pablo motioned for Sam to enter the hogan. He did so, stepping past the redheaded woman, who held the entrance flap open.
A small fire smoldered in the rock-lined pit in the center of the hogan. The smoke curled up and out the opening at the top of the shelter. That opening let in a shaft of afternoon sunlight that revealed a thick pile of blankets.
Sam and Juan Pablo lowered Matt onto the blankets and rolled him onto his left side. The woman knelt beside him and pulled up his shirt so she could examine his wounds. She plucked the blood-soaked wads of cloth from the bullet holes and tossed them into the fire.
“My wife will tend to his wounds,” Juan Pablo told Sam. “Come with me.”
Sam hesitated.
“I’d rather stay here with my blood brother.”
“You do not trust us?” Juan Pablo snapped.
“Of course I trust you,” Sam replied, although if he had been honest, his answer would have been No, I don’t trust you. Not completely.
But that would be an insult, and Sam knew it would be a mistake to push this proddy Navajo warrior too far. He went on, “Where are we going?”
“To see Caballo Rojo.”
Sam nodded.
“Good. I want to thank him again for his hospitality. And you, too, of course.”
Juan Pablo just gave one of his skeptical grunts.
The redheaded woman had followed them into the hogan. As the two men turned to leave, she stepped aside from the entrance. Juan Pablo went past her without even a glance.
Sam tried to do the same, but it was difficult. He hadn’t expected to find someone like her in this Navajo camp.
The canyon was still in a mild state of excitement as Juan Pablo led Sam through it. The people who lived here probably didn’t see visitors very often.
Juan Pablo took Sam to the largest hogan along the stream, which evidently belonged to Caballo Rojo, or rather to his wife, given the matriarchal nature of these people. He went to the entrance and spoke, and Caballo Rojo answered from inside. Juan Pablo jerked his head at Sam, who went first.
Caballo Rojo sat cross-legged on a buffalo robe near the fire. Several women, ranging in age from their teens to their late thirties, bustled around the hogan, engaged in various chores. The younger ones would be Caballo Rojo’s daughters, the older ones his wife and possibly her sisters.
Several men who appeared to be about Caballo Rojo’s age sat around the fire with him. They would be the chief ’s inner circle, his most trusted advisers. One of them was probably a shaman.
Caballo Rojo spoke respectfully to the women, who stopped what they were doing and left the hogan. Whatever would be said in here was for the men.
With a brusque gesture, Juan Pablo motioned for Sam to sit down. They took their seats on blankets.
Having grown up in a Cheyenne village, Sam found all this familiar despite the significant differences in the Navajo culture. He knew that if he stayed in surroundings like this for very long, he would start thinking and acting like an Indian again. That part of his heritage was never far from the surface.
Now that Sam had a better look at Caballo Rojo, he saw why the man had been given that name. Sam had assumed at first that Caballo Rojo had ridden a red horse at some time or another, but instead the man’s long, narrow face had a definite horse-like shape to it.
Caballo Rojo spoke, and Juan Pablo translated for him.
“Did you and your friend come to this land in search of the Navajo?”
Sam shook his head.
“We were simply riding through the area. We bear your people no ill will.”
Juan Pablo translated again, then said, “Caballo Rojo has promised you the hospitality of our people. You and your friend will be safe as long as you remain here. We will do our best to nurse your friend back to health, and then you will be free to leave.”
“Tell Caballo Rojo I am very grateful to him. I promise on behalf of myself and my friend to repay his kindness.”
Sam finally began to relax. It looked like he and Matt might live through the day after all, he thought.
Matt had no idea where he was when he opened his eyes, but he was glad to be there for a couple of reasons.
One was that he was still alive.
The other was that he was looking into the prettiest pair of green eyes he had seen in a long time.
Sam must have found a town, Matt thought. He remembered the fight in the arroyo but nothing after that. Now he was lying on a featherbed and had a good-looking redheaded nurse leaning over him.
Then he realized that the bed wasn’t soft at all, but hard instead, as if he were lying on the ground. As his vision cleared even more, he realized that wasn’t a roof over his head but rather the curving roof of an Indian hogan. And as for the “nurse” ...
Well, she was a green-eyed redhead, no doubt about that, but she was dressed like an Indian woman and when she spoke the words made no sense to him.
Matt figured whatever she had said to him was in an Indian language. Navajo, probably, given the area through which he and Sam had been traveling when they were ambushed.
Matt was fluent in Cheyenne and could get by in several other tongues spoken by the tribes on the northern plains, but Navajo was mostly a mystery to him.
His side hurt where he’d been shot, but not as much as he expected it to. He hea
rd someone else moving around in the hogan and turned his head slightly to see another woman. She was older than the redhead and obviously an Indian. Matt figured the two of them had patched up his wounds.
He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in a Navajo hogan or what in blazes that good-looking redhead was doing here. The Navajo didn’t take white captives like some tribes did.
But those questions could wait. Right now he wanted to make sure his blood brother was still all right.
“Do you know where Sam is?” he asked the redhead. “Sam Two Wolves?” Matt made a guess. “The man who brought me here?”
The redhead replied in whatever language she’d been speaking before. Matt tried to pick up some of it, but he couldn’t figure out what she was saying. After a moment, though, she repeated, “Sam?”
Matt nodded.
“Yeah. Sam. Big fella.” He tried to gesture to indicate what he meant. “Half Cheyenne.”
The young woman just stared at him for a second and then abruptly burst out laughing.
“Your friend Sam is fine,” she told Matt in perfect English. “And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have teased you like that. You just looked so puzzled and confused I couldn’t resist.”
Suddenly angry, he tried to sit up, but she put a hand on his shoulder and held him down. That made him aware that he was no longer wearing his shirt. No great loss, since it had a couple of bullet holes in it and had been soaked with his blood. The lightheadedness he felt now was probably a result of all the blood that had leaked out of him.
He was able to prop himself up on an elbow and look down at his side. He couldn’t see the wound on his back, but the one in his side was covered with a poultice of some sort. He figured the hole in his back was being treated the same way.
Matt let himself relax on the thick pile of blankets. They weren’t a featherbed after all, he thought, but they were fairly comfortable.
“Who are you?” he asked the redhead. He wanted to express his gratitude for their help, but he was a mite peeved at the moment.
Also, his uncertainty about Sam’s fate, regardless of what the redhead had said, plagued him, but he was too weak to get up, and chances were the young woman wouldn’t let him, anyway. She wore a determined look on her face.
“My name is Elizabeth Fleming,” she said. “You should lie back down. You lost a lot of blood.”
Matt nodded and said, “All right. Don’t reckon I’ve got much choice in the matter. I’m about as weak right now as a newborn kitten.”
“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Matt admitted as he stretched out again on the blankets.
“I’m a teacher. I’ve come to help educate these people.”
The Navajo had been living in this part of the country for hundreds of years, Matt thought. He wasn’t sure how much educating they needed.
Folks back East didn’t think of it that way, however. They had the idea that everybody ought to live like them ... whether the people to be “educated” wanted it or not. “Lo, the poor Indian!” they said, leading the cavalry to adopt Mister Lo as a scornful nickname for all Indians.
Some good things came from that Eastern attitude, misguided though it was most of the time. Sam’s mother had been a white teacher who had come west to educate the so-called savages.
In the process she had won the heart of Sam’s father Medicine Horse.
“I reckon I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Fleming,” Matt said. “I’m Matt Bodine.”
“I’m pleased to meet you as well, Mr. Bodine ... although the circumstances are somewhat lacking in, ah, propriety.”
Such as the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, Matt realized. He wondered if he ought to try to cover up with one of the blankets he was lying on.
The older woman knelt by the fire, where a pot was sitting at the edge of the flames. Matt didn’t know what was in it, but the hogan began to fill with a good smell that made him realize he was hungry in spite of his weakened condition. Or maybe because of it.
Before he had a chance to think any more about that, somebody stepped into the hogan. Matt looked up and saw a fierce-looking Navajo warrior standing there. The man looked at Elizabeth Fleming, then at Matt.
And as he glowered down at Matt, his hand dropped to the hilt of a knife tucked behind the scarlet sash around his waist. The look in his eyes was unmistakable.
He wanted to pull that knife and plunge it into the white man’s chest.
Chapter 7
Matt tensed himself to roll out of the way if the warrior lunged at him, but a second later Sam stepped into the hogan, too. Sam didn’t appear concerned, so Matt figured he was safe after all.
“You’re awake,” Sam said, sounding happy about it. He came over and hunkered on his heels next to the pile of blankets where Matt lay. “How do you feel?”
“Those bullet holes hurt like blazes, and I’m a mite lightheaded,” Matt replied, “but on the whole I reckon it’s a heap better than being dead.”
Sam nodded.
“You had me pretty worried for a while, Matt. You lost so much blood, you looked like you were about to run dry.”
“Yeah, I can feel it, too,” Matt said with a feeble nod. He glanced toward the unfriendly-looking warrior. “Who’s your pard there?”
“That’s Juan Pablo. He’s the one who heard the shots when those bushwhackers opened up on us. He came back here to the canyon, got Chief Caballo Rojo and the rest of the men, and rode out to see what had happened.”
“They’re Navajo?” Matt guessed.
Sam nodded.
“That’s right.”
Even though he was weak, Matt lifted a hand and rested it on Sam’s arm. Quietly, he asked, “Are they going to—”
“Kill both of you?” Juan Pablo broke in. Obviously, Matt’s question hadn’t been quiet enough to keep the warrior from overhearing what he said. Juan Pablo went on, “Caballo Rojo has promised that the two of you will be safe.”
Sam inclined his head toward the warrior and told Matt, “Juan Pablo speaks English.”
“Of course he does,” Elizabeth said. “Quite a few of his people have been to mission schools.” She stood up and held out a hand to Sam. “I’m Elizabeth Fleming.”
“Sam Two Wolves,” he told her. “I was wondering what a, uh ...”
“—Redhead who looks like she’s straight from Killarney was doing in a Navajo clan?” Her green eyes twinkled as she smiled. “I’m a teacher, Mr. Two Wolves.”
“So was my mother,” Sam said, unknowingly echoing Matt’s thoughts earlier.
From the blankets, Matt said, “Help me sit up.”
Sam frowned.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I’ve got something to say, and I’d rather be upright while I’m doing it.”
“You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”
“You ever know me not to be stubborn when I thought something was right?”
“All right,” Sam said. “Just take it easy. I’ll give you a hand.”
He got his arm around Matt’s shoulders and lifted him into a sitting position. Matt’s head spun crazily for a few seconds before settling down.
The wounds in his side and back throbbed, too, but he ignored the pain. The bleeding had stopped, thanks to the poultices, and as long as it didn’t start again, he was confident that he would be all right.
“Juan Pablo, thank you for helping me,” Matt said. “I owe you a debt.”
Juan Pablo looked skeptical, but he gave Matt a curt nod. Without saying anything, he went over to the fire and hunkered next to the pot where the stew was simmering. He took a wooden bowl from his wife, dipped it into the pot, and began eating with his fingers, picking out chunks of meat and wild onions from the savory broth.
Elizabeth brought bowls of stew to Matt and Sam. Earlier, when Matt smelled the stuff cooking, he had thought he was hungry. But now his stom
ach suddenly rebelled against the idea of eating. He grimaced and pushed the bowl away, saying, “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Sam said, “Drink the juice, anyway, even if you can’t eat the rest of it right now. After losing all that blood, your body needs the nourishment.”
Matt could see the logic in that argument. Sam held the bowl to his mouth and tipped it up, and Matt forced himself to swallow the thick liquid, sip by sip. When he was finished, Sam helped him lie down on the blankets again.
“For some reason ... I just got ... mighty tired,” Matt managed to say as his heavy eyelids drooped and exhaustion washed over him.
“Go ahead and get some sleep,” Sam urged. “It’ll be good for you.”
Matt nodded, or at least thought he did. He couldn’t be sure. He closed his eyes to let sleep overtake him.
Just before he dozed off, a thought occurred to him and he tried to open his eyes again. He wanted to tell Sam he had seen that green-eyed, redheaded young woman in the Navajo getup first.
But that probably wasn’t true, he realized, since he’d been unconscious when they got here, so it was just as well that oblivion claimed him before he could say anything.
Sam didn’t sleep much that night, because Matt developed a fever and would have tossed and turned restlessly all night if Sam hadn’t sat beside him and tried to keep him calm.
As it was, Matt muttered incoherently most of the time and jerked his head back and forth. Elizabeth Fleming, who seemed to have appointed herself a nurse as well as a teacher, and Juan Pablo’s wife took turns wiping Matt’s forehead with a wet cloth in an attempt to cool his fever.
Juan Pablo himself left the hogan, muttering disgustedly to himself as he went to look for somewhere more peaceful to sleep.
Sometime during the long ordeal, a rustle of movement close by made Sam’s head come up sharply. He had dozed off sitting up, without realizing it. He saw Elizabeth on her knees on Matt’s other side. She had taken over the job of bathing his feverish forehead.
Arizona Ambush Page 3