“Two Wolves’ luck can’t last forever,” Jardine said as hate filled his heart. “And when it runs out, I hope I’m looking at him over the barrel of a gun.”
Fifty cows and the half-dozen men pushing them along couldn’t help but leave a lot of tracks.
Unfortunately, even though there hadn’t been any rain in this arid country in a long time, the wind blew and sometimes wiped out marks left in the dust.
Not only that, but there were stretches of rocky ground as well where the hooves of cattle and unshod horses didn’t leave any impressions.
Because of those things, following the rustlers’ trail was more difficult than one might think it would be. However, Sam had anticipated that, so he wasn’t surprised when the tracks disappeared about five miles northwest of the ranch and the riders from the Devil’s Pitchfork had to search for them again.
As prisoners, Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur rode along with Boyd and the other men. They didn’t have any choice.
After an interval of futile searching, Sam suggested, “Why don’t you let me have a look, Mr. Boyd?”
The three prisoners were sitting their horses with Boyd, Lowry, and another man to guard them while the rest of the Devil’s Pitchfork hands rode back and forth across the range, looking for the trail.
“Don’t listen to him, boss,” Lowry said in response to Sam’s suggestion. “It’s bound to be a trick of some sort.”
John Henry Boyd frowned.
“What if he was to find the tracks of those rustlers?”
“Well, of course he might find ’em,” Lowry blustered. “I still say he’s probably one of ’em. He already knows where they went.”
Boyd looked at Sam, who shook his head.
“I don’t have any idea,” he said. “But I’m pretty good at finding a trail, if I do say so myself.”
“So’s Stovepipe,” Wilbur put in. “He’s got eyes like a hawk.”
Stovepipe grinned.
“Better than a nose like a buzzard, I reckon.”
Boyd frowned in thought as he rasped his fingers over the silvery stubble on his chin. After a moment, he nodded.
“All right, if you think you can find the trail, have at it,” he told Sam and the two cowboys. “But we’ll be right behind you, and if you try anything funny, you’ll wind up blasted out of the saddle quicker than you can blink.”
“No tricks,” Sam promised. “We want to find those cows as much as you do.”
“You know, I almost believe you,” Boyd said. “Which makes me wonder why you feel that way.”
“Because maybe then you’ll realize that we’re not your enemy, and neither are the Navajo.”
Lowry’s beefy face flushed even more.
“What about those unshod hoofprints we found? What kind of white man would ride an unshod horse?”
“The kind who’s trying to make everyone think he’s an Indian,” Sam said. He lifted his reins and heeled his mount into motion. “Come on.”
After all that, he was going to feel like an utter fool if he couldn’t find the trail, he thought wryly.
Less than fifteen minutes had gone by, however, when he spotted a rock that was a little darker than the same sort of rocks scattered all around it. The stone had been turned over recently and the burning sun hadn’t had the chance to bleach as much color out of it.
Sam reined in and swung down from his horse. As he hunkered on his heels to study the ground, John Henry Boyd called a question from behind him.
“You find something, Two Wolves?”
“Maybe,” Sam said. He spotted another darker rock a few feet away, and another after that. He straightened and walked forward slowly, leading his horse.
The signs were small, in some cases so tiny as to be almost invisible, but they were there. Sam followed them for a good fifty yards before he found an actual hoofprint. It had been left by a cow, and he came across more and more of them as the ground became softer again.
“Here,” he said, pointing. “They came through here.”
He lifted his arm and leveled it in a generally northwest direction, toward the area of buttes, ridges, and canyons where Caballo Rojo and his people lived.
“And they went that way,” Sam said, hoping he wasn’t wrong about the Navajo.
Boyd grunted.
“Then so will we,” he said as he slipped his revolver from its holster.
He pointed the gun into the air and fired three shots, signaling his widespread riders to converge on him again.
“You’re leading the way now, Two Wolves,” the rancher said.
“The redskin might be leadin’ us into a trap, boss,” Pete Lowry warned.
“I don’t care if he is,” Boyd snapped. “We’ll fight our way out of it. I want my cows back, and I want a shot at the mangy coyotes who killed my men.”
