posted. He didn’t see anybody, but that didn’t concern him greatly. The light was growing dimmer, and anyway, the Navajo were seen only when they wanted to be seen.
Sam looked along the creek. The first of the hogans wouldn’t be visible until they were deeper in the canyon. He listened and heard the bleating of sheep somewhere up ahead. That was a perfectly normal sound, and he probably would have thought something was wrong if he hadn’t heard it.
But at the same time, his nerves had grown taut. Something
Stovepipe must have shared some of the same instincts. The lanky range detective began, “I’m startin’ to get a bad feelin’ about—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. Men suddenly rushed out of the brush on both sides of the riders. Sam twisted in the saddle to see who was attacking them. He had time to recognize the Navajo clothing, then one of the men reached up in an attempt to grab him and haul him off his horse.
Sam kicked the man in the chest and knocked him away. He started to yank his mount around, calling to Stovepipe and Wilbur as he did so.
“Get out of the canyon!” he told them. “Back the way we—”
Something crashed into the back of his left shoulder and made him slump forward over the neck of his horse. Sam thought at first he’d been hit by an arrow, but then he realized that would have been a sharper pain. From the way his arm had gone numb, he figured out that he’d been clouted by a club.
The Navajo warriors swarmed around the three riders. Wilbur drew his gun, but a club knocked it out of his hand before he could fire. Men grabbed Stovepipe and dragged him off his horse. Sam found himself hauled to the ground as well.
Heavily outnumbered as they were, Sam knew their chances of winning this fight were slim. He had no idea why Caballo Rojo’s men were attacking them, but that answer could wait for later.
Right now he just wanted to break free and get out of here.
That wasn’t fated to happen. Another club smashed into the back of his knees and made his legs collapse under him. Men pummeled and kicked him as he went to the ground.
Sam couldn’t see Stovepipe and Wilbur any more, but he doubted if they were faring any better. He could hear the commotion as the struggle continued nearby.
Sam grabbed an attacker’s leg and heaved, upending the man. That gave him a little breathing room. He launched a kick of his own and landed it solidly in another man’s groin. As the Navajo warriors fell back for a second, Sam rolled onto hands and knees and started to lever himself to his feet.
Before he could get up, a club struck him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling to the ground again. He landed with his face in the reddish dirt. The taste of it filled his mouth. He felt consciousness slipping away from him and tried desperately to hang on to it, but the effort was doomed.
The last thing he was aware of before oblivion claimed him was the brutal thud of moccasin-shod feet landing on his ribs.
Red light flickered and glared against Matt’s eyelids, gradually rousing him from the stupor that gripped him. He groaned as he moved his head from side to side in an attempt to shake loose some of the cobwebs from his brain.
The movement was a mistake. It made Matt feel like he was spinning crazily through a hellish void. When he forced his eyes open and saw flames leaping up in front of him, that only reinforced the feeling.
But it was just a campfire, he realized after a moment. He sagged against the ropes binding him to the post. His captors had built a fire that lit up the area in front of Juan Pablo’s hogan.
And he was no longer the only prisoner, Matt saw to his horror.
A few yards away, Sam Two Wolves sprawled motionless on the ground. For a terrible few seconds, Matt thought his blood brother was dead.
Then he saw the slow rise and fall of Sam’s chest and knew that he was still alive. Relief flooded through Matt.
It was tempered by concern, though, because Sam was unconscious and Matt couldn’t tell what had happened to him. Sam might be badly wounded and dying even as Matt stood there staring at him.
Two men Matt had never seen before lay near Sam. Both were white and looked like cowboys. They appeared to be out cold, too. All three men had their hands tied behind their backs.
Matt looked around for Elizabeth and didn’t see her. She might be in Juan Pablo’s hogan, he thought. Juan Pablo wasn’t visible, either, but two of his followers stood nearby, holding rifles and scowling at Matt and the other prisoners.
Sam groaned, causing Matt’s attention to snap back to him. After a moment, Sam shook his head and blinked his eyes open. He winced as the garish light from the fire struck his face. Then he lifted his head a little and started to look around.
“Over here, Sam,” Matt called softly.
Sam muttered something Matt couldn’t make out. He blinked again as he stared toward the post where Matt was tied.
“Matt?” he said. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” A grim smile curved Matt’s mouth. “I’d come over there and let you loose, but—”
“You’re not going to say that you’re a little tied up at the moment, are you?”
“I was thinkin’ about it, yeah.”
“I can see that. Is that Juan Pablo’s hogan?”
“Yeah.”
