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 Corazon de Piedra.”
“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 Dine?”
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 people 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
