Reilly came down the steps, took a key from his pocket, and used it to unfasten a padlock on a short door that opened into the crawl space under the general store. He stepped aside so Jardine could reach inside and grasp the handle on the end of the nearest crate.
It hadn’t been easy for the two of them to wrestle those crates into and out of the crawl space, but Reilly was stronger than his small stature would indicate. Still, Jardine was glad that after tonight they wouldn’t have to do this anymore.
Jardine grunted with effort as he slid the first crate out.
“Load it up,” he told his men. He reached into the crawl space for another.
He supposed his men were surprised to find out that he and Reilly were working together. That wouldn’t be the case much longer, Jardine thought. Reilly had some idea that once they were successful, he would be the power behind the throne, so to speak, because the whole plan had been his idea to start with.
Jardine wasn’t going to let that happen. Once the Navajo had launched their bloody uprising and the army came in, Reilly wouldn’t be any more use. Jardine could get rid of him without jeopardizing anything, and that was exactly what he planned to do.
Of course, Jardine thought as he pulled another crate out into the alley, Reilly might have the same thing in mind for him. If that was the case, the little storekeeper was going to be mighty disappointed.
But not for long, since he’d be dead soon.
The other men didn’t say anything. They just lifted the crates of rifles and slid them over the lowered tailgate into the wagon. Curious or not, they knew to keep their mouths shut.
“Can you find the rendezvous point in the dark?” Reilly asked Jardine when all the guns were loaded.
“Don’t worry about that,” Jardine said. “I know these parts better than you do. We’ll be there a couple of hours before dawn.”
“Juan Pablo should be waiting for you.” Even in the gloom of the alley, starlight reflected off the lenses of Reilly’s spectacles. “And in another month or so, we’ll be well on our way to being rich men.”
Jardine grunted.
“Can’t be too soon to suit me,” he said.
“That’s true for me as well. I’ve spent my entire life working for other men. But not much longer.”
Jardine tried not to grin. Taking orders was really all that little varmints like Reilly were good for. They didn’t have any business being in charge of anything. Not like big, strong hombres like him.
“Let’s go,” he said curtly to his men. “We’ve got rifles to deliver. See you tomorrow, Noah.”
“Good luck,” Reilly called as Jardine stepped up onto the wagon box again.
“Thanks,” Jardine said, but he knew he didn’t really need luck.
He was going to be the King of the Four Corners. It was his destiny.
Matt, Sam, Elizabeth, Stovepipe, and Wilbur sent their horses racing along the creek toward the mouth of the canyon. Matt hoped Elizabeth was a good rider. In the dark like this, it would be easy for a horse to take a spill.
The guards who were shouting for help were between them and the canyon mouth. As the five riders came closer, men carrying rifles charged toward them.
“Hunker down!” Matt shouted as orange flame spurted from the muzzles of those rifles.
They leaned forward, over the necks of their mounts, to make themselves harder to hit. Matt sensed as much as heard a bullet humming past his head, but that was the closest any of the slugs came to him.
The Navajo who tried to stop them fell behind, as did the fire in front of Juan Pablo’s hogan. Shots still blasted sporadically, but now the men were firing blindly and the chances of them hitting were very slim.
But even wild shots got lucky and found their targets every now and then, Matt knew, so he stayed low and kept his horse moving fast, and hoped that the others would, too.
He looked over his shoulder. The riders were strung out a little now. He was in the lead, followed by Stovepipe, Wilbur, and Elizabeth. Sam was bringing up the rear, and Matt knew his blood brother was doing that on purpose to protect Elizabeth.
They were almost at the mouth of the canyon now. Matt wasn’t surprised when shots rang out from the sentries posted there.
Wilbur yelped in pain. Stovepipe turned to him and called, “How bad is it, pard?”
“Just nicked me, the varmint!” Wilbur replied. “Keep goin’, Stovepipe. Don’t slow down!”
“Wasn’t intendin’ to,” Stovepipe said. “But you holler if you need any help, hear?”
Matt knew he was operating purely on the excitement of battle and the urgent need to escape from this canyon. He drew his right-hand Colt and triggered a few shots toward the places where he had seen the flare of the sentries’ guns.
He wasn’t really trying to hit anything. He just wanted to give them something to think about and make them duck.
From the back of the group, Sam’s revolver roared, too. Matt knew he was trying to do the same thing.
The effort seemed to work. The running horses flashed past the sentries and through the entrance to the canyon. Now they were out in the open, with the cliffs rapidly falling behind them.
“Will ... will they come after us?” Elizabeth gasped.
“I don’t know,” Sam said as he pulled his mount up even with hers. “Juan Pablo left some of his followers behind to guard us and keep an eye on Caballo Rojo and the men who don’t want a war. I don’t know if they would risk leaving the canyon completely unguarded.”
“Some of them might come after us, though,” Matt said as the riders slowed slightly and grouped up again. “They won’t want us to interfere with Juan Pablo gettin’ his hands on those guns.”
“But that’s dang sure what we need to do,” Stovepipe put in. “Think you can find the place where the gang was gonna turn ’em over before?”
“I believe I can,” Sam said. “Matt was unconscious for a lot of that time, so he doesn’t know exactly where it is.”
“I trust you, though,” Matt said. “I—Whoa!”
He swayed suddenly in his saddle as a wave of dizziness washed over him. Wilbur was close enough to reach out and grab his arm in a steadying grip.
“You’re in no shape for this, Matt,” Sam said. “We need to find a place where we can leave you and Elizabeth before we go after Juan Pablo and the rifles.”
“Not hardly!” Matt shook his arm free from Wilbur’s hand. “I’m obliged for your help,” he told the redhead, “but I’m fine now. And I’m comin’ along to help you stop Juan Pablo, Sam. You can get any other ideas out of your head right now.”
“I see that being wounded hasn’t kept you from being as stubborn as ever.”
Elizabeth said, “Well, I’m stubborn, too, and you’re not leaving me behind, either. You can’t afford to take the time to find a safe place for Matt and me. The lives of too many innocent people are at stake.”
“The lady’s right about that,” Stovepipe drawled. “But if you can’t keep up, Matt, we may have to leave you behind.”
“I’ll keep up,” Matt promised grimly. “Come on. We’re burnin’ starlight.”
Stovepipe laughed.
“First time I’ve heard that one,” he admitted.
With Sam in the lead now, they pushed on, stopping occasionally to rest the horses when it became obvious that none of the Navajo from the canyon were pursuing them. Without Juan Pablo there to tell them what to do, uncertainty probably reigned.
The stars wheeled through the dark heavens overhead. Matt figured it was well after midnight by now. The rush of blood that had kept him going earlier was wearing off now, and weariness gripped him.
As Sam had said, though, he was too blasted stubborn to give up. His iron will kept him in the saddle.
Then, finally, Sam held up a hand to signal a halt. As the others gathered around him, he said quietly, “That bluff where Matt and I were bushwhacked the first time is maybe half a mile away. We’d better dismount and go the
rest of the way on foot. Elizabeth, can you hold the horses?”
“Of course,” she said. “But what about Matt?”
He drew his Colt and replaced the shells he had fired earlier when they were escaping from the canyon.
“I’m going,” he said as he snapped the revolver’s cylinder closed. He looked at Sam. “And don’t try to stop me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” his blood brother said. “Even with you in bad shape, there’s nobody I’d rather have siding my play than you, Matt.”
Stovepipe said, “All right, fellas, let’s go see if we can catch us some gun-runners.”
Chapter 35
Jardine hauled back on the lines and brought the wagon to a stop. Around him, his men reined in as well.
The dark, looming bulk of the bluff told Jardine that they were in the right place. He had been confident in his ability to find his way out here, even at night, but it was nice to know that he’d been right.
Now all they had to do was wait for Juan Pablo to show up.
The man was a damn fool, Jardine thought with a wry smile. Juan Pablo actually believed he could rouse the whole Navajo nation against the whites and lead his people to victory. He had no idea how doomed to failure they really were.
That failure would lead to Jardine’s success, though. Once the Navajo were cleaned out of the territory like the vermin they were, the way would be clear for a man with guts and brains to seize power ... a man like him, Jardine thought with a self-congratulatory smile as he took a cigar from his shirt pocket and clamped it between his teeth.
“How will we know when the Indians are here, boss?” Snyder asked from his horse as he brought the animal alongside the wagon.
“They should be here already,” Jardine said. He turned halfway around on the seat and reached behind him into the wagon bed. Finding the lantern that was sitting there, he lifted it and set it on the seat beside him.
Then he snapped a lucifer to life with his thumbnail, lit the lantern, and held the flame to the tip of the cigar, puffing until it was burning, too. He stood up, held the lantern out at the end of his arm, and swung it back and forth three times.
“That’s the signal, eh?” Snyder asked.
“Shut up and be ready for trouble,” Jardine said as he set the lantern on the wagon seat again. “There shouldn’t be any, but I don’t trust those damned redskins.”
Jardine left the lantern burning. He picked up his own rifle and sat with it across his lap. An air of tension gripped him, and he knew it extended to his men as well.
The Navajo weren’t paying anything for the rifles, although Juan Pablo had promised payment later on, once they had run out all the whites.
Jardine fully expected Juan Pablo to try to double-cross him on that angle, although Juan Pablo had no idea that Jardine didn’t really care.
But the Indians might try to get fancy and kill the men who had delivered the rifles to them. It was unlikely, but it could happen.
If it did, the Navajo would learn quickly that half a dozen tough men armed with Winchester repeaters were more than a match for a motley bunch of savages armed with bows, arrows, and a few ancient single-shot rifles.
If it became necessary, Jardine would wipe out Juan Pablo and the men he brought with him, then start over and arrange a deal with some other power-hungry redskin. The delay in his plans that would cause would be mighty annoying, but unavoidable.
Don’t borrow trouble, he told himself. Maybe everything would go off without a hitch tonight.
Jardine suddenly sat up straighter as he heard hoofbeats. Somebody was coming, and it had to be Juan Pablo. Who else would be out here in this isolated spot at such a wee hour of the morning?
Jardine heard a few muttered curses as his men gripped their rifles tighter and waited for the newcomers to arrive. As the hoofbeats thudded to a stop, Jardine stood up and lifted the lantern again so that its glow spread out on the arid, rocky landscape around the wagon.
He knew he was making a target out of himself, almost daring somebody to shoot at him, but at the moment he didn’t care. He felt invulnerable, as if no one would ever dare to challenge him.
Soon enough, that would be the truth.
The lantern light revealed the glaring, hawk-like face of Juan Pablo, who was accompanied by five other Navajo warriors. Juan Pablo edged his pony ahead of the others and demanded, “You have the rifles?”
“Would we be here if he didn’t?” Jardine shot back. He set the lantern on the wagon seat and waved his free hand toward the crates. “Here they are.”
“Open the boxes. I would look at them.”
Jardine smiled.
“You don’t trust me, amigo?”
“I would look at them,” Juan Pablo said again.
“All right, fine.” Jardine turned to Snyder and Hilliard. “Pry the lid off one of those crates.” He look at Juan Pablo again. “But only one. We’re not going to sit out here the rest of the night prying lids off and nailing them back on.”
Juan Pablo’s scowl didn’t lessen any, but he gave a curt nod of agreement.
When Snyder and Hilliard had one of the crates open, the Navajo moved his pony nearer the wagon and leaned over so he could look into the bed. The rifles were wrapped in oilcloth.
“Show me,” Juan Pablo snapped.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Jardine muttered. “Dave, get one of the guns out.”
Snyder unwrapped one of the Springfields and used a rag to wipe the packing grease off it.
Juan Pablo held his hands out.
Snyder glanced at Jardine, who nodded. He handed the rifle to Juan Pablo, who snatched it and held it close to study it. The Navajo weighed the weapon in his hands, then opened the loading mechanism in the breech that gave the rifle its “Trapdoor” designation.
“Bullets?”
“Ten thousand rounds in those boxes,” Jardine explained, pointing to the smaller boxes that contained the ammunition.
Juan Pablo shook his head.
“Not enough to fight a long war.”
“But enough to get you started,” Jardine said. “There’s more ammunition in the settlements, and it’ll be yours for the taking.”
That was true, as far as it went. A lot of those rounds wouldn’t fit these Springfields, but that wasn’t his lookout, Jardine thought.
Anyway, all it would take was a couple of bloody raids and the army would be on its way from Fort Defiance to begin the forced removal—or extermination, if it came to that—of the Navajo.
Despite what Juan Pablo had just said, this wouldn’t be a long war at all.
“All right,” Juan Pablo finally said as he handed the rifle back to Snyder. “We will take the wagon, too.”
“Of course,” Jardine said. “That’s part of the deal.”
“When this is over, you and your men will be the only whites allowed on Navajo land.”
“As we agreed,” Jardine replied with a grave nod.
He stood up so that he could climb down from the wagon box again and turn the vehicle over to the Indians. His men had brought along an extra saddle horse for him to ride back to Flat Rock.
But before Jardine could get down, there was a huge crash that shook the wagon, and the impact flung him off and sent him tumbling to the ground.
Matt, Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur were all experienced at moving quietly through the shadows when they needed to, so they were able to approach the bluff without alerting any of the men gathered at the base of it.
Sam had spotted the lantern when it first flared to life. The light gave them something to steer by and confirmed their hope that the delivery of the rifles would take place here where it had been supposed to happen more than a week earlier.
They couldn’t climb to the top of the bluff using the trail Sam had found when he first explored this place with Juan Pablo, so instead the four men had circled around and found another place where the bluff was shallower and could be climbed.
Juan Pablo had known
all along what had happened here, Sam thought as they made their way toward the rendezvous. Sam recalled how the Navajo had tried to persuade him not to investigate.
He was lucky Juan Pablo hadn’t just tried to kill him outright. He probably would have if he hadn’t known that he would have to return to the canyon and try to make Matt believe some lie about what had happened. At that point, Juan Pablo might have still been worried about crossing Caballo Rojo.
Now the renegade didn’t care anymore. He wasn’t going to let anything or anyone stop him.
Or at least, that’s what he thought.
The four men slipped along the edge of the bluff until they were above the spot where the white men were delivering the rifles to the Navajo. The big, cruelly handsome man on the wagon box seemed to be the leader of the gang. He gave the orders as Juan Pablo demanded to take a look at the merchandise he was getting.
Stovepipe tapped Sam on the shoulder and put his mouth almost against Sam’s ear to whisper, “If we was to put our shoulders against the boulder there and roll it off, I reckon it’d fall right on top of that wagon.”
The range detective was pointing at a good-sized boulder that perched at the very edge of the bluff. Sam studied the angles and realized that Stovepipe was right.
The boulder wouldn’t be easy to budge, but if they could drop it on the wagon, it would probably bust the vehicle all the pieces, not to mention surprising the hell out of the gun-runners and the Navajo.
Sam nodded his agreement with the plan.
He motioned for Matt to stay back and let him, Stovepipe, and Wilbur shove the boulder off the bluff, but Matt shook his head and moved into position with them, planting his feet and resting his left shoulder against the rock.
They waited until the men below were talking again, then heaved against the boulder. The voices covered up any tiny scraping sounds the rock made as it shifted.
But it didn’t shift enough to overbalance. Again the four men paused until the boss on the wagon gave more orders. When he did, they put their shoulders and legs into the effort.
Blood Bond: Arizona Ambush Page 20
