Blood Feather (14 page)

His long, shiny black hair was no longer braided but hung down his back in a single ponytail, and it was covered by a black cowboy hat with a wide, very flat brim and rounded crown. A very wide, fancy, colorful beaded hatband went around the base of the crown.

He wore a bone hair pipe choker necklace around his sinewy neck, and a piece of beaded leather thong hung down a little from the front with a large grizzly bear claw attached to it.

His soft antelope-skin shirt did little to hide his bulging muscles, and the small rows of fringe that slanted in from his broad shoulders in a V shape above the large pectoral muscles, stopping at mid-chest, actually served to accentuate his muscular build and the narrow waist that looked like a flesh-covered version of the washboard the
wasicun
women used.

Levi-Strauss had recently patented and started making a brand-new type of trousers out of blue denim with brass rivets, which whites were calling “Levi's.” Joshua had bought a couple pairs from a merchandiser, who bought them himself for $13.50 for each dozen pairs. They were tight, and they did little to hide the bulging muscles of his long legs.

Around his hips, Joshua wore his prized possessions, one a gift from his late stepfather and the other a gift from his late father. On the right hip of the engraved brown gunbelt was the fancy holster with his stepfather's Colt .45 Peacemaker in it. It had miniature marshal's badges, like his stepfather's own, attached to both of the mother-of-pearl grips, and there was fancy engraving along the barrel. It was a brand-new single-action model made especially for the army in this year, 1873, and this one had been a special order by his stepfather's friend Chris Colt, who was a nephew of inventor Colonel Samuel Colt.

On his left hip was the long, beaded, porcupine-quilled, and fringed leather knife sheath holding the Bowie-like knife with the elk antler handle and brass inlays that had been left to him by his father.

He wore long cowboy boots with large-roweled Mexican spurs that had two little bell-shaped pieces of steel hanging down on the outside of each that clinked on the spur rowels as they spun or while he walked.

Because he had always been trained to keep his weapons clean and knife-sharp, Joshua pulled the large knife from the sheath and examined the blade. As usual, it was scalpel-sharp.

Lila
Wiya Waste
, his cousin, handed him a cup of hot coffee from the large pot he had given her months earlier. He sipped the steaming brew and thought about his childhood quest to learn about his biological father and search for blood relatives.

Then he stared at her longingly and tossed the coffee aside, sweeping her into his arms. Their lips came together and meshed as they pushed against each other passionately. She released the leather straps on her buckskin dress, and it fell away, revealing her immaculate body.

She breathed into his ear, “Oh, Joshua! Oh, Joshua! I have always wanted you so!”

He stopped kissing her and looked into her eyes, but she was no longer his cousin. She was Belle Ebert, but they were still in the buffalo-hide lodge.

She said, “Oh, Joshua!”

He shook his head and thought,
I must be dreaming. She is pushing my head against something that hurts.

He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the ranch house and felt the warmth of the fire. He looked around the room and then down at his chest. Something was amiss. Then, he thought,
Who started the fire?

Joshua jumped up suddenly, and his hand whipped out his Colt Peacemaker. He looked around, startled, and jumped to his feet. It was night, and his head felt like Gabe was prancing on it with new shoes.

Joshua looked on the floor and picked up the piece of paper that had fallen off his chest. He lit an oil lamp and sat down to read it. It was a little child's writing. Missy's. It read:

Mr. Stronghart,

Pleese save me. I am being brave.

Love, Missy

He reached back and felt his head. There was a lump and a cut on it. He looked over and saw on the floor the piece of firewood that
We Wiyake
had struck him with; then he looked down at his shirt opened up, and the small, sharp cut where Blood Feather's knifepoint had penetrated his skin. The man had lain in wait for him, followed him into the house to knock him unconscious, and apparently had planned to cut his heart out. What stopped him? Did Missy have some kind of influence? Did she cry and
We Wiyake
felt sorry for her?

That did not make sense. Strongheart knew he had to get some food into his body and get a night's sleep while his horse fed and rested. He was not terrorized or frightened. He was angry, very angry, especially at himself for being so foolish. He had let his guard down and probably was only alive by God's blessing. It would not happen again.

He knew for sure that Blood Feather was now putting distance between himself and the ranch. Gun drawn, the Pinkerton almost ran to the barn and corral to make sure Gabe was still there and unharmed. He was relieved to see that the big gelding was fine.

Returning inside, Joshua made some food and checked for items he might need. He saw where
We Wiyake
and Missy apparently had gone through clothes to get some cold weather gear, so he was relieved at that. He lit a few more lamps and sat down to write a letter to the posse he knew would eventually show up. He also left the letter from Missy and told the posse she must have dropped it on his chest while the killer was not looking. He itemized the things he was taking from the ranch, vowing to replace or return them, including the gelding in the barn and a pack saddle and panniers.

He would take no more chances with
We Wiyake
, although he was certain he was safe that night. He took a spoon and wedged the handle above the door. If anybody opened it, the spoon would fall to the floor and he would awaken immediately. He rigged the tops of the windows the same way, although he was positive that Blood Feather was now miles away.

Strongheart went to bed and slept the sleep of the dead. The next morning, his headache was not quite as bad. He put together a pack, even carrying some grain for the pack horse and Gabe, and headed west on the trail of the little girl he was determined to save and the brutal murderer he was determined to kill.

Strongheart just shook his head as he saw Blood Feather's trail going higher up, directly toward the Big Range and Spread Eagle Peak above him. He entered the big trees and saw that the killer was using a large harem of elk to pave his way through the forest. In a way, Strongheart was glad, because they would also lead him toward areas where the horse could get graze in the deep snow. The sky was sunny this day, and even on the mountainside temperatures were warmer. However, Strongheart also knew that some harems of elk would cross all the way over the Sangre de Cristo range to the San Luis Valley side.

He did feel good about one thing. He had been all through this area before and up above at Lakes of the Clouds. He was worried, as it was late fall, and now much of the snow from the blizzard was melting, and another blizzard could appear anytime. Some of the towering cliffs above the timberline, and even before he got there, were definite candidates for killing avalanches. At Lakes of the Clouds, right at timberline, there were rocky ridges that went almost straight up and came right down to the water. He remembered there were several avalanche chutes there on each ridge.

As Strongheart followed the killer's trail, he heard a stream of water running down the side of the mountain beside him, but he could not see it. It was rushing down the mountain under the blanket of snow, tunneling its way to the valley floor, creating its own white frozen pipeline. He liked it being there as it covered the sound of him going up the ridge. He came up over the ridge where it flattened out, and there he found Blood Feather's camp. It was a short distance off the trail in a a grove of evergreens that was part of a small park. He searched it thoroughly and could tell again that Missy apparently had not been touched. He was relieved about that but very upset that she had apparently witnessed the murder of both the rancher and his wife. He could tell by the tracks that
We Wiyake
also needed sleep and had set out from there late that morning. Strongheart was closing in. The tracks showed that Blood Feather had the other ranch horse as a pack horse and apparently had Missy riding on the pack while he led it.

Suddenly, the killer's tracks showed that he'd turned left and started heading south across the face of the range. There was a well-used trail there, which decades later would become part of a 110-mile-long north-to-south trail across the eastern face of the Big Range, called the Rainbow Trail. Apparently miners had already established this well-worn trail, and even snow could not hide the traces of it.

The other thing Joshua started seeing, in less than an hour, was that the snow was not as deep. The edge of the snowstorm must have gone through this area, and much of it was melting away already. He had been down this trail before, too, and it would lead to two different passes over the range, the Medano Pass and the Music Pass. They were fairly close to each other. Strongheart wondered if
We Wiyake
knew about them, too and if that was where he was heading.

Joshua stopped suddenly right on a curve in the trail. He slowly backed the horse up several steps and dismounted. He moved forward slowly, with Gabe following. The gelding was trained to walk behind if his reins were tied over his neck or saddle horn. If Strongheart dropped them straight down, Gabe would not move and would ground-rein. This was easily trained. In the first month he could spend time with Gabe, Strongheart buried several sections of logs in different spots. Gabe would follow him when he walked with the reins up on his neck and would be rewarded. Then sometimes Strongheart would stop over one of the buried logs and drop the reins, then dismount and pet Gabe while lifting with his foot the leather thong attached to the underground log. He would carefully, with no fanfare, hook the thong to the bottom of Gabe's bridle and walk away. When the big paint would try to follow, the hidden line would stop him dead in his tracks. After a few stops over hidden lines, the big horse knew to ground-rein whenever the reins were dropped straight down.

Strongheart had stopped on the trail because his eyes, like any experienced tracker's, were always searching for something out of the ordinary. Up ahead, his eyes had noticed a spot in the snow where the two horses of Blood Feather had stopped, turned, and moved around a little by the trail. Looking more closely, Joshua could make out Blood Feather's giant moccasins tracks overtop the horse tracks in the trail, walking back toward him and then away.

Strongheart got on his belly and crawled forward to where the tracks had stopped and then walked away, near some trees by the trail. He looked carefully and then saw what he wanted. Two or three feet above the trail, a piece of white thread went across it between trees. He crawled back and found a long stick and tossed it forward so it would hit the thread. There was a loud cracking sound and Gabe jumped. A young sapling about fifteen feet tall had been bent backward and tied to a figure-four trip lever behind the tree. It swung forward across the trail three to four feet above the ground, with several sharpened sticks lashed to it and facing toward Strongheart. Had Gabe hit the trip wire himself, at least two of the sticks would have stuck in the horse's legs or chest and probably more. Joshua shook his head.

The idea again was just to inconvenience Strongheart and terrorize him, but the terrorizing effect would not happen. It only made Joshua more determined to be careful and catch up with this madman.

Joshua pulled his knife out and started chopping away the booby trap so no innocent animal or passerby would get cut by the sharp stakes.

When he was finished, he mounted up and continued forward. His eyes swept the trail in front of him in arcs from left to right, right to left. The trail was now getting muddy because of quickly melting snow.

Out on the valley floor thousands of feet below, he could see the buildings of Westcliffe and beyond that Silver Cliff, as well as various valley ranches. These fell behind as they traveled farther south.

As Joshua had guessed, Blood Feather's trail turned west at Music Pass, which would bring the killer and Missy out by the Great Sand Dunes in the San Luis Valley.

The San Luis Valley was a very extensive alpine valley in both Colorado and New Mexico territories, with an area of 8,000 square miles. In fact, it was the highest large mountain valley in the world, with an average elevation of 7,500 feet above sea level. The valley was over 120 miles in length and about 74 miles wide. With the Sangre de Cristo range to the east, it had the San Juan Mountains to its west and ran from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. Semi-arid, the San Luis Valley received very little precipitation, and in fact, the snow from the blizzard that had hit the other side of the Sangre de Cristo range did not drop much snow on the San Luis Valley side, and it was dry now.

The Great Sand Dunes lay directly to the west of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, right up against their base. Some of the sand dunes reached over 750 feet above the valley floor and were the tallest sand dunes in North America, and they covered about 19,000 acres.

The dunes were formed of sand and soil deposits from the Rio Grande and its tributaries, flowing through the San Luis Valley, then blowing across the valley and nestling against the Big Range. As the valley winds lost power before crossing the Sangre de Cristo range, the sand was deposited on the east edge of the valley.

Night was coming on when
We Wiyake
rode into the stand of quaking aspen trees overlooking the Great Sand Dunes. He was on the San Luis Valley side of the Big Range and now guided both horses through the aspens, looking for a good hidden campsite. He saw deep dark fir trees ahead and headed into the thicket, winding his way between trees until he found himself in tightly woven, very thick blanket of green. He could make a good fire there and not worry about the smoke being visible in the moonlight. When he dismounted, he saw the little girl on her back fast asleep, lying on the pack lashed over both sides of the packhorse. A normal person would have been moved by seeing this, as it was cute. Blood Feather, however, had no such feelings.