The Indian Ring (21 page)

One large one with red hair and twice the bulk of the others stepped forward.

“Who the hell are you?” he bellowed.

The Pinkerton said, “Joshua Strongheart,” and he noticed several exchange nervous glances. He added, “I work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and I was hired by a young boy named Scottie Middleton to get this pony back you boys stole. I assume you are Crabs Hamrick?”

“Yeah, that's me. Ain't ya gonna ask me why I'm called that?” The big man fumed.

Strongheart said, “No, I don't really care.”

“How could that little brat hire ya? What did he pay ya?” Hamrick roared.

Strongheart smiled and said, “One dollar.”

“You come all this way to die over a dollar?” Crabs said.

“No, it was the price we agreed and shook on. I gave my word I would get him his pony back, and a man is only as good as his word,” Strongheart said, and his steely stare into Crabs's eyes unnerved the man.

“Now, which one of you cowards shot that boy's father?” he added.

Crabs puffed his chest out and said, “I did, but it don't matter. That pony ain't going nowhere, and you are gonna die where ya stand.”

His hand flashed first as he drew, which spurred all the others into drawing, and Strongheart cleared leather before any of them and just grinned as he heard gun after gun make a metallic clicking sound.

“Oh yeah,” he said with a smile. “I forgot to tell you. I visited your camp last night while you were all sleeping and unloaded your weapons. The bullets are in my saddlebags here, but then again, you won't be needing them.”

One of the other Teamsters stepped up and said, “Bullets or not, we all got knives. We can rush him boys, and he can't get all of us.”

The gangster took one step and Joshua's left hand gun, his belly gun, fired and half the man's ear disappeared. The man grabbed what was left of his ear screaming in pain.

Strongheart said, “You are playing a rough game, mister. You can wrap it with your scarf. The rest of you, see if you can grab a handful of clouds. Except you, Crabs. Load your gun.”

Crabs Hamrick felt like somebody had stepped on his grave. Shaking slightly, his loaded his gun and kept thinking about a snapshot but decided against it. He had heard about this man over and over. He holstered his gun.

Strongheart said, “You killed an unarmed hardworking man and left his little boy and little girl fatherless for the rest of their lives. You have six shots to kill me, Hamrick. You better make every one count. I am at least giving you a chance. Fill your hand, mongrel.”

Crabs's eyes opened wide as he clawed frantically for his gun and had it almost halfway out of the holster when he looked into the two barrels of Strongheart's Colt Peacemakers and saw flame shoot out of them. They slammed into his chest, and he saw the trees and the sky as he folded backward and felt a weakness spreading through him. He was going to die and go to hell.

He heard the words of the outlaw next to him say, “Gee, two bullets right in the middle of the chest. Crabs is dead, boys.”

He wanted to scream that he wasn't, but his mouth would not work, then everything went blank.

Strongheart said, “Drop the holsters and get ready to move. Fort Collins will have nice warm cells for you. You can order a late breakfast there.”

•   •   •

Scottie was playing in front of the house with his sister. His uncle was at his new job at the territorial prison.

His aunt was beating a rug, and then with tears glistening in her eyes, she said, “Scottie, here comes Mr. Strongheart, and he's leading Johnny Boy!”

Looking at the tall handsome man leading his pony down River Drive, Scottie wanted to scream with joy, but he
puffed his chest out, saying, “I knew he would, Auntie. A man is only as good as his word.”

Now, over a year later, Scottie was bigger but riding Johnny Boy, making the pony look a little smaller with Scottie's growth. Scottie saw Joshua and rode forward quickly. He rode up next to him and reached up shaking hands.

Strongheart said, “Howdy, Scottie. You sure are getting tall. Have you been keeping your nose clean?”

Scottie beamed saying, “Yes, sir. I have been working at the sheriff's office some days cleaning and stuff.”

Strongheart said, “I just wanted to see how you are doing.”

Scottie beamed, “I'm fine, sir. My uncle is nice to me now and works at Old Max.”

Strongheart fished in his pocket and pulled out a new pocketknife. He handed it to Scottie, who looked at it with great happiness.

Joshua said, “I picked you up a little gift in Denver that I thought you could use.”

“Thank you, sir!” Scottie said. “Thank you, Mr. Strongheart.”

“Keep it sharp, Scottie. See you around.”

With that, he put the spurs to Eagle and lit out heading back across the river and then turning west.

THE FINAL BATTLE

Eagle trotted proudly as Joshua continued west, passing Old Max territorial prison and the Hot Springs Hotel. The road turned to the right and headed uphill toward Eight Mile Hill. A mile up the road, he came to the entrance of the wagon trail that ran along the crest of the Hogback, known by some as Razor Ride, which in 1908 in Cañon City would be renamed Skyline Drive. The Hogback was a long narrow ridge that bordered Cañon City on the west, rising eight hundred feet up in elevation above the town. The trail was created by some locals traveling the ridge of the Hogback overlooking the entire area.

A local rancher, D. E. Gibson, hitched a team of horses to a handmade plow and attempted to plow and cut a road up across the razor back ridge, but he was not successful. After that, Colonel Frederick E. Greydene-Smith suggested building a road there where the trail existed. In fact, many, many citizens of Fremont county suggested a road on the Hogback, as early as 1860. However, the road eventually called Skyline Drive would be built in 1908 using sixty prison inmates.

More importantly, Razor Ridge, or the Hogback, was the
vantage point where the giant murderer Blood Feather hid despite his giant size and kept both Strongheart and his fiancée under surveillance before murdering her when Strongheart was away. Joshua would now camp out with Eagle and hide on the eight-hundred-foot ridgeline to watch for Robert Hartwell or his henchmen, and then he would plan his strategy. No matter where they went around Cañon City, Joshua could keep them under his watchful eyes for miles in any direction.

In Denver, Robert Hartwell had arrived and was assembling his gang, or what was left of it. They met in the back of the Cowboy Saloon, oddly enough, the place where Strongheart had a run-in with several would-be toughs when he was trying to get Scottie Middleton's pony back. By coincidence, Hartwell knew of the Cowboy Saloon and chose to meet there, so no Pinkerton agents would be lurking at the one he owned.

Unbeknownst to him, Andy Vinnola and his brother Antonio, both very good Pinkerton agents, had Hartwell under surveillance from the time he first arrived at the railroad depot in Denver. Both men had Italian ancestry, so they had olive skin, black hair, and dark eyes. Their parents came over from Sicily, landed in New York, and worked hard for many years to take care of their four children. Andy and Antonio also labored for much of their youth, struggling at various jobs trying to help keep the family together. However, when Andy and Antonio finally left the nest, they felt like two caged birds who had been freed.

Since they looked like they were related, they took seats at a table nearby, where they could speak loudly, saying words like “our sister” or “the family,” knowing Hartwell would be focusing on their voices, just in case. In the meantime, they would eavesdrop on Hartwell's conversation with his gang and then report their findings by telegram to both Strongheart
in Cañon City and Lucky in Chicago at Pinkerton headquarters. Joshua would come down off the Hogback each afternoon to check for telegrams about Lucky DeChamps.

Hartwell said, “I was going to send an advanced team to Cañon City before the rest of us, but that scoundrel killed two of our best men. Strongheart must be killed because he knows too much now about my business dealings. We will all go down there together, and we will hunt him down. If he tries to hide, we will find him, and we will fill him with holes like a sieve. Our train to Pueblo leaves at daybreak, then we will ride our horses from Pueblo to Cañon City, that's thirty-some miles, so we will arrive in Cañon City in two days. I will give a bonus of $1,000 in gold coin to the man who fires the bullet that kills that varmint. That stinking half-breed red nigger needs to be wiped off the face of the earth, and we're going to do it, boys.”

Andy Vinnola wrote a telegraph to Strongheart and Pinkerton headquarters, which read, “RH leaves tomorrow am to Pueblo STOP then mounted to CC. STOP ETA in CC 2 days STOP 9 men total END.”

Strongheart chuckled to himself and rode Eagle right to Schwinn's Saloon and Emporium at the east end of town because that was a center of gossip, and Joshua knew Robert Hartwell's men would want to stop there for a brew when they were done riding from Pueblo. Additionally, Hartwell would want to find out where Strongheart was, and saloons were the local news station in every town in the West.

Joshua left Eagle at the hitching rail by simply dropping his reins. When training the big pinto, he would cross his reins over the saddle or rig them to the saddlehorn, and he then would teach Eagle to walk behind him. After that, he had tied several lead lines to pieces of log he buried in the ground. He would ride up to each length of lead line, dismount, and drop
his reins. However, he would first attach the lead line to the bottom of Eagle's bridle without letting Eagle look down at what he was doing. Then he would walk away. Eagle would try to follow and the lead line stopped him. It did not take too many times of dropping the reins and tying him for him to learn to stand still when he was ground reined.

He went into the noisy, smoky saloon and saw three Ute Indian cowboys at the bar. Seeing he was a half-breed, they nodded. Then he saw a variety of citizens, cowboys, and local ranch people that he recognized. He knew some of them knew who he was and did enjoy celebrity status in southern Colorado, so he knew as many as possible would try to listen in on his talk with the barkeep. He stepped up to the bar, and a muttonchopped gray-haired man with a friendly smile and garters on his sleeves came over and shook.

“Mr. Strongheart, ah heerd you never imbibe,” the bartender said, “What'll ya' have, suh?”

Joshua smiled, saying, “You heard right. Give me a glass of that new drink, iced tea, if you have any.”

“Shore 'nuff,” the man replied. “Want sugar with it? Some folks love it that way.”

“No, thanks. Just straight and icy please. I'm going to head up Grape Creek tomorrow and do some fishing, hunting, and relaxing for a few days,” Joshua replied, making sure he was speaking loud enough for a few others to hear him.

He spent a few more minutes there talking, and positively knew that Robert Hartwell would know that Strongheart was headed up Grape Creek.

He left that saloon and repeated the same at McClure's Saloon downtown, then rode toward the Hot Springs Hotel.

Joshua had pursued the killer We Wiyake, Blood Feather, all the way up Grape Creek in the dead of winter, when the madman had kidnapped Belle's little niece. Strongheart
saved the girl, and also became intimately familiar with the whole Grape Creek area. Grape Creek essentially carried most of the water from the Wet Mountain Valley up near Westcliffe, starting at an elevation of 8,100 feet and dropping to 6,000 feet north or northeast for about twenty-five miles until it poured into the powerful Arkansas River right across from the Hot Springs Hotel. It was very rugged rocky country with many rock formations along the way. Also, going south and southwest toward Westcliffe, from its mouth at the Arkansas he had many hiding places and ambush sites to choose from. If he went all the way to Westcliffe along Grape Creek, he would first pass by or through Temple Canyon, then going south, Volcano Gulch, Sawmill Gulch, Pine Gulch, Isinglass Gulch, Bear Gulch, East Mill Gulch, Democrat Creek and Gulch, Dead Mule Gulch, Four Mile Gulch, and finally its headwaters right near the town of Westcliffe, where the Deweese Reservoir would be erected in 1902.

Instead of staying up on the Hogback, he would wait a day and take a pack horse and some tools and head up the rugged rocky waterway. He had some surprises planned for the gang. Those surprises should help even his odds quite a bit.

In fact, he thought, he would ride out toward Pueblo because he knew that the gang would surely camp for the night at Beaver Creek and then have a relatively easy ride into Cañon City the next day. If he was wrong and they did not, he would travel fast and simply cut south and west through Florence to get to Grape Creek before them.

•   •   •

The next day, after riding across prairie all day, by late afternoon, the gang pulled into an area that suddenly dipped down into a small canyon through which Beaver Creek ran before meeting the Arkansas less than two miles away. There were
many tall cottonwoods along the clear cool stream and steep rock cliffs that rose up out of the canyon. They rode to the west of the wagon/coach road and found a private spot to make camp and found circles of rocks, and even some firewood, where numerous others had chosen this to camp before. Strongheart was on the high ground watching and grinning.

When a bee or wasp stings, it will inject a venomous sting in the skin of the victim. However, white with black stripes, bald-faced hornets have a smooth stinger, so they can sting a person or animal more than once. In fact, when they get angry, they can sting many times.

Like most wasps, the bald-faced hornets have a caste system, in one nest, featuring the queen, a fertile female that starts the colony and lays eggs; then workers, which are infertile females that maintain the nest and young; then drones, which are young males, with no stingers, and are born from unfertilized eggs; and new queens—fertile females, each of which may become a queen when fertilized and start a colony. Finally, there are the males who fertilize queens and are the ones that can really get angry and start stinging.

Their nest looks like it is made out of layers of paper. In fact, it almost looks like papier-mâché. It is generally anywhere from one to four feet in size and oblong in shape. From his uncles and late father's friends, he learned how to easily transport a bald-faced hornet's nest without getting stung. At night, all the hornets go into the nest in a hole in the bottom. There are also a few other holes produced because of them constructing their nest around branches and twigs. Strongheart had seen a hornet's nest in the cottonwoods along Beaver Creek when he had camped there previously. So, the night before, he got the nest, carefully covering the main entrance-egress hole on the bottom, and each smaller hole made around branches and twigs he broke
off. Now, he had all the hornets in one nest. He rode Eagle up on the high ground, looking over the campsite and waited, making his own dry camp.

The night passed and Joshua was up well before dawn. He watched as the men all awakened the next morning, making coffee, and one had made breakfast for all. Strongheart waited until they all had coffee and food and were looking forward to the rest of the day and maybe killing him. He chuckled to himself, shook the flimsy nest, pulled the plug out of the bottom, and tossed it over the cliff, with it landing an arm's length from the cooking fire. Joshua laughed and laughed watching the men down below yelling, running, swatting at hornets, except Hartwell, who immediately grabbed his slicker and draped himself like a mummy. One was allergic to the stings and died of shock an hour later, but by then Joshua and his pack horse were well on their way to Grape Creek, by way of Florence and then to Oak Creek Grade.

Hartwell was now finally afraid. This man had outfoxed him at every turn it seemed like, but the man was also too egomaniacal to even consider the fact that Joshua might beat him, let alone kill him. He only had two stings and one man had been stung dozens of times, and several had been stung at least a dozen times each. The whole gang was totally miserable and complained all the way into Cañon City, which was a three hour ride away if they walked the horses, which was the only wise way to handle them.

They immediately and easily found Schwinn's Saloon and Emporium when they rode into Cañon City, and every one of them was ready for a drink or more. They spent two hours there, and got advice from half the patrons on how to take care of their stings. They rode out with poultices made of chewed-up tobacco, bicarbonate of soda mixed with spit into a paste, and several other homespun remedies.

They also rode out with the information they needed about Strongheart heading up Grape Creek, and they went into town looking for a prospectors' supply store or general store where they might get a map of the area. They also got more supplies and bought extra ammunition.

They were directed to the Hot Springs Hotel, and it was suggested the hot mineral water would help their stinger wounds. Robert Hartwell sprang for several rooms, not because he was considerate, but because he wanted his hired guns healthy. They would soak in the water that night and leave the next morning up Grape Creek ready to kill.

This gave Strongheart even more time to prepare his surprises for them.

Cañon City was very snugly tucked into a bowl of rocks and hills. Surrounded on three sides by mountains, directly to the east, toward Pueblo was prairie, but with some small ridges and short rolling hills first. Protected by the mountains from the total assault of summer storms and the snowy carpeting of midwinter blizzards, it was also higher with cool mountain breezes making it cooler in the summer than Pueblo, but being protected, it was warmer than Pueblo in the winter. The next morning, the sun started baking distant Pueblo, and showed it was ready to blast its rays onto the hard rocks and towering rocky cliffs along both sides of Grape Creek. By noon, it was painfully obvious it was a very hot day, as the gang proceeded southwest along Grape Creek in the unforgiving hard rock funnel, which was channeling the heat onto the ten hard cases.

Riding in and along Grape Creek, they finally came to Pine Gulch. As they rode, they heard the echoes of their steel horseshoes clicking on the solid rock walls jutting straight up on their right for hundreds of feet, but out of the gulch off to their left they smelled the sweet odor of pine trees and felt
a cooler breeze. Hartwell declared they would move into this gulch and make camp. Joshua Strongheart knew this would be the case, as it was the only place that made sense.

They made camp up Pine Gulch next to a spring and picketed their horses exactly where Joshua knew they would. It was well after dark. One guard sat in front of the fire drinking coffee, and another leaned against a rock to watch the horses, but was soon fast asleep, his head cocked off to the side. Joshua had been watching them from a rocky perch less than fifty feet above them while they prepared their camp. Wearing his moccasins, he slowly made his way through the path he had cleared of branches and sticks earlier. He then methodically tied war bridles on each horse, then used their picket line as one giant lead line. He quietly led them out of the grove of trees, around a corner, and there mounted up on Eagle and led them at a fast trot several miles to Reed Gulch, which was full of rich grasses and flowing clear water. He then returned to the camp. Now, both sentries slept soundly.