Blood Feather, page 15
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.
Strongheart decided that, although it was colder, he would camp up higher on the western slope, where he might spot fires or even catch a glimpse of Blood Feather after daybreak. He rode into a group of boulders that would offer plenty of protection. First, he glassed for any signs of a campfire down below. Seeing none, he built his own fire and made a camp. He was back in the saddle at daybreak, but Blood Feather, who was camped several miles west of him, had been on his horse an hour before daybreak. By the time Joshua discovered We Wiyake’s night camp and started to investigate it, the killer had turned right at the bottom and was now flanking the Great Sand Dunes rising up seven hundred feet on his left. The Sangre de Cristos, however, rose way up on his right, as he headed north along the eastern edge of the massive valley.
Joshua did not arrive there until mid-morning, and he could tell by the age of the tracks that they were several hours old. He got well north of the dunes and decided to pull off the trail and fix breakfast, which he had not had earlier. He figured that for getting bushwhacked he would be sticking out like a sore thumb now, so he would have to be very careful.
He built a fire and put on coffee and fixed some food, trying to figure out how to trail the killer without exposing himself too much. Out in the valley, Strongheart saw a group of what looked like cavalry soldiers. They were riding north, too, but suddenly turned right and headed straight at him. This really bothered Joshua.
He ran to the fire and started to kick the fresh dirt pile over it, but then decided that would be a waste of time, as the riders were certainly coming to this place anyway. Besides, he didn’t have time to go anywhere unseen.
He checked his guns—his regular Colt Peacemaker and his belly gun—and grabbed his rifle, making sure all were cleaned and loaded. Then he lay down among the rocks and waited, watching the dots grow larger and larger. It was a cavalry troop, but again Joshua sensed something wrong. He listened to his intuition, always. In this case it told him to play it easy but careful; to keep his cards close to the vest.
Strongheart sat up, put more coffee in the pot, and set it on the fire. He now leaned against a large rock as he sat on another one. He moved and seated himself on a log, laid his rifle across his lap, and lit another smoke.
The patrol rode up and ground-reined their horses below the cottonwoods at the base of the rocks. They walked up with a friendly enough demeanor. It was a squad-sized patrol, with one corporal and five privates.
It dawned on Joshua suddenly why he was troubled; the patrol was not riding in any type of formation. They had no point, flankers, or rear guard out. He understood that it was just a six-man patrol, and they didn’t necessarily have to be in a formation, but it was enough to make him suspicious.
Strongheart got more concerned when he noticed the men walking toward him without the squad leader issuing any kind of orders to anyone to water horses, watch for bad guys, straighten their gig lines, or anything of the sort. He might just be an inefficient squad leader, but it was one more thing to make Joshua wary. All the men walked toward the spring he cooked next to, emptying the remainders of their canteens.
“Howdy,” the squad leader said. “Looks like you had yerself a bit a lunch, stranger.”
Suddenly it dawned on Strongheart that these men had been in the saloon where he and his new friend Chris Colt and had gotten into the fight at Fort Union.
He sensed they recognized him, too.
Joshua said, “I am looking for a very large Sioux riding a big draft horse and leading a packhorse with a little white girl with flaming red hair. Seen ’em?”
One of the privates said, “Nay, laddie, we ain’t seen the likes a anybody for all the days we been out an’ about.”
The corporal gave the man a dirty look and said, “We’re with Troop K, Seventh Cavalry. Been out on patrol for a long time.”
“I guess,” Joshua said, fishing, “it’s way over one hundred miles to Fort Union.”
“Recognized us, huh?” the corporal said. “We seen yer red-and-white paint from that far off and knew it was you.”
Strongheart noticed one of the privates off to his left start to reach for his pistol, but another grabbed his wrist and stopped him.
The corporal smiled. “Yeah, that horse is a looker.”
“Who’s your CO?” Joshua asked.
“Captain Goodwyn,” the squad leader replied.
At the same time, one of the privates started to say something else, but a stare from the squad leader shut him up.
Joshua smiled and took a swallow of coffee, waiting to see what they would say or do next.
He heard a gun cocking off to his right and turned to see a blond-haired, red-faced trooper pointing a pistol at him. “This is bull squat, Reg! He’s gonna spill his guts when he gits to Fort Union and tells ’em where he seen us! We gotta kill ’im, so quit pussyfootin’ around. Now, get shut a that rifle, Injun.”
Joshua felt anger begin to burn in his ears. His face flushed. “You’re making a big mistake, mister,” he said. “Sure, it’s obvious to me you’re all deserters, but by the time I get to Fort Union again, you’ll be long gone from here.”
The man said, “But it’s less than fifty miles to a telegraph key. Sorry, but you gotta die.”
Joshua started to stand and said, “Now, look.”
With that, he swung the Winchester up and fired from the hip while diving to his left. He saw flame blossom from the man’s gun and heard the crack of the bullet as it passed him by. A big red patch appeared on the man’s dusty blue tunic, over his heart, as he flew backward, quite dead. Strongheart cocked the rifle, and as he hit the ground he drew his belly gun with his left hand.
Another private felt lucky and went for his gun, but he was clumsily fumbling with the big leather flap over the butt when the Pinkerton’s left-hand gun spoke loudly. The bullet took the man right through the left cheek, tearing the side of his head off. The man fell to the ground and clawed frantically at the bloody mass where his face had been. He twitched a few times spasmodically and died, after having run away from the cavalry to avoid just such a horrible death in battle.
This scene had a very sobering effect on the other troopers, who all raised their hands. Strongheart kept them covered with both guns and signaled that they should all drop their gunbelts and step away, which each man did quickly and efficiently.
Joshua said, “Now, you lily-livered cowards, you unsaddle those mounts and shoo them off.”
“Mr. Strongheart,” the corporal said pleadingly. “You ain’t gonna leave us out here without horses, are you?”
Joshua said, “Your friend was going to leave me out here dead, and I didn’t see you stopping him. You’re playing a rough game, mister, and you shouldn’t have picked up the cards if you weren’t willing to call or raise.”
One of the privates stepped forward and said, “You talk big with a gun in each hand, and we’re unarmed. You ain’t leaving me without a horse, you red blanket nigger.”
Joshua smiled and said, “Dad burn it. I was going to have a big poker game next week and invite you, but it seems like you don’t like me very much.”
He pointed his right-hand gun and fired.
The trooper’s hat flew off his head, and Strongheart said sarcastically, “Please?”
“Set those guns down, and we’ll see how tough you are,” the private went on.
Joshua laughed. “I’m tough, but I’m not stupid. Speak one more word, and you’ll find out how tough I am.”
The man, shamed by Strongheart’s talk, looked at his cohorts, all of whom were looking to see if he would do anything.
He said, “I told you that . . .”
Boom! The fancy Peacemaker roared, and the man went down onto his face with a scream, both hands grabbing at the bloody hole through his right thigh. All the men looked at Joshua, as he cocked the gun again.
The Pinkerton agent grinned broadly and said, “A man is only as good as his word. If I say something, I mean it. Now, anybody else want to argue?”
The men just stood transfixed, then as one they started to shake their heads no.
“Good,” Joshua went on. “Get those horses ready. I’ll be on my way.”
Joshua had hated to shoot an unarmed man, but on the other hand he’d had to take bold action against superior numbers, guns off or not. Besides that, cowardly men who could leave their friends before an upcoming battle sickened him. He himself had felt fear many times. He was afraid every time he confronted danger, but Strongheart had learned that by conquering that fear and doing what was right you improved and strengthened yourself.
He left the bewildered deserters behind him at the rock tank, their guns lashed to the saddle of the last horse behind Strongheart. When he was two hundred yards up the road he unlashed the guns, and they fell to the ground with a clatter. He knew that the ex-soldiers would be watching him intently, as they would most certainly be lost without guns to protect themselves. He checked all the horses and ensured that the lead line of each was tied in a knot to the tail of the horse in front of it.
He was headed north now, toward Poncha Pass. He would turn the mounts loose.
He felt sore. His head pounded like it was on the receiving end of a miner’s doubletree. His back was sore from slamming into the ground when he was hit at the ranch house, and the side of his head would probably continue to hurt for several more days anyway. He also would get irritable, because he felt confused. Strongheart had seen enough of head wounds to know that that was a fairly normal occurrence. He had seen others lose part of their memory and also have trouble adding and subtracting things for months afterward. It was natural to get frustrated over those small details.
Strongheart had gone far enough that he wouldn’t have to fear the deserters following him on foot, although he didn’t believe they wanted a part of him again. Joshua was puzzled by men like that. They felt the same fear he and every other man felt, but they succumbed to it. He wondered how they would be able to go the rest of their days knowing that they had sneaked away from their duties like a thief in the night.
Strongheart watched the ground around him for signs of potential ambush by We Wiyake. He grinned to himself as he remembered a conversation with his stepfather years earlier.
Joshua was the love child of his white mother and the Lakota warrior Claw Marks. The young half-breed longed for a father and was excited as a young boy when Dan Cooper, the town marshal of the new blossoming community of Flower Valley, got serious about his ma. He was tall and slender, maybe six-foot-two and 190 pounds, but that was all muscle and sinew from years of hard work.
Marshal Cooper had high cheekbones, a prominent nose, and honest, intelligent hazel eyes that would bore daggers through anybody. Much older than Joshua’s ma, he had a little gray in his mustache, which was always well trimmed and full, running down in a point just past the corners of each thin lip. Like his hair, it was primarily dark brown. He was not given to talking, just doing. Dan was a very harsh taskmaster on Joshua when he was growing up, but he was all man and was bound and determined to make his stepson a man. He said the country was too unforgiving.
The one thing Joshua remembered most about the only father that he ever knew was how good the man could fight even though he was much smaller than some of the giant buffalo hunters and mountain men he had to arrest. Dan had actually taken a section of log weighing over two hundred pounds, shaved the bark off of it, and the two thick branches that extended out for two feet, and sanded them, rounding the ends so they would resemble thick arms. Joshua would watch the man for hours on end tossing the log backward, sideways, and in various combinations of those directions, working on numerous grappling moves.
